City Council - workshop

Good afternoon. It is 1 PM. I will call this city council workshop of September 8th, 2026 to order. I am presiding today at the request of Mayor Wright. Today's meeting will be both a physical and a virtual meeting. It may be viewed live on YouTube and then on Facebook following the meeting. Public comment is not normally taken at workshop meetings, although council may allow or request public participation on action items. And we do have one action item on our workshop agenda today. So at this time, I'd like to welcome all in attendance. It appears that we have a full Council, so we won't take a roll. But at this time, I would call upon Council for any report on their boards, commissions, committees. Council Member Marra.

Yes, with regard to the transit district, the automatic passenger counters have been installed in the scheduled buses. There has to be a calibration period where the infrared signature of people coming on and off has to match the physical counts. So they're in the process of doing that. And this metric is going to be essential for us going forward with regard to where service is increased or decreased. That's all I have. Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Merrill. Councillor Stuckey.

First, shout out to everyone who helped out with the music festival. Wonderful event as always. Island County Tourism, we're ramping up under the new structure, and so we put out RFQs for various positions, and we received 200 RFQs, which was kind of nuts. So we're whittling those down over the next couple weeks, and hopefully you have some contracts in place within a month or so.

Thank you. Councilor Wittgenstein.

The community advisory board met on last week on Wednesday for the kind of review of the National night out. And we had a nice presentation from Iman County Jail on how wonderful their facility is over there. Not. It's pretty horrible. So just keep that in mind as we're all kind of looking towards advocating for what our community's needs are. And that's on that list as well. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Wittgenstein. Any other council comments, reports? I've got my Clean Air Agency meeting this week, so I'll have something to report next time. OK, moving on. Island County Public Health. We have our Island County Public Health Director, Sean Morris, to provide an update on their new website resource tool.

Hi. presentation good afternoon council members thank you just give a second for it to load thank you for making time today great so I'm here today to discuss the Thrive Island County resource guide which has been a multi-year effort to bring together scattered resources and health information to share out with the community So across Island County, our community health assessment work found we had different challenges for residents connecting to available resources. We had resources scattered across multiple platforms. We have an older population, around 28% to 30% of our population is age 65 or older. Some of our resources on the county side were outdated or incomplete and it was becoming time consuming for people to find the right support and we wanted to make that easier to help with prevention and help people get connected to care. Also our limited accessibility issues, different pockets of the islands can be very low in service or have bandwidth issues. So what is Thrive? It's a centralized resource guide that helps people find local services and support in Island County. So it's designed to be very local. It spans the holistic domains of health. So everything from financial health to environmental health, social connection, physical activity, healthcare access, and behavioral health. As part of this process, we vetted over 250 local, regional, statewide, and actually national health resources. So along with health directory listings, the guide also provides information on how to sustain health and to live a healthy lifestyle. So it's both a directory and a health literacy tool. It's designed for both community members and providers, so providers can put together resources and print it for their clients or their patients, and then community members can use it directly. And we designed it so it's very easy to use and accessible on mobile devices, including in areas with really low service standards. And I'll just hold there. The URL is available. There's a QR code later, too, for folks who want to take a look with the cell phone. But it's live as of last week. So I covered some of this, but it was built with community. We worked with local organizations, nonprofits, and community health worker networks to determine which resources to include and also to go through beta testing with the app as we were developing it. And while also linking to existing guides like Help Me Grow that connects families in the birth to five range with resources. And as I shared, it connects residents across the range of health. So our theory of change, Thrive focuses on improving access to and visibility of the services that already exist. It does not stand up new services or programs, but it just makes those services more visible and accessible. And we took this approach based on a lot of research that if we can make existing services easier to find and provide residents with accessible preventive health knowledge, then we will see improved care coordination, health outcomes, and overall community wellbeing. And we're tracking this with different measures as we go forward. Okay, so for community members that want to use Thrive, there's two main pathways. You can use it essentially like a search tool and search for different resources. You can look by different population. There's also what we're calling an explorer pathway where we have narrative sections that share health information almost like a health magazine with embedded links. So two different pathways based on some research into how people best navigate these types of platforms as well as searching by specific populations including veterans, people with disabilities, and seniors. The community resource guide that is currently published by Whidbey News Times has the ad for Thrive, just showing that there. We're pushing it out into the community currently. This is what the landing page looks like. So you'll see across the top are the different domains of health with services organized under each. Or you can go to the quick search by community. Along the top we have the crisis resources and emergency resources. Agencies can ask to be added to the directory, so it's an ongoing process. So if you see items, you see something missing, you can fill out the form or email us and we will make sure to get that included. There are essential resources offered by the city included. There are some city resources that folks can find with Thrive, especially around parks and recreation. So yeah, so it'll be a living, breathing, evolving tool, and we're excited to share it with the community. Here's what it looks like if you go to a specific page. So this is for environmental health, and you'll see that resources come up on the right, similar to a Google search. And then on the left, there's the healthy people, healthy environment, and that's the explorer path with narrative information that folks can click into. And here's what a specific landing page for an agency looks like. It includes kind of a GIS map, address and location served, contact information, and a link to that agency or service. And the narrative section. So this is more the magazine style where people can browse information by topic. So that's it. Essentially, I just wanted to share a high-level overview. We're sharing this out currently. We'd love to partner with the city in promoting this with residents, and we can work with the city to update anything as needed. But thank you so much for your time and interest.

Thank you, Mr. Morris.

Thank you.

Does council have any comments or questions for Mr. Morris? Very cool stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the agenda is community development. We have an action item noted, resolution 26-11, a resolution of the city of Oak Harbor, Washington, confirming and declaring the expiration of the hillside planned residential development, the hillside preliminary plat, the development agreement for the hillside planned residential development, and all associated permits. This time I will introduce our community development director, Stacy Prashner, and she will present the resolution. All right. Stacy.

Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor Pro Tem and City Council. This will be a joint presentation today between Community Development as well as the city's legal counsel, city attorney, Bob Zineman. Yep, and I see that he has just joined us. So thank you. Good to see you, Bob. Provided in advance of this afternoon's workshop is a draft resolution and five supporting exhibits for council to formally declare, if it's this body's pleasure, the expiration of the hillside preliminary plat, the hillside developer's agreement, and all of the associated permits. The city attorney has recommended a resolution as a mechanism to declare the project expired because the last action on the project was a public offer from city council to extend the project and a permit extension was not granted by this body. A brief reminder of the function of a resolution. Resolutions are formal expressions of opinion from a legislative body. However, they do not adopt code or legislation. In other words, resolutions are not ordinances. They don't make rules. The City's Attorney's Office, along with Community Development, have drafted Resolution 2611 as a brief synopsis of the permitting history of the Hillside project, starting with the hearing examiner's approval in 2020 and then ending with the sunsetting of the suite of permits in early 2025. A brief table there that summarizes all of the whereas clauses that are included in the draft resolution for your review today. And just a reminder for city council that the city's hearing examiner is a land use attorney that makes quasi-judicial decisions, quasi-judicial meaning court-like, for projects like preliminary plots. Plats like Hillside are what are called discretionary permits. Decisions are made by an attorney trained in land use case law, and that decision is based on an exhaustive material record and also subject to an open record public hearing. So in 2020, after the decision was made by the hearing examiner, in 2021, the city then entered into a developer's agreement with the project proponents. The developer's agreement authorized some further flexibility in the phasing of the construction of the project. The remaining whereas clauses in the draft resolution for this body's consideration today describe the council's offer to extend the project, but then a confirmation from the mayor's office that the extensions did not take place. There are two final whereas clauses for Council's consideration if there's a desire to take an additional step beyond documentation in the draft resolution. Documentation beyond just the timeline of the project. And if there's a desire to state intent, if there's going to be forward momentum with the project. So for consideration, there is a whereas clause that states that the City Council does not intend to enter into another developer's agreement with the Pacific North Group. And then there's also a clause that states that City Council would like to see the incomplete work on the Hillside site abated. And one means of abatement would be for the developer to apply for new permits, now that the old ones are expired, to authorize new work on site to complete a new project on the site. So Council has a number of options today in regards to the draft resolution in front of them. That can include approving the resolution, not approving the resolution. There can be some wordsmithing to modify the resolution, or of course, council can remand the resolution back to legal counsel, the city attorney and to staff and with guidance for any further updates or changes that council would like to see. I'm always appreciative of your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Stacy. And since this is an action item, I'm going to open it up for public comment. If there are any members of the public here today that wish to comment on this item, this is your chance to do so. Please go to the podium and state your name and address. And you have three minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Eric Anderson and I live in Coupeville. I've been a resident of Oak Harbor prior to that for 15 years, just about. I got out of the military in 2003. and this community kind of took me in and I've worked here ever since. It's been hard to find jobs in the construction industry that have livable wages for our local community. My brothers and sisters in this industry are constantly looking for places to work that will let us stay here and spend money here, let our kids go to school here. there's a few developments i've noticed uh in oak harbor that uh everybody's over town or off island over town is how we say it but um in this case i finally have found employment that i can raise my family on and i'm basically here to to wonder about the status of my employment as far as this this goes and uh I'd ask you to consider that you know it's it's not just me it's you know many many people and I'd ask you to consider that please thank you thank you Mr. Anderson is there anyone else here from the public that we wish to speak at this time three minutes Mr. Thompson I

Since you're the developer in question and you are in the room, if you have something to contribute, I would suggest that now be the time to do so. But if not, it's not required. No? OK. All right. So we will go back to council for action on this. resolution, and I just want to be really explicit about the action item that is in front of us. The purpose of our discussion is to review the official communication, review Exhibit E, which outlines the current status of the project's permits, preliminary plat, in accordance with the code. This discussion is specifically about the factual and procedural status of the project as determined by city code at previous council or hearing examiner decisions. It's not to debate the merits of the project itself or relitigate past decisions or anything other than whether or not the items in the resolution are True or false, factual or not, and if this is where we are in the process or not. If we want to discuss anything about the development itself or the project, then that would be something that we would need to do at a future time. And council doesn't do quasi-judicial things anymore, not since we moved to a hearing examiner process. Used to be. We would have to go down the line and be asked by our attorney one by one, who have we talked to about this, blah, blah, blah. The action today we're doing is not that. What we're recommending is that it go back through the hearing examiner process. But for the sake of transparency, I'm going to personally volunteer the information that I, since our last extension, our attempt to extend an extension for this project. I personally have not had any communication whatsoever with any of the parties to this project, nor have I had any discussion with any fellow council people about this discussion. So for the sake of transparency, I'm just going to put that out there. Other counselors can chime in or not. And at this time, I will turn to them for comments, questions, concerns. Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Because this is a complicated subject that spans several years and several council meetings, I decided to take the time to write out my comments just to make sure I articulated myself clearly. And so I would ask the council to indulge me as I read this letter. Absolutely. I want to be very clear about my position regarding the hillside plat and planned residential development agreement, because I believe what happened here represents a serious disregard for the authority and expressed will of this council on March 25th, 2025, just six days before the hillside plat and planned residential development agreement was set to expire. This council voted five to two to approve a two year extension of the development agreement and subdivision PRD between the city of Oak Harbor and the Pacific North group Inc. And for reference, I have that motion in the, in the meeting minutes right here. That approval was not unconditional. Council specifically required that a construction schedule, engineer's estimate, and bond be submitted to the city within 60 days. Those requirements were met. On May 20, 2025, well within that 60-day window, Development Services Director Kuhl and City Administrator Combs reported to council that the requested materials had been received and asked council for direction regarding the next steps. The meeting minutes are very clear. They state council was of consensus for staff to proceed with the two-year extension as discussed. City Administrator Combs notified staff would bring this item to the council for approval. And again, meeting minutes are right here if anybody would like to review. There should be no ambiguity about what happened here. This council voted to extend the agreement. The conditions imposed by council were satisfied. Council then gave staff direction to proceed with the extension and return with the necessary agreement for approval. Yet instead of that process being completed, the project was subsequently treated as though the extension approved by this council did not exist. Because on July 9th, 2025, the mayor wrote a letter to Mr. Thompson stating the March 25th council vote included a condition that the developer submit a new signed development agreement within 60 days. I strongly disagree with that interpretation. That is not what the motion says. The conditions of the extension were specifically outlined in the motion made by Council Member Merrill on March 25th. A signed development agreement was not one of those conditions. That distinction is not minor, it is fundamental. We cannot take a motion that was made, approved, and recorded in the public minutes and add conditions to it after the fact. And the City Zone's actions after the vote make the Mayor's letter even harder to reconcile. On June 17, 2025, City Administrator Combs sent an email to Mr. Thompson with a draft agreement for the hillside development for his attorneys to review. Then on June 20th, just three days later, she sent another email to Mr. Thompson instructing him to please hold on bringing a signed agreement because she was going to work with the city's attorneys to determine whether it would be helpful to add permit numbers to the scope of work. Emails are here. Anybody would like to see them. Think about that for a moment. If a signed development agreement was truly a mandatory condition of the extension that had to be submitted within 60 days or the extension would fail, why was the city administrator providing the developer nearly three months after the council vote with a draft agreement and then telling him to hold off on bringing in a signed copy? Why was staff providing a draft agreement or continuing to work through the details of an agreement if the developer had supposedly already failed to complete a mandatory condition of the extension? The city's own conduct tells us that the development agreement was part of the process of implementing the extension, not a condition that council opposed for the extension to exist. Oak Harbor Municipal Code 21.40.020 gives the city council the authority to grant a time extension for completion of the requirements for a preliminary plat for a maximum of two years. That authority belongs to this legislative body. I have searched the code and found nothing that gives the mayor the authority to simply supersede a decision made by a majority of this council. If the mayor disagreed with the council's decision, there was a process for addressing that disagreement. If there was a legal concern with the council's action, that concern could have been brought before council and addressed openly. If there was a problem with the developer's compliance, that could have been brought back to council. And if circumstances had changed, council could have reconsidered its decision. But unilaterally declaring the project expired after this council had voted to extend it and after the conditions of that extension had been satisfied is, in my view, a serious overreach of executive authority. And the consequences of that decision are not theoretical. The city is now in a position where its actions could potentially result in litigation and significant financial exposure to Oak Harbor taxpayers. I'm not an attorney and I'm not going to sit here and pretend to make a legal determination. But I am a council member and I believe it is my responsibility to recognize when the city may be walking into unnecessary legal and financial risk. We do not have to look very far to understand how serious that risk can become. Many of you are probably familiar with what recently happened in Cle Elum. Earlier this year, the city of Cle Elum filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy after an arbitrator and judge found the city had breached the development agreement and ordered it to pay more than $22 million in damages, plus interest and legal fees, with the total obligations reportedly reaching approximately $26 million. Again, I'm not an attorney and I'm not suggesting that Oak Harbor's circumstances are identical to Clay Ellum's. But I will say this, the similarities are concerning enough that we would be reckless to ignore them. A development agreement is not something a city can simply disregard because an individual elected official later disagrees with how the agreement should proceed. And this is not simply a disagreement between a developer and the city. This is about who has the authority to make decisions on behalf of the city. The people elected this council to make those decisions collectively. A five to two vote represents the will of the majority of this legislative body. Once council makes a decision within its lawful authority, that decision cannot simply be set aside by one individual acting without the council's direction. That is why I'm particularly concerned about the resolution being presented to us now. More than a year has passed since Council directed staff to proceed with the extension. The project has been effectively shut down during that time and approximately 14 months have now been lost. I am concerned that this resolution could be viewed as an attempt to retroactively legitimize a decision that was made without Council's authorization rather than addressing the underlying problem. If the council believes that the two-year extension should have proceeded, and I believe our actions in March and May of 2025 make our intent abundantly clear, then we should act accordingly. Therefore, I encourage my fellow council members to reject the resolution as presented. Instead, I believe we should direct the mayor and staff to follow the direction this council gave more than a year ago and bring forward the appropriate development agreement for council consideration. And I believe we should also direct staff in the city attorney to explore what options are available to restore their approximately 14 months that the developer has lost as a result of the situation to the extent legally permissible. More importantly, we need to establish a clear principle going forward. No individual elected official, regardless of their position, should be able to override the lawful action and express will of a majority of this council. If we allow that to happen, then we are not governing as a council. We are allowing one person to govern in place of the council. And that is not what the voters elected us to do. I believe it is our responsibility to correct that now before this situation becomes a much more expensive lesson for the city and its taxpayers. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Marshall. And Sabrina, Stacey, Bob, anyway, so there's been a... An objection or a contestation of facts in the resolution, the resolution says that the terms of the extension were not met, hence the resolution. Council Member Marshall is concerned that the conditions of the extension were met. So can you clear this up before we take this any farther? If there's a fact in dispute, we need to get to the bottom of that.

