City Council - Regular Meeting

Council meeting for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026 to order the time is now 7:03 p.m. Would you please stand with me to salute the blood. Pledge leads to the flag, the United States of America to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice. As the clerk to please call the roll. Councilman Beaton here, Councilmember Damon, here, Councilmember Hudson. Uh, excuses tonight, Councilmember Oliver, here, Council member to Sarah, here, Councilman Van der Stoop, Council member West, here. Thank you. Counsel, I'd entertain a motion to approve tonight's agenda, if you're OK with it. So move. 2. I might have a word in a second by Melissa, all in favor, say I. I. I opposed say no. passes, OK? Um, OK, we will move on to public comments before we get to public comments, uh, tonight, just wanted to address um some concerns that that I had been, had been reported to me, um, just, I guess, uh, a trend that we've noticed in in council chambers in recent weeks and months, uh, to keep our, our council chamber, you know, is orderly and respectful as we can. There are a couple of rules around decorum. that we just want to revisit, um, and would like to ask our, our public to please honor those when they attend meetings in person. I would say for the most part, we absolutely are doing that. Um, folks are doing a good job of summarizing thoughts, keeping their, their comments to about 3 minutes. Um, that ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to, to be heard by council. We also ask that our speaking uh guests address only us, uh, the, the mayor and

council as a whole. That's, that's what this time is for. It's for the public to express whatever it is that's on their mind to your elected officials. So not to any one individual up here, but to all of us, uh, and not with your back to us, this isn't the time to, to address the audience Um, we ask that you please keep your comments focused on on local city business That hasn't been much of a problem. We expect that any comments made will be free from personal attacks, slander, obscenity. Also, when you attend a council meeting and you're in the audience, the expectation is that those of us at the dais and the speakers who are at the podium, uh, who have been recognized there are the ones doing the talking. Uh, so calling out from your seat is clearly out of line and incredibly disruptive. Uh, talking quietly at your seat, however, it's also disruptive and it's unfair to the folks who are here to, to listen. Uh, I would say this isn't a p ep rally, uh, so audible outbursts like applause or booing or whistling or snapping or stomping your feet, generally prohibited and, and council chambers. If you'd like to express how you feel. we would like to know how you feel and the appropriate place for that expression is right here at at the microphone for the 3 minutes, uh, that you have at community comments. And then finally for, for obvious reasons, uh, city council and I just don't engage in back and forth conversations, Q&A with folks who are, who are commenting or asking questions. So we get asked that a lot. We get asked questions sometimes and it feels awkward to not answer back, um, but we'd ask you to save those types of questions for, for ward meetings. Um. for Mayor's copies, for emails, for appointments with us. And I think that you

will find that we are quite accessible. We love, I think I'd speak for all of us when I say we love hearing from our public. We truly value discussion and, and we also love having orderly meetings where elected officials in our, in our public abide by a few general rules to protect decorum and civility in our, in our public meetings. So there's some ground rules, just a, a framework for community comments, and expectations. In the end, we encourage you to please, if you have something to say to counsel, please come and say it. We, we do love to hear from you and, and know what's on your mind. With that, long introduction I'll ask if there's anyone here tonight who wishes to address city council. to please step on up to the podium. Yeah, I was afraid of that. Like I put out the rules and then no one comes up we really do want to hear from you. Well, last call. All right. Um, counsel, tonight's consent agenda includes meeting minutes, payroll checks, and deposits, wire transfers and claims, some routine agreements and renewals would council like to move for consent agenda adoption So moved. We should light a board in a second by Melissa All in favor, say I. Aye, all opposed Question passes. We will go on to reports. 5A is council member comments. Any councilmember comments this evening. Yes, Councilmember Damon and Council member B. Um, yes, I just wanted to think that Public Works department for their efforts in educating us three newbies up here, um, two Mondays ago we had the opportunity to meet with Gary at the wastewater treatment plant and the tour was really incredible. They're very well organized there, um. they gave us a much

