City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Kent City Council meeting for Tuesday, 05/19/2026. If you would all please rise and join me in the flag salute. Kim could you call the roll please?

Mayor Ralph here council president core here council member Boyce here Council Member Boyd?

Here.

Council Member Larmer? Here. Council Member Michaud?

Here. Council Member Schocher? Council Member Troutner? Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Item number three is approval of the agenda. Do we have any changes?

No changes from staff, your honor.

Alright. Hearing no changes, a motion would be in order to approve the agenda as published. So

move. Second.

Got a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Motion carries five to zero. With that, we will go ahead and move into public communications. First off, this evening, under public recognition, we have a proclamation for public works week. I'm going to ask Chad Bearin, our public works director, to come up and join us. I'll read the proclamation, and have you say a few words.

Our proclamation says, Whereas the city of Kent recognizes that men and women in Kent who provide and maintain public works infrastructure, facilities, and services are of vital importance to sustainable communities, and the health, safety, and well-being of the people, And whereas such facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees from state and local government and the private sector who are responsible for and who plan, design, build, operate, and maintain the transportation, water, wastewater, drainage infrastructure, and facilities, and who deliver solid waste services, transit, and fleet services, are essential to serving our residents. And whereas it is in the public interest for the residents, civic leaders, children in The United States Of America to gain knowledge of and to maintain an interest and understanding in the importance of public works programs in their respective communities. And whereas the theme for national public works week twenty twenty six is rooted in service powered by community, which recognizes that both visible and behind the scenes public works efforts form the essential foundation of thriving communities supporting connection, innovation, and opportunity for all. Now therefore I, mayor Dana Ralph, do hereby proclaim May seventeenth to the twenty third as National Public Works Week in the city of Kent and urge all of our residents to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees and to recognize the substantial contributions they have made to our national health, safety, welfare, and quality of life.

Thank you mayor. Thank you council representing your over 200 public works employees. Always like to say when we're doing our jobs well, nobody knows we're here. So it's nice to get a little recognition and that recognition for the folks who do it every day. So I'll pass it along.

I really appreciate it. Can we

take a quick picture? It's a very fitting proclamation given the presentations that council has already had this evening about the work on all sides that our public works crews do. We are very, very grateful for everything that our entire public works team does every single day. Chad said it, if we don't know that they're out there working, we're doing all the right things, and grateful for that, but very much a well deserved recognition to keeping our city moving very smoothly. Thank you.

All right. We're gonna move on. The next item on the agenda is recognition of the Hillcrest Neighborhood Council. Tracy Taylor, would you come up and join us?

Thank you mayor. I am excited to present to you tonight our sixtieth recognized neighborhood. Listen council member Boyce, I'm on my way man.

I'm all

ears. I'm all ears.

Yeah. Our sixtieth recognized neighborhood, and it is the Hillcrest neighborhood. Strong neighborhoods just don't happen by accident. They happen because neighbors choose to get involved and look out for one another and invest in their community. I am grateful to the Hillcrest neighborhood leadership and the residents for stepping forward to be a part of this program. It's been a fun conversation with Ali, who you will meet here in a moment, and his residents stepping forward to make a part of this program a part of their neighborhood and their commitment to strengthening their connection with the city of Kent. So I'm excited, mayor and council, to present Hillcrest to the program, and I look forward to working alongside with them in years to come. So with that,

Holly. Come on up.

Joining us, come on up. I

think we need all of our Hillcrest neighbors to come on up.

All of them. If you have other Hillcrest, come on up. Yep.

Thank

you guys so much for allowing us to be here. Many of our community members are not originally from Kent. We are from all walks of life, different places, different cities, different states. Coming to a new community, coming to a new city sometimes can be nerve wracking. But we appreciate and we thank the city of Kent for their support and allowing us to call this place our home.

Thank you.

I would like to say that Hillcrest is a community that everyone is welcome.

We're gonna look I'm gonna look gonna I want the whole council so maybe do you guys want to go down there and do it I want to say thank you to the Hillcrest neighborhood. We had a Drinks and Driveway event there last summer. It was so much fun, and I love that now this year you're officially recognized as our newest neighborhood council, so thank you the commitment to Kent, and for choosing to call Kent home. We are very, very grateful. Thank you.

All right. We are going to move on. Council President, community events.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's almost that time again, guess. Assessor Showers Center will be hosting graduations for 26 graduations in June, and it's going to bring over 100,000 students and families to our downtown Kent. So, very exciting time for our community and our young families. On May 30, next weekend is Kent International Festival, a free event for our community members from all over the world.

It's a great celebration. So all are welcome to attend and on June 6, Paw Fest. So another great event to come meet for babies and you know, maybe bring some home. So, another great event to put on partnership with the city of Kent.

It is Tracy's event.

Tracy's event. So, all right. Another great opportunity, and you can find more information on nessesosherwarecenter.com. Back to you Madam Mayor.

Thank you. All right. We are going to move on. The next item on the agenda is our public safety report, and joining us this evening is Chief Padilla.

Alright. Good evening, madam mayor, members of the City Council. It's my pleasure to bring you the May 2026 public safety report and we'll get started here. So first of all, in a little over two weeks, the biggest sporting event in the world is coming to our region. And so I wanted to take a moment to go through some of the details related to Kent and the planning and what some of our community members can expect during this time.