So we worked with the attorney at the time. There were some documents that were provided. We provided a full detailed list of those documents to the attorney that we had received. We did not receive everything. The other condition, and I know that in Council Member Marshall's statement, he's saying that there was no requirement for the agreement, but the agreement was the legal document to extend. And we didn't have that signed. That was never signed. So there were multiple opportunities to do that, and that was not completed. So there were some documents that at the time the director had stated that he had received, but in looking through the documents, there were some missing elements in that packet.

So the city's contention is that the facts laid out in the resolution continue to be an accurate representation of the timeline and the events.

Yeah, and we worked with the attorney, Bob Z. That's how we refer to him. Bob, I have given him, I pulled as much of the documentation that I could find from the history. We compiled everything, gave him all of that history to make sure that we had checked all those documents, which is the timeline that Stacy is presenting. So that was the information that was pulled. We did do updates to council through executive session, so we provided those updates as we moved along through the process as well.

Did you have anything to add? No, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Okay. Yeah, it's your question. You have the floor.

Thank you. So I would like to read the motion that was presented on March 25, 2025. Councilmember Marrow moved to recommend approving an extension of two years relating to a development agreement and subdivision PRD between the City of Oak Harbor and Pacific North Group Inc. for the Hillside Plan residential development with the conditions that a construction schedule, engineer schedule, and bonds be submitted to the city within 30 days. Mayor Pro Tem Heisen seconded the motion and offered a friendly amendment to change the time for submittal to 60 days. The friendly amendment was seconded by Councilmember Merrill. Mayor Wright called for a vote on the friendly amendment, which was approved unanimously. Mayor Wright then called for a vote on the motion as amended, which passed by a vote of five to two with Councilmember Arms, Merrill, Marshall, and Wiesner, and Mayor Pro Tem Heisen in favor, and Councilmember Stuckey and Wittgenstein opposed. Nowhere in the motion that was approved does it say that a development agreement has to be signed within that 60 days. However, the letter that Mayor Wright wrote to the developer on July 9th explicitly states that that development agreement needed to be signed within 60 days. I can ask Tim to play the meeting from May 20th, but I wrote down a transcript and it is very clear Councilmember Wiesner asked on multiple occasions, if you are good, we are good. If you are good, we are good. And At that time, Development Services Director Kuhl and City Administrator Combs both said we had everything that we needed at that time except for a schedule from PSC, which was acknowledged that the PSC schedule is difficult because they were trying to work on load balances because there was some fluctuation with state law when it comes to gas. So it was asked on multiple occasions on May 20th, if all the conditions of that extension were met and the answer that we repeatedly received as a body were yes. That is the last action that was taken by this legislative body on this item. Any other action at that point should have come if there was a problem with the development agreement, if there was a timeline expiration, if there were any other issues that associated with that, needed to come back before this legislative body because this is the body that granted a two-year extension. And nothing that we have done since then, up until this point, has voided that. And so any letters that were submitted, as far as I'm concerned, are not legitimate. We are the ones that make these decisions when it comes to these extensions. And we were not granted that authority to make a decision on that. The last decision we made was to move forward. And the direction that we gave, and it was very clear, Right here, council members Merrill. Next step, staff have worked the city attorney to draft a potential two-year contract extension for the development agreement. In addition, legal counsel suggests the city present the Hillside PRD to the hearing examiner at a future date to address when the phasing of the project is determined. The developer has indicated he will work with city staff and might decide to bring a request to the hearing examiner for potential extension of an additional five years to complete the development. Council members Mayor Wiesner and Mayor Pro Tem Heisen provided their respective questions and comments. The council was of consensus for staff to proceed with the two-year extension as discussed. City Administrator Combs noted staff would bring this item to the council for approval. At no point in here is there a date. There is no deadline given. We said to bring us a new development agreement. That was the last direction of council. And at no time did we say it has to be done within two weeks, 30 days, 60 days, a year. The direction was bring it to us. And that didn't happen. And then the project was effectively canceled by the mayor on July 9th without council consent.

I'm happy to...

jump in here and thank you um this is bob z our city attorney the um the um

That's correct that a development agreement, the extension was not conditioned on the development agreement. The development agreement isn't exactly relevant to what's in this resolution. I think as one of the council members pointed out, I think the question is whether or not the conditions put forth by the council were met. And those conditions were to have new bonds, engineer's estimate, and a new construction schedule. And the city cannot find those documents that they were submitted. And I don't recall that the former development service director represented that all of those things were in or not. I guess obviously he's not here to... to say what he knew or didn't know, and that's part of the issue, perhaps. But the city simply couldn't find all of those documents in any record. They have no record that they were all submitted. And so that would be the reason why the council's conditions for an extension weren't met, and if the conditions weren't met, then the extension didn't happen. So I guess that's really the crux of it. It's really not about the development agreement. That's sort of a secondary issue.

Bob, just for clarification, Is the issue that the three documents in question that the city cannot find them or that the city did not receive them?

I can't speak for the facts of what staff got or didn't get. No one who's at the city now got them. And no one can find them all. And an engineer's estimate would typically come from the city engineer. And I believe the city engineer didn't have one. So I don't know if the former development director made accurate representations, perhaps. I don't want to, you know, I don't know, or maybe there was some confusion, or maybe he had some things that got lost. I don't know what happened there. But I talked to the the developer's attorney about this and gave them an opportunity to provide those documents or do a sworn affidavit saying that they did provide them and they didn't take me up on that opportunity. The developer's own attorney said that they were going to start with a new application. So the documents,

don't exist, like we cannot produce them and the developer's attorney cannot produce them. They don't, nobody can produce them. They do not exist. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Counselor Marshall, you still have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So I would be happy to ask Tim to play the video from this, but I will read you a brief transcript. And if you get tired of me reading it, then Tim can pull it up. But city attorney, this is from development director David Cool. City attorney has reviewed the bond that was originally submitted for the Hillside project. That was a $1.3 million bond, and that was for the infrastructure in segment one. The attorney looked at that, and he said that is sufficient, and that one meets the requirements. The city received additional bond paperwork on May 19, 2025 and forwarded that information to legal counsel for review. It contained all the bonds that are in for the model home bonds as well as the infrastructure. There's additional bonds listed in this documentation that was not needed. Next step, staff has asked the city attorney to draft a potential agreement and we've seen a draft agreement to do an extension of the development agreement. The developer is going to work with staff and bring it back to the hearing examiner. So the whole point of this project was to give the developer two more years with an extension to continue working on segment one, continue his momentum so he can move forward and then during that time go back to the hearing examiner where he'll be able to get more time with the hearing examiner decision. That decision would give him five more years theoretically to finish all 192 lots in that particular development. So asked by council member Wiesner. So we've been given everything we asked for a few weeks ago. David Kuhl, right. In the file we have an engineer's estimate for segment one. And so the developer did provide that and that's what the $1.3 million bond was based on. Council Member Wiesner, well again, I'm just content if you're content. You were the one who presented to us the list of items you wanted to see in your development office to grant that extension. We granted a temporary extension based on the items you asked for and if you received the items that you asked for that you've included on the list, then that's all I really need to know. Yes, we received almost everything we asked for except for the documentation from PSE as to what the challenges they have with installing and getting this completed. Council Member Wiesner, yeah, there's difficulties with PSEs. I've got a project we're talking about waiting until December to get engineered and so on. City Administrator chimes in. Council Member Wiesner, one of the things we've done recently with this project is we've formed a group of staff working in various roles related to this project and brought them together. And what we did was take a look at the... notes Julie takes in these meetings we compiled all of this and that's how we formed the letter so we have really looked at all the documentation and then we also sent the binding or the bonding off to our legal counsel to make sure they have reviewed the documents So really it's just trying to take that holistic approach to looking at everything and make sure that we had the documents that were required. And as noted, David's correct, we don't have an official document from PSC, but we understand that due to some of the rebate programs, some of the power related items were modified in the way that those were being addressed in this plan. Council Member Wiesner. Well again, if you're content, I'm content. Like I said, the extension is built into our code for a reason and if you're content, I'm content. Clearly we had the documents. Whether the city lost them or where they went is irrelevant to the developer. We were told the city has the documents.

Does that conclude your I'm not sure where to go from here, because the contention from the city is that the documents don't exist. And we don't have them. So I guess I'll turn to council to see how they want to proceed. Councillor Wittgenstein.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I'm going to read a little bit, too. Bear with me.

All good?

My position has nothing to do with anybody sitting in the room. It doesn't have anything to do with you, Mr. Thompson. I don't know you. I don't have an opinion of you or anybody else in that regard. I'm truly one of those generations where we just want to see people living in houses. I don't care how long. I care how long it's taking, and I'd like to see something happen as quickly as possibly can, within the steps that we can. I also believe in equitable treatment to everybody. And so I'm on this council adopting some of this. I wasn't here in the very beginning of it. But here's what my research dug up. And it's very similar to Council Member Marshall's. I said the equal treatment. As a policy matter, I don't support entering another project-specific development agreement for the hillside. I never did. I wouldn't have even back then, and I won't change my stance there. Resolution 2611 asks us to do more than decline a future agreement. It asks council declare multiple approvals expired and to ratify prior city actions. The record before us is not internally consistent. On March 25, 2025, council voted 5 to 2 on the motion, worded as approving the two-year extension, conditioned on construction schedule, engineer's estimate, and bonds within 60 days. On May 20, staff reported that the bond was sufficient that nearly everything requested had been received except official PSC documentation, and council gave consensus to proceed with the two-year amendment. The city's May 27th, July 1st status reports then described Hillside as extended two years and under construction on July 2nd, and July 9th, the city took the opposite position and declared the approvals expired. Tomorrow's staff reported characterizes the March action as only an offer. There may be a sound legal explanation for all these differences. I don't have yet the explanation in the public record. Before I vote to ratify prior actions, I need council and staff to identify what the March vote legally accomplished, which conditions council imposed, and what was submitted by the deadline, and why the city's record position changed. That's not a special treatment. It is the same complete, consistent, evidence-based process I would require of any comparable case. And because I like to play with procedure, I do have a motion I'd like to make. I move to defer resolution 26-11 and remand it to council and staff for reconciliation for the conflicting public record before it returns to council action.

Second.

Councilor Wittgenstein, can you please repeat your motion?

You want me to repeat it?

Please.

I move to defer resolution 26-11 and remand it to council and staff for reconciliation for the conflicting public record before it returns to council for action.

OK, we have a motion from Councilmember Wiggenstein to defer Resolution 2611 and remand back to Council and staff for reconciliation. And that was as fast as I could write, but I'm assuming Julie has it. And then we have a second from.

