City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to the Are we good? Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Clerk Shelon. Uh, welcome to the March 17th city council workshop meeting. We are live here at the mill and also on our YouTube channel. Um this is a workshop so we will not be taking action tonight but we have lots of good discussion items and city department reports. Um so we'll call this meeting to order and I will immediately turn the microphone over to Director Halverson. No. Hi,

Eric Mangled will be taking on the transportation benefit program update. Good evening, council and mayor. Mayor, are you here? No. Good evening, council. I I'm just getting logged into the Zoom. Just one second. Sorry. Am I there? Okay. Thank you.

So, you should have in front of you um the copy of our TBP. So, I'm here just to bring the TBP um plan or where our status update on that right is right now. I'm trying to pull up the to share on the screen. Just one second. Eric, could you talk into the mic a little bit? Oh, yeah. Sorry. That'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. Bring this closer for me. Okay, here we go. Yep. Sorry. Or I'm not connecting. Can you hear me on Zoom, too? I think my computer's not connected.

Lori, I'm going to use you um as a test. Can you hear us? I can. Yes. Okay. Can you hear Eric? Yep. I can hear Eric. He sounds just like you do. Okay. Thank you. All right. I have an IT help. Lori, do you want to go ahead and take maybe the annual report first while Eric gets this up? I sure can. Is that okay? Yes. Thank you.

So, give me just a moment and I will bring this up. get the Zoom window out of my way and turn on presentation mode. Okay. So, good evening council. My name is Lori Ericson. I am the public works analyst and tonight I am excited to share with you all our annual report for 2025. To uh put this into a little bit of um context, this is a practice that we started doing a couple of years ago. It's meant to uh serve multiple purposes. One of the purposes is to help inform the public of all the work that our teams have been working on and the challenges that we've been working to address. Another purpose is to help inform all of you on council and the mayor also um of that work as well along with the third main thing is celebrating the team and all the hard work they're doing. This year's edition of our annual report is a little bit longer than what we have done traditionally in the past. Um, but I'm going to go ahead and walk through this. I believe each of you should also have this in front of you um, in the paper version. I won't cover everything at a granular level, but if there's any questions, uh, please let me know what those are and we can spend a little bit more time on those topics. So, here on page one, we've got the majority of our team there on the top. We are an awesome team and we try to have a lot of fun with the work that we do. Oops. Why is this not Let me take it out of presentation mode. Sorry. I'll just scroll this way. Uh partway down on this page is where I really want to start um telling a little bit of our story. So in 2023, we um essentially finished our first draft of our first 5-year strategic plan. So we started this journey a little bit ahead of the citywide strategic plan. And the good news is that on the back end, the work that we

already had started align really really well with the overall direction that the city is going. In 2023, we did update our vision and mission statement, which you can see there. And really what the purpose of this work was was to really help us focus on the right things so that we can focus our limited resources to the things that really matter to this community. Here you can see our five strategic priorities which include track and maintain the natural and built infrastructure. Improve the natural environment and provide accessible infrastructure. Ensure responsible stewardship of public funds to deliver reliable public services. Make public works a great place to work and empower a skilled and responsive workforce and foster positive relationships with the public, other city departments and other agencies. Similar to the approach we took at the citywide level, we adopted the um balance scorecard approach which allows us to think about our lines of business, if you want to call them that, in a holistic fashion. on the very back page of this annual report, you uh will take a quick look at what our one-year work uh plan is for 2026. And those essentially that essentially helps us answer like what's the planned work for the next 12 months or so that's going to help us achieve these the goals within these priorities. Uh the next section, I won't cover everything here either, but we have lots of accomplishments that we wanted to highlight. One of the big exciting things I think that everyone in this community is happy to see is the Main Street redevelopment project. So, this was a project that Eric Mangold, um, our capital projects manager, was the project manager for and, uh, we're really excited to see that, uh, wrap up and how much nicer it is from a walkability perspective along with a

transportation perspective and aesthetically. Moving on, uh we attended a number of conferences in 2025 uh not only as participants but as people as panelists and as presenters. So a couple of the conferences that we wanted to highlight here included going to the APWA conference which was in Chicago. This is one of the biggest um public works focused conferences here in this nation. Well in North America really. and we also went to um one for AWC and a few others as well. Something else we wanted to highlight was we had six of our employees within public works that graduated from the APWA Northwest Public Works Institute for Developing Leaders. This is a really great local or regional program that we have available. Their mission in a nutshell is really to help develop upcoming leaders in the realm of public works. So, there's usually a good cross-section of folks that are already like public works directors and then some lower not lower level but uh upcoming leaders as well that go through that program. It's really great. It's usually got a wait list to get into it and it's something that we're really invested in putting um our potential future leaders into as well. On the continuous improvement front with our lean program, uh we also um had a couple of people graduate in 2025. What I'll highlight here is that as of this point, uh we have 12 certified employees either at the green belt level or the and or the black belt level. And we also have two going through the program right now, which is really exciting. Uh and then just to call out as well, we have a third employee at the city going through the lean program. um he works in planning and community development. All right, a couple of other things I'll

highlight here. Um as a city, we were awarded um $2.2 million in grants, which is fantastic. Um and you can see the breakdown there. We've been working obviously to uh reduce where we can from a budget perspective and this year we had the opportunity to contract out our janitorial services. Um, this was a big change for us. Um, and overall what it's helping us save is about $140,000 per year compared to when we had the janitorial services provided by in-house employees. And the final thing here is the name that snowplow community event. Um, this was the event that we're almost done with. Uh, at this point we have five of our seven snow plows painted. We solicited as a almost like a coloring contest and a naming contest um ideas from our local uh Lake Stevens school district elementary uh students. We had 700 submitts and of those 700 we picked the we didn't the community voted on the top seven uh to be painted onto our plows. So these are really cool. A shout out to Ace Hardware for making a donation of supplies um for this to be possible for us. It's been really fun to see it come to life. Okay, moving on. We've got uh some information here on engineering and capital projects. I'll let Eric speak to uh the TBP program, the transportation benefit program uh right after my topic here, so I won't touch that. However, we have a lot of stuff in motion. Um so we have kind of a recap of some of the big projects that we've been focusing on including the Frontier Heights Park phase two. Um it began began construction including a multi-use sports field, pickle ball courts and a sensory garden. Uh the Bay View Trail phase 0.5 design

is complete and we'll be uh constructing that here in 2026. the 131st Avenue Northeast project. This is the street that um our public works and parks and recreation shop is located on. Uh this will be uh constructed here in 2026. And then finally, we have the 91st Avenue Southeast phase 2 sidewalk uh that will be constructed coming this summer as well. I'll highlight here that the project will provide a 10-foot multi-use path along the east side of the roadway, a bike lane on the west side of the road with the cap traffic calming measures and the addition of pedestrian lighting. So, those are all really great things coming up for our community. And then finally, our um division has been focused along with other divisions as well on uh improving accessibility and creating safer streets. So here we have a summary of some of our 2025 pavement preservation accomplishments and we also have a summary of some of our sidewalk and ADA improvements as well. One thing that I always like to reiterate is this concept of when we're able to do preventative maintenance or take care of our assets earlier rather than later. It's a huge benefit for the city because one, it allows us to take care of things in a more efficient way from a budget perspective and also it just keeps the community looking really nice and keeps it functioning at a high level for longer. Moving forward, um we have some information here on our operations teams. So we've highlighted our four operations here on the left, including our streets team, storm water team, fleet team, and facilities team. They are all working really hard to keep uh everything working as best as they can and also reacting uh when things break

um using prioritization and trying to anal analyze where the riskier things are so we can tackle those first. Uh here in this top picture, this is Olivia. She is one of our maintenance workers on the streets team. And we wanted to highlight her. She's amazing. She's got lots of different certifications. And as you can see there, she is driving one of our heavier pieces of equipment, which is an excavator, which is super cool. And what I wanted to highlight on this page as well, I won't go through all of these, but this table here in the lower right is essentially the uh some of the major types of assets that we maintain along the city. So, I'll give you a moment to kind of look at those and then we will scroll forward. I will call out that we are maintaining all of these assets whether it's streets or sidewalks things that are under the ground like our storm water infrastructure fleets uh fleet and equipment public facilities. We're able to manage all of this as best we can with our limited team of 33 people right now. This next page is really interesting. I think this is almost like a summary describing about how do we keep things functioning. I won't go into all of the details about this, but this section really highlights uh some of the background and context for why it is that we try to take a proactive approach for maintaining the assets that we have. So, a few things here that contribute to um us being able to not only maintain the assets, but also the impacts on the ecosystem. The positive impacts on the ecosystem include trimming roadside vegetation to improve visibility and to keep signs clear. Uh this is really

great, right? when we're out driving around, we're not having things in our way that might hit our vehicle or that prevent us from seeing the stop sign or prevent us from seeing um somebody maybe coming around the corner. Next thing is replacing worn or damaged street signs before they become safety hazards. Sweeping the streets to remove leaves, litter, and loose gravel that could clog the storm drains or otherwise become pollutants in our waterways. inspecting and cleaning ponds, catch basins, and other storm water facilities that we have. Again, when we maintain our storm water infrastructure, the overall output that goes back into the storm waterways is much cleaner and um better for the environment. We have other preventative maintenance things that we do as well. Um but the long story short is that these things all work together both from an efficiency perspective and positively for the environment. So managing the lake obviously we're really proud that over the last several years uh our lake clarity has really really improved. So in this page we can see some uh of the more some of the details and the background as to how it is that we know that the water is getting clearer and some of the things that we check for with our environmental service uh environmental programs team. This graph here shows us that over time from 21 to 2025 that we are seeing a significant improvement in how deep the water clarity is. So the deeper that we can see the water clarity generally is better. And as far as how do we know that the water uh quality is improving? Our environmental programs team uh they do testing regularly uh every month and during their testing they're checking

things including the pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, nutrients like phosphorus and algae. So this regular monitoring that they're doing helps us to track the lake and watershed shed health and it guides management decisions including when we need to treat the lake or take other action. And we also have some information on this page about the watershed and how essentially everything makes it back to the lake or out of the lake. A little bit more about environmental programs. This page here is really about some of their capital projects that they're working on right now. There's three major projects they're focusing on, including the replacement of the 36 Street Bridge. Um, this is a bridge that has been failing and we are getting ready to replace it. Second big project here is with the lower Stevens Creek channel realignment. This is um that channel that's right by city hall. Um, and essentially this is a restoration project that aims to restore the creek's historic path near Hartford Drive. Um, historically this um, channel went a different direction and when we were a um, town that was doing a lot of logging, the channel was redirected into the current location that it is now.