I wanted to start by saying the planning is going well. Seattle PD has led it for the past three years. I know their captain, Dan Nelson has been this is all he does full time and so things are going well there. And my assessment is that everything that can be done to ensure a fantastic World Cup that's safe and accessible is being done. I feel that we are settling into a good spot.

Like I said, Seattle PD is leading the effort with strong support from King County agencies including King County Sheriff's Office. Ours obviously, Washington State Patrol and our federal law enforcement partners. And this is occurring not just in the Seattle region, but across the state and across the country. In addition to law enforcement coordination, we have government entities that range a multitude of disciplines. Some of the more primary ones include transportation, emergency management, fire and medical services to name a few.

So what's Kent Police's role going to be? We have three primary functions. Our first one is going to be security and efficient movement at our public transit centers in hub in Kent specifically. So our two light rail stations and our Metro Sounder station down here in Downtown Kent will be staffed full time during each game day with ample personnel. Our second priority or mission will be to support Renton PD and Renton, the City of Renton who is hosting the Belgium team.

What comes with that is security detail and reaction response capabilities for the team wherever they go for the entire month. Hotel, training facility, they decide they wanna go get burgers, there will be police officers making sure that they're safe to and from where they go and all that. So second is supporting in a mutual aid effort for renting primarily for that. And then our third is to be prepared for a mutual aid rapid response in the event of a large scale security threat or mass casualty event. That will be the only time that we will deploy any of Kent resources to the City Of Seattle.

Right now our focus with the limited resources we have is to support them by taking care of the obligations here. But in a true emergency like we will with any other true emergency we would deploy to assist up in Seattle if that becomes an issue. I don't think it escapes anyone's attention that it's vacation season. It's sunny out there. During this time of year we see an uptick every year in the number of calls for service that we see.

So this is going to put a strain on our resources, but we have planned well and we think we'll be able to manage it just fine. So we'll see how that goes. So for our community members, what to expect? Please do not be alarmed. You're going to see a lot more uniform presence at the Trent Trent Centers during game days.

Predominantly you'll see our bike officers, but to cover things we'll also be deploying our neighborhood response team and our crime reduction unit as well. Those will be uniform officers there. You'll see increased ridership. While public transit is still something relatively new for this part of the world and the countries that will be visiting public or mass transit is the way that they travel predominantly and the way that they've been encouraged to travel to the games here in our region. So we expect a serious increase in ridership and then increased congestion on some of our major highways that lead into Lumen Field.

We're asking for everybody's help, right? We think and I as of today at this moment there are no known credible threats to the games. But safety is something we want to be vigilant for always and we want everyone to take an active role in that. So see something, say something. If something is suspicious, someone is acting weird or you find a suspicious package, we want you to contact the officers that will be visible at the Trenton centers and or call 911 right away and we will deal with that.

The big message is plan ahead. Whether you are going to watch a soccer match, a World Cup match or not, expect significant impact on traffic and congestion in the region. Allow for that extra time. There are several official FIFA notification sites through the City of Seattle and FIFA International that you can log into subscribe for alerts on pertinent things like road closures and other issues. And I'll say this, if you don't have to go to Seattle during one of the match days, it probably be a good idea not to Unless you really like traffic and then knock yourself out.

I don't as a person who only casually follows soccer, there is a lot more tradition and events that go to a international soccer match than you might realize. There's parades of the opposing fans that march into the stadium. Is a lot that goes including enhanced security protocols and extended protective areas for the events that are much more in-depth than what you might see going to say a Seahawks game or a Mariners game. So be prepared for that. All right. Any questions on the Special Olympics thing or Special Olympics, I'm getting that FIFA thing. I'm getting Special Olympics.

Yes. Right. I'm sorry,

madam mayor. Do you know you might notice, are there any place in Kent? I heard one time at time, I happened to show up on the big screen so people can watch it. Are you in this spot? Have you heard?

I have not heard that any viewing events have come together in the city of Kent at this point.

All right. Next up, I'd like to take a moment to mom all of you. Mean, this is my mom moment here. It's summertime and with summer people are out enjoying the time outside, they're driving more, there's barbecues and recreational events at water locations and features and all of that combines for what should be a fantastic time of year. It also coincidentally ends up being what is known as the one hundred deadliest days of summer.

So the time that ranges from Memorial holiday to Labor Day somewhere in there is where we see most of our serious injury and fatal collisions including pedestrians. We see a spike in our drownings obviously because people are swimming. We see motorcycle collisions. We see pets being left in hot cars and sometimes in worst case scenarios children. And so I just want to put some information on remind everybody of the things they can do to make this what we hope will be one hundred days of safe summer.

So here's I will start with that. So first off, we have a strong partnership with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and they are running a program one hundred Safe Days of Summer. As you might recall our very own Sarah Hallstad is one of two of the Target Zero managers for King County, which means she is in charge of running educational and community engagement events for traffic safety related issues and for running the law enforcement emphasis that you'll see throughout the year. And yes, they are starting and they are starting this weekend. You can expect periodic DUI enforcement patrols, speed enforcement patrols, seat belt use patrols, distracted driving use patrols, they will be out throughout the summer, not just Kent, but throughout the region in partnership with all the agencies here.