I can email that to you.

Thank you. Please do. We have a second from Councilmember Marrow. So the motion on the floor for discussion is, deferring this resolution until council and staff can reconcile what appears to be a factual or historical inconsistency. So at this point, I would turn that motion to council for discussion. Council Member Merrill.

So as a matter of record, I strongly favor any constructive development like the hillside project because of the value it brings to our community both in residences and economic development and i did make the original motion with regard to a two-year extension we want to get this done i want to get this done i'm mindful of the fact that in public deliberations, there are times when there's gray areas that are not clear. There's times when there's conflicting or insufficient documentation or lost documentation. This is not new in public policy processes. But what I can state is that I've reviewed, line by line, the resolution. And I've gone through the video clips various other documents that Councilmember Marshall had pulled together, to his credit, a tremendous amount of labor involved in it. And I would have to say that my take on it is that the extension needs to be recognized and allowed to proceed in its course. Now, I would add significantly that that just like an accounting practices as an analogy there are times when you cannot reconcile what you have in front of you and recreating history becomes practically impossible so i would like to suggest the council that uh... that our better angels, shall we say, our wisest thoughts should be viewed toward the intent with regard to the extension and recognize that it was valid until the end of the extension. And so although I've seconded the motion, I think that that's a proper course that Council Member Wittgenstein has stated, but not necessarily the one that I would have originally gone for. That's all I have, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Councilor Merrill. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so focused over here.

No, I apologize, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. I didn't mean to interrupt discussion. Bob, I had a thought as I was writing down some notes. In Title 21, as Councilmember pointed out, it is within the Council's authority to extend the plat, I believe the RCW say, for up to one year, two times. Am I quoting that correctly?

I'm here. I believe it says up to two years within the code.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. That's why I check with my attorney because I only play one on TV occasionally. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So up to two years. Are there, does it describe, are there bookends to what? Or does it have language in there that says they have the ability to do that? Is it subject to any conditions or conditions as the council sees fit to apply?

Are we, sorry, respectfully right now we're discussing the motion on the floor.

Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt.

I know you're trying to solve like 17 problems back here while a conversation is happening.

I'll put it in my back pocket.

As of right now we are discussing the motion on the floor which is to defer the resolution until we can reconcile the inconsistencies. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Council Member Wiggins for the motion. My concern with it is that we are then once again kicking the can down the road. And this developer has been already delayed for the better part of 14 months. We are coming into a season where construction is not going to be a lot of fun and potentially impossible on that hillside. My preference would be that we finish the discussion and potentially not go forward. But that's my reasoning. And I appreciate the cooperation. I appreciate what you said. I agree with the cooperation. I would kind of like to not kick this can down the road.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson. I will respectfully remind Council that discussion should be directed towards the chair and not to each other, even though we're right here and I do it all the time as well. I'm probably the worst defender. It's all good. All good. Councilor Stuckey.

So development has not been allowed for 14 months. Am I correct? I've heard that a couple times. Has the developer been allowed to proceed with anything over the last 14 months?

So I started with the city approximately eight months ago. And it's been my understanding in those eight months, based on my discussions with our city attorney, that the developers agreement and all associated permits are expired. But I do understand that some work has been taking place based on the existing state stormwater permit from Ecology. So there has been some work taking place on site. But I'm not sure I can speak to the comment about work not being allowed to take place. We have not issued any stop work orders or notices of violation. I can confirm that.

So there was nothing stopping the developer over the last 14 months from just proceeding as usual with the construction?

My department has not issued any stop work orders or notices of violation.

We had made the developer aware that the permits had expired. There was a meeting that took place where that discussion occurred. That was also part of one of the written communications as well. So that was the steps that the city did in order to make sure that the communication was clear. That was before and during some of those other communications that were going on. And then when the city received a letter from an attorney on behalf of the developer, that is when we said that the attorneys need to speak to each other in protection of the city. So that has been the other pause that happened in the process. So to clarify, those are some of the things that have occurred.

If it's been 14 months, and I know things take time, why was this not brought six months or eight months or 10 months ago?

So we did update counsel in executive session of some of the process that was going on as it was moving forward. But again, we were also gathering documents. It was waiting for the attorney to respond to our attorney, things like that that were going on.

Yeah, I could chime in. Go ahead. We waited quite a while. I was working with Mr. Thompson, which, by the way, if Mr. Thompson being in the audience, he might be able to shed some light on this also. But I was going back and forth with his attorney. about these documents and I was told that I was going to be getting an affidavit from Mr. Thompson saying when he gave the city these documents and who he gave them to and exactly what documents he provided. And I was told I was going to get that. And I waited several months and it never came. And then I emailed his attorney, whose name is Vicki, And said, hey, where are these? I'll give you one more month. And then she said they weren't going to provide them. And then she also told me that they were going to start over with a new application. So, I mean, if their plan was to start over with a new application, this was in, I think, this was on May 27th, give or take a day. I MEAN, THERE'S NO REASON FOR THE CITY TO DO ANYTHING FROM THAT POINT ONWARD SINCE WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE GOING TO START OVER WITH A NEW APPLICATION.

SORRY, COUNCILOR STEKKE, I'M GOING TO jump in because this again like the the reason why or the 14 months or what happened I'm we're discussing the motion on the floor which is to refer the resolution until we can reconcile the fact so if we're getting we're trying to hash out the facts that's what the motion is so I'm just I'm trying real I know I I also have about 4 000 questions so I'm trying really hard to keep our our conversation to the motion on the floor which is to defer the resolution

I would have preferred that motion not been put in there. That really restricts us. Okay, the only thing I will request is there have been some, for lack of a better term, accusations made, and they've been made towards the mayor as far as letters and things go. So if we do vote to hold off on this, I'd request that that's at a meeting where the mayor can be present so that he's able to address them as well. And that's how I will say regarding the motion here. They're in the packet, yes, but there was some other things mentioned that I think he has a right to address.

Thank you. Thank you for that perspective, Councillor Stuckey. The mayor had an existing vacation scheduled and he tried to cancel it and be here for this meeting and I respectfully told him that everybody needs a day off once in a while, and that I was perfectly capable of chairing one workshop if he needed to take that time off. So I kind of demanded that he take his vacation. So if it were up to him, he probably would have been here. But I put my foot down about that. Councilor Arms?

Well, other than I'm very confused by now. And it does. I mean, we did do things. and we thought things were moving along. And I don't know what happened, where everything is, and for me, I'm not sure what is going on. You know, are we saying okay? I mean, we have this. I guess I'm confused why, if we already had these agreements, and we agreed as council, why wasn't there more work being done? Or what were we missing that the developer could do that? What were we missing that he didn't get stuff moving along? I guess that's where I'm confused. I mean, yes, we have all this, and there's that confusion, but if we signed it, did it, said it, then where was the development going on? Did all the documents expire and they had to reapply?

Is that where hold up?

So, I mean, that's what I'm saying. You know, that's where I'm confused with what we're talking about is where is it at? Where is, where, where, why haven't, if we're saying we had, the developer had the right, then why? I don't know. I'm just really confused about this whole thing. It just, that's how I feel.

Okay. So thank you, counselor arms and thank you council member Peterson. The motion on the floor is to defer resolution 26 11 and remand it back to council and staff for reconciliation. I it's, it's my understanding that the, be the purpose of the resolution in the first place, the original resolution that we've proposed to be deferred was to clarify Confusion, you know, there was confusion about the timeline. There was confusion about the current status. And so it was to reconcile the This is exactly where we are in the process. These are the next steps in the process so that we had a easy reference and everybody knew exactly what was happening and Clearly the resolution as presented There are still some questions about that that do need to be reconciled. So personally I'm going to support the motion to defer resolution 2611 because if we still have questions then we don't about any of these findings on the resolution then we have no business passing something if we still have questions about something that we are gonna put our hand up and declare as a fact so I would like to to get these dates and the conflicting stories resolved you know if the three documents in question exist then you know, resubmitting them shouldn't be an issue. We should be able to get this cleared up pretty quickly. So, um, I'm going to vote in favor of the motion to defer to reconcile. And we have, I counseled Wittgenstein. You have not spoken since you made the motion. And I believe council member Marshall has not spoken since the motion was made. So I want to give you each an opportunity before I call for the vote council member Marshall.

Thank you very much, Tim. And I appreciate Council Member Wittgenstein's research that he's done on this and I appreciate his thoughtful recommendation. However, I too believe that we have kicked this can down the road for quite a while. If there are any discrepancies, then that can be brought forward to us as we continue to move on with the extension that was originally granted. Those are items that we can discuss as we proceed, but to continue to pause any further progress, I think is continuing to do a disservice and continuing to put this city in jeopardy. I mean, that is that is the premise of the Cle Elum suit is delays, delays, delays, delays. And we are continuing to to put our constituency at risk. And I don't favor that. You know, we've staff has had an opportunity to provide all the documentation. They've had ample opportunity to update us over the last 14 months. And this is This is supposed to be the entirety of the conversation, and it is missing substantial facts. But that could be brought forward to us at another time. But it doesn't mean that we have to delay. If we decide at that point we want to bring a resolution back forward, then we can do that. That is the purview of the council. But I think that we should move forward with the extension as we originally agreed in May of last year. So thank you.

Yeah, OK. The motion on the floor is to defer the resolution specifically.

So it's not really kicking the can down the road. Because if we take any action on this, the only action we can take because of the inconsistency is to vote it down. So why vote on it anyways? We're spending time talking about it when we need more context to fill the gaps that are obviously in place. And so that's the reason the motion's made. The motion's made not to kick it down the road. It doesn't affect what's currently under the contract, I understand, right? I mean, and yeah, we should be discussing about the 14 months that need to be figured out, right? We need homes in this community, and we need them the quickest way possible. So, I mean, the motion that's not been made yet, and we were discussing, doesn't even have to get made. And we can sit and discuss it for 20 minutes and still not. So in order to speed things along and keep this going, because we have a big agenda, I made the motion to defer it, because we have a lot of questions.

Council Member Peterson? If we pass this motion to defer, and currently the developer is told he cannot work, How long a deferment are we talking about? Doesn't that still impact the developer? I'm confused about where this takes us. I'm not sure it gets us any closer to building houses. Can someone address that for me?

Stacy, can you address that, or Bob? Yeah, what does taking action...

the resolution today do or not do in terms of yes thank you councilmember Peterson asked exactly the question I was thinking I'm going to look to our legal counsel it is and I've appreciated hearing the conversation today it's been my understanding since I started in this position that the that the project is expired, including the developer's agreement. If there is a question on whether it is expired or not, that would be important for the Community Development Department as well as Public Works to know if we can continue to authorize work under current permits. I don't believe I have an answer to that right now.

Everything we had that we reported to the developer was showing that it was expired. I think there was one, again, I think it was surface water or something related to that that was still remaining that we did show him. We brought a list to a meeting of all of the permits that had expired. The agreement had expired and the document we were working on that Marshall referred to that councilor Marshall referred to Was the extension agreement that we had shown to the developer? As part of the process earlier on that we were saying this is the extension document that documents that extension So all of those documents had expired which is why there was no work and there is the opportunity to reapply but again once legal documents were presented the city was working attorney to attorney and with the city's attorneys working with the developer's attorneys to address those items because then it had become a legal discussion. So that was part of the pause. And again, as Bob explained, he specifically was waiting for responses from the developer's attorney.

Yes, so the question is, what effect does the resolution have?

What effect does deferring the resolution? Oh, deferring. The motion on the floor is to defer the resolution so that we can reconcile the inconsistencies in it.

Yeah, I mean that. We want our questions answered.

What does that do to everybody's timeline?

I don't think it would change. I think things would just stay as they are until council members got the information that they would like to receive. I mean, I... There were a lot of permits that were expired. There was a table of like a page and a half of small type permits for this project, and a lot of them were expired like a couple years ago and hadn't been renewed. So even absent the letter the mayor sent, there was work being done without proper permits. on this project for quite a while. As far as the expiration of the plenary plat or PUD, that expiration would then expire all associated permits. So that sort of knocked out all of the permits except for perhaps the state permits. And I guess that's a key factual question. And I don't know that it's one that kind of the mayor and the staff decided based on the best information they had. And I don't know. I guess we can get more information to counsel so that you're more comfortable or have better information to make your decision. I don't know that whether or not this resolution is adopted or not adopted, that that changes. It doesn't change the facts. If the fact is that their documents weren't received, then the project is expired. Regardless of what council, and there's nothing the council can do to make it unexpired. Once it's expired, there's nothing to extend. It can't be extended after it's already expired. So that's something to know.

Yeah, to clarify, if the permits are expired, us doing or or not doing anything today doesn't necessarily change the status of the project. So currently council is in need of getting our facts straight in our timeline. To me this sounds like a lawyer's discussion. This sounds like a discussion that our attorneys should be having amongst themselves and not us amongst ourselves. But that's where I'm sitting right now. Did you have your hand up? Council Member Marshall?

I think there's an important distinction that needs to be made here. Permits are one thing, the plat is another. Permits can be renewed. The plat is what we have the authority to extend by two years. As Bob Z just stated, the mayor and staff decided. Mayor and staff decided that that plat was expired. And that's our determination. We are the ones that make the determination on the agreement. And so if we determine that that was being extended by two years, it's not expired. We have that authority to make that determination. And that's an important distinction between a permit. Permits can expire and can be renewed. The PLAT, however, would have to go back before the hearing examiner. And so there is a portion of the original development agreement that says the city at least shall at least every 12 months during the term of this agreement review the extent of good faith substantial compliance by developer and landowner within this agreement. The city may charge fees as necessary to cover the cost of conducting the annual review. Stacy, I know that you're new. Is there any record at all of these annual reviews being conducted?