Finally, uh, this big third big project is the Salmonid Basins project. So, this is really an effort um a long-term effort to implain uh improve the salmon habitat and water quality across Lake Stevens. We do have some QR codes here. So, if you want to learn more about these specific projects, I recommend that you take a picture of that and go to our project pages on Sun City. All right, almost there. So, we have a quote here from Director Halverson U and I'll read it really quick. The public works uh department continues to keep the city operating safely while looking for ways to improve services. In 2025, all divisions worked hard and maintained strong budget discipline. We are monitoring staff workload to prevent burnout, though we did experience some turnover. In 2026, budget reductions, particularly in streets, required us to reallocate employees and scale back some programs. We remain committed to delivering highquality service, advancing the city's strategic priorities, and supporting a positive work environment. All right. And then finally, this here is our snapshot of our 2026 work plan. So, if you recall on the very first page, I did a super high-level overview of our five strategic priorities. And what this shows are the initiatives or the projects in some case that we're focusing on. There's 19 of them here. These 19 initiatives are spread across our divisions within public works. And then what we've also done is we've mapped each of those initiatives back to the strategic priorities. We do this for a couple of reasons, but one of the big things we want to check for is making sure that we're focusing on the right things. So where we see the triangles um

aligned here, if we have triangles aligned for each of the projects or initiatives, that tells us that we a have alignment and b we can check for uh balance and make sure that we are giving enough attention to each of the strategic priorities. That is all I have. Um I'm open to any questions or discussion there might be. Yeah, just real quick, the um on the fleet maintenance 93 vehicles, can you just describe the type of work that we do? Are we changing oil? Are we fixing transmissions? Like what what does fleet maintenance mean?

That's a great question. It really varies. Uh we do everything that you described. We have one shop mechanic or one um one fleet mechanic right now who maintains those 93 pieces of equipment. or uh they could be also trailers and or light duty vehicles. Um so we have a combination of those things. Uh he does do routine maintenance including um multi-point vehicle checks, replacing fluids like oil, so on and so forth. Um he does a lot of the mechanical repairs as well. And when there are things that are either out of his scope and or when things are beyond his capacity, he um along with direction from our operations manager and director Halverson uh can make the decision to send things out for repair as well. He tries his best to maintain everything in house. Um and yeah, his scope is just very very broad at this point.

Thank you. I have a quick question, Lori. This is Council Member Edwards. I um am looking at that same page there where it says about 900 linear feet of sidewalk replaced. Um is that the city specifically replaced that? That's including or not including what's been added by developers? That's a good question. Um Eric Mangle, do you have the quick answer to that? Um, I'm looking at this as well. I don't see a 900 miles. Uh, 900 ft linear feet of sidewalk on page four. Page four.

It's under the streets section. I believe this is what our streets team actually replaced, but I'll let Eric verify. Yeah, our our streets crew does do um sidewalk replacement where they they've fixed heaved pan heaved panels and things like that, but we also have done a 88 um compliance project as well through engineering through capital projects where we did a small section with the remaining budget that we had to kind of finalize the last little bits of of areas that we could get to that had a couple ADA ramps and some sidewalks and a driveway, I think. Thank you. I just I I remember on a previous report that it had been included what the developers had um put in for sidewalks. So I just wanted to clarify. So thank you.

Yeah. No, I think this 900 living fee is just what we have done. Awesome. Thank you. And developers are required to put in the sidewalks. Correct. The city does not do brand new sidewalks as developments come in. The development or the developers are required to implement sidewalks as part of their permit process. Correct. Yeah. that I I would say um as a blanket statement that that's pretty okay to say. There's obviously caveats to that. But um but traditionally, yeah, in developments they the developer is on the hook for developing the frontage and the sidewalk for that. Um there are some areas that that are kind of gray areas where we would do things, but primarily Yes.

I did notice um on the third right down the street from the 36th Street Bridge that's being replaced um the development that went just right down the street there. Instead of putting sidewalks on the side of their development all the way down, they did part of it on their side and there were sidewalks already existing on the other side of the street. And instead of continuing to a sidewalk that led to nowhere, um it's my understanding they are the ones who completed the sidewalk across the street. So now it's continuous on one side of the street. Is that correct? Uh, I I couldn't tell you that right off the top of my head from knowing that development, but I do know that we have a lot of times we call them off-site improvements where a developer will continue or or or finalize a last bit of a a sidewalk panel um just to make sure that that continuity is there. Um, and then there's also an opportunity sometimes if there isn't sidewalk there, the developers will pay a fee in lie where they they put in their money what it would have cost to put a sidewalk there and we can then use that money towards other sidewalk projects later. And then on kind of on the same note, are the contractors also responsible for the flash the flashing crosswalk signs? There's one on that street as well that's new that went in when the development went in.

They can be. Yeah. If it's if it's something that's deemed appropriate by their traffic engineers, if that is um something that the data suggests that they should do as a as a traffic calming or a traffic safety measure, then then a developer, yes, will put in an RFB. Um but we also do them our ourselves as well as part of our traffic calming policy. Okay. And the ones we put in are those for existing roads and existing traffic. I would assume that is part of traffic mitigation and this is an assumption on my part that a new developer would have to pay for those if they are creating the increase in traffic.

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So, um a a location where we have put in our um a rapid flashing beacon um which they're our RFBs is what they're typically called is right here on Main Street um at that crossing into Jay's Market. We put that one in, but that was a as a part of a traffic calming program. Thank you. Also, just on a little side note, I really like your reflectors that you're putting on some of the stop signs. It sure makes them stand out at night. Yeah, that was a suggestion by our crew and and they it's been very helpful. Do we have any more questions for Lori uh on the public works annual report? All right. Thank you, Lori. appreciate the

um we'll move on to uh a transportation benefit program update and turn it over to Eric.

Yes, thank you. Uh sorry for the technical difficulties, but good evening council again. Um I'm here just to bring you an update on the transportation benefit program. Uh you should have a copy of the implementation program in your packet already. So I'll kind of let let that be so you guys can have read that. Um really what we want to focus on is what we have planned for this year. um and kind of show the the TBP funds that we've that we've used and um what we plan to use them in the future. So um as you know or may may or may not know the TBP the transportation benefit district was um brought in and passed at in 2022. This gave us a 02% sales tax increase that we could then fund for sidewalk and roadway projects. Excuse me. Um this was a voter approved a voter approved action and so this is something that we've been working with. Um so since 2023 we've started implementing these this plan that we had. Um TPP01 is a 16th Street which is actually right here um down south just a little bit south of us on Main Street. Uh this project is awaiting state funding. It had originally been funded through state legislation and then was um went through the the legisl legislation board and they dropped it down to a tier three priority. Um and so they have said now it will be available in in future year funding. So um we're awaiting that funding. We've also applied for a couple um some grant money as well this year to try to assist that. So that is forthcoming. um TBT, TBP 2 and three we combined in 2024 and um that's our 91st Avenue side path that we built. Um those are complete. So as you see in this in this spreadsheet um the the TBP estimate for for the project was a combined of $66,000 and $88,000. U we were able to get a TIB, which I know there's a lot of acronyms I'm throwing at you, so I'm sorry for that.

TIB is the Transportation Improvement Board. Um they're a state funding agency. Um they were able we were able to secure almost $900,000 grant from them. So you can see at the end of this um spreadsheet that our actual TBP contribution was um close to $450,000 only as opposed to the $1.3 million or $1.4 million that was originally planned for. So, we were able to really um stretch those TBP dollars with the addition of the grant funds for that. Uh TBP4 is the 117th Avenue project that is currently in design. We are um at 90%. We're anticipating constructing that this year. Uh that has is part of our budget there. We see you see in our 2026 budget what we have there and you can also see what um the plan TBP contribution is for that project. uh the 91st Avenue Southeast uh phase two is what we're calling it and it goes from 12th Street Southeast to 20th Street Southeast which will effectively finalize that the first project that we did which was been highly successful. Um that is also under design as well. We're at 90% complete of that design as well and we anticipate getting that out to advertisement next month. And so that's going to be something that we will build during the summer to make sure that it's done outside of school hours and um have that we also have that slated to be continued before or completed before school starts this this summer or this fall. So you can see also too we were able to get uh eight $1.6 million in the form of two $800,000 grants. one from TIB again and then another one from the safe routes to school which is a wash dot grant. So again we've been able to leverage that money that would have cost you know what we were planning on using TBP dollars for and actually um supplement that quite a bit and and drop what our TBT TBP contribution is and so we can really stretch our funds again.