So know that that will be a part of what's going on. And what we are always looking for is voluntary compliance, right? We'd much rather just have the community follow the laws so that we can bring down some of the injuries and fatalities that we're seeing. So we're asking obey the speed limits and traffic laws. They are designed to maximize safety, slowdown in areas of high pedestrian traffic like neighborhoods and parks and shopping areas, Wear your seat belts, ensure that your passengers wear their seat belts.

I was a traffic officer for many years and it was really, really frustrating to go to some of these collision scenes and realize that had a person been wearing their seat belt they'd be alive with us today. Just that simple step. Obviously drive sober, plan ahead if you're going to have adult beverages and then make sure you're driving distracted free, hands free as well. Okay. So those are my mom's you on your traffic safety tips there.

Next one up, hot cars. If you look at that scale there, even if it's 70 degrees out after thirty minutes your car can climb to 104 degrees and people don't realize that. If it's 90 in thirty minutes it's 129 degrees. Those are seriously dangerous temperatures for pets and for humans. I know we get busy, things get a little hectic, but we're asking that we not leave children and pets in the car especially during the heat.

Boater safety, another tragic thing that happens pretty much every year is that we usually lose a young child swimming at one of our lakes who's not in a life preserver or life jacket and not being attended by an adult. It's really sad, really tragic every time, but just a reminder and ask that if you have children that are in the water, they need to be attended by an adult and if they can't swim I strongly encourage life jackets. There are programs online through the state where you can get loaner or donated life vests, so do a little research and a little ounce of prevention goes a long way. We also see issues every year with boaters on our waterways, not so much in Kent, but occasionally in Kent where boaters are not being safe on the water, whether it be personal watercrafts, boats or things like paddleboards, being out in deep water, cold water without life preservers and not a good idea. So there's that.

And then last on my mom list for tonight is motorcycle awareness. Any motorcycle riders in the audience? Yeah. A lot of this safety for motorcycle riders is on them. I'll be I rode motorcycles for years.

You have to drive your motorcycles though they can't see you. You have to drive your motorcycle in a way that you're highly visible and should be expecting the worst. So a lot of it is that. But also we ask this that our community be aware that when you are in about motorcyclists on the roadway, pay attention, take extra time to clear your blind spots, signal early, right? Do these things that will help our motorcycle riders have the proper reaction time and distance to avoid a collision in the first place.

So there we go on that. All right. Next topic staffing update. I wanted to give the Mayor and Council and the public an update on where we are with the hiring of our officers in particular now that we have the additional 10 spots through House Bill twenty fifteen. So we are now allotted 180 positions fully staffed at Kent.

As of today we have 170 in those filled, actually 171, I'll explain the one, which means the only positions we have not filled out of the new positions, okay. Of the new positions, one we hired who starts June 1 and we have two conditional offers which means they're pending some final background check and we expect all three of those officers to start June 1. So the first three of 10 should be locked in here in a week. From there, we are rapidly going through a pretty extensive list of candidates. Our target is still to be fully staffed 180 solid by the end of this year and we are on track to make that.

Of the allotment of officers that we have of the 170, 19 of our new officers are still in training. Many of you heard me comment that I hire an officer today and eighteen months from today they'll be able to go on solo patrol. So that's why we have 19 in the training pipeline right now. Three of those we just hired, not the ones I was talking about, but three additional we just hired and they're going to CLIP and then they're going to the Academy. Four of those are in CLIP and for those who don't know what CLIP is, it's our Community Immersion Law Enforcement Program.

Five of the new hires are at the academy currently at some stage getting ready to graduate and seven of those officers are in field training, most of whom will be deployed to solo status by late July. So that's a lot of officers in training. Hopefully, we get them all through and we close that gap pretty quick. I also want to note that we are actively working to fill non police officer vacancies in the department. That is going well also.

We have three corrections officer vacancies that we're working to close and four civilian professional staff vacancies. You know that we can't provide effective public safety services without those professional staff and corrections officers. So with all of that, that's the report. And the last thing I want to say is we are hiring. Please refer people to us or apply on our website if you're interested.

And then last, because I wanted to talk about this earlier for some reason, I wanted to put in a plug in for the upcoming Special Olympics law enforcement torch run. That's going to happen next Friday here on our West Hill And Pac Highway. For those that aren't familiar, the torch run is an actual run of the Special Olympic lighted torch across the state. It starts on the East usually in Spokane and ends down at Lakewood at the old Forza Cafe where the Lakewood four incident occurred. So our team has been running this race for a long time and law enforcement has adopted Special Olympics as their primary charity for decades before I was a rookie.

Kent specifically has always been involved. You might remember some of the events we used to do with Tip a Cop. It was one of my favorite things to do. We've done some other fundraisers, polar plunges, not my not my jam. I'm not cold. But that's been done and we have always every year ran the torch for in support of our intellectual and physiological disabled persons. The money goes towards them, support, equipment and the Special Olympic Games that are held throughout the region. So very proud of that. Our team will be out there next Friday and I just wanted to give them a shout out for that. And with that, Madam Mayor completes my report and I'll take any questions.

Thank you. I remember seeing a Sergeant Padilla at Red Robin for a tip a cop event quite some time ago.

Those were fun.