Not that I'm aware of at this time.

So we the city then failed to meet our legal obligation under the development agreement.

I won't make a statement about failing to meet a legal obligation since I have a paucity of knowledge about that about that situation but I would restate that I'm not aware of those yearly reviews.

And Bob as well.

Yeah I would I wouldn't recommend saying you know that the city failed to do some legal duty. I disagree with that that.

Well, it's written in the development agreement, yes.

The question on the floor is not about the development agreement.

Okay, okay.

With all due respect, Mayor Pro Tem, I'm responding to the discussion that was being presented and that is part of the discussion as it has transpired here. And so part of the discussion has also been from our attorney that whether or not this paperwork actually existed and the requirement of the developer to sign an affidavit, why would the developer have to sign an affidavit when our own staff said that the paperwork was in-house? I wouldn't sign an affidavit. I wouldn't say I provided anything if it was already there. And so I understand that we have the motion, but we also have discussion as it's transpired. So thank you.

Council Member Merrill.

I am delighted and pleased when projects roll and go and get done. And I'm mindful of, say, Desert Storm in the Navy. a squadron had tens of millions of dollars that they had to do audits and, what do you call it, audits, review, research, and none of it could be reconciled. We're talking millions of dollars. And it went on for years and years and years. And what I'm stating here is that this is kind of like a microcosm of all these different variables of which we – are not finding documents, or we get testimony of some type that these documents had already existed. But I'm inclined to be recognizing there is the letter of the law, which is exceptionally important, but there is also the spirit of the law. And the will of this body here was to extend two years And I am more in favor of a motion. I know it's not the same motion, but it's addressing an alternative, like Councilmember Peterson and Councilmember Marshall, that we could move forward with it immediately. But I don't know the procedure to do an amended motion or pulling it back or whatever. But for the record, I wanted to make this clear. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. So you have a question about the motion?

Yeah. So I'm so confused. I'm not even sure I know where I'm at. If you already have a plat in place and you know you have expired permits, then why aren't you getting them together?

Council Member Arms, I don't want to disrupt your train of thought, but we have to focus on the motion. Yeah, this is, again, Merits of the project is a separate discussion item. So the motion on the floor is to defer Resolution 2611. And for reconciliation, can you, would you, sorry, Council Member Wagenstein, would you read your motion aloud? In full. I just, I want us to be absolutely clear what it is we are voting on. So, yeah, for me is... Is the extension, did it happen or not? Is it expired or not? Is it valid or not? If I can't personally answer that question, then I'm not comfortable voting on something. And our decisions are only as good as the information that we are presented with at any given time. So that internal reconciliation is the thing that I'm interested in. Yes, if you could read your motion aloud.

Yes, I move to defer resolution 26-11 and remand it to council and staff for reconciliation for the conflicting public record before it returns for council action.

Thank you.

OK, that is the motion on the floor. At this time, I will ask that all those in favor raise their hand. Any opposed? OK, so we have five opposed. And I can't figure it out. OK. Councilor Heisen voted in favor. Councilor Arms abstained.

The rest of the council voted against it.

So that motion fails. So again, before us, we have the resolution 2611 as presented. Does Council want to take any action on that? Council Member Peterson.

Yes. There's been a lot said about what do we have, what do we know. Why does Council not know what we think we know, I guess is what I'm hearing. Because I wasn't here when all of this started, except a lot of the time in the audience and watching online. I've done a lot of research. I've talked to both interested and disinterested parties. I listened to past council meetings. I read minutes. I did a boatload of work. Because I wanted to understand what this issue was and why it was decided that the project could just be shut down unilaterally. And it was. And there is an email that was dated on July 9th that said, your project is shut down. There's been a lot of talk about the May 20 meeting where Ms. Combs and Mr. Cool said, absolutely, we have everything we need. Where is it? I don't know. But it was stated publicly that we have the information specifically, yes. Meeting adjourned. Everybody went away happy. Ms. Combs said that the city was working to finish the development agreement, which was going to work to extend the project, and that the council had everything they needed. There were at least four emails between the city and Mr. Thompson between June 17th and June 25th talking about the development agreement and the work that was being put in order. Not all of those emails were included in our packet. I received them differently. One stated that the first agreement draft was ready and a hard and electronic version was sent to Mr. Thompson. Three days later, another email said the agreement had not yet been returned, although there is an email saying that there was an attempt to bring that document to the city and that the staff had decided that there was gonna be one more revision, so please would Mr. Thompson hold off bringing the agreement. There were communications that were ongoing about construction meetings, coordination meetings, site work beginning, On July 2nd, Omni, Mr. Thompson's contractor, let the city know that the permit applications were submitted and they were ready to start groundwork. Then on July 2nd, a letter was sent both by email and UP, United States Postal Service signed by the mayor saying the signed agreement had not been received. It further stated that the conditions of the extension had not been met and previous permits had expired. It tells the contractor that the project is paused. It is odd to me because May 20, the council said everything was clear. Everybody was moving forward. Ms. Combs, when one of her emails said, we've decided we're going to put all the permits on this agreement, trying to make everything easy. So in this span of 13 days, 13 business days, part of which was over the 4th of July weekend, this project is basically told stop. The two people, the two entities met on July 7th and in a letter drafted on July 9th, it is reiterated that because the original permits had expired, that the plot, although there had been a 30 day extension, the conditions had not been met, the new development agreement was not signed and the project was shut down. That is in direct A proposition, to my opinion, as to what the city council was told. We were told everything was hunky-dory. That's the last we heard. But then this agreement is done. There are two things I don't like. Well, there's more than two, but there's two that I'll talk about. The first one is that the action to shut the project down was taken on July 3rd. That is a holiday weekend. It is straight up, in my opinion, political chicanery to do stuff on a Friday afternoon when nobody's looking. That is what they do in high level politics so they don't get caught. I don't like it. I'm not sure that it was meant that way, but that is how the optics of this are. Don't think the mayor had the legal authority to do it. We are the legislative body.

Council Member Peterson, if we're going to be discussing the legality of something, then that should probably happen in an executive session and not out here.

Why? This is public record.

I also have questions about what you received information that the rest of council hasn't. Why is it not? We don't have. Why is it not?

Why don't we have the complete record? It was stuff sent to the city council. Why don't we have it? Nonetheless, then again, When we were in executive session.

Jump in at any time if this requires executive session, you're the expert.

Okay. Go ahead. During executive session, I asked that this action, this particular meeting.

Don't discuss items that happened in executive session. You can't talk about anything that happened in executive session.

Here's my question. Then I'll ask a question. Once again, over a long weekend, Action was taken and, well, once again, on a Thursday before a long weekend, this packet comes out with all of the stuff wanting the city council to now vote on this. And it just feels shady to me, and I don't like it. There should be a longer period of time for people to look at stuff, not over a four-day weekend. I am sorry if I overstepped on the executive session. I am still learning. But as Mr. Marshall pointed out, Councilmember Marshall pointed out, something very similar has happened in the city of Cle Elum where a developer has been disallowed not to develop. And that city has declared bankruptcy and they are looking to have to assess additional taxes on their own citizens to dig themselves out of a legal hole, which I don't want us to dig ourselves into. I did not stand for election in this city to bring the same peril on us. I want us to cast the brightest sunlight we possibly can into the darkest corners of government spending and decisions. I do not feel like that is happening. By the very fact that I was able to get stuff that has been sent to the city and was not included in the packet to the other counselors is not right. Why do we not have everything? I cannot in all good conscience vote for this resolution to shut this property down, to shut this developer down. I think it is the worst decision we could possibly make, in part because we don't know everything. But I am adamant, we do not, the authority was not there and this plat should be allowed to go forward.

For the record, the resolution 2611 put in front of us does not do that. It doesn't shut anything down or stop anybody from doing anything. It's a statement of fact from the city's perspective of the timeline. If we disagree with those facts, we don't have to pass the resolution. This is an action item. The resolution in front of us is what we are here to discuss. We can take action on it or not. That's up to council. Council Member Marshall.

Thank you. I agree with your assessment but also have a respectful disagreement in that We are being asked to codify a decision that has already been made with this resolution. And so what it comes down to ultimately is, who has the authority to make this decision to shut down the project or not? The council, the legislative body of this city had made a decision in May of last year. At no time did we rescind that decision. And so my question to this council and to the city attorney is, is that project, is that plat extension still valid? Because the last action of this city council as the legislative body was to approve that extension by a five to two vote. At no point was that rescinded. So is that extension a valid extension and therefore the developer has the right to work with the planning department and submit for any expired permits and continue work? That's the crux of the issue here. That's really what it comes down to. We are being asked to codify a decision that we didn't make. And so I put it to you, Mr. Z, then what is the legal standing here? Do we have the ability to declare this plat as extended as we declared in May of last year and can then the developer move forward?

Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question. I think I would reframe it slightly. I think the main question would be, does the council or the mayor have the authority to decide what the facts are here, essentially, right? To decide whether or not the conditions were met or not. Because if the conditions weren't met, then they weren't met. That's just a factual question. I don't know if I have a good answer to that. It seems like the staff would be the ones who would know more, like the administration would know more what's happened and what they have or they don't have and kind of what the facts are. So I guess I would sort of lean towards them being able to make that decision. It's the council's call to decide whether or not they're going to approve extensions and how they're going to approve them. The tricky thing is here, it wasn't just a standard extension approval. It was this extension with these conditions. And so now there's all this. And the certainty, I guess, among some people, among what those, whether or not those conditions were met or not, and what those facts are. So that's kind of the whole thing here.

The extension is not what's on our agenda for action today. The merits of the extension, The conditions of the extension, whether the extension happened or not, that is all stuff that we do need to discuss. This is not a discussion item. This is an action item, and it is resolution 26-11. State your point. The motion has yet to be made. Yes.

So we are still in discussion.

There is not a motion on the floor. I'm reminding council that per our rules, all discussion must be germane. It must be germane. We are discussing the action item brought in front of us. If we have anything other than resolution 26-11 to discuss, then we need to discuss that at the proper time. That's not what was noticed. That was not what was publicly noticed for discussion or action on our agenda, us discussing whether or not we're going to say an extension is good or it's not, that's not what was publicly advertised for us to be discussing at this meeting and to take action on. So as the chair of this meeting, I'm asking council, resolution 2611, do you want to take action on it or not? If not, then we need to move on with our agenda. We can serve, I would love to defer discussion or we need to have the discussion. My concern is that is not on our agenda today. We cannot have this discussion right now.

I think that's a good point about saying about the topic and staying on topic.

I would absolutely disagree, Mayor Pro Tem. This is germane to the discussion. In fact, the main points of what we are discussing are in our packet for this particular meeting, including the letter from the mayor, which effectively shuts down the project. That's absolutely germane to what we're discussing.

So the status of the extension, so that would require a motion if someone wants to...

It absolutely does not because this has already been moved and decided. It does not require a motion because the motion was made in May of last year. And so the motion is made. Now we are getting clarification as to whether or not that motion is still valid.

And it's... And round and round we go. It's the city's contention that that extension is.

And those are the facts that we need to get sorted out. And I'd love to hear from Hillary, but when does the validity of a vote stop becoming valid?

So I think the mayor pretends making a valid procedural point. This is an agenda item. No one's moved to discuss. There's no discussion capable of, according to Robert's rules, happening right now because no one's moved to approve the resolution. So we're in this limbo where an agenda item was called. A different motion was made to extend it. That motion failed, and now we don't have any motion on the table. So first and foremost, there's no discussion that's appropriate at this moment. I know we're in a workshop, which makes this all kind of wonky too, but someone should move for the resolution to be approved. Well, for it to be tabled, which has already sort of happened. Or we should move on to the next agenda item. And then once that motion's on the table, discussion can take place related to the resolution itself. And if you want to have further discussion on it, you can certainly move into executive session. I've heard a lot of things that probably should be discussed in executive session. Or you could move to amend the resolution or expand discussion that way. But I think procedurally, we're missing a step here.

Councilmember Marshall still has the floor. I submit. Sorry. That's not how that works. I'm putting a tick mark next to everyone's name once they've had a chance to speak so that everyone has an equal opportunity to speak. So I shuffled my papers around and lost track. Apologies to the group. So the question now is, we have an action item on our agenda. Does the council want to take any action? on this item. If someone doesn't make a motion, then I need to move on with our agenda.

I would like to make a comment. Council Member Peterson. Thank you. With all due respect, I've sat in this chambers and at this table now for quite some time. And rarely, rarely does a motion proceed discussion. And while I agree that parliamentary procedure is correct in what Ms. Evans says, that is rarely how this body does anything. And while I will accede to parliamentary procedure always, I think it's interesting that we are suddenly being called out on it when it is not a practice.

No, sorry. I was not clear. when I spoke. I'm not saying that we cannot have a discussion unless there's a motion on the floor. That's not what I'm saying. That's not proper procedure. What I'm saying is that we have an agenda. It's my job as chair to move us through said agenda. We have discussed this particular agenda item. It's an action item. It's not a discussion item. It's an action item. If council's going to take action, I will hear a motion. If no one's going to make a motion, and we have all been round and round more than twice, which our rules say we're allowed to go around twice, and we've been doing this for an hour and a half, so I've been granting a lot of leeway to the body here. then at some point i have to as chair move on with our agenda that is my responsibility so if someone wants to make a motion we can discuss it we can vote on it otherwise i'm moving on to our city administrator report thank you and i appreciate and you've done a great job we're a little bit cat hurdy today i just want to be absolutely clear about why i'm moving on it's not if it's not because we cannot talk unless there's a motion that's not

If a person then, and I will look for direction, if a person wanted to make a motion allowing the development to continue based on the 2025 agreement of this body how would one do that?