Um again So Hill Road is a TBP7. Um that one is currently in design. We're at B basically conceptual design. and we're just getting started on that project, but we intend to to build that this year, at least a phase of it. Um the so that's Soer Hill from uh Lake Drive to State Route 9, basically the the roundabout um of where the all the Soer Hill development is, the commercial stuff all the way down to Lake Drive. That's going to be the the extent of that project. But for this year, we are really um trying to get from the the senior center on Soer Hill Drive to the the roundabout, which is will effectively create, you know, we have the the senior housing that's going in um and the assisted living facility that's going in at the Soer Hill development, the commercial development. And so we'll really get to tie the the seniors at that those developments to our senior center, which will be really cool to have a walkable path that way. Um, additionally that will be super exciting for that is uh the the school district has another elementary school that's planned to come in. Um, they have one there currently and they'll have a second one that's that's um anticipated to come through and this will give the elementary schools children a safe path to get to the um Eagle Ridge Park which will again is a kind of a nature park there. So, so we're really excited about that project. Um, this one will be fully funded by TVP. Right now we're in design and so once we get to the actual construction phase um there may be additional ask to to see what the that money ends up being but right now it's fully being um done by TBP money. Um the rest of these um are are not started or um they will be developed by um private construction. So that's kind of exciting for us too. We'll kind of get a little bit of cost savings there. So essentially, we'll be able to use all of this TBP money and just keep stretching our dollars and just keep we're we're hammering on these on these grant applications and and the cool thing about having the TBP is that this gives

us money. We have basically seed money that other granting agencies say, "Oh, this this project obviously is funded, so we can give you more money." And then we're able to stretch those dollars even more by getting the grant funding. So, um it's really exciting program that that we're really taken seriously and it's really exciting. I said that like three times. Sorry. But um if you have any questions, feel free to write it. Are you excited? Always. Um I had a question about the um TBP12 on 123rd. I'm assuming that's 123rd right behind us.

Um North Lake Shore Drive. Yes, it's very will we have that done um by this summer so that people who walk downtown to festivals and hopefully if we get another farmers market don't have to go past the gas station where there's literally three entrances and exits to that corner down there on Main Street. This would be such a safer route. Yes. Uh that that is not on our our budgeted capital projects for this year. Um so it we haven't begun that one. Uh, but it is something that we have already been entertaining and trying to look into, but I don't know if we'll be able to get to that this year just because it's not a part of our our budgeted process. Okay. It might be next year. I I don't have the CIP up in front of me right now, but

have we considered for the summer um doing a visible painted walkway on that road so that there's I I don't know if the road's wide enough to do that. Um, so um so I I don't know for sure what the plan is for that one yet. uh that the 123rd it's that just that kind of small hill. It's pretty small. And so it's it's already encumbered with quite a few challenges. So it's going to take quite a bit of analyzation and and really coming up with a good design for that due just due to the constraints of of the roadway and the the rightway. Right. Thank you. Yeah.

I have a question on number four. Maybe you um mentioned it and I didn't catch it. Where is the delta between the project cost and the final? Um the other ones are offset by grants but uh the final is 900 and project cost is 1.3 or 1.2. Um what I guess where's the delta between is that the Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes. Um so the the $974,000 will come from TBP. Um, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I do know that the there will be other uh storm water capital funds or or read or or other other funds that have been dedicated to that project that are going to assist with the TBP funds. Okay. Internal, not grants. No, not no grant. We don't have any grants for this one. No.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. You're very welcome. Oh, sorry. On TB4, um, do you have a projected start date for that project? Uh, we want to get to that um, this summer. So, we are we're about 90% done with our design. So, um it's we're have a pretty aggressive schedule this summer for I think we have five capital projects um slated for construction. So, I think the city should buckle up cuz it's going to be a lot of fun. It's one of those things. Getting used to it. Yeah, I think so. Yes. But, um yeah, I I believe it'll be this summer that we try to try to attack that one as well. Awesome. Thank you.

You're welcome. Hey, Eric. In our packet, we in the implementation plan section specifically, it's page 16 of 16 of the implementation plan. There's a nice grid there that shows all the expenditures by year. Um, it looks like that's kind of out of date now, unsurprisingly. Do we do you happen to do we have an updated version of that table that could be emailed out to council later on? Uh, I can look into that. I'm not for sure on on that, but I'm sure we can get one. Okay. Thank you. because that would be helpful as far as like council member Shipman's question about when we plan to tackle stuff seeing when we're projected to have these expenses. So yeah, I think I think that was something that was adopted by the ordinance and then then we kind of go through the budgeting process. Um and so I can work with finance and and make sure that we can get something for you.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So connected to that, right, you've got a budgeted amount for 2026. You have uh $2.5 million of grants received. So, is the assumption then that yeah, we have $2.5 million in 2026 that just won't be spent and we're just going to roll that money over into next year or is there a plan to try and uh do more projects with that money? Yeah, I think total for for the total this year we had we had um in the basically in in the bank I guess to for lack of a better term we had $3 million of TVP funds. Okay.

And we are projecting to spend $2.2 $2 million of that this year. Um the the remaining money will roll over to the next year and and all these projects all these projects are built um based on our transportation benefit program. And so that all that money goes to these projects specifically put anywhere else. I guess my but you're not you won't attempt to do more projects this year. You're just going to save that money and roll it into next year's projects.

Yeah. Yeah. We've we've kind of set our work plan what we can what we can do well what is available moneywise. I don't know about people wise, but yes. Um but yeah, so that money will roll forward to the next project. Um hopefully if we can keep stretching these dollars out through grant grant funds, you can see in the in the lower when we have things like the 79th Avenue access road or the 91st Avenue um project, those those are $7 million six 6.7 million projects that um are not funded per se. they are we're trying to use grant money for that and also the TBP funds, but every dollar that we can spend then can go towards those bigger projects that are going to be harder to fund.

This might be beating a dead horse, but just to clarify some more, we're still learning. Yes. Um so the I guess to piggyback on what um Packard here was saying, the budgeted um dollar value is is budgeted without the grants being included initially. Is that correct? It it varies. Um Okay. Sometimes if we've secured the grant by the time the budget season comes through, um then we do have in our capital projects or our capital improvement plan, we do have the secured budgets. Then we also have something that's a likely or or unsecured grant that we're hoping for. Um and so we do our best to to know what we have and plan for that. And then if we get things extra after the budget season, it's just kind of a bonus, I guess.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome. Any other questions for Eric? Thank you. Great. Great presentation. Appreciate the information. Thank you so much for being here tonight. All right, we'll move on to discussion items. Both will be led by Director Garo this evening. So, I will turn it over to you, Sarah. Thank you.

Today we are first talking about the boat launch pass types. This was brought up with the thought of is there a way to further discount residential passes. Um so I'll I'll take you through our pass program and then we'll dive into that here towards the end. Uh first I wanted to start to make sure that you know what we accept right now at each of our boat locations. Um very similar where we accept our annual parking pass from Lake Stevens which we sell for $75. residents currently pay $65 for those. That is if they come in person to um either city hall or the parks public works offices or if they purchase on civic wreck and then we go ahead and mail that out. If you walk up to a kiosk that is located in either of our boat launch locations, there's no way to validate or give that discount. Um so that is up to the residents to choose how they buy. Uh there is also a day use fee of course $5 for 3 hours or $10 for all day. Um the discount as well as the hourly rate at the North Cove location were just put into place November 12th, 2024 is when that was last approved by council. So uh they're fairly new uh discounts and um hourly fees to the one location. We also at North Cove Park offer the vehicle access pass. This is a um fish and wildlife pass when you purchase a fishing and hunting license. This is because the land is owned at North Cove Boat Launch by Fish and Wildlife and the city has an operation agreement on top where we are cleaning the restrooms and the trash and we are in charge of the docks. Now they are in charge right now of the boat ramp itself. So when material needs to be added or eventual will replacement that would be up to

them. Um and that is why we offer that free fishing access for anglers essentially it says in the contract at that one location but not both. And then we also have um any veteran who has a 30% or higher service connected disability. Um there is something called a disabled veterans lifetime pass that is issued through Washington state and when they have that card they can display it on their on their car and get that discount. So they're not coming into us to then exchange it for an annual parking pass as that would take admin time. So we just allow that one to be used at both locations. Um on the residential discount, we do limit it as one per address. Um and we actually validate it and keep track in our system and that's to make sure that nobody is purchasing multiple that could then be given to um other people who may not qualify for the discount. U there's only a handful of people that do purchase two per year currently. This next slide takes you through the um other organizations nearby. Um most of them are cities although state is on here as well as county to show within Snomish County what are the records that we could find as we combed the internet for all other boat launches and their annual pass programs. We did find a couple that don't have annual programs and that are on day use only. we left them off this list and we left off any pricing for hourly or day use as I can bring that back if you're interested. Um we are at the $75 rate with a $65 resident discount. Um the only other resident discount on the list is City of Muckle Tio. Their full price is $170 and they have an $85 discount that is for Elliot Point which has a 3 to four lane boat launch. The highest one is Port of Everett at 225. They offer a senior discount. They have a total of 13 lanes.