better understanding of the system and the support that they provide to the city every day, and, um, I, I was. I was really impressed with all that we learned there and what Gary had to say. So, and then this last Monday we got to meet with Frank and he wears lots of hats in the city. And then with Crisper a little bit and um I just, it was, it was really informative and you guys both do an incredible jobs, so I just wanna thank you so much for that Um, and then a little hibit of that is if anybody does any shopping. and do a shout out this weekend is local Appreciation Week for downtown Mount Vernon, so shop local. And then one last thing, um, it was Navoa's birthday yesterday, so happy birthday, Navor. Mhm Thank you. Thank you, council members. West, Damon, and all of them have taken the time to invest and find out. We love it when you all come in and find out what staff does. It's great. Thanks for taking the time. Council member Beaton. Thank you. I, I, I have two things First off, um, the county has a new park. It's called the Udwasta Big Lake Park, and um we are fortunate here in the city of Mount Vernon, uh, to, to be probably 200 m from the edge of the city if you went all the way out east Division before you get to Highway 9. It's on the north side of the road, um, and if you have not had an opportunity to get up there yet, the to get up to the rock and the trails that have been built, it is a, it is a phenomenal 360 degree view, um. and I just would highly encourage you to get up there It's pretty cool. And it's in our backyard Um, secondly, I just wanted to say that I

had an opportunity, as did the mayor and council member Trucero and Damon uh to go to the um Star Center ribbon cutting. And the Star Center is a remarkable facility that has come from out of the North Star initiative, and the thing is so cool about the North Star initiative is it brings together not only the county, but the city of Anacortes the city of Cedar Woolley, the city of Burlington, and the city of Mount Vernon. all aligned in helping people that um suffer from addiction and or mental illness. And I think it's, it's more than it's just the cities coming together These are human beings in our communities, and we have decided here in the city of Mount Vernon. to uh use 400,000 of our opioid funds to go towards the startup fees for the Star Center and um I just think it's, it's really cool. If we didn't have it, we would have um the alternative is a very fragmented, um, and ineffective system. And so we're very fortunate for that, and um I just wanted to say I think it's great for our community. Thank you. Council member be, where did you park when you went to Big Rock, Utawasta Park. Is there a parking lot there? or did you already say there is no, no, no, there's, there's no sign. It's just the gravel parkway that is literally right next to the stream. So it is, I did check with the county. Um, you you you'll know it because the road goes up, but there's two posts, so you can't drive up

that way, but you can park there. They are uh, billing a larger park closer to the city. and away from the stream So, great. Yeah. The other council member comments right? We will move on to Mayor's report. Steve's gonna help me out with that. Thank you, sir. Right. For Mayor's report uh tonight. I'll get in there? Sorry, moving on. Bring him back. For mayor's report tonight, uh, there are a lot of inquiries, um, move along please. OK. A lot of inquiries in the last last week or so, about an accident that occurred just over the bridge in Burlington on Thursday. And so I wanted to follow up on details of the incident, explain why some of the folks uh reported seeing Mount Vernon police on the scene and explained that early last Thursday morning, a, a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle, possibly two vehicles Um, the same pedestrian. And so just, I don't want to gloss over that just to quickly review, here is a pop quiz for our public and all of our drivers out there. When you are operating your motor vehicle and you're involved in a collision or your vehicle hits and severely injures another human being. What is the correct action to take. If you said immediately find a safe place to pull over, call 911, and ensure the scene and the victim are safe, then you are correct and you're welcome to continue driving in the city of Mount Vernon. However, if you said that the proper action to take after committing a crime or felony like this is to drive away from the scene so that you don't have to take accountability for your actions, then

you've fail ed the test and you're likely someday going to end up in jail. If you were either of the two drivers who hit the pedestrian last Thursday who, by the way, the pedestrians suffered critical injuries had to be airlifted to Harborview. Uh, if, if you were one of those two drivers who proceeded to drive away, really the worst thing you could have done in this situation was to drive south to escape, um and to come into a city like Mount Vernon that uses automatic license plate reading cameras to keep its residents safe. So to answer the questions about why Mount Vernon PD was on scene. It was because Mount Vernon PD has a traffic unit in Burlington does not. But both the hit and run drivers will likely be charged, prosecuted, and brought to justice because of the significant evidence gathered from traffic cameras in Mount Vernon. So I, I hope we all hope that the victim of this um inexcusable crime will fully recover and while they do, we are grateful to City council and Mount Vernon Police Department for ensuring that we have the staffing and the tools that we need, uh, to preserve justice and public safety in our city. Um, also wanted to highlight a pretty awesome community event that took place on Sunday, March 15th, and I wanted to thank City council for making this possible. Council approved the dedication of a crosswalk in front of Washington Elementary. This is the crosswalk where community, say legend, Jim Lippert used to help our kids safely cross the street. On the 15th, several 100 community members and as you see the mariner moose gathered for the dedication of the Jim Lippard Memorial Crosswalk. Jim was known as an avid mariners, Seahawks fan. He loved wearing crazy hats. There