Hillary, I mean, I just, and there's some disagreement about whether or not a motion like that is even necessary. Hillary?

Right, so if you wanted to make a motion like that, I mean, it hasn't been noticed on the agenda, so it's sort of to Mayor Pro Tem's point, it's arguably not sort of within the realm of the resolution that you're discussing. But it's your meeting. They're your rules of order. If you want to amend the agenda to throw something on to discuss like that, you're certainly allowed to do that. Agendas can change at any time. There are procedural ways around it, and you can always suspend your rules of procedure to do what you like through the council. So if you want to make such a motion, I'm happy to help you do it.

All right. Then I would like to have direction on how to make a motion to allow this developer to move forward. And I'm looking for any kind of way that you think I should do that.

Well, since there's no there's no current motion on the table. So basically, I would recommend if you're going to do that, that you move to amend the agenda to include that as an action item action item because we are in a workshop situation situation and then and then You make emotional not agenda items called.

Yeah, we can also set this item for a discussion and or I think an executive session. It needs to be discussed. My point today is, The extension itself, the project itself, that is not on today's agenda. So as a council person, you can absolutely request that we have that discussion. And depending on our legal counsel, whether that happens in executive session or not, then we can. But it's probably not going to happen right now today.

Point of order, she just asked the city attorney if it can be done. And the city attorney provided advice on how it can be done. We don't have the authority. If she's an independent counselor, she can make that motion.

And she can make a motion.

That is what she was asked on how to do that.

I move too. May I have a floor? You have a floor. Thank you. I just want to make sure. You have a floor? So then I move to add to today's agenda an action item to allow the developer for the hillside property to move forward. Is that the proper way to do that, Hillary?

That's good enough for the purposes of the agenda, although we know it's a lot more complicated than that. And I'd probably recommend excusing ourselves into executive session before that action item is is called.

Second.

Second.

Are you seconding Hillary's recommendation, or are you seconding Council Member Peterson's motion? Well, since I would remind Councilor Peterson that action items are typically noticed in advance made available for public comment to be submitted and people to show up and make a comment so if we are going to be discussing an extension or a project or a development or anything like that if we are going to take action on that without giving the public the courtesy of any advance notice and or the ability to comment I Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with that, but it's your motion.

Point taken, and I appreciate that. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So I will withdraw my motion and strongly suggest that this body get together and figure this out.

Your motion has been seconded, so it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the group. Perfect. Let's do it. So the motion on the floor is an action item to allow, I'm sorry, I'm the development to move forward, construction to move forward? Does that sound like the thing that you seconded, Council Member Marrow?

I think it's to amend the agenda to include that as an action item.

Thank you, to include that as an action item. Thank you very much. Okay, so the motion on the floor is to amend the agenda to add an action item made by Council Member Peterson, seconded by Council Member Marrow. As chair, I've noted my objection to putting an action item that was not previously noticed for the public on the agenda. But that is the motion on the floor. So if there are no questions about the motion specifically, at this point, I will call for a vote. All those in favor of adding the action item to today's agenda, raise your hand. We have one. All opposed? OK. That motion fails six to one with council member Mero voting in favor and the rest of the council voting opposed. It has been noted that this is something that council needs to discuss. Preferably in executive session. Preferably sooner than later.

So I don't know if we can put down the schedule for next week.

So can we go to executive session ASAP? We can go to executive session right now. Or we can, I will say that whatever happens in executive session, if we come out of executive session and then someone wants to do an action, again, that was not properly noticed in advance and not made available for public comment, then we're going to be running into the same issue. So it's my strong recommendation that we,

That the other option is you can add it to a future meeting as discussed. We can add an executive session to that meeting as needed. Um, but just to clarify that would be, um, you know, part of the process of having that conversation and whatever's an executive session stays in executive session, uh, which is part of the difficulty of this conversation here, because there are things that were discussed in executive session that cannot be brought up.

this body so in this format so yes for those for those of you watching at home if some of this conversation feels kind of stilted and awkward it's because we're dancing around things that we that we have discussed but cannot mention so that's why a lot of this probably feels kind counsel I just want to be clear on what the action is that you're asking specifically of staff because I

with dancing around it, there were things that were done based on what was understood by staff. And now it sounds like there's additional information that you are requiring. So we just want to be clear that we're providing what you're specifically asking for.

So can we have an executive session discussion to Tuesday's meeting so that we can? Yeah. I'm sorry is there is there I'm if I if council wants to make a motion they can make a motion otherwise I'm gonna move on to the city administrators report with the understanding that our next meeting will include an executive session with a discussion finishing today's discussion counselor Stuckey I think Sabrina was looking for direction

I really am for staff because I feel like you feel, even though there were updates in executive session, that you're lacking information. And I want to make sure that if staff is preparing material, that we are preparing what you're looking for. And I... I don't know that we've gotten that clear direction. I've heard a lot of different things that people feel like they're missing. And there's a lot of information that we've gathered. But again, this was started in the previous administration, brought forward to this administration. There was an extension previously done for the plat. This would be a second extension, as I recall. So there's all of these pieces of it that we would need to get. And I just want to make sure we're gathering the historical reference you're looking for to put in the packet correctly.

if I can simplify it a little bit here. Because to me, the crux of it all lies on those three documents, if they were received or not. I mean, I was fully coming here ready to vote a certain way, and that's the curiosity. So it was the director Kuhl at the time mentioned that we had them. I would have thought that if we hadn't had them, we would have requested them and gotten them quite easily. To me, that's the crux. If we did receive those documents, I mean, my feelings about the development, happy or not happy, are irrelevant. It's, was this qualification we're asking satisfied or not? And what Eric Marshall, Council Member Marshall was saying, didn't quite match up. So to me, that is the only hope.

Same. That is the discrepancy that I want reconciled.

And if we don't have those documents, if we get those documents emailed mighty quick and just say, hey, just confirm me. I mean, it sounds like we have, but that's the only holdup for me are those documents.

Okay. And there were some meetings that took place with the developer outside of this meeting. Do you want those meeting notes as well for reference of the discussions that were had that you're missing? Because you're seeing emails that are after the fact of conversations in a meeting.

I mean, it's more information.

doesn't hurt but that's the one okay the only thing I'm hinging on is were those requested documents okay done within that 60 days okay perfect thank you okay is there any counseling we can sign I'm just gonna reiterate yeah it's the discrepancy of the those three things that we're talking about and the dates and how things don't line up so that's the same for me it's pretty clear yeah yeah it doesn't feel ambiguous at all

So does... Just wanted to clarify, Council Member. I just want to make sure.

Staff understands where the confusion is. Council Member Peterson? Would also like to go ahead and see the emails between staff and the developer. It's all public. So that we know...

I'm sorry, say that last part again, sorry.

Between staff and the developer in that time frame so that we know what the discussion was going on and how everybody was feeling and kind of what the... Yeah, we should all be looking at it.

And to that, Councilmember, that's why I'm realizing that we might want the meeting notes that I had Julie take in those meetings because I think it fills in the gaps that we're missing.

I would love that. That's a great idea. Thank you. Okay, so staff has direction. Yes. We're going to have a discussion next week and the questions that we have are noted. So if that is the case, then I'm going to... right after a five-minute recess, move on to our city administrator report, because I think we could use a five-minute recess.

We will reconvene at 2.48.

Is that right? Is that five minutes? OK. Councilmember Merrill. It is 2.50. We are going to reconvene after a brief recess. I'm going to find my notes here. City Administrator's Report, Information Technology Update, Streaming Device for Comcast Channel 10. At this time, I will turn it over to our City Administrator. Oh, well, wait. Not Sabrina Combs. Executive Service Coordinator Mikhail Finkel to present.

Thank you, ma'am.

You threw me a curveball. Good afternoon. Bringing this item to you as an informational item, So the city, in 2023, entered into a franchise agreement with Comcast Cable. This allows them to use our right-of-ways and other facilities for the right-of-ways to put in their cable facilities. One of the benefits of that in the agreement is that it does provide a revenue source for the ability to air on Comcast Channel 10. So we use Channel 10 for the airing of council meetings, advisory board meetings. We can do emergency notifications, any other civic-related messaging. We can put up PDFs, which are aired 24-7. So back in, if you'll remember, the end of 2025, Windows required us to upgrade to Windows 11. We completed that update on the hardware. Shortly after that, the hardware failed. We tried attempts to replace batteries, internal parts, but ultimately, the machine is just not coming on. Um, so under the agreement, the access fees or the peg fees, we, um, have been collecting those since, uh, 2023. Uh, there's a balance of about 20,000, just over $20,000 in that the quote we received to replace the computer, uh, is $15,194. That includes the hardware and the first year of support. Then the ongoing cost is an annual $1,595 for, um, support. So staff's intent is to go ahead and to purchase the new device, replace and get Channel 10 back up and working. In the event that the city did not want to utilize Channel 10 anymore, Comcast would then stop collecting those access fees. But we currently have the fees available and they have to be used towards capital purchases for the public educational and governmental program. We just wanted to bring that to you because this purchase isn't coming out of the tech fund. It's coming out of where the revenues are coming from, the utility area where these fees are deposited. Any questions, comments?

Any questions from council on the Comcast Channel 10? Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Would this allow us to broadcast the meetings live again if we purchased this hardware and the support? I believe initially we were broadcasting our meetings live on Channel 10. Does this allow us that capability again?

Were they live? Were we ever live? We were putting them up after, too.

They're live-ish because we were doing them a little bit delayed for security, but yes, they were on the channel.

So yes, it went back to the way it was.

Okay, then in principle, I support that it's not a new fee that we're instituting. It's it's an existing fee. And I think any other additional means of communication that we have with our public, you know, this is has been a long time asset that our city has had, and I appreciate or would like to continue moving forward with it. So thank you.

I'm always amazed at how many people Oh, yeah, we watch you guys on Chinatown. Really? Councilman saying,

Yeah, I think we have a responsibility as citizens to make sure everybody has access to this information and providing that channel gives people access to don't get online or don't know what a YouTube is, right? So we still have some of those around.

I agree. I think that the usage of it is possibly probably minimal, but giving as many tangible ways to watch our meetings as possible. I am curious, at 24-7, if anyone is watching at 3 AM, I'd love to have an email letting me know. Me too. It's some good sleeping background TV sometimes. Thank you.

Well, we do have people who work day shift, night shift, so that might be their time to watch. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Council Member Merrill.

Even though I find it surprising, even shocking, I've come across constituencies and they say, I watch it all the time. I watch the meetings all the time. And I want to say, really? Is that what you do with your time? But anyway, I just thought I'd mention to you that.

What can I say? We're fascinated. Okay, so yeah, this was just an information item. So if there aren't any more questions for Mikhail, then move on. Thank you so much. All right, and then our monthly department metrics report for June, July, and August. Get caught up with our city administrator.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. So this was out of a request that came out of the last meeting. We are going to do the normal narrative and full report, but Council Member Histucky had specifically asked where that report was because it had been delayed. But we did want to provide at least the metrics for you for the backlog. In addition, we are working on the normal monthly report that you'll see at the next workshop. So that will be coming. But in the meantime, here are all the data that you ever wanted. for the summer from the city. Let me know if you have any questions.

Is legitimately fascinating. Thank you. I've missed that.

No, we love it. And we just had some with some changes in some of our software, some staffing changes, and then some illness that went rampant through our departments. So we had to pause for a little bit.

It's a lot to pull together. We appreciate it. Councillor Wittgenstein.

Yeah, I just have one question. Can the grant reports begin distinguishing between pending grants and those that are embedded in the adopted capital plan for those that are optional, and show the required local match and fallback project sequences.

Yeah, David is making a note of that for Wendy. Thank you. So we will let her know. Yeah, we're always happy to work on some of these reports if you guys have some guidance or feedback on things you'd like to see.

OK. If there are no further questions for our city administrator on the department metrics, then we will turn to our fire department proposed ordinance amending chapter 8.12 of the Oak Harbor Municipal Code relating to alarm systems. And at this time, we will turn to our fire chief, Travis Anderson, to present.