Um, and then the comparables are the uh four right below City of Lake Stevens. Washington State sells their Discover Pass for $45. Um, if you purchase it online or at certain retailers, they have a $5 processing fee. They have over 700 locations across the state with boat launches. City of Mary'sville has one launch at $75. Snomish County currently operates three at $75. And then City of Everett has two locations and their annual cost is $89. Now I want to shift gears and talk about revenue and what we are making from our program. Uh this is the actual sale data from last year. We sold a total of $23 passes and received $15,030 from our passes last year. Um now pay attention to the blue line as we go through these slides. The blue line or the blue cells will always be what's current to help you track with the different um analytical situations that I've provided here. Um with this data, 21 of the individuals that redeemed their passes and we have records on in our civic wreck program which is our database is parks and recreation. 21 of those individuals could have received the residential discount but did not take advantage of that. And so I integrate that as we move forward through the slides with what if scenarios. And that's where you can see the number of residential passes. The blue has gone away because we've added what people could qualify for. And that way we're taking 2025 numbers, but really looking at what's the potential as we move forward each year because I think that's important to uh realize as you may not be um providing all of the discounts that people qualify for in this situation. Um 37 passes were purchased at a kiosk at full price. However, those

were not brought into either city hall or the public works parks location to receive an actual annual pass. What that means is I cannot tell you if those people are residents or not. And so that adds to the potential discount that could be available. Um right here this shows that if 84 people had taken the residential discount and still 213 passes were sold, we would have received 14,715. Moving forward one more slide, we put together the assumption that 37 passes may have qualified for a residential discount. We went ahead and um applied 50% to the residential discount to show you that had that occurred, we would have received $14,445 instead of the $1530. It's only a $583 difference in this scenario, but could be compounded if we sell double the passes in the future. Of course, what you'll see on the slide is as you go down and change price points, I've given you an idea of what the revenue would change and be. This last slide I created specifically for the scenarios of changing the past dollar amounts. And as you move from a um discount of $60, which is $15 off, and reduce that only by $10 to50 in order to keep up with the actual revenues that we received this year, which was $15,030, you would have to charge the full price at $90 if you're trying to keep that the same. um and then moved the numbers down to just show you kind of some of the fluctuations. Um I have a few different numbers on this slide just to help with crunching numbers if you had something

at $85 or $95. And I can come back to this during our discussion at any point. One thing I think that is very important to keep on your mind is yes, we value our our residents and we want to ensure that they're they're getting fair prices. Um, but we also want to make sure that our city is funded. The parks and recreation department is fully funded by the general fund, which is of course that sales and property tax. There's been a huge focus this last year on parks increasing their cost recovery. We're only at 6% just a hair below right now. Um, we will be as stated in uh prior meetings that we will be working on a cost recovery model, strategy or philosophy. We'll find out what the best title is for us and this will help create rules for us for what services should be subsidized for parks and wreck. Um, but right here I put a philosophy of how the parks and recreation operates. Um, community benefits should be subsidized. That's everybody should be able to walk to a park. They should be able to get to the trail, the open space, to the lake, to the community events, and the list goes on with what is a community benefit. Individual or exclusive benefits should be charged in order to then offset other subsidies in parks and wreck. This could be facility rentals, special park use, such as a specific boat ramp. Boat ramps are um they cost a lot more to maintain. Um I imagine it's going to be no less than $3 million when we need to replace a single boat launch and that is the concrete portion that just goes from the land into the water, not talking about the other facilities. Um, subsidies um can also be put in place to lower the barrier for targeted groups. So, if we're trying to provide scholarships and discounted prices, that might be for seniors, youth, or low-income. That's generally where parks and recck um tends to provide those discounts. Of course, every city gets to decide what is the right fit for them. I

just today don't have a actual strategy to share with you that we've agreed upon, but we'll be coming back to that another time. That is the end of my discussion. Um, I left up on this slide the comparable rates for locations nearby. Um, on my analysis, I would recommend no changes at this time. The reason why is the reduced rate of the $15 discount has only been in place really for one full year with the numbers that we have. And it's not quite enough of a sample to see what is it going to do next this year, this current 2026 year, as that word spreads that I could have got a residential discount. Um, increasing rates above $75 would be inconsistent with some of the comparable boat launches around us. So, it's something to keep in mind. Um, but you can you can definitely charge whatever you would like for that actual rate. Um, if you were to hold off, I would recommend that we can bring it back in 2027 and that way we have two years to compare what did that $15 discount do. Uh, from there, I'll turn the discussion over to you. I'm happy to answer any questions or go through slides.

Is there a typo? It says 65 for residents. Is it 60 or 65? I apologize. It's a $15 discount. Okay. So, it is 60. This is a typo. It is $60 if you're a resident.

And one thing I would like to add that wasn't in this presentation is I was one of the people who took advantage of this. So, I experienced it myself. My discover pass, previously the de discover passes were accepted at Cove Park. And when we changed it, I actually came back to you and said, "Well, wait a minute. I voted for that change." But what about the people who have already bought their pass and thought they could use it for a whole calendar year here in Lake Stevens? So, we extended it until I think the end of November or December, um, mine expired the end of September, so through the voting season. So, someone like myself who had a Discover pass that was valid through last summer, our numbers aren't going to show up here because this summer we're going to have to buy a different pass. So, that's something to um kind of keep in mind is hopefully we'll recover a few more funds from those that had in the past used the Discover Pass.

Yes. And that uh the Discover Pass was accepted here at the North Cove boat launch. separately over at Davies that pass wasn't accepted but we were still accepting the Snowomish County pass. Okay. And so you have a lot of different movement that has happened with the pass over um the last 15 months. And was that one grandfathered in based upon the date it was purchased as well?

Yep. Absolutely. It um we did a phase out. We did an agreement with them and there was an entire one-year notice. Uh when we acquired Davies Beach from Snomish County, of course, we acquire it just like we did Cavalero. very great price for us as the city. Um, but we as the agreement said we would continue to honor their prices until we agreed not to. And so we had to give them notice and then they had to take it to their council and we had a written agreement to say this is the date we will discontinue it. Nice. So then this is going to be our first summer where all of the revenue is going to go to the city. Correct. Nice.

Yes. I just want to reiterate um the Washington Fish and Wildlife Fishing License Pass. Um, I'm actually excited to know that I can actually use that for something now because when you buy your fishing license, you get that yellow slip of paper, you can hang it on your window, but it doesn't work anywhere. So, to know that I can use that as an avid angller myself, uh, right here at North Cove, I I appreciate knowing that, but I think it's really important to differentiate between that Washington State Fish and Wildlife Recreational Parking Pass versus the um, Discover Pass. So, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. You're welcome. And just remember, don't show up at Devies with that one. Use it right here at the North.

Yes. Got that. So, I have some comments, but you have two presentations. The other one is complimentary. Is that correct?

The other presentation following this one is a whole different topic that is about looking at charging for parking at all lakeside locations. And so we have analyzed the other locations at the request of well it started with a idea from staff where we could potentially do that as a revenue generator in the future but then council had also brought it up a few meetings ago. So that would be actually charging for passing at non-boat ramp locations and with that issuing a resident pass that could be free or for sale and is that something we want to proceed with? So two separate conversations. I think they're complimentary and so I may wait to ask my questions until we hear that presentation and then I would make some points related to both of it. But yeah,

yeah, I'll I'll say that the other one does not talk about paid parking at boat launches. Sure. Um, so it could be that your your comments apply to both. I guess yeah, my my comments are largely of uh well, I'll just say it. Yeah, I'm not excited about paid parking at any of the public parks. Just because it's connected to the lake doesn't mean it's well, some people would say it's special, but right then why are we not charging for parking at the community park or at the Cavalero Park, right? It opens up this huge can of worms. So, absolutely.

Uh I think it's all connected. I mean, I was the one that asked for this. I would love for our citizens to pay nothing and have uh non-citizens, right? people coming from Everett or Snomish or whatever else be paying for all of this, right? We're already paying taxes for our community. Um, so I know that came up the other week of, oh, you know, it's a user tax. Well, it's some of the users are getting taxed here, right? A lot of people use the lake. A lot of people use the boat launches. Uh, it's really the people that are dropping a boat in the water that are getting and it's only those people that are dropping it in because they don't live on the lake, right? people that live on the lake are using that all the time and aren't being uh taking a fee for using the ramp. Maybe they're paying it based on their lakeside property fees. So, it's just it's complicated. Uh and my general philosophy is we should pay as little as possible and let other people pay for it. Even I'll go so far as if we lost all 15,000 of that revenue, that wouldn't bother me. uh because you're asking a very select group of people to pay that fee when a lot of people use the lake for recreation.

Um the and just to point out the 15,000 is only for the annual pass program. That's not about the hourly.