were a lot of those there, uh, and he cared deeply for the thousands of children whose lives he impacted by by being an endless source of jokes and smiles and encouragement. It was fun to hear from a lot of those kids at this event and to hear from uh now young adults who recalled the impact that Jim Lippert had on their lives when they were in elementary school. Mr. Lippert was truly a legendary community member with a selfless approach to service that you all should really aspire to. So thank you again to City council and the folks at Washington Elementary School for uh making this happen and for your support of this day. That is your mayor's report for March 25, 2026. Thank you, Steve. We will move on to new business. Item A is a presentation from Skagget Public Utility District's general manager George Chu and Steve Sexton will introduce this item for us, Steve, yes, thank you, Mayor. Evening, counsel. Yes, this evening, as the mayor said, we have a general manager George Sidhu from Sche PUD here to join us for the presentation. So George, if you come on up. Get this storm. this OK, that's bigger All right. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, counsel. Uh, my name's George Sidhu. I'm the general manager at Skagget Public Utility District and it's always my pleasure to come in, talk to the council about the PUD and so that's my plan here tonight. I know most of you, but I have, there's some that I haven't met yet, and so, um part of my presentation is gonna be a little bit of information and education about the PUD.

It's where your potable water comes from for the community, and then I'll update you on some projects that we have going on Before I start, are there any, any questions? Is there anything specific you'd like me to address? Feel free to ask or raise your hand, that'd be, that'd be fine. Um, so let's see. All right. I'm trying to screen a little bit. Um, at the PUD we have uh 3-person board of commissioners. Those are our current commissioners, one of them you might recognize is in the audience as a former council member, Commissioner Lindquist. and they serve six-year terms. for your information Um let's see my presentation, most of what we do at the PUD revolves around a strategic plan. We update this about every 5 years, and it's helps guide us and keep us focused on our priorities, and it's been the first one we ever did was in 2018, and it was successful in helping us develop our large capital program that we have going on, which we are still currently working on. Um, all right, so I will start with this a little bit small, but um this year, 2026 is our 90th anniversary. Um, so it's you know, it's not 100, it's not that huge milestone but it is still an accomplishment, and it's something that we take pride in to be around for 90 years to serve, serve bottled water to the community. So, um, if you follow any of our social media, you'll probably see photos or references made to this. Um, so just something to, to put out there that we're proud of this, to be around for 90 years. And so like I said, I'll explain a little bit about how the PUD came to be. Um, I think it's an interesting story, and if you haven't heard it before, I'll try not to make it

too long, but um back in 1930 is when the state of Washington, the very first initiative in the state of Washington was for um creating public utility districts in the state. It was initiated by the Granger. um, which are farmers, it's a kind of a representative photo there on the bottom left, and it, it passed. Obviously these are the results from the election, so that created um the ability for counties to uh create PUDs in their, in their community. The goal of the PUDs was to conserve water and power resources of the state. for the benefit of the people and to supply utility services including water and electricity. The people that initiated the or started the initiative were rural. It was a rural community, right? Farmers and so, um, they wanted to preserve the public nature of the utilities rather than having them privatized. So. great first initiative for the state. Um It took about 6 years before the ballot measure came to Skaggett County and on November 3rd, 1936, Skadget PUD was formed, um, and there's the results of the election and the the 1st 3 S PUD commissioners were rangers. You might recognize some of the names. Um, let's see So, that was in 1936. Um, I'm not gonna go year by year, don't worry. Um. but they quickly got to work, and they quickly started acquiring water systems, so it, by the 1940s, World War II was going on. Um, there's a lot of growth in the county, in the community, as far as needing water and so skagget PUD formed in 36, purchased three small private water systems in each of the three cities, and that's how it got