Yep. Council Member Boyce.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Looks like you've come a long way. So have our police hire come a long way also. So per capita, I mean, we're we're at 180 is awesome, right? I'm just wondering for per capita, where should we be?

I really don't want to get this wrong, but I still believe we're somewhere in the ballpark of 1.24, 1.25 per thousand, which puts us still near the bottom. The national average is closer to 2.5. The state average is closer to 1.5. And so we lag behind still.

I can't do the math right now. So we need 30 more to be there roughly? Correct.

We should be well over 200 officers. Right?

We'll get there.

We are. We can run away. It's a good job. And and I do wanna continually note, we've enjoyed very strong support from this council and the mayor. We know it's not a lack of support. We just got to find the money. We're working on it.

Alright. Any other questions for the chief? Alright. Thank you.

Thank you.

Right. Council, the next item on the agenda is an economic and community development report. Joining this evening is Bill Ellis, our chief economic development officer. Welcome, Bill.

Council, nice to see everyone here today. It's great that the police chief led off with FIFA. I was going lead off a little bit about FIFA too. Just on a local cultural culinary tour that we are sponsoring with our lodging tax dollars. Christina Rokiosami runs the Taste of Kent cultural tour.

She's been doing these culinary tours for years. However, she's expanding that obviously in advance of FIFA with a lot of international visitors. She'll be bringing she's reached out to tour groups and lined up people to come visit, especially businesses in Kent and visit our restaurants and I think that's a great thing that she's doing. She's also building out with 4Culture a teaching kitchen which in Kent. She'll be hosting families and other visitors there.

She also has a grant from the Port Of Seattle at the Sea Tac International Airport, see Guided by the Good. There's going to be a billboard at the airport kind of telling people to get to her organization than to also forward on to Kent businesses. So I really appreciate her efforts and she has a really stunning job with photography and the multimedia and always hear great things about people who go on those visits. Then I was just going to pivot briefly back to something I'm often talking about which is for Kent, the industrial vacancy rates and the state of the economy. And right now our vacancy rate has crept up over 10% in Kent.

Kent Valley is about 9.7% as the most recent report. So it is fighting some of the trade trouble in the world has shown up in the warehouse districts. However, Kent is still at a rent premium. It's starting to relax a little bit and come down in price as the vacancy creeps up. We've had to absorb a lot of new construction over the years.

So the fact that we are performing as well as we are, I think is pretty solid. But it is something for us to keep an eye on is that vacancy is high here as it is elsewhere in the region. Just going to give some updated numbers though about you know again our importance to the state and especially in the aftermath. I can't believe it's May, they haven't really talked a while since the flooding incident back in December, but something that I think we should continue to share with the state and with the congressional delegation is the importance of the supply chain that passes through the Kent Valley. So we are 6.8% of the state wide economic output in the Kent Valley, which is the multi region community of Renton, Kent and Auburn, Tuckwila that depend on that levy system.

So $93,900,000,000 a year. Specifically within aerospace manufacturing though, we're 36.7% of state wide aerospace manufacturing output. So again, speaks to why we often talk about that as a special area of importance. Theme for today is just looking around at competition in other states and something I occasionally like to do. Colorado is something as a state that has made a lot of noise over the years as a space industry hotspot and I've noticed some companies that have moved from California and they've chosen the Colorado and they have not on the way talk to anyone in Washington State.

So I think that's interesting. Kent Valley directly employs more workers than the entire state of Colorado in aerospace. So Colorado is usually top of tongue for a lot of people and it's the home of the Space Symposium, which has 20,000 visitors a year for their space industry event, biggest in the world. But we actually have more aerospace workers in the Kent Valley. And I think one of the things that point to and something we should just be aware of is often we're celebrating the aerospace industry in our region and our state is how much money other states are spending to directly try to bring companies from other states including from our towns into their states.

So a recent recruitment that Colorado is very proud of, they call it Project Hera. The company hasn't been named yet, but they did release the approval of $26,000,000 for 1,200 jobs in Colorado. So that far exceeds anything state of Washington ever contemplates in terms of tax incentivizing companies to move or relocate. So state of Colorado is aggressive, but so is Arizona, is New Mexico, so is Texas is spending $300,000,000 on Washington I'm sorry, Texas State Space Commission. We do not have a state space commission, which brings me to the next slide here, which is one of things that we're working on right now in the economic development division.

There's a deadline of May 28. It's a federal program for tax incentive. It is a tax incentive that is potentially utilized by both businesses and commercial real estate and largely used for housing actually. It's often used capital for commercial real estate for housing, but not purely that. And so most of Kent's commercial areas are eligible. There is no penalty for applying. I've presented to counsel about this before. So we are going to try to put our best foot forward. We're collecting letters of support. I'm talking to OZ opportunity zone fund managers.

I've been talking to projects that have been abandoned in the permit process at the different points just because they stopped this makes sense in pencil. I've contacted them over the last few weeks and said would you come back if we should get the designation. They've affirmed yes. I take their letter of support and I am packaging that into applications due on the twenty eighth through the State Department of Commerce. So there's three things that they're going to be measuring on community need measures of which Ken scores very highly.

We have a lot of need, especially in Midway. I would say it's actually the top five in the state for need. And then secondly on policy support which we have and we're aligned up and down with Puget Sound, with King County and locally with council policies. And then the lion's share of the points will be around project readiness. So how interesting are your projects and do you have in each tract at least three projects which we're approving out now.