Sure. Understood. Just to follow up on that, conversation over the past years around this has focused on um preserving the lake for Lake Stevens residents and because it gets so busy um during the summer, the parks and the lake um that that that same conversation has happened before. If if if we were to um look at a fee for non-Lake Stevens residents only and increase that fee, um would that help bring down the traffic a little bit, increase safety, increase access for Lake Stevens residents and um be maybe a deterrent for other folks that don't live here to put their boats in. And there are pros and cons to that and we've talked about that before, but just that's the conversation has happened in the past. I just until we get a parks department that's funded. Right now we do not have a funded parks department that a standalone parks department comes out of our general fund and property taxes which again is 7% of what you're paying on your property. 7% for the entire general fund, not for parks, right? Um and then a percentage of sales tax goes to pay for our parks as well. We have a tight tight tight tight budget and we have asked our departments to make some major cuts in um some of the projects they're doing in their departments and we're talking about staffing even and not replacing staff and um these are some pretty significant cuts. I think as somebody who pays to use the boat launch, I don't live on the lake. I have no problem. I mean, $60 if you go less than 12 times and buy a day pass, you know what I mean? It's pretty I don't think it gets much cheaper than that. Definitely not if you head south. And we need that money. These boat launches, we had a dock fail at our brand new dock at Sunset Beach. That was

a $50,000 repair last summer. I remember because I questioned it quite a bit um about whose responsibility it was to pay that and it ended up being ours. $50,000 because the bulkhead didn't hold on that and was engineered incorrectly. We need this money and it's a small fee and if you're using a boat on the lake, I think you should have to pay more than the many, many, many, many, many, many people that live in Lake Stevens that also pay property taxes and also pay sales taxes and never benefit from the boat launch and but they're still contributing to it, right? So, this small amount I think is justified. And when it comes to people who live on the lake and use their boats on the lake, um I don't know. I think their property taxes are quite a bit more than mine, right? I think they're paying quite a bit more than those of us that don't live on the lake in their property taxes. And hopefully they're making some big purchases, too, and pay more in sales tax. But um but anyhow, I think this is very fair and it's not a tax, it's a user's fee. Our property taxes are a tax. Our sales tax is a tax. This is a user fee. The same way if you were to rent out the mill, it's a user fee. I really like the idea of turning the um lending park that used to be a concession stand into a place people can rent and another user fees and offering another opportunity for families. Um I also will say I grew up in Everett and when I was in my early 20s, I had friends that lived on the lake. They were cabins at that point in time. That's how old I am. And um I used to launch at um Davies Beach all the time and we'd come out here and go water skiing. Now if I was coming from outside of Lake Stevens and I had to buy a $75 pass or a daily pass, I'd have to weigh how often I'm using that, right? Um but I think it's fair because the vast majority of people who live within our city limits do not use the boat launch.

They may live the beach, they may use the parks. I I would be hardressed to believe the majority of people that live in the city of Lake Stevens use the boat launch. And those that do have purchased a vehicle knowing you have to buy extra tabs for that vehicle. And believe it or not, they come at the same time every year. Your water vehicles do. They're not from when you purchase them. They're the same month every year regardless. So that first year, you get a few months depending on when you buy it. And there's, you know, extra tabs for your trailer. There's, you know, maintenance. There's lunch fees in most places. And that goes along with purchasing the vehicles. Just like we don't get on the ferry. If you walk on a ferry, it's going to be cheaper than if you drive on a ferry. So, I just very very can't express how much I think we need to charge this fee and I think it's very reasonable.

I have a question. um because we're coming up on budget conversations and I've heard it is part of the general fund but it was a new department that was unfunded before and I don't know that um I am curious how many cities or um have a standalone revenue for parks. I think typically it does come out of the general fund is typically or I guess I'm curious how many cities um have a special tax for parks or there's a special district for parks um because it's not atypical that parks department is part of the general fund and part of your property taxes. And so, uh, just because we didn't put together a parks department until a few years ago doesn't mean that parks and parks maintenance, um, shouldn't come out of the general fund and be incorporated or, you know, I guess that's my I'm I'm curious on that.

Yeah. So, um, to answer your question is about it being um, unfunded, brand new department, a lot of the costs that were associated with parks and wreck were buried in other departments. M we we didn't do cost accounting to articulate the number of staff. Um so for instance um before the department was hired um Don and Jill were both under planning community development

on the park side they really for a handful of years only had one person assigned to parks but would often pull in from streets and storms and other areas. And so the accounting gets really fuzzy before that time. And so that that's why we don't have a great comparison. Um, in answer to your question, we brought this up during the council retreat and there's no one-sizefitit all. Every city has a different funding mechanism. Um, however, I had information from the national um recreation and parks agency on c cost recovery and for our size population, it varied between 15.8 and 46.5 cost recovery with the medium being 25.8 cost recovery. we are at 6%. Um, and then there was another slide that went over how they're funded. Um, across America, the people that participated in this survey, the different agencies, 63% of the department is general fund.

20% is earned revenue, so shelters, facility rentals, paid services like boat launch fees. um 8% plus 4% were special levies and taxes voted and non-voted. Um and then there was a a hair of other stuff mixed in like grants and that's uh that is the nationwide snapshot from um NRPA which is the national recreation parks. I can send you a whole document if you want to dive. I'm I'm more curious on our local you know Washington state cities. What do other cities how do they fund their parks? Um

yeah I guess is it Is it typical, atypical, how much, you know, if they have a different source of revenue, what is that? Um, other than user fee, I guess that's that would be my We're starting to dive in now on that with the cost recovery stuff. Um, the answer is a lot of cities have never even done the math. Um, but we can get the information we have and bring it out as we proceed down that route with cost recovery. Thank you.

Yeah, I'll just make one more comment. Yeah, I understand your comments about the use fee. Again, I just think you're se we're selecting that boats are somehow special. Either all facilities should have a fee or none of them should have a fee because I can go use Lake Stevens Community Park. I can now go play pickle ball or shortly at Frontier Park for free. I don't have to pay to use that even though I'm the one that's going to be using that all the time. Uh it's just a slippery slope to say, hey, somebody is a a select group of people who use public facilities should pay. Either all things should have a fee or none of them should have a fee. And I will clearly communicate I'm in the none of them because I do not want to have to pay a fee every time I want to go play at the park, right? Or like if I go to the high school tennis courts, I don't pay a fee for those, right? Those are already paid for somehow. Uh so there are lots of places where you could use that use fee rationale and I think we just yeah if we're going to if we're going to ask other citizens outside of our city to come use those facilities great. I'm just not excited about making our citizens do that.

I support the the boat fees. I mean I think if you got a boat you're used to throw $1,000 in there for no reason every year anyway, right? That's what boat stands for part. It doesn't make it feel any better though. No, it doesn't make you feel any better. But I think that's different. The parking, which we're going to get to next, I think that I got some pretty strong feelings about that. I do agree with you that citizens shouldn't have to pay for park at any of the parks, but any from out of town should seems like that's a good segue to start talking about discussion option. Anything else or dive right into the next? on with the next.

Just choose the right slideshow so I don't go through that again. Hey Sarah, really quick for clarification. Absolutely. So if Davies, we would responsible for the concrete ramp and everything entering into the the beach, but down here it would be fish and wildlife that would have to replace the ramp. That's the current agreement. Okay. Thank you. Yes. So whereas our capital project coming up for the wooden dock itself for motorized is going to be around 4 million. It would be likely at least 3 million to replace the concrete ramp leaving the parking area and going into the water. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Sarah, while you're pulling that up too, that expense for the dock and the ramp, would you say that is among the uh higher expenses we would have for all our parks? I mean, I'm trying to think what would be comparable like over here. I mean, even replacing wholesale the playground equipment. I mean, would that be $3 to $7 million?

A good size playground. I would never recommend a budget of less than 300,000. That's going to be a really small playgrounds. Maybe five or six children at once. Um, they can easily be a half million, 750,000 for a really good size one or a million plus depending on what you're trying to do. um for its size and its very specialized use. It's probably one of the more expensive capital projects. Um the synthetic turf field for instance, one of those which has multiple user groups and types of sports. Um likely around 1 million for that itself. Okay. And we don't have to get into it now. I'm just Yeah.

I'm wondering, you know, u average life expectancy for a ramp and a dock versus cost. you know, is that one of the areas where maybe a fee is warranted because of the high cost and, you know, how often we have to replace it. But any information you have on that down the road would be great, but don't worry about tonight. Yeah, I think it's about what everybody can walk to and choose to use versus who doesn't have that item and would never actually use the boat launch. Even as a a non-motorized, you can put in your um paddle board um or or kayak at any location. might not be the word that we like, but it it's industry standard um across the nation for the boat launch fees. Yeah. Okay.

And and just on a side note, um the school district does have facility use fees. I know because I pay them. So, no, you do if you're um having something going on at the schools, whether it's the Boys and Girls Clubs basketball team or um you know, the the Cub Scouts having a meeting at one of the elementary schools. There are facility use fees to use the school district facilities. So the outside ones like the tennis court, but I don't even think you can access the like football fields and stuff because they're protecting them because they're very very expensive to implement. But I do know they have facility use fees. Absolutely.

I know different rates for for different types too. Nonprofit versus public.