its start. Started with about 3000 customers. I think the purchase of that uh or that one purchase of the three systems was about 42 500 $0 So, not huge, but significant amount back in the day. Um, they then went to purchase additional systems and Clear Lake, including water rights and the Colchis Mountains. And then in 47, which I'll get into a little bit here, was the, one of the biggest decisions ever made, which is to acquire property up in the Cultis Mountains to build the reservoir, which we call Judy Reservoir. Talk about that in a second Um, so the, the PUD just grew from there, right? Like it added more um infrastructure added pipelines, added reservoirs. It just grew and grew over time. And so where we are today, it's a little, it's a little small. Um we currently have 7 water systems in the county. So these are the, the boundaries of the seven, the large blue one is the one here in the, in the lower valley, the Judy system, but we own smaller systems throughout the county. We have 7 in total. There's a small system in Alger. uh, 2 in concrete, Skyview Village, and Cedar Grove one in Rockport, one in Marble Mount. and then over to the left, uh, it's called our potla system. It's on Guimus Island. It's a reverse osmosis water system that treats um seawater for drinking water purposes, and we just actually finished replacement of that system last week. So now it'll be good for another 30 to 40 years So we've expanded our system quite a bit to where we are today. And I mentioned this earlier so the Judy Reservoir system is our largest system, serves here in the lower valley. Those are photos of them. It's named after our first general manager, Lawrence Judy. Uh, the source of our water comes from 4 streams in the Skagit River.

So 4 streams flow out of the Cults Mountains, but we also see the water from the Skagit River. We've got a fairly large water right, which allows us to fill that reservoir, that reservoir is raw water. So that's what we fill to then treat, to deliver to our customers. It holds about one, almost 1.5 billion gallons. So that provides the entire community with the redundancy and resiliency of having that water in case we can't get more through a drought if there happens to be contamination in the river or one of our other sources. that reservoir can hold over 5 months of raw water to be able to treat and deliver to the community, even if we can't refill it and replenish it. So it's, it's great for the community. Um, and then as I said, right on the shores of Judy Reservoirs our water treatment plant. It can treat about 24 million gallons per day, which is well above what we typically use our average day is about 8 million gallons and peak day in the summer is typically about 15. Um, that changes obviously depending on the weather. Um. and I'll stop here just for a second. I, I know that you guys did a tour of your wastewater plant. And so what we normally do is when well, every year we kind of put out an invitation for newly elected officials to come into our Judy Reservoir and the water treatment plant and other sites that we have as well. I think some of you have been on the tours, but we're probably open that up again this fall. probably late summer, and so we'll let you know, and if any of you are interested in coming up to the reservoir and the treatment plant. We'd be happy to have you and show you around. So just to sum all of that up, you know, where we are currently. Like I said, we, we own and operate 7 water systems, serving 116,000 people. So other than the city of Anacortes, which has their own water system, we serve most

of the residents in Skagia County. Um, it's 27,000 water services in over 600 miles of pipe. We do everything from obviously collecting the water, treating it, distributing it, metering it. sampling testing, all of those kinds of things. So we've got a great group of people and they all love what they do and they do a really good job at it. And it shows in our, there was a local, uh, it's called, well, it's AWWA is our national organization, American Water Works Association, but there's a local chapter, Pacific Northwest section, and there was a, we held competitions. Actually, water utilities compete against each other. for best tasting water, things like that. So you may have seen the post recently, we won that here locally, competing with some of the other local water utilities. We often when that our water is very good, right, if you travel, you know that, uh, it's always good to come back to Skagit and, and, and taste our water, but we just recently won that competition, and we'll move on to the statewide competition in May. So I'll stop there in the history lesson, there's no more history, but in case there's any questions about anything I said or if there's any clarification. Any questions for George? What, what, and this is sort of off topic, topic, but um what are the plans for the, the old PUD building. Are, are there any? plans for that, that facility. Timely question, yes, we moved into our new admin building, uh, just about a year ago. So in that building that's still on Freeway Drive, our operations department still occupies the southern half, roughly. and the northern half, you will probably see a sign go out on our lawn this week or next week. We're gonna have that up for lease. So we're