Some areas have had more permit activity over the years and so we'll score higher than other tracks in Kent where there hasn't been as much interest even advanced things to feasibility or environmental analysis or permitting. So we're working to sort of do our own sort of internal test of how they're going to score out. We're going to submit many, but just know that in the state there's going be three ninety something census tracts that are eligible. In South King County alone, there's 80 eligible tracts. The governor's only gonna choose one in four.

So this is going to be highly competitive situation. I wanna also just give a congratulations on probably stepping on a public recognition we were gonna make on June 2. I apologize for that. But Michelle Wilmot was recognized last week at the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance for Women of Impact in the Aerospace Industry. So that was really a great honor and I thank Michelle. It's been wonderful working with you all these years and you've really helped substantiate what we've been doing in the Kent Valley. And was an award they had a once she was nominated, had to create a new award for hers, but I think they shared. So that was really an exciting thing.

Bill, I'm going to ask you to pause there and let this Bill

thank chime in. You very much Madam Mayor. I have a little note here when he beat me to the punch. That was good. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Really, I was part of that just to be there and just the impact that Michelle had made to the Camp Valley. I mean, think about all the aerospace company that we have here, and Bill just mentioned pretty much close to Colorado, close under leadership of you and Curt, but Michelle was really the one that's out there. Mean, she got a network for people from I mean, she know everybody. I know there's probably 400 plus women in that room and a few men, including me, right? But she is well connected with the city of Kent and the people that was in that that audience.

So I was just so proud to be a Kent City Council, and and she gave props to the council and and all of us about letting her be able to do what she wanted to do. I know she's thinking about leaving us, but I hope we could still find a way to have her still be part of the team. But Michelle, excellent job. I've been working with you since I've been part of ECD day one, and I've always been impressed with you. So thank you. Thank you for all you do for the state of Kent.

I'm gonna skip around on my slides here to just kind of underscore the importance of Michelle's work with the school districts and on the career readiness front here. So this is a slide that I took from Arizona. Arizona is very proud evidently that they had in their aerospace and defense degree completions by metro. You can see there in the orange, slightly more than Seattle. That's how proud they are that the Greater Phoenix Economic Development Council wanted to highlight that.

Los Angeles, of course, much larger city, above and away outstrips the other regions. So Seattle is kind of punching above its weight relative to its size compared to a city like Los Angeles, but Phoenix kind of a near competitor is very proud of the fact that they are now getting more graduates into aerospace degrees and completions. And so I think one of the things that Michel was recognized for was just things like the expo we did last year, which is trying to expose the greatness of the size of the industry that we have and get more young people into the educational programs that we have. They're actually under subscribed a lot of these programs. There's more work to be done of course in making these programs more relevant to and aligned to employer demand, but just getting the exposure out there to our young people and having them see the degrees and programs that lead to the jobs that are available that we can't actually fill fast enough sometimes even in a bad economy is an interesting dynamic.

And so I wanted to highlight this on the theme of competition and just a couple of things. I mean Arizona is again another state that pays a lot of the lower tax states. They don't necessarily only compete with us on the fact that they have lower taxes than us. They also go further than offer direct money grants to our companies to leave our area to go to their states. They even recently created a space commission to start providing scholarships and grants directly at the behest of companies directly into different educational institutions and STEM programs.

So I know it's something that's gonna be coming up in the future is conversations about a Washington State Space Commission and what does that do and what does it look like. To be determined to come back on that dot dot dot. But just backing up a slide, I wasn't able to get the photo into this of today, but our mayor was a moderator of interesting talk today of Amazon Leo at the Technology Alliance luncheon in Downtown Seattle. It was a well attended event of about 700 people drawn from the tech community and front and center of that conversation today was competitiveness of our economy and what goes into making a strong economy. There's a lot of I think crisis of confidence right now fair to say when you listen to the business community about Seattle and also Washington State's cost comparisons to other regions.

But another theme that kept coming back over and over again is the reason why companies are here is for the talent. The reason why they're here is for the education. But in the prelude to Mayor Ralph's moderation of these Amazon Leo leaders, a lot of interesting facts were shared amongst the 50 states. Washington State's fifth from bottom in terms of post secondary pathways. We're a high-tech state, but our education completion is pretty low. And a lot of young people by eleventh grade don't have a clear route forward. So again, think the work continues. I've come to counsel often about education and the importance of it and I'm just underscoring that again today. So thank you everyone, and questions please.

Any questions for Bill? Council President.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Bill, for the presentation. Not questions, but congratulations for Michelle on very well deserved award. I know Michelle, we all know, Michelle really cares about the community and she's very passionate about the work she does. So I think she's very well deserving and congratulations. So excited for you. And we're lucky to have you. Kurt is not here.

All right. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you very much, everyone. Have a good day.

Right. We are going to move into the reports section of our agenda. So each one of our council members not only represents our residents here at the council meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, but they also represent our community on a regional and state level, making sure that as decisions are being made around policy and funding that Kent's voice is being represented, and I am very, very grateful for that. It's a big job making sure that we are part of those conversations. I'm gonna start with a few reports.