All right. Paid parking and residential pass program. Uh we'll be getting into a review of possible locations, number of spaces, parking rate, anticipated revenue and expenses. Um if we were to implement then a residential pass, what would that look like if we offered free passes for residents so that we're only charging non-residents? And what would it look like if we had passes that residents could pay for so paying a bulk rate instead of every time that they go? Huge disclaimer. This information is provided to open the conversation. and it has many assumptions. It was extremely high level. If you decide to proceed, then I will do a deeper dive and and we'll have many more conversations and flesh this out. So, we'll go pretty quick just to get to the end result. A yes, no answer questions. Paid parking first. Lundine, North Cove, Milspur, Swim Beach, Sunset. The number of parking spaces exclude Davies Beach and the specific North Cove boat launch sides. Um so we have a total of 194 um actually marked parking spaces that we could charge for. This excludes any street side parking that could be opened up. Um I went ahead and decided on a peak season and an off- peak season and how many days fall within those. And then I crunched a Monday through Thursday versus a Friday versus a Saturday and Sunday. You have more traffic on the weekends. So tried to drop in some assumption numbers where with peak season we have numbers of anywhere from one and a half to three cars per space per day. In an off peak it drastically drops to 10 to 20% of available spots. So um with this something like um sunset we would only have one user Monday through Thursday that would want to pay on December. So those were the assumptions that I used to advance the

different analysis with the financial side of this. At the bottom you can see the total number of peak and off peak visits anticipated which would be about 46,000 um 700 spots paid per year. So that is the assumptions that base the rest of this financial stuff. I also assumed that $5 per day would be the fee. This doesn't account for hourly. I can do those numbers, but it would take me a lot more time if you decide to go there. We can absolutely dig into that later. This would bring in a total revenue of around $233,000. We would not be able to enforce all of this paid parking without bringing on another CSO officer. And so I dropped in costs for that. U made some assumptions about how many phone calls we would receive in our offices, parks and wreck and city hall. And then the maintenance that the field crew would need to be for removing tags off of signs and replacing them when graffiti ruined um even just cleaning them every year. Uh payment cost, this is per transaction. Um the system itself, it I believe it was about $2,000 a month from the numbers I pulled. Plus every time there's a transaction, there's a 35cent transaction fee plus a credit card processing fee. And then the cost of replacing signs and buying them, of course. That would bring this to a yearly expense minus revenues would be around $33,000 difference. This would be just on an annual year. However, there is a startup year where costs are more expensive. We have to buy the cso the vehicle. We need to um get the signs installed and set up all of the mobile payments. The contract I found, I couldn't get two companies to call me back over the past 3 weeks. Um, but I did find one of their contracts available online. So, the numbers may be outdated, but it is uh real numbers that I could rely on. The first year we would be in the negative60,000 to get this up

and going. So, it would take you 2 or 3 years to start making money. Now, this is assuming that it's all a payer phone app, which means you scan the QR code and you have to do it on your phone. in order to bring in kiosks that you would walk up to to put in cash or swipe your credit card. That's a whole another fee and another thing to manage. So, if that was an option, we'd have to bring those scenarios in later. Just for the fun of it, I threw in, well, what if this was $7 instead of $5? This is where year one is profitable if all of the assumptions are correct, of course. Um, the hard part is you don't want to ever charge more outside of the boat launch areas as people are then going to crowd the boat launch areas. is we want those to be reserved for people who have boats and are trying to carry them. So, just something to keep in mind with different price points. If we were to proceed with that, transitioning into a residential pass program, there's two options when you look at passes. There's a sticker and a hanging tag. Um, pros and cons on each stickers you have to rip off and get replaced. You have to come in and get another one. You can't share them with people. Um, they do have to have a replacement if they sell their vehicle, total it. Um, some people say stolen or just need to replace their windshield. There's costs. Um, a lot of public doesn't like to put a sticker on their inside windshield. Um, I I lived and breathed this in my last job, so I' I've dealt with um where to place it. Um, hanging tags, there would be no replacement program, so if it's lost or stolen, too bad, buy another one, which is really hard for people to hear. um they are more expensive to purchase. Uh they can also be shared. So if an a guest is coming in from out of town, you could be like, "Here, take my pass for the day." So that is one of the downsides, but it could also be a pro where you're able to share it. Um with hanging tags, most people would likely only buy one, or if we were to give away them, it might only be one, and that could be problematic if you have two

vehicles in the household trying to meet each other at the park. So just some pros and cons to think about if we were to ever do a a pass program and the different options. Um, and you could even apply the stickers to the boat launch if we were to to cut the price in half and do stickers. This is all relative. Going back to that conversation as well. Uh, we with 2025 data have 14,74 houses here in Lake Stevens, which has likely changed since then. The assumption would be with stickers that you have two per household hanging tags. You would have one per household. I have some assumptions about replacement percentage that we would have to do throughout the year and what our order numbers would have to look like and the cost for those so that we can say how much would these programs cost to get up and running. Um, if we were to ever give away these to all residents, I would highly recommend that we mail them out. It would be very hard to have 14,000 different people walk into the office for just this purpose and then it would be hard to decide who's who's got them. you would just do one batch and mail them all out. Um, lots of staff time in there. Even uh with the assumptions, I believe it was the staff time. Oh, yes, staff time. 3 minutes each to mail the pass. So, that's getting the uh list, doing the mail merge, printing the labels, putting them on the envelopes, stuffing the envelopes, and getting them out the door. Um, I have some cost built in for stamps, envelopes, and uh pro program information cards. They're just little third page rack cards to say, "Here's how you use it. Do this. Don't do that. Um, overall it would be 20 about $23,000 to do this for stickers, $31,000 to do this with hanging tags. And then you have staff costs that would be estimated at a.5 FTE admin. So that would be an increase to staffing needs.

And those those costs weren't in your previous slide, were they? Or were they already accounted for that? Um in the previous the slide before this where you were showing the revenue after year one and startup costs sorry before that 199,000. Yeah. Um this is separate. This is now if we were So the other one that we were talking about is if everybody just had to pay when they visit the parks. No difference. Anybody and everybody who visits must pay and these are the revenues. Got it.

If we were to go to this paid program, you've probably made the leap. Yes. many of these would be residents and we would have to go back and adjust down well what would be the actual revenue to offset this cost. Um and I haven't made those assumptions that would likely take some parking studies and some surveys in the parks throughout the year to get some accurate information before you dive in and have a program that is upside down because that would be something we want to avoid. Of course, um if you were to sell the passes, so maybe we go, hey, everybody who goes up to a park needs to pay the daily rate, but you can buy that annual pass just like we do with the boat launch program. Um this would be some assumptions based on that and what the revenue could be assuming that 10% of households want to buy that pass. Um, if we were to charge $40 a pass, we'd have to play with numbers and decide what that number would look like, but it could potentially bring in a revenue of of $57,000 if you were okay with charging the public $40 for the year for all Lakeside locations. Uh, this would drop the FTE drastically uh closer to your point 2 admin time. Uh, programmatic cons concerns for free residential passes. If we proceed, we would need to talk about these things later. Um, it's an expensive program as as you got to a minute ago. Are there enough non-residents to cover the cost of all the materials and staff time? Is this something that we open the door to? Um, decisions on who gets the pass. Is it the renter? Is the landlord? Um, what happens with the shared households? They're going to have to arm wrestle that one out and decide who gets to put it on their car when it comes in the mail. Um, how do you handle it when a resident moves or sells out of their house? My assumption would be you probably just issue one per year and if you miss that cutoff, you have to buy your own and you'll get in the free pot next year. Um the hardest thing about

this program is when you come to purchase in person, we're taking you at face value with all not all residential discounts that you live where you're telling me that you live. Um in Washington state, they don't give you a little sticker to put on your license when you update your address. And so mailing is really the best way to validate that only residents are getting the non-residential price. That is the end of my presentation. I really just want to get some feedback questions and discussions. I I left a few talking points up here. Do you want to proceed with paid parking? And if yes, is it all Lakeside locations, select locations? Do you want to expand to nearby streets? Do you want to proceed with a single day rate or hourly or a combination of? Are you okay with the electronic payments or do you want to go with kiosk? Um and then would you want to proceed with residential pass? And if yes, is it free or paid?

Um I with the program I would recommend no free passes simply because you can see how those balances could really tip if you've proceed. So to that point on the everybody pay slide, if I'm remembering correctly, wasn't the projected revenue year two on roughly $30,000? Um if you're going to charge $7 per visit, okay, then the year one would profit well would be um net positive 30,000 and what about $5 in year two? Um you would lose 60,000 in the first year and every year after that

would only be 33 and so you would not break even until year three and then you would start seeing revenues after that and that's if everybody pays. whereas our expenses for a placard were roughly $30,000. So right there, we're hoping to break even. And that's that's not even factoring in the lost revenue, right? Correct. So that program is already underwater based on these numbers. If we did the stickies, that's 20 something thousand. But again, with the lost revenue from the residents, I'm guessing that's break even or underwater. So, it seems like based on these numbers, that's this is a non-starter.

Also, I I would hesitate to charge for parks because a lot of low-income families, a lot of young families, this is one place they can take their children, um that's not going to cost them an arm and a leg. And a $5 parking fee to some families will be a deal breakaker. Um, that's kind of my two cents is I think that uh if you go to parks, you'll see a lot of families and um a lot of times that's the one thing they can afford to do and how they can afford to be by the lake is to go to one of our parks.

I would agree with that on residents, but what about out of city residents? I don't think the numbers make sense to mail out a free pass to citizens and then pay an employee to enforce parking for those that are non-citizens. And and to that point, and Kim, to your point as well, if someone lives a block outside of the city limits and they are struggling to make ends meet and we're putting an additional barrier to them being able to bring their kids to the park, I just I feel I I can't support that, especially in our current economy. And I get our current economy includes our city budget and how do we fund our parks? And I I I appreciate that that we're thinking outside the box and we're trying to come up with creative solutions. I do not think having our residents pay to use our parks and pay to park in the parking lot is the direction I feel comfortable supporting. I would also agree that I would not want residents um to pay to come to our parks. And I think I actually made a comment on this when we discussed it previously as a parent um who tried to use the lake with my kids is really oftent times um just a deterrent because of how busy our parks are. And so I would just not use the parks. Um, I think that as someone who has dealt with being low income, um, even a $3 fee could be a difference between putting a half a gallon of gas now in your car. Um, and so I I'm all for having fees to park in our parks for non-residents, but I see um, Council President George Sad's point with that as far as the boundaries. Um, so I I'm torn.