gonna make some repairs that we need to do for the roof and the HVAC system. We want to preserve the building for potential future growth or needs that we may not anticipate just yet. Um, we originally had a plan to piece that out and sell it. That didn't come through, so we kind of took a step back and decided what was best for the organization and so we're going to keep the building as a whole, um, not sell off any part of it, but we'll lease it to somebody that may be interested in using that space. It's about 13,000 square feet. It's got a large, um conference room and uh a lot of good office space as well. So. if you know anybody, have them call me. That answer your question OK All right, I'll move on and uh update the council on just a few things that we have going on. Uh, water rights. I talked about how many water rights that the PewDie has, um, there are other people in the community that have water rights as well, irrigators are very important to our community. Obviously they need a lot of water Um, they're, the PUD's water rights are considered senior in that when the Skagit River drops below the in-stream flow rule. There's a flow rule set by the state. We are not curtailed completely. We still have use of our water. A lot of irrigators in Skagitt County have junior water rights and so they are affected by the in-stream flow rule. So when the river drops, they are not allowed to pump water. We can still pump it because we're providing it to our customers. Irrigators are curtailed because of the in-stream flow rule. They need their water when it's the driest and usually when the river drops, that's when they need it. So we have been for the past 10 years, temporarily transferring some of our water rights to the irrigators. We've

done that during drought situations, 2015, 2019, 21, and 23. They were actually state declared droughts, and we transferred some water rights to allow them to irrigate. It's a safety net for them, right? It allows them to irrigate when they normally couldn't. The last 3 years we've done a pilot program where we've done it even when there wasn't a drought declared. We just did it seasonally for a small group. It was a pilot program. This is the last year of that. Um, and these are, you know, most of them. Well, you can see the colors Um, it's for a couple of drainage and irrigation districts down Fir Island, and there's one private farmer in Cedrill Woolley as well. So it allowed those um users to have use from May to October when the river flows are low and it provides them with security of water. We are now looking at trying to uh develop this program further. This was a pilot program for these 3 years with this group, and we're trying to now set some policy about uh, you know, deciding whether there's any other interest in it, and how do we make this, it's a resource. It's the PUD's resource as the water rights. That means it's the community's resource. So how can we use it best? And so we're exploring how to use these temporary water rights. And uh yeah, I'm sure we'll be in for a lot of discussions for the next couple of months regarding these, but it's, it's really valuable to the community and I think it's important to share. Um, and then I'll end with some projects that we have going on. So this is just a there's a lot of things on this map, the blue or or water lines, the red is just a pressure zone boundary, but that's Judy Reservoir in the middle. So this is up in the Cultus Mountains around our Judy Reservoir. There's a small dot kind of lower middle, south of the reservoir. We're building a new storage

tank. up just on some of our property near Judy Reservoir. It's gonna be about a 1.6 million gallon tank. to provide um fire protection and water for the treatment plant and for the customers that live around the reservoir. Um, most of these customers, I don't know if anybody here lives up there, if you know anybody that does. they're potable water is all pumped. because there's no gravity flow in this area. So we're trying to build a reservoir at a higher elevation to provide gravity flow. Power interruptions are really bad if you need your water pumped. and so providing a gravity reservoir is going to be good for that, that area. So we're finishing up design and we hope maybe this year, this time next year to be starting construction. Um, also, a couple of projects at the water treatment plant, so you can, you can see how important their water treatment plant in Judea Reservoir is to the PUD. We are replacing or upgrading our disinfection system. So we currently use chlorine gas as part of our disinfection process and we store 1 ton chlorine gas cylinders up at our treatment plant. That's a photo of them. Those are pouring gas is not a good thing if it if it leaks or um gets out of its container. So what we are doing is replacing a lot of the gas requirement that we have with liquid sodium hypochlorite, which is just bleach. We can use that in our treatment process instead of chlorine gas. So we, we still will use some gas. It'll be much smaller. It'll be 150 pound cylinders versus 1 ton cylinders. So that'll keep our operator safe. It'll keep the people that live around the treatment plant safe. It'll keep really. a lot of the community safe cause chlorine gas, if it gets out, it, it It's heavy and it seeks lower, lower point so it'll just flow down the

down the hillside, which is not good. So, this is something that we're planning on upgrading, uh, hopefully start construction on that this year. Georgia, will we notice a change in taste. You will not know. When we went through the, the design process. We looked at a lot of different options on what to do with the ultimate goal of not changing the taste of our water and the quality of the water, and so we looked at a lot of different solutions and we sampled a lot of them and tested it to make sure that the, the parameters are all the same, and this we could have gotten gone to something else, but this kept it where it is right now. Good question And then lastly, um the treatment plant was built in 1990 and that's when we had this generator up there and it's still there, and we need some additional capacity and just a bit of an upgrade. So we are replacing the generator at the treatment plant. Very important. There are a lot of power outages up in that area and um you know, we rely on our generator quite, quite a bit. And the one that we have is small, so it's, it limits what we're allowed to or what we can upgrade the plant with. So that's gonna be a really important project for us. And there's my contact information which I can provide for the mayor has it, Steve has it as well, if you. you need to get a hold of me, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have as well. Questions for George, yeah, that's a member of bander Stoop. Hey, thanks for coming. Great to see you again. Uh, do you have projects planned in Mount Vernon that will impact roads. Um, we are in the middle or towards the end of a design of pipeline project, uh, up in the Hillcrest neighborhood, and we're talking to your staff about some permit conditions and some timing of that, but uh nothing definite as of yet. Oh,