I'll go backwards. So today, Bill highlighted it at the Tech Alliance luncheon. About 700 tech education leaders, other elected officials were in the room to hear the conversation regarding Amazon's satellite program, which is now, formerly Project Kuiper, now Amazon LEO. One of the gentlemen that was on that panel is the inventor of their program, also invented the optical mouse. So, incredible group, and had a chance in asking them questions about Project LEO to highlight the things that are happening here in the Industrial Valley, and really proud of that work.

Head lot nods, and I didn't know that comments from the folks in the room, but there was also a lot of conversation and concern around the direction that the state is headed in when it comes to our economy, and the lack of investment in these types of projects. So really grateful to have Bill and Michelle doing that work here in Kent and continuing to highlight that work. Now we just need to get the rest of the state on board in moving in that direction. Couple of other quick highlights. Two weeks ago, we held our second Kent A Z, that is our short format Kent one hundred one.

So about a two and a half hour course with the Iraqi Community Center up at Kent Meridian High School. Fantastic conversation. Lots of folks that came out to learn a little bit more about the city that they live in, and I'm really grateful for that program. We had our first drinks in the driveway of the season at Harrison House, also fantastic conversation. The regional meeting that I want to highlight was last week, Regional Policy Council met, or regional policy committee met.

We started out with a tour of the Cedar Hills Landfill. There's a lot of conversation. That landfill will be full and shutting down somewhere between 2038 and two thousand forty. So that is where all of the trash that is collected curbside in our city in King County is taken to. The county is undertaking the conversation around what is the next how are we gonna dispose of trash going forward and beyond 2038.

We, a city, have some pretty significant concerns. The two items that they are currently considering are waste to energy, which is incineration, and one large incinerator plant, and the other option is disposal by rail or trash trains. We already know what that feels like to have a trash train running through our city on a daily basis. City of Seattle disposes of their trash by rail, and it comes through Kent every single day. The impact, if King County chooses to go with disposal by rail or that trash train, it will have a significant impact on our community.

They're estimating those trains to be about 1.2 miles long, which means our crossing arms are down even more of the time. The frustration that we have been expressing is that the county has not done a comprehensive study of the impacts of that on cities like Kent. So, the good news is, I had a meeting with the director of King County Solid Waste, along with the cities of Auburn and Renton, and director Singer has committed to doing that comprehensive study. This is the most positive direction that we've gone when it's come around this conversation in probably the last five years. Really grateful for her willingness to look at it.

We've also requested that they look at some alternatives to one large incineration plant, and looking at what it would look like to break those down into a couple of different smaller incinerators that would have less of an impact on the community. So whether they're cited around the transfer stations, more to come, but we've asked that that be included in the environmental impact study. So again, really, really hopeful, but know that that decision could have a significant impact on our community, and I'm out there making sure that King County hears us that we need to have that comprehensive study, and we can't just continue to impact cities like all of us in South King County. So, again, I'm gonna leave that on a, I am cautiously optimistic that that we are making progress on that conversation. Lastly, I want to highlight on Friday, we had a visit from the mayor and council member and chief of staff from our sister city in Mexico in El Grullo.

They stopped by to highlight some of the work that they are doing, brought pictures of their roundabout, which they took inspiration from Kent's roundabout, so I thought that was kind of a cool thing, and then was able to attend a Mexican heritage event in Seattle celebrating dance and culture from all over Mexico, and was able to be the guest of the mayor from El Grullo. I just want to say thank you for that, and know that our sister city program is up and running and strong, and I know council member Larmer is getting to experience some of that firsthand, so we're excited about those relationships. All right, that was a long report, I apologize for that. I'm gonna turn it over to Pat Fitzpatrick.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. For tonight, I'm gonna defer to my CAO report that's in the council passket, so I'm gonna hand it right back to you. Alright.

Thank you. Thank you.

Council President.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Earlier tonight, we had our council workshop, and how fitting as a National Public Works Week, we had a great presentation on Clark Springs Transmission Main Update. And so if you are interested in their presentation, you can watch it on Kent TV twenty one or on our Facebook page. I serve on I serve as a chair for Puget Sound Cleaner Agency Advisory Council. We actually had our meeting here in person in our council chambers last week, and I'll have updates on that in our councilor newsletter that comes out tomorrow.

I also serve on King County Domestic Violence Initiative Regional Task Force and we had our meeting last week as well. So I'll have that report also in the council newsletter along with all the events that I have attended in the last two weeks. With that, I'm going go ahead and get started with my colleagues, council member Boyd.

Thank you council president. My committees that I sit on the update on reports there would be in my newsletter, but there's three items that I do want to touch on that I had to experience with. Last week, I had the opportunity to go out to the Kenton Jail, and I met with commander Armstrong, and we talked about this ReAssure medical scanner. Right now we have 10 installed in the jail right now. These scanners what they do, they they check on the on the detainees vital or vital systems like the breathing, their heart rates and the pulses and it tells them whether or not this person is experiencing withdrawal, I mean withdrawal to the point where that might cause them to expire.

So I think this is a good thing that they're doing because we're trying to get ahead of people, our detainees passing away in our jails because it puts a bad face on the city of Kent. So we're trying to get ahead of that and and I my hand my hats off to commander Armstrong and chief Padilla. Also, this past Saturday, I had the opportunity to meet with 23 graduates from the CERT team, the community emergency response team. These individuals took time away from their homes, their loved ones, their work, and what have not to attend these programs so they can protect us when we need the protection the most when our first responders are often overwhelmed, there to fill in the blanks. So I was glad to be there and I was glad to congratulate them, me and, some other members of the staff.

