General Legislative Session - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. We'll call to order the Snohomish County Council for our June 24th, 2026 meeting. It is 9 a.m. We're meeting in the Jackson boardroom and also remotely. I'll read the script for public comment and then our clerks will take roll. We'll take public comment beginning in person and then remotely in Zoom. Click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If you're calling in by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak and please start your comment with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call. Chair Dunn. Here. Vice Chair Lowe.

Present.

Council Member Neering.

Here.

Council Member Mead.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Chair, we have five members present.

Thank you. Next is the Pledge of Allegiance, and we've asked the birthday boy, Council Member Mead, to please lead us in the pledge. Thank you. Next is public comment. Did anyone wish to provide public comment today? You can come to the podium. There's a timer on our screens.

Joan Smith, Edmonds, Washington. Honorable Counsel, I support Emergency Ordinance 26026, which is on your agenda today. It's an emergency moratorium on the locating of data centers in our county. This year's the Natural Resources Committee of the League of Women Voters concluded its May meeting with a disturbing discussion of the possible entry of a large data center locating in our county. Most of this alarm surrounded a hazy project in Arlington being led by Amazon. Before we closed, we had designated an ad hoc committee to draft questions. The committee forged more than two pages of them, and we forward them all to you. When we have appealed for experts and speakers to come to us and just begin to answer some of the questions, we have met with a constant barrage of, we don't understand the impacts ourselves yet.

The AI revolution is here.

It's already here. It's a reality. We are in a quandary, as even our experts need more time to debate and determine how to adapt to the AI revolution within us. We're entering another year of El Nino impacts, this one more intense than ever before. The snowpack that takes us through the summer is minimal. From what we can glean, the risks of a data center locating here would negatively impact our water resources, both as a cooling agent and as a waste agent. Our salmon recovery and ultimately the Climate Commitment Act would be imperiled. Hence, we're in a state of emergency for building permit decisions of this nature. This is even before a quick glance at the impact to our electric grid infrastructure and its cost implications. The social and political impacts are equally open to question. This moratorium, however minimal and brief, would give some space for consultation and exploration of the direction that we would like to take. We would like to ask you for a moratorium support. Thank you. And before I leave you today, we have the 4th of July. Thank you very much all for letting me exercise the freedom that came about through that 250 years ago revolution.

Thank you for your comment. Other speakers?

Good morning. My name is Julie Winchell and I live just Northwest of Arlington and that mysterious project cascade. So I've been involved with trying to sleuth that one out too. I'm here today to ask your support of the data center centers moratorium. Since this industry is moving quickly to locate new data centers, you must act even more quickly. This is indeed an emergency. I hope you will eventually consider even banning new medium, large, and hyperscale data centers in our county as well. Data centers have been proven to cause multiple negative environmental impacts, such as their tremendous use of potable water and electricity. air pollution from their backup diesel generators, and sometimes their own private fossil-fueled electric plants, the disposal of their e-waste, continuous noise and light pollution, and the excessive heat they admit that raises both day and nighttime temperatures. There are even theories being investigated that data centers are creating their own weather. ASU just started such a study, Arizona State. Pilots attempting to fly into Columbia Gorge Regional Airport sometimes have to be diverted to the Portland Airport due to the dense concentrations of fog produced by the steam venting from Google's nearby data center. With Paine Field, Harvey Field, and the Arlington Municipal Airport in our county, this potential impact should be seriously considered. Data centers offer few benefits to the communities where they are built. Once the data centers have been built and are operational, they employ very few people. The only possible benefit to a community might be the property tax revenue that is generated, but that is rarely worth the trade-off of the environmental damage they cause and the decreased value of the homes in the areas around the data centers. Homeowners around the country are finding themselves stuck living in their homes, suffering from these environmental effects, and then unable to find anyone willing to buy their homes so they can move away from the data center. We are currently in the fourth year of a declared drought emergency in Snohomish County. This is not the time to allow data centers to consume enormous amounts of the county's potable water and huge amounts of our PUD's available electrical power. Snohomish County does not need to invite the problems that will accompany the locating of more data centers in our county. Please pass this moratorium today. And thanks for listening.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker.

Hi. Thank you very much. My name is Charles Burgess. I am a member of the Laborers International Union of North America. I'm a lifelong resident of Snohomish County. I'm here on behalf of our 1,200 members for Laborers Local 292. We are in support of the county council having a conversation and a broader understanding of these data centers, not necessarily in favor of the moratorium, but more in favor of just stepping back, having a conversation. listening to what the public is looking for and what the public wants and needs. We believe that if these are built, which we believe that they should be built, as we all rely on what they produce, we all use the internet, our jobs, the way that we get media, the way that we get information, they all come through these data centers across the American West. So with that said, when they are built, if they are built, they need to be built safe. They need to have apprenticeship language, apprenticeship standards, labor standards, supporting local residents who work here, who live here, who raise their families here. And they need to be built with the safest, newest technology. So the concerns that we've heard this morning, they are met. LiUNA is on the forefront of green energy. We build solar, we build wind, we build these data centers. We are in every state west of the Mississippi building these regularly. We have thousands and thousands of members who are trained and skilled to build these with the highest and safest standards. So with that said, I appreciate your time, your effort, you looking into this, and we look forward to any type of conversation in the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Other speakers? Okay, are there any hands raised online? Yes, we have one hand raised, Lisa Utter.