when you decide, when, when it goes through, how would somebody find out when that's going to happen. We've already had one community meeting with um the neighborhood up in Hillcrest and so I I've talked to the mayor about this, communication is going to be our biggest tool, um, to try and get directly to the people that are affected and so that, that's the way we're gonna try and do it, yeah. And we'll help push out too. Yeah, gotcha. Uh, just to, I live in the neighborhood. That's why, that's why I'm asking. Appreciate it. Yes. Any updates we get, we'll share it directly with, with the people that are affected. Council member West Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, Mr. Suhu, thank you for the uh partnership. Um as we plan our long-term street and sewer upgrades. How do we align with you in terms of reducing legacy, uh, pipes that have lead or asbestos. right? Ideally, we'd do this in lockstep. Is there, is there, are there plans to, to align with you in terms of reducing the the lead and asbestos pipes. Um, so yeah, I'll I see two parts to that question, so I'll answer one part first. Um, so we did, and everybody, every water utility in the state was required to do a lead survey. for to find out if there's lead in your system. And we did that last year. There was, I can't remember the timing on it, but we had to finish it last year. So we did that in our Judy system and um we did not find any actual lead services. um there were some, some services, so most of the lead, if you're gonna get them, they won't be in the pipe itself. It'll be in the service to the home. And so there are some that we identified that we don't know the material. There's a lot that we do.

There's, we know which, which ones don't have lead, and there's some that we're just not sure of. And so it's a, it's not a large amount, uh, and we've contacted the people that we know um may have that. But again, those are the, the service lines that come off and they don't impact the right of way or the street or or that um as much as you would think, I guess they, they would go through the, the people's blondes and maybe some sidewalks, but, um, there's no plans right now to do any work on service lines on, on our side. Um you know, there's a long history. I, I, I could talk a lot about the, the lead uh issue, you know, we just didn't have that. The lead in in the country that ended up in the water systems mostly started on the east coast. because they were the older water systems and they used them a lot. By the time we got here, it wasn't and we're uh, you know, we're not Seattle. Seattle's older. Uh, we didn't have a lot even to begin with and the ones that we know of, we removed them, and so there's not really a lot to, to worry about there in our survey proved that based on statistical analysis. Asbestos pipe is, is something we have in our system, um, it doesn't impact the water quality. It doesn't impact uh what goes into the water. It's, um, asbestos is bad when it's um, dug up and it's friable and it's, um, you know, busted into pieces, um, which it doesn't happen with the water system, um we do get leaks on asbestos pipes, and so there's a certain diameter and condition of them that we do have a kind of a program where we've gone through and replaced a lot of it. Um but there's some asbestos cement pipe that is great. It's, it's hearty, it, it's, it lasts, and there's no degradation

and there's no necessary plan to get rid of it, uh, just because it's asbestos cement pipe. There's no water quality concerns with it. And there's a second part, which you didn't ask specifically, but we do a lot of coordination with all the uh cities and of the county as well. So I think there's quarterly coordination meetings to make sure it doesn't always work, but we try to align projects so that if we go into a right of way or go into a neighborhood where only damaging the infrastructure once. We're going to tear up a road it's best to do it just once. So we try and align with like I said, cities, counties, PSE, Cascade, anybody that's interested in digging a trench or creating a disturbance, we try and partner with them as much as we can Thank you. Other questions Tri, thank you for that coordination. Thanks for the presentation, the information tonight. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Lindquist. If I, if I could, I thank you, George, for coming. I always enjoy hearing about what's going on at the PUD, um, but I also enjoy that it gives me an opportunity, um. Joe has a little bit of council history with us. Um, how many terms did you serve, Joe? 34 Um, at the time he was elected, he I believe you hold the record for the youngest person elected to city council in Mount Vernon, and, huh, at the time. Um, yes, and um still in public service. So thank you. Thanks, George. OK, thank you. Was Joe's supposed to talk according to your rules, uh you, you didn't want to hear from the audience, right? That was, that was too much commit. All right, we're moving on. Thank you, gentlemen. Uh, item B, tonight's presentation and public