Councilor, Mayor Pro Temt, good afternoon. So before you is for discussion only. It's a proposed ordinance amending chapter 8.1 to alarm systems. And really the only language that's changing here is putting it into our annual fee structure. and instead of having the fees in the ordinance. One of the major challenges with the current ordinance is there's a range of fees that me as the fire chief could impose based on a single infraction from $50 to $250 with no reason why I would do one or the other. And I know the city attorney also had some concerns with the way that it was written that way. So I guess I got it right here. In 2025, we had 244 false alarms. That represented about 10% of our total responses. False alarms, they consume the same resources needed for legitimate emergencies. Numerous times, we don't have units available in our city because we're on multiple calls and we have to bring in outside resources. Every false alarm represents personnel, apparatus, field maintenance, and dispatch resources that could otherwise be used for other legitimate emergency prevention activities. They increase our operational risk. Every time we go out that door, there's an opportunity for someone to get hurt, for an accident to occur. Repeated responses to known or preventable false alarms creates that unnecessary exposure without any public benefit. It consumes taxpayer-funded resources. So every time we go out the door right now, it's about a $30 to $40 cost for dispatch for us. When they do generate unnecessary responses, the public bears that cost. And then we have alarm fatigue. When certain facilities have 12, 15, sometimes 20 responses per year, people don't take them as serious because they're so used to having false alarms. And that's a significant hazard. So this data is a little old because I did this about three months ago But we had right now if you looked at it This was just two or more or three or more false alarms right now our city ordinances is two or more We had eight business with eight false alarms as of half the year So they're projected to have 16 by the end of the year, which is way surpasses our our ordinance there was Business with five false alarms and then two with four false alarms just to put in perspective I don't remember exactly how many businesses we have we have about 1,200 businesses in our city Somewhere around there. So we're talking about you know less than 1% probably less than a half of 1% that are in violation of our city ordinance and So if you can read that. I can't read that far from here, so I'm going to read it off mine. So we have four different types of alarms. We have an accidental alarm, which it actually did its job. Think of someone cooking and burns their food and the smoke sets it off. That's not what we're after. So we have nuisance alarms. That is one that continually goes off, maybe because they're cooking all the time and the detector is put in a bad location and they need to fix that, move it to an appropriate location. spot or maybe fix their ventilation system or something like that. Then we have system malfunctions. This is where just repeatedly their systems not maintained and it false alarms keep sending us out on calls. That is also what we're intending to address in the city ordinance. It's been in place since the eighties. Um, and then there's intentional false alarms, which is also in there. That's someone pulling a manual alarm system, which we're really not addressing in this. So the current ordinance, uh, eight point, 8.12.30 stipulates the duty to maintain a system. I'm not going to read it for you guys. You can all read it. But it does classify it as a misdemeanor, and it does say a maximum penalty for each violation up to $250. This is the current ordinance which has been in place since 1993, the exact same fee structure. So more than one false alarm in a 180-day period was a minimum of $50 fine to a max of a $250. Second one was $100 to a max of $250. Three is a $150 to a max of $250 per occurrence. The proposed change, we bring it back to city council to adopt a fee structure, which I'm not quite sure when are we bringing that back, David. So this is not to set any specific rates. This is just introducing, instead of having it in the city ordinance what the fee is, it would be adopted by city council during that fee structure. So the only changes in here, as you see on the bottom, would establish by the master fee schedule adopted by resolution of the city council. The master fee schedule may establish escalating civil penalties for successive false alarms occurring within the 180-day period. So just to go through and provide what some other jurisdictions have done in the state. This was the last one that kind of hit city council that made some noise. This was down in Kennewick, Washington last year, about a year ago. Just to kind of put it in perspective, their population is 86,000. I'm sure they have way more businesses than us. I don't know how many they have. They have five staffed fire stations. They do 14,000 calls. And their concern was they ran 237 false alarms. We ran 244 false alarms. To put that in perspective when we talk about why this is being presented in front of you. And they did pass an ordinance to start fining businesses. So here's some of the other jurisdictions. I did the best to be as accurate as I could looking at stuff. So I think it's... accurate, but I do want to throw that out there. So Bremerton's first occurrence is $200 for a false alarm. They do theirs over a period of a year, so once you get an occurrence, it's $200, and it's $200 every single time. Everett, on their fourth occurrence in a year, is $347. Tacoma, they break it down to single-family residence, which is also Duplex and then anything larger than a duplex is or commercial building is 250 per occurrence. Bellingham's, they do it in a 90-day cycle, and any more than two is $250 fine. Port Angeles, their very first one's $100, their second's $200, their third one and every one after that is $300. Mount Vernon's is more than three occurrences in a year is $175. And then Kennewick, which is the one we just presented, their first three do not generate a fine, and their fourth one's $500, their fifth one's $1,000, and their sixth one is $1,500 per year. So just to kind of give you some perspective. But again, this isn't about changing it. But we already have an ordinance in place that we are not following that stipulates that the fire chief will, it says shall, fine, 50 to 250. And for me, I'm not a fan of having this arbitrary number of 50 to 250. And so we wanted to establish that. And the discussion was to bring this to the master fee schedule, which Each of you will approve what that looks like. But I just wanted to provide some objective data on what other jurisdictions are doing. And to be fair, there's jurisdictions that don't even have false alarm fee ordinance as well. But it is nice to have something to encourage people to fix their systems so we don't continually run on nuisance alarms. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chief. Questions from council? Council Member Peterson. Thank you, Chief Travis.

I'm happy to see they're trying to make this easier and that we're actually going to move forward with an ordinance on the books. Because I come from an alarm background, I'm just curious. You mentioned residential. Do we have a lot of hardwire or alarm monitored residential that come to you?

Single family residences and duplexes do not have to have alarms. Once you start getting into multifamily dwellings where the risk is higher, then yes.

Thank you. Council Member Merrill.

Yes, Chief Anderson, great data and information. I wanted to be on public record to note that your effectiveness in finding ways of generating revenue and providing increased and more efficient services is noted. So just keep up the good work. So that's all I've got.

And I do want to say none of this is about revenue. It's about making sure that when someone calls 911, we have a unit that can quickly get to them. There you go.

I'm corrected, but I operate from a revenue mentality. Thank you.

Councillor Stuckey.

I was going to chime in. Yes, it's not about revenue. A couple questions. Because you're referencing things on the books. Right now, it's really a misdemeanor?

That is the ordinance in there, yes, right now.

Let's say I lease a commercial building, and the alarm was there, and new tenants come in. Who is responsible in the case of the billing owner and the business owner are different?

I would believe it would be the business owner, but I'd have to do a little homework on that before I give you an exact answer.

I mean, that certainly would be important if there's somebody who just, hey, I inherited a commercial unit. I live in Florida. I had no idea about this. It would be hard for it to be the building owner if they're not notified.

This also, this is for fire and PD, so there are alarms and two, so I'll let Tony weigh in.

I will say there is one commercial building that when it gets windy out, we get five or six alarms a night on that building. They have been advised to fix the alarm system. But I'll say the 23 years that I've been here, we have not fined anybody for false alarms.

And I'm all for having a little teeth in there to get our worst offenders on board. I understand it sounds like the intent. I just want to be a little cautious of businesses that maybe have a lot of people come here going, middle of the night, all hours, and occasionally an alarm goes off, hey, I didn't get to it quick enough, or something like that. They're at three for the year. If we are going to do and enforce this, it should definitely be stepped, like the first two or...

freebies for all intents and purposes i would hate for people to second guess putting in alarm systems because of excess fees or anything like that yeah i will say for us um just you know chief anderson talked about where the rate for a call out for us is um it's about 43 dollars per every call out is for officers on duty um I will say often that what we get is the false alarms or alarm systems that are triggered either due to weather or other mechanical issues. But even the alarm company doesn't have a key holder to respond. And so often you're running around checking property, and the property occupants won't even come out to check their own property when the alarm's going off. And that's for commercial.

So in the case where you mentioned an alarm going off multiple times in the night, if I didn't know that there was a problem with my alarm until that night, which sometimes happens, wind and stuff, and it goes off four times, would we be counting that as one or four times?

Because if you know I could fix it in the middle... You wouldn't be able to fix it that night.

So there's some discretion being used here.

Yeah, I think there's definitely discretion on that.

Again, the focus is on getting the system fixed, right? So I think we would provide an official... Notice. Notice to them, right? And until they got that and had time to work on it, I would think, like Tony said, that a couple weeks is a reasonable time to get your system fixed.

Sure. And I'm all for getting those repeat offenders. They're just being too lazy or can't get around to it. I just want to make sure that businesses, they're all above book, that just occasionally have a false alarm because a staff member didn't get to it or forgot the code that they're not going to be overly penalized by something like this. No.

Council Member Wittgenstein.

Yeah. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate you doing the work to get to this. I'm kind of mixed. I believe in consequences for our actions, and sometimes we need consequences to get us a little bit motivated. So when I win a million dollars on a ticket, I'm motivated, you know, that kind of consequence. And there's the other ones, right? We typically think of them as a negative thing. I like the idea of some teeth early on, but I also like the idea of grace periods and warnings as well a little bit, you know, just to kind of And giving people the opportunity to fix it in lieu of the fine, if need be, or something along that. If they can prove that they've taken care of the problem and they're not on their 30th time. But thanks for the discretion. And that's kind of where I would be with it.

Would something like the first time it happens in a six-month period kind of be free? But if it happened again in that period, then there would be a charge?

I would like some options to look at and considerations, yeah. It could be that we give them a freebie, one or two, and then the third one's a chunky fine, right? Like if you haven't fixed it by the third time, it's 500 bucks. I don't know, right? It sends a message that either fix it or you're going to get... because you're pulling resources that could be saving other people's lives.

I don't think anyone's in favor of your first time doing a fine. But that was the point of the other jurisdictions to give council the opportunity to see what some other jurisdictions are done. I believe we'll be bringing this not next city council meeting, but the following city. Actually, we're going to do it in the fee schedule. But to actually adopt the change in the city ordinance will probably be not next city council meeting, but the next one. But that's not going to set a fee structure.

We're going to come at the October workshop. We're going to bring the master fee schedule, and then we'll schedule it for adoption early in December, coinciding with the budget.

Let's see. I'm sorry. I'm keeping track of who's already spoken. Maybe I've not heard yet from Councilmember Arms or myself on this.

Oh, I have EM written down.

No? Well, maybe that was anticipatory. Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor Potem. It sounds like this is an issue for both departments. So are we looking at something very similar for the PD as well? It's the same ordinance. So the same ordinance will address both.

It falls under the fire, but then it includes PD in the language.

In general, I support that. I'm admittedly guilty of the burnt food. I haven't you guys come out for that on more than one occasion, unfortunately. Not a good cook, but I do support the idea of incentivizing getting these alarms fixed. Because it does cause that complacency, not only departmentally, but also with ICOM. They get used to those. locations that are repeat offenders and then you know it loses some of the severity of the urgency of you know is this just another false alarm or is it something that's real and so um you know i generally favor the incentivizing them to get it fixed yeah and i'll tell you the world where i came from before here is we quit responding to alarms because they just got so bad and it wasn't you know they were taking up our resources and no one you know took them serious anymore so and we definitely don't want to get to that so It's dangerous to get to that point, yeah.

Yeah, that defeats the purpose, for sure. Yeah, four or five times a night, yet what you don't want is the one time for it to be an actual emergency, and it's the fifth time that night it's gone off, and it's like, oh, it's just windy, but also, can you do the lights and sirens thing every single... time you get an alert. That's, that is a difficult balance. So, um, appreciate the thoughtful approach to trying to get that managed. Did I see a hand up over here? I favor an accelerated process similar to, uh,

the pyramid of increased force, so that it needs to be more exponential. In other words, the first few times, you know, but you've really got to get it in their mind, they've got to make the change. And that's where we need the muscular piece. So just a standard flat fee, you know, they might roll it in as just a cost of doing business, but we really want to, because they're draining resources that the citizens are paying their taxes. That's all I have.

Yeah. Yeah. By the fourth or fifth time, the fine should probably be pretty significant. I think. Thank you very much. Okay. Police department, virtual currency, kiosk ordinance, a new chapter 5.6 zero of the Oak Harbor municipal code here to present. We have our police chief, Tony slow.

Okay. Good afternoon. Um, airport time and council, uh, chief slow. Like, um, with me, I actually have a damn mall from AARP. He's a, fraud watch specialist volunteer. And what I'd be presenting today is a new ordinance prohibiting virtual currency kiosks. So in July, the police department was approached by Dan and AARP regarding concerns with virtual currency kiosks in the city of Oak Harbor. What they are, and just to be in layman's terms, it's an ATM that allows you to deposit cash and put that into a cryptocurrency. So a little backstory or a little history on cryptocurrency. It's a digital token intended for payments, transmitting values. And it goes across a decentralized network of users, eliminates the need for a financial intermediary like banks. And the decentralized nature enables fraud, theft, and money laundering with limited ability to track financial transactions. I'll say that currently the police department has seen this year six complaints involving people in our community who have been approached through scams where they're being encouraged to deposit finances into these virtual currency kiosks or these type of ATM machines. And it's very difficult to track and do those investigations. So, additionally, So cryptocurrency digital tokens are intended for payments transmitting value across a decentralized network, which I talked about. It looks like I probably just put this stuff in here a couple of times. I think the biggest thing is that virtual currency kiosks are a significant instrument of financial fraud and scams. In 2023, the FBI reported 5.6 billion in lost revenue or lost finances nationwide, 141 million was in Washington State in 2023. So before we go into the ordinance, I would just like Dan to talk a little bit about his experience with AARP and the Fraud Watch and the virtual currency kiosks.

Thank you, Chief.

Mayor Pro Tem, council members, thanks, you guys. I really appreciate being able to talk to you about this issue. My name is Dan Maul. I have been a fraud specialist with AARP for four years now, and in the course of that have talked to roughly 2,000 victims of scams and frauds. AARP has a fraud watch network. It's an 800 line. Anybody can call it. Members, old, young, doesn't matter. And we help them unwind whatever scam that they've been involved with or help them figure out what's going on. I've given or, yeah, we've passed out folders there with information, which I've tried to minimize. I got so much stuff about this stuff. But the important thing that I want to mention right up front here is this is not an objection to cryptocurrency. This is an objection to the vehicles that are being used to steal money from our most vulnerable people. The crypto industry refers to it as crypto kiosks, which makes it sound like where you get your phone case at the mall. These things are identical to the regular ATM that you're all familiar using. They take cash and convert it into cryptocurrency. It's instantaneous. It's transferred multiple times around the world. It disappears. Recovery is literally impossible. There is some progress being made. But in that folder that you've got, there's an article from MRSC, the Municipal Research and Services, that really does a good job explaining what's going on here. the the comment that was made and we've got them now banned in anacortes um leconor mount vernon and the comment that was made at mount vernon the city council meeting a couple weeks ago that i that i want to read is the supporting technology technological innovation and legitimate digital commerce however physical cryptocurrency kiosks appear to provide limited benefit to consumers compared with a significant risk that they will be used to facilitate financial fraud and exploitation. So again, it's not about cryptocurrency. You know, is that new? Should we use it? Is it good? Is it bad? You know, that's a whole separate argument. But the scope of the frauds and scams is, I think, beyond what most people are aware of. Facebook, on a quarterly basis, takes down plus or minus a billion fraudulent accounts a quarter. B with a B, okay? The Cambodian, the GDP in Cambodia estimated to be maybe 50% revenue from scams and frauds. This is a huge industry and we don't have much control over what happens But here, the increase in the fraud that's associated with crypto kiosks has been skyrocketing. Since 2019, and the FBI report is in the folder that you got, but since 2019, fraud involved with crypto kiosks has gone up over 2,000%. Okay? We, you, all of us have an opportunity to put a stop to at least some part of this. Crypto kiosks are being used more and more and more from scammers. So passing this ordinance helps us control and put a stop to this. And I, again, appreciate your time and thank you for your consideration.