Hello. My name is Lisa Utter. I'm the president of the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County. And we strongly support there being a time to a moratorium in order to review and adopt standards and to assess the impacts on the community and what the benefits whether the benefits outweigh the costs. In particular, we have concerns about environmental justice, about potable water, which is in shorter and shorter supply and higher demand across, I mean, across the world, really, but also here in Snohomish County and state of Washington. And we want, so we do support this moratorium in order to assess those things. That's it.

Thank you for your comment. Any other speakers? No, their hands raised. Okay. So with that, we will continue on in the agenda, close public comment and continue on the agenda. Next is the consent agenda.

Move to approve the consent agenda.

It's been properly moved and seconded seconded by Councilmember Peterson to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Next is the administrative matters motion 26-247.

Move to approve administrative matters. Second.

Improperly moved and seconded to approve administrative matters motion 26-247. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Next, we have a few items under action on items from committee. First is planning and community development. Emergency Ordinance 26-026.

Council considers Emergency Ordinance 26-026 relating to growth management, adopting a moratorium on data centers within unincorporated Snohomish County, adding new sections to Chapter 30.28 Snohomish County Code, and Chapter 30.91D Snohomish County Code and declaring an emergency.

Good morning, Committee Chair Dunn and Council Members. For the record, Deb Evason-Bell, Council Staff. Ordinance 26-026 was first heard at the June 16th Planning and Development Services Committee and has been proposed by Council Member Neering. This is an emergency ordinance declaring an emergency and adopting a moratorium on data centers. Snohomish County does not currently contain comprehensive regulations specifically addressing the siting, development, or operation of data centers to adequately ensure the protection of Snohomish County, its lands, waters, natural resources, natural environment, and human community from the potential impacts from data centers. The requested action is for Council to consider the emergency ordinance with the intent to hold a public hearing in compliance with Snohomish County Code 30.73.090 subsection 3 and RCW 36.70A.399 zero at a future date. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for any questions. Questions from council?

Quick question.

Council Member Mead.

Thank you, Deb. So we talked yesterday about battery energy storage systems, which are usually going hand in hand with some of these data centers, but are also standalone and have similar impacts. So I mentioned being able to potentially amend the moratorium to include those, and you were going to do some research and talk to some people and get back to me. Yes. Where do we land with that?

That is enough of a separate issue that it would warrant its own emergency ordinance.

Okay. So we couldn't add it to this?

No.

Due to the fact that the title is very specific to data centers?

Correct.

All right. Thank you.

Other questions? Okay. Is there a motion? Sorry. Oh, okay. Council Member Neering?

Yeah, thank you, Chair Dunn. I appreciate it. Not a question. Just wanted to thank staff for putting this together. I think it's really important that we have an opportunity to press pause on this. There's a lot of development happening. And this, I think, will give us time to thoughtfully craft a policy together as a council for what we want to see in terms of permanent regulations. And so I appreciate council's consideration of this. And we'll go ahead and move approval of Emergency Ordinance 26-026. Second.

Okay, it's been properly moved and seconded to approve Emergency Ordinance 26-026. As a reminder, this needs four votes to pass as an emergency ordinance.

That's correct.

Okay.

Is there any other discussion? Council Member Peterson?

Thank you, Chair Dunn. Speaking in favor of this, really appreciate the comments today, but understand that, one, there aren't any data centers currently planned, so this gives us an opportunity to create a framework that includes concerns from labor, concerns from environmental committee, really appreciate the mention of our snowpack, which I think is about 25% of usual. And then just recently had a conversation with somebody who lives in Tucson, Arizona. They thought they had a ban on data centers, but being that these companies have very, very good attorneys, they are actually building a data center just outside of Tucson. Don't think I need to explain the problems with water consumption in the arizona desert so that gave me great concern so i appreciate uh councilmember nehring for bringing this forward and we'll support this and look forward to getting a lot of people at the table to figure out the right way to do this because this this is part of the future and if we do it well then it can be a benefit to i think to all of our communities including labor and the environment and people that just need these services. So thank you.

Other comments? Oh, Councilmember Neering, your hand is still up. Did you have another comment?

No, sorry. I'll lower that.

Okay. I'll also speak in favor of I think this allows a pause to provide time for the research and bringing community members to understand implications. I'm also concerned about unintended consequences and impacts on broadband and some of the data storage that's inherent to the broadband capabilities that we've been providing as a county. So I want to understand some of those unintended consequences and build it in a way that's beneficial, as Councilmember Peterson mentioned, for everyone. So is there any other comment then? So we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Oh, sorry. We need a roll call ordinance. So this requires a roll call vote as an emergency ordinance. So we will now have a roll call vote.