Well, I mean without the residents it the numbers don't add up anyway. So it's, you know, the math doesn't matter. Yep.

So even even within that though pushing that we are paying we are charging at Davies Beach, right? Nonboat launch users pay to park there. So are we going to say we should not be charging for that facility either? If you want to if you want if you want boat launchers to pay, separate conversation, but there are 50 slots or whatever there are there that get full every single summer day that people are paying. Why is that beach special and the other ones aren't? And I'll be clear, I'm not saying charge the other ones. I'm saying let's not charge there either then. Why why are we doing that one separately? I get there's a revenue stream and people are just used to paying it, but that's not a good reason for doing it in my opinion.

Probably a hangover fee from the county owned it the county. Okay. So, I agree with you again. Why are we doing that? We're we're charging people to pay at that park to go spend the day at the beach. They could go to London instead, but they want to go to that one. Why Why are we being selective there about which park we charge people for? Yeah. So Davies is the only park that doesn't have any free parking within the um parking area. Um limited street side of course it's would be very difficult to park street side and then that sounds like Lake Stevens in general.

Yeah, that's true. Um so that it does leave us with four locations uh that have um a free parking in order to walk to the park. And I say four because Milspur and North Cove here are really considered the same, but they separated them for parking numbers.

For the purposes of discussion, I will just throw this out there. Um, all the points I've heard are well taken, but at the end of the day, we are faced with trying to fund or at least recover costs associated with our parks department. And as was said a couple weeks ago, big hearts don't pay bills. Um, so I mean if if it's not going to come through parking fees and things like that, which I I'm not excited about either, um, at some point the council will have to decide where that money comes from or what expenses get reduced. So

sir, can you go back to that slide where you had the cost out for like the cso vehicle? I think it was like 78,000. Is that for a a full vehicle like police car? Is that what we're talking about when you have that 78,000 for CSO startup costs? Yeah, CSOS have a little bit of a modified vehicle compared to the rest of ours. I believe they're in trucks if my memory serves me correct. Yeah. Um

but yes, these numbers came from the police department and finance when we're looking at Cso um staffing as well as their equipment needs in year one. And then of course five, seven years down the road that vehicle will need to be replaced. And so that's also not captured here. But th those officers would strictly be in charge of parking and things like that around the city. Correct. They're not going to be doing um patrol and vehicle stops, are they?

We have two current CSOs and they handle um parking enforcement, abandoned vehicles throughout the city. Um animal control. Um and then when we when we went from one Cso to two CSOS, that's when we brought in 50% of duties for essentially park ranger. Uh so they're focusing on the paid parking at boat launches now as before one person did not have that capability as well as um crowd control. And are those officers armed? I'm not sure if they uh limited armed. Limited armed. Yeah.

So the only reason I say that is if you know I know that our police department has a a model of when they replace vehicles, they're usually in pretty good shape. Why couldn't we just take one of the vehicles we're replacing, pass that through to a CSO vehicle, make sure it's tuned up and got gas in it, and they're not driving on the freeway. They're not ripping around the whole city. They're going to just parks. So, that might help cut the cost and mitigate that 78,000. Yeah. Um, in order to do the animal control, there may be stuff we can certainly have that conversation with police or or maybe just the one officer on board takes that vehicle and does that while the other one can use another vehicle. there may be um the ability to reduce that. Thank you. That's awesome. Absolutely.

I think that's a good idea. I think that's a cost-saving idea. I think that's a good idea if we can repurpose cars that don't need the level of performance that a police car does. Um cuz if I these are um code enforcement, right? Isn't that what it says on the car is code enforcement? Code enforcement is under the planning and community development. We have one uh position and Russ can speak to that. Yeah. Community service officers are different than are different than code enforcement. Entirely different okay duties. Yes. But they wouldn't need that level of performance from their vehicles. Police lease department vehicle needs. Correct.

Maybe I'll speak to that for everyone for just a moment. So this is actually going backwards in time. Um we currently have a lease program for our city vehicles to make sure that when we go through uh attrition that they still have at a marketable rate. So that's why we've set the performance metrics at five to seven years. And I will say an officer's vehicle after five years has been worn hard and that's what we used to do was hand down the vehicles and you would get very subpar vehicles for the rest of our staff to drive that in some times were not safe and did have a slew of issues. So I I appreciate the idea of looking at that. We've we've done that and we went away from that. Just because they weren't providing the type of safe vehicles that our staff need to perform their jobs, it doesn't mean different positions don't have different types of vehicles. For example, my inspectors, they have less expensive vehicles. They typically drive small SUVs. They're compatible for the type of work that they do that come with a smaller price tag. So that's, you know, something we can look at is what are the types of vehicles we're outfitting. But for the CSOS, they definitely because of that animal control function, they are outfitted with specialty canopies. They have special equipments, computers, and things. So it is really hard to repurpose from a patrol officer's cruiser to a vehicle that you know potentially you're putting trash in the back of you know in that park ranger capacity. So they really do have some different needs but we definitely look through our vehicle ordering and leasing program to put the right vehicles in place with the right team members. I

I understand that. That makes sense. What about um not having a cso and calling in a parking enforcement officer and giving them a little go-kart like they have in every ripping around every Sure. I mean there different things that you can look at if you want. So that's not off the table like there's not a reason why we could take a look at that. No, it would be just how do you want to further segregate those duties when that's going to become I I'll hold that conversation. That could become Yeah. a different conversation, but we'll leave it there. I I get we'd love to have a fully loaded Cso that's supporting everything a CSO does, but if we're just talking about enforcement and capturing revenue for the parks if we decide to go that route, I don't I don't think we need a a full-blown CSO. We just need a parking enforcement officer. Yeah. So, we would have to figure out what that looks like.

Okay. And who manages it if it's police, parks, or right or other So, okay. Yeah. Thank you. It was determined that um we could not with a position in parks enforce parking fees which is why we went to a cso instead of a park ranger. Um another conversation that I um very quickly high level had with chief was what if this was to be a seasonal cso. He said the recruitment and the option is almost non-existent. And so I I tried to save money there. Yeah. Just curious.

I have a question. Um, I guess I get a little hung up on the hang tags and stickers and the cost of that and mailing and I'm wondering if there's a way that, you know, you could go online and register the the cars that have the address that you live at and have them in a database that the parking enforcement can just check against versus mailing or having something to display in your car that you don't have to stick or you know, I I guess that would be a way that you know, somebody can just search it out is this license plate, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that would be the way I would do it that the household would have to register and this way you can actually register the your kids cars um and not get three hang tags but that they're in the system as a resident and therefore you know I guess that would be my my comment on the cost potential cost savings if we proceed with something like this. If you want me to look into that, I can certainly bring it back. Um, I would need to have the discussion with the police department to see if there is license plate reader that they could do while walking around the park and if they can check the real life registration, if it is a program they would have to go in and register for.

I'm thinking simply a database that's like an Excel database that that residents can put in like a Microsoft Forms. you go in and you put in your address and maybe there's a verification that that on the back end but then when you're actually on site you would just have that database to control find that license plate if it is in the I guess I'm thinking of a more simplified version well I mean any officer can run a plate right it doesn't so you could if you have that same functionality at that cso yeah parking enforcement level right um they could run the plate and quickly determine if it's a registered vehicle like Stevens or not

I'm a a little concerned that some of the feedback from our community has been they have a hard time even just navigating a website, let alone going into our website, pulling up the parks department, finding the da, you know, the form they need to fill out, filling out the form, and you know, we're assuming everybody has at least a smartphone. um again I think that this may be a barrier to those in need when it comes to free parking at our parks. Um are elderly. Uh this might be a challenge for them as well. Not everybody's computer savvy. Um not everyone has, you know, a nice smartphone while most of probably most of you know us do. I I just think that might create a barrier. just gauging the feedback and the questions. Is there anything that we want um Sarah to bring back to us to further consider this proposal? Do we want to think about it for a while? Are we pretty much a no? Like where what's the direction of the council?

I think multiple council members have given up ideas that might lower the cost. So, if we could just take a look at those, you know, looking at a different vehicle, looking at a plate running versus sticker program, you know, let's just kind of look at that stuff and see if we can get to some sort of Yes. I do agree with with council councilman Edwards, council person Edwards, sorry, u that it is difficult to get in the parks in the summertime and those aren't all like Steven's residents. I mean, they're packed and and we do get some folks from out of town that get a little crazy down there, have to be addressed by the police department. So I just I don't think you know the people like Stevens pay for these parks and pay for their upkeep that they should be able to use them unfettered.

And so you're what you're saying is getting that information to reduce the cost to allow residents to use the parks for free but to have a payto park program for non-residents. Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure I was understanding. Thanks for summarizing that. Yeah. No, it's fine.

The only thing I'll say is I I worry we're making this rather convoluted the logistics of it. I mean, keep in mind Sarah prefaces by saying these are highle numbers to begin with. So, the more variables we start adding in, the more uncertainty we're building into these models. I just want us to keep that in mind that it might I'm not I'm not saying this is where I'm at. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but it might be easier to look at this as an all or none. And if we're not comfortable with all, then maybe the simple answer to spare Sarah and her staff is none. When you say all or none, we pay everyone pays a fee, residents and non-resident.