So thank you, Dan. So just like Dan said, fraud investigations are very difficult. The police department over the years have seen fraud change from money orders to electronic gift certificates and handing out those codes to now we're seeing fraud with cryptocurrency kiosks. So what this order would do, it creates a new chapter of 5.60. of the O'Carver Municipal Code regarding virtual currency kiosks. Includes Bitcoin, you can read all those currencies there. The currency kiosks are electronic terminals in an area accessible to the general public. Makes it unlawful to place, permit the placement, or permit the operation of a virtual currency kiosk within the city of Oak Harbor. Existing kiosks must be removed within 90 days of the ordinance taking place. Does not restrict virtual currency transactions other than the kiosks being in operation within the city limits. And the penalty is the ability for the city to terminate city business licenses for virtual currency kiosk violations. Currently, there are six virtual currency kiosks within the city limits, with one being on the Navy base. And that is up since July when Dan approached the police department. There were actually four currency kiosks within the city limits. And then there are several right outside of the city limits as well. And I'm happy to take any questions.

Councilor Stuckey.

So would this ordinance, I assume, not affect the one on the seaplane base?

So you're right. It would not. But however, it would be a conversation we would have with Captain Gramage.

What legitimate advantage does these provide over just doing things over at my computer?

I would not know.

I'm just curious what the legal advantages are to somebody. I'm not a consumer of crypto, so...

So multiple attorney general investigations, Washington, D.C., Iowa, California, come to mind, have determined that 80 to 95 percent of the transactions in these things are victims paying scammers. there's a fair amount of trafficking drug illegal kinds of things because of the anonymity of this and the crypto industry would suggest that the unbanked are using this because they don't have access to the traditional financial systems Given the fees that are involved here, which is one of the things that the legislature has actually failed twice now to pass restrictions on, there is no legitimate. I mean, we have multiple on your phone, on your computer, you name it. You can do crypto transactions, buy, sell, trade, hold, whatever you want within seconds at minimal fees. So there really is, in my opinion, there's very little legitimate transaction I mean people sending money to their family you know in a foreign country perhaps but the costs that these things incur are just insane like a western union or something would even be cheaper so okay thank you that's my marshal did you have your hand up yes thank you

Chief, what would you attribute the increase over the last couple of months to those kiosks? I mean, what is the benefit to the business for having one of these kiosks there?

I think one is it's just unregulated right now. So I think that what you're seeing is Coinstar, other legitimate convert money into cash type of ATMs or those kiosks are also adding a crypto piece to it. I think that I think what we've seen also with our drug task force is that there is more money that is getting quickly turned into cryptocurrency after large drug transactions so that that cash is not available these make that extremely accessible several of the Kiosks that are in our region, I will say, are at either smoke shops, vape shops, those type of things. Not necessarily at a bank or a grocery store.

So unlike an ATM where the business puts in the money and they keep a percentage and such, that doesn't occur then with these?

No, they do have fees attached to them. Yeah, but they're unregulated. Like Dan said, they're not federally regulated or the state isn't regulating them at this time. I got you. So large fees.

Okay. Dan, did you want to add to that?

Well, I did want to point out there are five states now that have banned crypto kiosks, crypto ATMs. Several of those initially passed restrictions on fees and things and then subsequently decided that wasn't solving the problem. It did reduce it to some extent. We've got seven cities now in Washington state that have banned them. And I'm hoping that the more that we get, the more cities we get to ban these, the legislature will go from trying to pass restrictions, which hasn't happened in two sessions, to passing a ban. We also have five countries, I think, that have banned them, including the UK, which said, well, we're not going to ban them, but you've got to prove to us that there won't be any fraud associated with it. And they haven't been able to do that yet. So the momentum is building here.

You know, I appreciate you saying that, you know, in conversations with you previously, you know, the severity of what is happening here in our community that's being taken advantage of is certainly important to me. And I appreciate you, Chief, for meeting with Dan and bringing this item forward for us to consider. And I certainly am in favor of supporting it. So thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Peterson. You may have said, and I missed it since there appears to be a large number of folks that are using this for illicit purposes for illicit money gained. Are we seeing more crime around them? Are we, are there besides the elderly population, are there other victims that are happening because of this?

So I will say that historically, um, fraud events go underreported. So that, that is something that we know. Um, I think that statewide the state believes it's underreported by about 20% or more. I think there are other FBI and things like that that it's a larger amount underreported. The fact that we've seen six reports just this year I think is pretty significant for us. I will say all six incidents are where someone claiming to be a family member in distress has contacted somebody who is over 60 years old. They have requested that person to go deposit money into the cryptocurrency kiosk and then provide the code that's with that to, to claim the money. And, um, uh, thankfully all of those, uh, people who could potentially be victims did not follow through with anything. They actually, um, had called law enforcement and reported the suspicious activity. Um, however, I think that we believe that there's definitely others that go unreported. So, yeah. And if you're asking around the ATM, are we seeing other criminal activity? I, It's really hard to say at this point.

I strongly favor banning them. Excellent plan. And I'm really thrilled about the concept, just a concept, of actually prosecuting the perpetrators. But that's a separate discussion. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. I'm personally not a real proponent of just outright banning things that we don't like. People have agency. But there should also be a reason for doing something. And if someone can't really articulate a particularly good reason, reason why these things are necessary if 90% of their use is associated with harm, that's, you know, it's really tough to make the case for that 10% so that's you know yeah when we're up here weighing our decisions it's you know does this do more good than harm does this you know I try to I try to think does this help the largest possible number of people while having a negative impact on the fewest possible number of people and this is one of those situations that I think fits that criteria so thank you very much I think that senior citizens especially, they're so vulnerable. And for someone to exploit that lack of familiarity with technology, it's so gross. It's just disgusting, the scamming. So anything we can do to help put a stop to that, I would be in support of. And Mr. Maul, thank you. You're just a volunteer. You're just someone who volunteers their time to bring this. Thank you so much. You are really doing a tremendous service. Appreciate it. So yeah, I look forward to seeing this brought back in front of us.

Certainly. I would like to just add that we, the police department will be noticing all of the businesses that have kiosks, these currency kiosks at their location and ahead of, the council meeting, which will probably be the first council meeting in October.

Okay. So if there's someone in the community who has like, oh my gosh, if you take this machine out of my store, I'm not going to be able to feed my family. It's going to be terrible. They can tell us that. Yes. Okay. All right.

They'll have an opportunity to do that.

Okay, any other questions or comments from council on the crypto kiosk? Chief, thank you.

All right, thank you.

So we're going to keep Chief Slowik up here, and he's going to provide us with the police department annual report.

Okay, I'm happy to present our annual report, which is really from August of 2025 to present, just again to review our mission, motto, and our values. Specifically, our motto is dedicated community safety and service, and our values are respect, integrity, and excellence. Police staffing, just as a police staffing update, we currently have six commission positions unfilled, and we have one police support officer position that is unfilled. We have been running, reoccurring, or open hiring for our commissioned officer entry lateral and exceptional hires list. For the year, we've had over 160 applicants. However, when we process those applicants through, there are several who meet automatic disqualifiers that we would have. That could be drug use. It could be... The ability to work in the state or in the United States could be domestic violence or firearms arrest or convictions. Those type of things are examples. Additionally, when we invite the candidates in, what we found is that we're getting about a 50% rate of people showing up for the interviews as well. So it gets very challenging. We currently have two people going through our background process right now. And we have a lateral who is waiting a certified list for civil service. So they've been interviewed. They passed our interview scoring. They're waiting for civil service to certify that list for a lateral. Um, so we're, we're pretty excited about that and that is in state lateral. So that's a pretty exciting thing for us. Um, and then for our police support officer, uh, that position vacated, uh, last December. Um, uh, we did have some challenges with posting that job, um, uh, earlier in this year. Uh, but I talked with our HR director and we'll be able to get that posted soon. So, and that. for everyone's awareness that police support officer will become our new animal control person we have been given notice by our current animal control officer that he'd like to transition to just being a transport individual who transports inmates to our different holding facilities and then he'd do backup animal control um So some of our strategic goals for the year, uh, we're strengthening workforce readiness, which really is filling all of our positions and our commitment to that. Um, commissioning our public safety training center, which we did commission on the 15th of March or the 15th of may, I'm sorry, enhanced our regional drug enforcement capability, which we have filled that position on our drug task force. So we do have a permanent person on that drug task force, uh, modernize, um, our evidence storage and firearm sake keeping. We're in the process right now of a construction project. Um, uh, that is, uh, mostly funded through a grant that we received, um, in 2024 through. The Department of Justice and the State Attorney General's Office, it was almost $90,000. And that is a significant change to our evidence storage and firearm storage at the police department. And then improving our emergency communication and interoperability, which is something we continually work on with ICOM. So as we look at some of our significant accomplishments, First, we'll start with our stay out of designated area ordinance or SOTA ordinance. While that was passed by council in December, that really didn't go on in our ordinance published until January. That is a Court order which council created for district and Superior Court so that order is not something that the police department goes out and Puts on somebody that's something that the court orders somebody who is either arrested for drug. Violations or is convicted through drug violations currently our district court has made a determination that they're going to apply that order on the conviction side of the house however. attorney or I'm sorry our prosecutor is requesting that order when we do drug arrests so that could change it is determinant on each individual and the situation Next we had was, um, in May of this year during a police community advisory board, one of the things that we're required to do is, um, present our annual bias based policing report. So we provided that to our police community advisory board. Um, what we look at are our traffic stops, uh, traffic contacts and other contacts that we have. Um, we look at our population and, um, compare that to our contacts to make sure that we're not having significant contacts one way or the other based off of race or anything like that. So based off of that report everything looked fine and consistent with what we have seen for several years as we've been an accredited agency. We've been tracking that information. In May of this year, we commissioned our public safety training center. I'm happy to say that we have contracts that have been sent out to all of our partner agencies in Skagit and Island County. We've been in communication with probably Skagit County Sheriff's Office will probably be the first agency to sign the contract. for next year and have facility use agreements in place so that we can bring in some revenues for that facility as well. And next in June we created an ordinance for our vessel trailer recreational oversized vehicle ordinance that recently in August is when it got posted to our municipal code. We are currently waiting on our court system to have the violation piece populate in our court database so that if we do actually do an impound and find somebody, the courts can process that fine. That is the hang up right now. However, there are 10 property owners that we're working with to get those vehicles, vessels, and trailers moved off the streets and onto private property. We have had compliance for probably about a half dozen people or so. So there are 10 that are, it'll be interesting to see what happens, but we think we'll gain compliance. Like I said, our evidence storage and firearm safekeeping project is underway. And then last is going to be this Friday is our 25th anniversary of September 11th. There is a remembrance event. I am encouraging everyone to come down to Windjammer Park at 8.30. It'll be about a 30-minute event or so. So it'll be at the amphitheater. So when we talk about our proactive activity, these are our core focus areas, which are schools, parks, downtown, traffic, and community. We track these, we made a transition this year, and we went from tracking these contacts through sort of a Excel spreadsheet document that each officer would fill out when they went and did an activity to using more GPS data. that's embedded in everybody's radios. So, um, uh, but this is the breakdown for the year of, of how we, um, are in our core focus areas and all our patrol officers are expected to, um, uh, to be out there making, uh, engagement, um, activities, a minimum of 10 a month on those type of things.

calls for service.