hearing for the city's CDBG annual action plan and our development services director Steve Sexton has this. Steve, thank you. Um, yeah, we will pick up pretty much where we left it off last week in our committee discussion on CDBG. Um, I sent this information out to you folks. on Monday, um, as I had mentioned, we, we talked about in the the in the committee meeting, I reached out to some of the applicants for the project funding and, and kind of got a number that would still work for them and allow the city to kind of disperse those dollars or in a wider variety, um, and that's reflected in the project piece down there. and the suggested funding on the uh services is basically just 51% of the ask straight across the board. Um. you know, there's very limited dollars there available. And I think I noted in an email out to, to the council that, um, you know, all of these applicants in the past have applied for 1590 money also. it would be eligible to do so again this year to help make up any shortfall that they may experience here, so. to open the public hearing. Yeah, any questions before we do the public hearing, counsel. OK. That we will open up the public hearing for the city's annual action plan for Community development block grant funds. Would anyone like to speak about this process or items selected there OK, that we will close the public hearing. and counsel, if you have any questions now, please ask away if you're OK with those numbers as you, you discussed a little bit last week in committee. I've had some time to look at

them this week. Um, I would entertain a motion to approve this, otherwise we can discuss and adjust. So OK by Andrew in a second by Devore. Any more discussion, counsel? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion passes. OK, Steve, can you talk to us quickly about this next steps with this This will be publicly um available. People can comment on it for a period of 30 days, in that public comment that publishing of the public comment period will go out. Friday. and we will come back on April 29th and finalize the annual action plan. and I will report back to all of you on any public comment that we do get in that, in that period of time. So, so at this point, it's a draft action plan, and we're open for comments. Great. OK, thank you, Steve. Thank you. Adam C is a proposed agreement for the Colson Trail lighting project. It's a good project. Capital projects manager, Frank Reinhart will talk about this item. Hello Frank. Good evening, Mayor City council Thank you for the opportunity to come before you, uh, on this particular project. It's been a project that's been a little bit of a quest to get going, but we're ready to now blow the whistle on it. Colton Trail uh lighting is a four-phase project to provide pedestrian lighting along ourulshan Regional Trail. The first of the Colchian Trail projects was uh lit up here about 4 or 5 years ago. Um, this was a leg of the trail that is the westmost leg of the trail, and the lighting project basically involves running a conduit down the trail and setting up pedestrian

lighting as we go. Uh, we do equip that pedestrian lighting for camera use as well uh, from the standpoint of enhancing the security and the use of this trail. Uh, without the lighting, this trail's a very dark trail. Um, once you get away from any of the streets that the trail crosses, it goes black very, very quickly. Um, and it's been an impressive thing to be able to stand right now uh on, I want to say 18th and look one direction and see a nice well lit trail turn around the other direction, pitch black. So, we've took this trail in phases, and the next and we're not doing these phases in order, unfortunately, just the way it, it shook out. So the next phase of this project, which is the one I'm presenting to you tonight, uh, is actually phase 3. Two more projects will follow in the near future, Phases 2 and phase 4. So phase 3 is located. between uh 18th and Laventure and 30th Sorry, I had to count over there. And this uh agreement that I'm bringing to you this evening is to authorize execution of an A&E professional services agreement with the Transpoat Group to provide civil engineering design, environmental, some limited real estate and construction management services for this project. Uh, this project is federally funded with transportation grant that we secured through SCOG, uh, that funding has been awarded. right now for design, but we also have construction funding for this. That construction funding, I need to obligate by the end of this year. So as soon as we're off and running with Transpo, uh, we're off to the races to get the project