Also too, I want to remind everybody if you have a loved one who's an elder, who lives by yourself or maybe with grandmother and grandfather, that we have in a protect yourself against fraud and scam coming up this Wednesday on the twenty seventh at the Kent Senior Activity Center. It starts at 01:30. If you care about your loved ones, have them come. If not, you could go and get this information because it tells you about what's going on nowadays with the scams on the phone and the Internet. It's really crazy out there.

People are losing homes, people are losing life savings and it's really detrimental to a lot of our elders and our seniors. And it could affect younger people too if you fall for this camp. So this event will be held at the Kent Senior Activity Center this Wednesday on May twenty seventh at 01:30. I was at this event last year and it's really informative so and like I said the rest of my report will be in our newsletter that will be out tomorrow night. Thank you council president.

Thank you council member Boyd. Council member Boyce.

Thank you, Madam President. I sit on a public issue committee, which is part of the Silent City Association, represent about 37 cities. We get together at least once a month and talk about policy and stuff, how we can put proposal in front of legislators and city as well. But one thing we talked about last time, our last meeting was about Sound Transit, As you know or don't know, they have about a $34,000,000,000 shortfall from SC3, and lots of promise was made with that Sound Transit three that there's no funding for it. I would say, luckily, they can't.

We kind of got what was promised to us, but there's lot of other cities where we promised parking or more rail is not there's no funding. So they are really the board of Sound Transit is getting together, really just doing some evaluation, looking at some proposal and what they can do to try to rectify this year. So it will be interesting to see what come out of this year, but we are in the early stage of talking about this as well too. The other one I talked to you guys before last couple of meetings about this year, King County waste treatment rate. So we had to give a lot of props to King County Councilwoman Stephanie Fain.

She really had been a champion for this year. So I know she got a proposal that she put together that would give the city 12.5%, right? But there's a cap too. I think there's a cap at 15%, what I've been told recently. So this is in early stage. There was an amendment made to a proposal, but luck is going to go forward. So I think the goal is they're going probably vote only in May, what I've been told by King County. Do you know anything different than that?

They did ended up not voting at their meeting last week. We're hearing that there may be another meeting at the end of the month with a new proposal and a different amendment. But yes, Council Member Fain has been fantastic in fighting to get some of that money returned to cities.

So she's really been a big advocate for the city. If you had a chance to talk to her, email her. Be sure to tell her thank you and keep being a champion for her. And that's all I have.

Thank you, Councilmember Boyce. Councilmember Larmer.

Thank you, Council President. So my King County Regional Committee will be meeting next week, so I do not have a report tonight.

Thank you, Councilmember Larmore. Councilmember Mishaw.

Thank you, Madam President. My report is in our council newsletter. I haven't had any meetings, but I've gone to a bunch of community events, and there are some fun pictures in there. So I just want to thank all of these activities involve a lot of staff. So I want to thank staff for working on Saturdays and being out there and making these great events possible.

Thank you, Councilwoman Michaud. As we have mentioned several times, if you do not subscribe to Council Newsletter, you can do so on city's website, and Council Newsletter comes out on Wednesdays after Council meetings. With that, back to you, Madam Mayor.

All right, thank you. We're gonna move on to item number six on the agenda, which is a public hearing. We will now hold the public hearing on the 2027 through 2032 transportation improvement program. Staff will give a presentation, and then I'll invite the public to provide testimony, written statements, and other evidence. Public input must relate to the subject of the public hearing, and council members, as you know, you may ask questions during the hearing. If you are here to testify on this matter or present written statement or evidence, please sign up at the front with our city clerk. At this point, we will go ahead and open the public hearing on the 2027 through 2032 transportation improvement program, and I'm gonna turn it over to David Payne.

Good evening, madam mayor, Council President, Council Members. David Payne, Public Works presenting on the transportation improvement update for 2026, which is updating the six year period from '27 to 2032. So this is continuing the conversation, last presentation given on March 5 in this room. So in the interest of time, I'll touch briefly on the schedule for the update, the outreach and involvement and then spend a little bit more time for the public and reminding folks of what the projects are that are being added to this year's TIP, recommended to be added. A reminder for folks, this is the update schedule that we follow each year between January and May, hopefully with adoption coming up.

Touching briefly on the outreach and engagement, you can see a long list ongoing education outreach and involvement, public boards, online engagement represented by the QR code on the right. We have survey tool posters posted in some of our grocery stores, evidence in the lower right hand. Presentations to the Land Use and Planning Board, the Kent Bicycle Advisory Board, the Diversity Equity Inclusion Board, and of course Committee of the Whole. This is a banner year for completed projects. So you see six of the projects that I went in detail over the fifth.

And then a second page of projects, all told about $40,000,000 worth of projects completed this year leveraging 20,000,000 in in competitive grants that the city pursued and won. And now for the for the projects that are being proposed to be added for this tip cycle. So the map represents the five projects as they're spread across the city. And I'll go over each of those in turn over the next couple of slides. Blue projects represent preservation and resilience projects.