While this chart may look drastic, I want to say that, um, between last year and this year we had about a 500, um, reduction number in calls for service. Um, I can't tell you the reason why except for it looks like everybody had a reduction in calls for service. Um, uh, this is consistent with, um, the sheriff's office as well. Um, it just was a down year. And, um, However, that just means more opportunities for our officers to go out and do proactive contacts and activity while they're out on the streets. Our metrics. So for our misdemeanor arrests, we were up compared to 2024. Our felony arrests were a little bit lower. I think a lot of that's a changeover we had in our detective group. It takes about a year to get comfortable in our detective investigation group and working those type of cases. Our criminal traffic is down a little bit, but then our traffic infractions were up from 2024. Consistently, we've had an increase in public records requests year after year after year. So just to give an example, in 2022, We had 697 public records requests. In 2025, we had 920. Each public records request often has multiple records involved with it, and these don't necessarily capture the amount of body-worn camera video that we have to process. This last year, we moved, with council's support and approving of a fourth records person, we were able to create a dedicated person that all the records person does is process our body worn camera video for those public records requests. One challenge we have with public records requests is that we get requests from people who run YouTube social media pages things like that and they publish those videos as ways to earn money. However our state law doesn't allow us to restrict releasing that information and requires us to go through each minute of that video and redact that video. We are, the police department and Nicole and our public records actually next week is testing, we have a one week trial on a tool which is just another software piece that will help us with redactions and we're hoping that reduces some of that staff time. Animal control calls, you know, they're pretty consistent. We're 727 for last year, 732 the year before. 2023 was a little bit down. But just a reminder, we do, the police department does all the animal control for the Navy base. We have a contract. with Hunt Housing, and that we provide that animal control service. We also provide it when the animal control officer isn't working that day. That means a commissioned police officer is providing that service. And we have a contract with WAIF for all of our animal housing. Last year I gave you an update on human services and Spin Cafe. This year I just wanted to give you an update on how human service partnerships are going. So just as everyone's reminded, we have an embedded social worker who is an Island County human service employee. She has an office at the police department. She has her own city, provides her a vehicle as part of our contract. But she often rides with our police officers because that co-response is some of the best benefit that we find. So this year, co-response, and this is all over the entire island, expanded co-response services with EMS and fire. So they're actually responding with other EMS and fire agencies as well. We were able to create a law enforcement specific drop off at Attua. Attua is our 10 bed voluntary drug and alcohol stabilization center. Often what we find is that they have the ability to do the alcohol piece of stabilization. They might not always have the ability to do the drug piece, or if it's a mental health stabilization, they don't have the psychologist on staff to do that. They have provided us the opportunity to drop somebody off, even if their 10 beds are full. So that will guarantee us the ability to have that next bed. In 2025, Co-Response provided services for 592 people. And in 2025, O'Carver provided 357 referrals for services. This is just all of Island County Human Services. It's not just Co-Response, because often we're dealing with that in the moment. But it's all of everything from housing, food, anything to somebody needing help getting an ID, whatever it might be. And then I think the last greatest achievement which just occurred, and we're not gonna see the impact hopefully until next year, is that the North Sound Behavioral Health ASO, and I'm going to have to remember what the administrative service organization is the, um, is the healthcare sort of co-op or authority that governs how our, um, medical services, uh, health insurance, stuff like that is provided in our five County area. Snohomish County, Skagit County, Whatcom County, uh, Island County and San Juan County. They are also the one that provides the contract for our designated crisis responders and MCOT, which is our co-response out in the field. Through extensive talks with Island County, and I will say they are the lead, the city, specifically the police department, and Rep. Dave Paul, they have moved forward with canceling the contract of our current provider that will end at the end of the year, or tentatively end at the end of the year. And they just recently went out for an RFP that is open right now. They are dedicating, and this is specifically just to Whidbey Island, roughly $2 million to fund about 15 staff people to do this mental health response that doesn't come out of The city's budget, that doesn't come out of Island County's budget. This is on top of what everybody else is providing. And this program is a reoccurring funded program mandated by legislatures. So it's a huge thing for our community. This RFP, while it doesn't spell out exactly how it will be staffed. It does give some guidance on what expectations could look like. It does require that there will be an in-person designated crisis responder available 24 hours a day at a designated location, which the jurisdictions, us in the county, and Whidbey Health have all agreed it's going to be Whidbey Health. So that's a wonderful thing for us. Currently, the current contract has the provider providing four designated crisis responders. Only one of them is on Whidbey Island. The other ones are in San Juan County. And they only are doing telehealth. So one of the challenges we find is a person who is in crisis often doesn't want to get onto a screen and talk with somebody to find out if they're going to harm themselves or if they're a danger to themselves or others. And so those telehealth assessments don't go well. And so often people are released back into our community. Additionally, this provides not only the designated crisis responder 24 hours a day, it also provides a co-response team of a licensed behavioral health specialist and a case manager teamed up together where they could be available 24 hours a day on Whidbey Island. So this is only specific to Whidbey Island. It does not include Kamaino Island. and it's a huge step in the right direction. It's the first of its kind in Washington state. So this approach is something that the BSO took into assessment and hearing what our concerns were, looked at how rural we are and how few services that we have and service providers that we have in our community and felt like this model was the thing that could be the best bang for the state's buck. So we're very excited about this and I will say, Linda Austin with the County Human Services, Catherine Clancy, and then also Rep. Dave Paul were huge in making this move forward. So we're really excited about that, and we're looking forward to see what this impact it has next year. And then finally, I just want to just go over our three regional response teams that we have, that Oak Harbor is a part of all three of these teams. SMART is our Skagit and Island County multi-agency response team. This is an IIT, or independent investigation team, when there's an officer use of force that often results in death. So an officer involved shooting, those type of things. This team is made up of detectives that are vetted through the state law has the vetting process that is defined by the Criminal Justice Training Commission. We have detectives that are vetted on this team. And you don't go investigate your own use of force issues. What happens is you'll get called out to go investigate somebody else's. So our smart team not only responds within our two county jurisdiction of Island and Skagit County, often we're getting called to Snohomish County or Watkin County because there's a de-confliction issue where they had a SWAT team that went out and their patrol officers were out, their detectives were out and they were involved with a deadly use of force incident and They can't go investigate themselves. So this is a highly skilled process. Usually the vetting takes over a year. The training for it takes a couple years to get to where you're a independent operator on the team. And next year, Oak Harbor is going to be the command for that team. So we are going to have our Deputy Chief Barton and Lieutenant Soptic are going to be the commanders for that team. And that doesn't mean that there's not other commanders from Anacortes or Mount Vernon. but we are going to be the agency that's responsible. That's the first time in the history of SMART that a non-Skadgett agency is actually not Mount Vernon or Skadgett County Sheriff's Office aren't in charge. It'll be Oak Harbor. So we're excited about that, but big shoes to fill there. Next, we have our drug task force. Like I said, SCADU, which is our Skadgett County Interlocal Drug Enforcement Unit. Not only do they do drugs, they also do violent offender... Apprehension, they do other activities. Recently, our detective involved and that team was able to find a sexual predator that was wanted in Tulalip. Their phone pinged actually to Whidbey Island. We were able to put up some surveillance or that team was able to put up some surveillance, track the person to Bellingham where they were getting on a Alaska State Ferry. and apprehend them before they fled the state. So that's just an example of what this team can do along with other drug enforcement action. They do work with the DEA and FBI often on that type of work as well. And then last we have our SWAT team. Our SWAT team is our North Cascades Regional SWAT Team or NCRS. That is, I am currently the chairperson for that executive board. Our team lead is an Oak Harbor sergeant. So we are founders of that team with Skagit County. That team has now expanded to include Island County, Anacortes, Burlington, Cedrew Woolley, and Mount Vernon is going to be joining the team in the next two months. So that's a huge step for us in our region. That means all our primary agencies are on have members on this team and it is something that's needed in our area because while we have seen while things are often very safe and we live in a safe community things occur on our island or in our neighboring county that often can escalate rapidly and you want to have special trained um, uh, operators that know how to deal with the situation. Um, they, they train two days a month, they get a week long training a year. Um, and um, in the last, in 2025 and 2026, they were deployed to 14 operations, um, as a whole team or as a partial element. So, um, why would, why would we deploy something as a partial element? I'll say, Um, example would be that, um, we earlier this year, Oh, Carver had a domestic violence situation where, um, uh, strangulation occurred. Um, a dog was stabbed. The person was barricaded in a residence at the patrol level is where we, where we started handling the situation at. It didn't rise to the threat level of needing a full service SWAT team, but we were able to call out our team members that were off duty. but also able to call out Island County's crisis response team and things like that. That person actually got away in that incident. They were able to avoid our containment upon our initial setup. And we did not apprehend them up until last month. So we tracked them around a few different places. However, when we did locate where they were at, happened to be down at OLF area, Same thing happened. County advised us, hey, we have this situation. They had patrol officers, but they didn't have the tactics available. We were able to leverage our partnerships as a partial deployment of our SWAT team and get those people on site and take the person into custody within 15 minutes. And it was a safe thing for everybody. But that's why you would do a partial call out. Often a full call out is the situation that happened down in Green Bank where somebody was cutting down the telephone poles. I don't know if you guys remember that in 2025. That actually called out three SWAT teams. So that was us, State Patrol, they then called out Snohomish's SWAT team as well. So that event was an escalating event that went over for a long duration of time where people got fatigued. But it took everybody working together with every crazy tool you had to take the person in custody. So... That is just a brief description of those teams, and I'm happy to take any questions that you guys have.

That was a lot.

That was a lot. Yeah, lots of information to process. Thank you. That was a lot.

Councillor Stuckey, did you have an animal control question?

Oh, he's got a hand. Okay. Council Member Mara.

All right, I'm geared. Anyway, compared to five, 10 years ago, the Police Department of Oak Harbor has gone leaps and bounds in large measure on account of your leadership and the leadership team. I did want to make mention of the fact that your steadfastness and making sure you have quality and excellence within those who you recruit into for commissioned officers and other positions is noted because we don't want to speed the pace just to fill the slot. And not surprisingly, I'm elated that you have the drug enforcement detective or officer in effect or working now. And I'm pretty much about the carrot and the stick thing with regard to potential offenders or offenders, that there have to be the penalties and there have to be the costs so that there's a disincentive for those who are involved. I recall distinctly a felon drug dealer, and he was crowing and praising about the fact that he would be out of the prison and That he was getting out early and that he had hundreds of thousands of dollars set aside and all because he was preying on the lives of others. Okay. And then... With regard to the public records request, Chief Sloak, of those that are done, how many of them, like what percentage do you have an estimate of or even kind of a ballpark figure are idle or what do you call them, spurious people that are just being annoyances?

I'll be honest. I don't have that information. I would turn that over to our public records officer. She could answer those type of questions.

Well, it's not an urgent matter. But anyway, just keep on doing more of what you're doing. And like I said, ramp it up and amp it up. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Stuckey.

Thank you for all that exciting stuff with that. That really is with the 15 responders and whatnot. Two questions. Obviously, there's been a lot of talk about animal control as of late regards to the county. We have our own animal control person. Are we called to assist the county much?

You know, they have a good partnership where if they have one, there's only one animal control officer, I believe, in the county at this time. One position is still vacant. So that animal control officer could be in Camino Island. However, they often work together. I don't know how often we're called out there. Often I think they're probably just collaborating on how to handle something.

Sure, and some of it's non-urgent sort of stuff.

Yeah, a lot of it is, or updating policy code, that type of things like that.

I'm just curious, if that person has gone Camino and we have the islands within our town, it seems like we could respond a lot quicker.

Sure, we will definitely respond. So, for example, if that animal control officer goes on vacation and they need an assistance, we would definitely assist with that.

and my other question revolves budgetary you know you were six officers we're looking for yep if anyone's online please apply um what the money that's being budgeted for though is i understand that's probably eaten by overtime but what is happening to that money is it just continuing to pool within the police department i know it's been a while since i've been up to full staff so before dave jumps in there on the overtime or the the what's happening i will say

We are below our overtime budget. We're maintaining our overtime budget with what was budgeted.

But if you need it. But if we can answer what's going on with the, where are those dollars going?

It's just staying in the general fund. So the appropriation was for the full contingent of officers. And if there's vacancies, it just doesn't get spent. So it stays in the general fund.

So it doesn't go into the police budget to be held in the police budget. It stays in the general fund.

Yeah, it stays in the general fund. I mean, the police department is in the general fund, same with the fire department and a lot of other departments as well. So it's not like police has a separate fund. They're in the general fund.

Could those dollars, if Chief Slowik believes he needs something, can those dollars be moved into that item that he needs because it's already kind of earmarked, or am I overthinking this?

Well, I mean, there's ways to do that with budget transfers and amendments. It just depends on the particular item that is being requested.

I will just remind everybody that five of those positions are COPS grant, Department of Justice COPS grant funded positions. So we don't get that money back until the position's filled. We have filled three of the five positions. So those are our priority.

Any other council? Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Chief, where are we at with negotiations with ICOM regarding user fees? I know that's something that we had talked about when they passed the tax increase, right?

Yep. So right now, their budget is still being decided by the board. At the last board meeting, the conversation was to remove the amount of fees that agencies are paying that go towards the technology piece. of ICOM, which is about 15%. So we would see a reduction about 15% in agency user fees because that money is being offset by the sales tax. So agencies would still be paying towards the employees and the dispatchers, those type of things. But does that help?

It does help, yeah. I'm just trying to do the math in my head.

So what does that mean for us? I think we were $522,000 last year. That will take us down to $430,000 or something. I don't know.

But I'm assuming those negotiations are ongoing.

The executive board hasn't decided, voted on a budget yet.

OK. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah.

Thanks, Chief. On the co-response and the TUA drop-off, do we know about how successful connections and repeat contacts, refusals, unavailable placements, and then the remaining service bottleneck?

I will say that often what we're finding are you're making 20 or 30 contacts before someone's willing to go to Attua. And frequently when somebody's willing to go to Attua, they're not lasting the full 10 days there on their first attempt. So often it's three or four times at Attua or another stabilization center before they are able to last that 10 days. I think the challenge is, that a lot of the people are unhoused or have reoccurring drug and alcohol and mental health challenges that can't be resolved with a 10-day clean and sober stay at a facility. And so there are new locations opening up in Cedar Woolley. There are 48 beds, I believe is what the total number is, 15 for alcohol and drugs, 15 for mental health, five are a immediate law enforcement drop off for a commit, which we don't currently have commitment beds at all in Island or Skagit County right now. So once the facility is fully operational, we expect to be able to drive people over to Cedar Woolley as well as St. Joseph's or Providence because those are the other commitment beds.

Thanks, Chief.

Any other comments, questions from council? All right.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so that concludes our workshop agenda business. So once we adjourn, then council is going to adjourn into a closed session. Per revised code of Washington RCW 42.30.140 regarding labor negotiations. So the workshop is at 4.07 adjourned.