designed, get it through environmental permitting review on the federal level, address any uh property rights, needs that we might need along the trail and in general, uh, set this up and ready to go so that we can go to construction with it next year. Um, next year I will also be uh coming before you to obligate the design funds for phases 2 and 4, as we were also awarded funding through SCOG for those projects as well. So without um just in general, uh, we advertised, uh, so when we're advertising a federally funded project, we have to publicly advertise it for all comers. We can't use a shortlist or any other type of uh approach to that. So we advertise this in the Daily Journal of Commerce and the Scatget Herald, as our newspaper of record, we actually only received one SOQ in response to that advertisement. That's fine under the circumstances because as long as we openly invite anybody who wants to submit on a project, if we only get one submittal, that's just the way it goes. Ah, nonetheless, I did have to get authorization from the Washington State Department of Transportation and Local Programs in order to interview and award uh when we receive less than 3 submittals. We did get that. We interviewed them. We didn't tell them that they were the only one being interviewed, uh, by a panel of city staff and then called them up and said, guess what? Uh, you are a preferred consultant. So I sat down with them, negotiated a scope of services for a fairly abbreviated, uh design process because this is not a complicated project. Um, it is pretty much what I just described to you, laying a certain amount of conduit and then Transpo was actually the consultant who did the design on phase one. So I basically went to him and said,

yeah, we're not doing anything any different, so no need to reinvent any wheels here. And so without further ado, we brought together the scope, the scope and the professional service agreement was reviewed and approved by washed out local programs, and I come before you tonight, uh, requesting authors to authorize the mayor to execute it. Questions for Frank Motions Pau 2, I might have board in the 2nd bayo Andrew discussion. All in favor, say I. I opposed say no. motion passes. Thank you, Frank. Item D is a proposed agreement with Wilson Engineering for a feasibility study. Frank. So I'm coming before you this evening, uh, to recommend City council authorize the mayor to execute a supplement number 5 or Amendment number 5 to the professional services agreement that we have with Wilson Engineering LLC, uh, in order to enable them to provide some additional alternatives analysis and preliminary design services for our combined sewer separation feasibility study project. Uh, this is a project that I presented to you in the past, up to and including during tonight's committee meeting. and basically we are looking at a project that will separate the existing combined sewer in a residential area of Mount Vernon and into separate utility systems in order to remove 3 to 6 megagallons per day maximum flow from our combined sewer going currently to our wastewater treatment plant and instead divert it into our storm system so it can move through that for discharge into Sked River. This will have the effect of prolonging the lifespan of our wastewater treatment plant without

needing to program in the near future a very expensive facility upgrade as the city continues to grow. In the course of this feasibility study, uh, we developed what essentially came down to two alternatives, uh, one alternative was to build a new stormwater system and retain the combined sewer at an existing wastewater. The other alternative was to do the reverse, to build a new wastewater system, keep the system for stormwater. Between the two alternatives, uh, we did find that the cost estimates for those two options did not particularly offer any advantage, so I asked Wilson Engineering to provide additional uh alternatives analysis to support a detailed pro and con analysis of each alternative, that pro and con analysis was ultimately what led us to a successful identification that alternative to the building of a new stormwater system and the repurposing of the combined sewer for a wastewater system was dramatically the better alternative. In keeping with that too, they, they provided design services to lay out a set of phases, 10 phases in total of capital improvement projects in order for us to deliver upon the separation in the course of that, I wanted to avoid building new stormwater system within the existing private properties that currently have wastewater pipe or combined sewer pipe, I should say, running through them and build those new storm systems rather out in the street in order to minimize the impacts on private property, especially where our current utilities run through backyards, similar areas where while we have easements building a second pipe would require us to secure additional easements and even if that weren't the only problem, would also cause considerable disruption

to people's private property in order to build this. So those additional services were a bit out of scope, and that's why I bring to you supplements number 5 for your consideration this evening. Questions for Frank on this Motions So moved Send avo in the 2nd by Demi, more discussion. All in favor say aye. I. all opposed say no She passes. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Frank. Item 7, I will ask our city attorney to please call the mayor and city council and executive session. by the mayor and members of the city council and executive session to discuss with legal counsel matters relating to enforcement action litigation or potential litigation, which the city the governing body, remember, acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a. party of public knowledge regarding the discussions likely result of that adverse legal or financial consequence to the city, pursu to RTW 4,230,110 subsection 1 I. And we're over to discuss issues related to collective bargaining sessions, letting or adopting strategy or positions related to collective bargaining, which is exempt from the Open Public Meetings Act pursuant to RCW 4230 140 subsection 4, 20 minutes, it 8, 13 with no final action at and with that city of Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026 is adjourned at 7:54 p.m.