The green is more of the multimodal connectivity and the orange is our safety project, one of our safety projects for the year. So the first on West Hill is the SR99 or Pack Highway and South 2 68th Street Pedestrian Crossing Safety Improvement. So this would install a pedestrian hybrid beacon enhanced crosswalk at the intersection with South 2 68th Street. This would improve crossing visibility and access to transit on along the a line and the King County Woodmont Library is in the lower left hand corner. The illustration on the left is an illustration that's not there yet.

The second project is in our non motorized or multimodal category. This would be to add a non motorized trail along South 2 40th Street between 30th Avenue South and 32nd Avenue South. This is in the the KDM Sound Transit Station near the station area and would replicate some of the same street improvements that are that are on the ground now, but along South 2 40th Street. And lastly, the three projects in the preservation or resilience category. These are largely overlay streets with new pavement and of course evaluating curb ramps, push buttons for accessibility improvements.

You can see the image on the left is of James Street. So the first project is 80, also known as East Valley Highway between South 2 12th Street and SR 167. So we're queuing that up for a potential grant application in the coming years. The second is for Central Avenue North, just South of SR 167 down to James Street. And the third project, again shown in the the image at left, is for James Street.

That's Washington Avenue or between Washington Avenue, also known as State Route 181 and Central Avenue. And that one was awarded a grant that council accepted earlier this year. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions or take any comments. Alright.

Thank you, David. Council, any questions? Alright. Kim, do we have anyone signed up to provide public testimony? We do not. Any written testimony submitted? No. Then counsel is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries five-zero. The public hearing is now closed. Counsel, any discussion or debate before we call for a motion? Great. Is there a motion to adopt resolution at number two one zero six?

Yes, madam. I move to adopt resolution number 2,106, adopting the 2027 through 02/2026 transportation improvement program.

Second. I have

a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion carries five-zero. Thank you. We're going to move on item number seven is public comment. The public comment period is your opportunity to speak to the council and mayor on issues that relate to the city of Kent or agenda items the council will consider. This is not an open public forum and comments that do not relate to the business of the city of Kent are not permitted.

Strictly prohibits people from using public comment opportunity for political campaign purposes including supporting or opposing a ballot initiative or a community or office. Furthermore, in providing public comments, speakers must address the mayor and council as a whole. Remarks The intended to target an individual on the dais are not permitted. Kindly please note the public comment opportunity is for you to provide information to the mayor and council that you would like for us to consider, but we will not be able to answer questions during the meeting itself. Kim, can you please call our speakers?

Thank you, madam mayor. We have one person signed up to speak, Gwen Allen Carsten. We

know we've got a three minute timer that will go up on the screen, and if you can state your name and city of residence for the record.

I'd like to take this time to say thank you for this opportunity. And I have with me my cohort of twenty one years we just celebrated our anniversary, Mr. Charles Wayne Karsten. I'm Gwen Allen Karsten, Executive Director of the Kent Black Action Commission. Tonight, I rise in recognition, gratitude, and reflection regarding the upcoming unveiling of the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Way signage.

I also want to invite the community to attend the unveiling ceremony, which is scheduled for May 26 at 06:00PM at the Thomas Teasdale Park, which is located in Renton. This moment is more than the placement of a sign, it is the acknowledgment of history, struggle, sacrifice, and hope. Doctor. Martin Luther King stood for justice, dignity, nonviolence, and the belief that communities are strongest when everyone is seen, respected, and valued. For many residents in Kent throughout South King County, this memorial renaming represents years of conversation, advocacy, and community voices coming together to say that Doctor.

King's legacy deserves visible and permanent re re recognition in our region. A memorial sign alone does not complete the work. It should serve as a reminder and a challenge that we continue building a city where equity, opportunity, safety, and inclusion are available to all people regardless of race, background, or zip code. I want to thank the community members, the advocates, elected officials, and supporters who helped move this vision forward. I especially acknowledge the generations of black leaders and families whose perseverance perseverance made moments like this possible.

Tonight, as we prepare for the unveiling, let us stand not only as a marker along a roadway, but as a symbol of unity, remembrance, and responsibility. May future generations see these signs and understand that this community chose to honor courage, truth, and the ongoing pursuit of justice. We hope the public will join us on May 26 at 6PM at Thomas Teasdale Park for this historic occasion. Thank you very much. And, madam mayor, if you don't mind, we'd like to present you with this sign.

So we'd like to present you with Resolution seven fifty five. Don't know if you have a copy of it, but we'd love for you to have one for your personal whatever. Okay. So thank you so much for the work and understanding that you have for our city and the things that you do for our city. They do not go unnoticed and we hope that we can continue to work side by side for now and for the future. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yes. Thank you. So

Can I take a picture?

Yes. Yes. I was just going to ask I you if you

can give it to you.

K. Thank you.

Kim, do we have anyone else signed up? We do not. Thank you. To move on to the consent calendar, consent calendar is a compilation of items that counsel has reviewed, had conversations around discussion at both committee of the whole and the workshops in the in previous weeks. These items have all passed out of Committee of the Whole without controversy. Tonight, we have items a through m. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second. Motion and second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries five zero. Item number nine is other business. We do not have any nor do we have any bids or an executive session. So that brings us down to the bottom of our agenda. And with that, we are adjourned.