Yes. Because the I mean there's I think there's a lot of different ways we go about trying to on the fly sort out who's a resident, who's not, whose vehicle is registered to what household. I mean it's it's feasible logistically, but I mean when we start building into the model, I I question the accuracy of the model at that point. But but even in that though, if you go back a couple or wherever the when your $5 per day I mean, you're uh one this one that one there, you're still talking about $200,000 of an yearly expenses minus your upfront cost of 93k, but 200k to hopefully make 33,000.

That's with everyone paying too. That That's what I'm concerned about. I don't I don't see a scenario even if you reduce all cost your startup cost if you if you need to pay a cso and do all this other stuff if you're looking at 200k a year to hopefully make 33k I think we could use our money better and find other ways to make revenue besides that. So, I'm just struggling to see what number what number is good enough for where you say, "Okay, that makes sense to pursue it." Because I think you'd have to cut those yearly expenses in half almost to make it worth it in my mind.

And I've not heard Sarah say anything about um how it's going to affect I mean, we've got the the cso, so we've got that and the vehicle and all that, but any program has people in the background, you know? I mean to take on the workload um you know how is it going to affect those who take on the workload to enforce this I'm not talking about the person in the vehicle talking about office staff um and that type of thing even just mailing things out if we decide to do that it's going to take office staff um and it sounds like we're already pretty tight on the responsibility I think that's all baked into

um I talked about admin staff for anticipating phone calls What is this? Oh, that's true. In question. And do you have the staff to take those phone calls? I mean, it would be needed an FTE needed. And we haven't even begun with what the admin costs would be needed on the police side if you do write a ticket, it getting to court and then going to court and then it goes to Mary'sville currently. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's a lot of different parts. Then your public records request and where's the photo for that ticket? And so, definitely a big program. Um, we can go down this path if you're interested. Um, did you model public anger?

Well, actually that that segus perfectly. Sarah, how did you calculate the the daily parks again? The the Yeah. cars parked. Again, it's all assumptions, right? So, what I mean, I guess where did you roughly where did you come with those numbers? Like how did you arrive at that 467 number? Yeah. So, um, the 194 parking spots were handc counted. I might be off one or two. Okay. Um I believe that they are correct with the new striping in the parks. However, um 154 days is based on 22 weeks, which is between midappril and early September for your peak season.

Okay. And the cars per day. I guess where I'm going with this is have we factored in price in elasticity? Inelasticity. If we start charging, are these based on how many cars we're seeing now? If we start charging that number will plummet further and the revenue would be lower than we expect. We have no data. We have no so I'll take volunteers to sit in the parks and take surveys this summer if you're interested. Okay. Um it really is off me going I think that four people on a Monday would pay. Okay. Thank you. At Lond Park uh you know per per parking stall is kind of how we start.

Okay. Well, and director Wright brought up a good point, too, that that if we're deterring out of state, out of city folks coming to our parks, they're then not going to the Buzzin, they're not going to Lacian's Brewing Company. They're not frequenting our businesses and that's impacting our sales tax revenue. And so, is there um or even Market in the Coffee Shop, all the things, right? Right. Yeah. So, that's not factored into this either. Yeah. So, I don't know. Based on all that, I I tend to agree with Council Member Packard that I I just I don't know. I'm not seeing it. This was a good idea to look at.

I think the idea it was a good idea at looking at, okay, is this a another idea for some revenue because we all know we need more revenue. Um, I just don't think the numbers the only way the numbers would even begin to work is to charge our citizens. And I'm just not comfortable doing that. Um, like I said, this is a this is a lowinccome They have a beautiful park. I mean, beautiful parks to go to. And even if they're a lowincome or a senior, because you see a lot of seniors, they love to come watch the kids. Um, they may not live by grandkids. Um, so even if they're coming from outside and they're spending quality time with their kids outside in the park and on the swing sets, I just think that's a good thing to do.

So, maybe I can just um summarize what I've heard a little bit. um you know, a really great conversation, but I guess at the end of the day, I've heard four of the council members that aren't really supportive of this program moving forward for a variety of reasons, but really it comes down to barriers and the math doesn't work. Heard a couple of other council members looking at some other metrics, but I think at the end of the day, still don't know if we'll gain the value in this program. So, if there's general consensus, maybe that's we can give Sarah that we're just ready to hold on this. Maybe we observe the traffic patterns over the summer season as staff is out there, maybe get some better counts and if this is something we want to bring back as part of, you know, a 2027 proposal, maybe that's appropriate at this point. So, just looking for good strong uh consensus for Sarah to do her work.

Yeah, I think that sounds fair. And I think that like um council member Shipman said is that we all know that we need revenue for our parks um but this may not be the right way to do that and I don't want to deter staff from continuing to come back with creative ideas. I think again this was a great discussion. It's great to consider all the different parts and pieces. Um so so keep keep being creative and I think council me I think this idea came from didn't it come from you council member Mannis? I don't know. I don't remember. Probably. Yeah, I say stuff out loud a lot that I'm thinking.

So, to be clear, it would take quite a bit of staff time to do surveys. I would likely be pulling snapshots from cameras and trying to determine where the cars have changed as opposed to have somebody there. Um, I I used my averages based on, hey, most people might be at the park for 2 hours. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more. And that was how I arrived at at these assumption numbers. Um, they could be too high, they could be too low, but I feel comfortable with them. Um, is that something that you want us to do is to do surveys during the summer to bring it back or do you want it to sit on a shelf and then if you're ready for us to dive into it, we can bring it back up at another time.

I would say prioritize whatever you and your department feel are the best strategies for cost recovery. If this is the best we got, put the time into it. If you have other ideas that are better, you know, suited to your time, then let's look at those. I'd rather have a barbecue cook off and make $33,000. There we go. I would concur with that. I'd bring the brisket. Yep. Pasha has signed up to cook the brisket. Yeah. So, that summarized this one. Can we just What was the summary from the first one? Are we putting that on hold till 27 to see what the impact is of the new fee rates? Yeah, I think the recommendation from staff was that we don't make any changes currently and so I'm comfortable with that staff recommendation and

that includes the boat launch pass as well staying where way it is. Yeah, I would agree with that. Two years of data I think it was. Yeah, I agree. Um I can mark my calendar for February 2026 after we have two years of full data and get it back on an agenda. Do you want me to track that and bring it back? Yeah. And that will also show the difference with the discontinued use of the Discover Pass and then the county pass over at Davies. That'll show us, you know, if that bumped our revenue a bit. Absolutely. And Sarah, could you just check with the chief on possibly having a smaller vehicle or access to a license plate database just so we might have we could maybe avoid the sticker thing or the tagging?

Yes, absolutely. If we get that far. Don't do it now, but if we get that far, Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Before we adjourn, I ask Clerk Chelin if she would be willing to just give a brief overview of the next couple weeks or so of agenda items so we kind of know what we're looking at.

I would be happy to. All right. Good evening, council. Um my spreadsheets coming up here. Just I will always say every time I bring up my spreadsheet that this is a moment in time right now. Things are subject to change. It could change tomorrow. Uh but this is the plan going forward. So March 24th as next week's meeting, the state of the city presentation by Mayor Gaye will be the beginning of the meeting. Um got a consent item for vessel registration fee distribution agreement. Um it sounds like we had some successful uh park board interviews. So if everybody if the two applicants um pass background, we'll have those appointments hopefully ready on the 24th. Um a grant contract for Cedarwood. Um, and this is just kind of a standing item for me to make sure to be bringing you the the upcoming council meeting um, agenda items. So, that's the 24th. Again, something may be added or deleted tomorrow or the next day. So, um, this is tentative. Uh, planning still to have that fifth Tuesday on the 31st. So, that's a special meeting date. Um, and we're going to talk about budget that night. 2025 year end financial update. Barb can correct me um, if any of this has changed. uh potentially a 26 budget amendment um and also the conversation about the potential of a citizen financial task force. So we'll talk about plans and thoughts on that coming up on the 31st. And then maybe and again Anya can chime in if need be. Um the organizational chart the staffing changes that you saw before we may have a followup on that on the 31st. So, and then um I was pulling uh several of you tonight because I just want to make sure I had a quorum for April 7th and it looks like I do. Um I think Ryan and Angie are absent, but we'll still plan on having a workshop. I'll get with parks um and talk about their two items.

The pros plan, which I believe uh is good to go. I think we're going to have a a consultant here for that and then potentially the RFP u for Cavalo. Again, I just kind of live and die by the sheet. Like, it's just I throw things on here as I hear things coming up and they move around and change, but um uh Okay, I'm getting a message from Barb that the budget amendment for the 30 31st is tentative and only a discussion item. So, yeah. Great. So, we again, we meet weekly and you know, we throw things on here and see how things kind of shake out. Don't get mad if it doesn't look like this when the meeting comes. That's what Kelly's saying, right?

Yes. Or you said that was going to come back. Oh, and let me let me just also the 14th is a little bit further out, but uh Caitlyn sent you all an email about the Facebook discussion. That's when we're hoping to have that is the night of the 14th. So, I appreciate your patience as we're um fine-tuning that. And then you'll see a couple other couple other updates here. Kelly, I appreciate the way you can change the engine while you're flying the plane to get ahead of time every day. It's really good to get ahead of the meeting a couple days ahead to read it. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much. No problem. Much appreciated.