Vice Chair Nehring?

Yes.

Council Member Mead?

Yes.

Council Member Lowe?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Dunn? Yes.

emergency ordinance 26-0 to six passes five to zero next under committee the whole we have motion 26-2 for one council considers motion 26-2 for one issuing a notice to proceed to complete a performance audit thank you good morning council members for the record Jim Martin council staff to determine the appropriateness of roadfront expenditures and the funds long-term sustainability the proposed performance audit will review existing practices and including a review of activities during the five fiscal years 2022 through 2026. this motion approves the notice to proceed and council can move the motion whether the original detachment a or move to swap the attachment a with the revised attachment a1 that was distributed to council members yesterday requested action is to move to council for consideration any questions from council just what the motion is going to be so we are moving along with appendix a to redeem you need to amend the motion to include amendment a or attachment a one okay and then the vote would be on the inter so you're amending the motion to include attachment a one and then move the amended motion or the vote on the amended motion got it is that correct debbie can you if you want to use a1 can you amend the motion to remove swap yes thank you okay

Instead of amending the motion, swap them.

Well, you don't want to include it. You want to swap it.

Got it. So moved.

Okay. So first we need to have the motion on the floor and then the amendment, and then we'll vote on the amended motion. So council was provided by email attachment A1, which has changes to the timeline and the scope of the audit. Were there any questions around that? Okay. So then is there a motion to approve motion 26-241? So moved. Okay. Are there any amendments? Is there a motion to swap out attachment A with attachment A1?

Yes. So moved. Also seconded.

Okay. The motion has been properly made to amend the motion. Is there any discussion? All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the amendment passes. We'll now vote on the amended motion. Is there any discussion on the amended motion? All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing that, motion 26-241 passes as amended. Next is ordinance 26-028.

Council considers Ordinance 26-028 approving an interlocal agreement between Snohomish County and the City of Stanwood for flood risk mitigation. Proposed action today is to set time and date for public hearing. Suggested time and date is Wednesday, July 15th at the hour of 1030 a.m. A portion of Skagit Bay dike was damaged during the winter of 2025-2026.

The City of Stanwood is coordinating local efforts to perform certain emergency repairs and has requested financial assistance. ordinance authorizes the county executive to execute an interlocal agreement with city of sandwood for the repair of approximately 1 000 linear yards of a flood damage levy the county will fund emergency repairs as described in the agreement and will provide up to 1 million 750 000 in funds in support of the project these funds were originally provided to the county through arpa requested action is set time and date for public hearing questions from council is there a motion

Move to approve ordinance 26-028.

So we need a motion to set time and date on the public hearing. So is there a motion to set time and date for a public hearing on ordinance 26-028 for July 15, 2026 at 1030 a.m.?

So moved. So seconded.

Okay. It's been properly moved and seconded to set time and date for ordinance 26-028. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Next, we have two public hearings. First is motion 26-220.

Council considers motion 26-220 confirming the reappointment of Layla Bush to the Snohomish County Planning Commission.

Thank you. And with the chair's permission, can we read the second one in so I can give one staff report for the two? Go ahead.

Council also considers motion 26-221 confirming the reappointment of Carl Niemela to the Snohomish County Planning Commission.

Thank you. Good morning for the record, Bell Council staff. Proposed motion 26-220 and motion 26-221 were first heard at the June 3rd GLS and are for reappointment of two existing planning commissioners. Motion 26-220 is for the reappointment of Layla Bush, who was first appointed in 2024 for a partial term under motion 24-155. Proposed reappointment would be her first full term. Ms. Bush is a resident of Council District 3, has a master's degree in public administration, and has served on the City of Linwood's Planning Commission. The current term expires on July 1st, and Council Member Peterson is nominating Lila Bush for reappointment. Motion 26-221 is for the reappointment of Carl Niemela, who was first appointed in 2023 for a partial term under Motion 23-273, The proposed reappointment would be his first full term. Mr. Neamella is a resident of Council District 5, is a business owner, and serves on several volunteer boards. The current term expires on July 1st, and Council Member Lowe is nominating Carl Neamella for reappointment. The requested action is for Council to take public testimony on each motion prior to consideration. This concludes my staff report, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Questions from Council?

Okay, hearing none, we will open up any public testimony on motion 26-220. Did anyone wish to provide comment on this item? Are there any hands raised? No hands on line. Okay, we'll close public comment and turn to council for a motion.

I move to approve motion 26-220. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve motion 26-220. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor please say aye.

All right. Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes 5-0. Next is motion 26-221. Is there any public comment on this item? Any hands raised? No hands raised. Okay. We'll close public comment and turn to council.

I move to approve motion 26-221. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve motion 26-221. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes five to zero. That concludes our agenda and council is in recess until our 1030 public hearing.