General Legislative Session - public_hearing

Stonemich County Council is called to order for our public hearing. Today is Wednesday, 05/13/2026 at 10:30AM. We're meeting in the Jackson Boardroom and also remotely. I'll read the script for providing public testimony, and then we'll take roll. So public testimony will be opened on each agenda item, and we'll actually be opening up, unless there's objection, items, two through four at the same time. But we'll take public testimony beginning in person and then remotely. In Zoom, click on the hand icon to raise your hand. And if you're calling in by phone, you'll press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute, and each speaker will have three minutes to speak. And please start your comment with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call.

Chair Dunn? Here. Vice Chair Lo?

Present.

Council Member Nearing?

Here.

Council Member Mead?

Here.

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Chair, we have five members present.

Thank you. We have four action items today. First is ordinance 20 six- zero one two.

Council considers ordinance 26 dash zero one two approving an amendment to the Snohomish County Public Facilities District Charter.

Thank you, chair Dunn. Good morning. Council members. For the record, Jim Martin, council staff. Post ordinance 26 dash zero one two approves an amendment to the Snohomish County Public Facilities District Charter. The PFD board of directors met on January 22 and considered proposed amendments to the PFD charter and adopted resolution twenty twenty six dash zero one approving the pro proposed amendment and recommending the proposal to council for final adoption. Requested action today is for counsel to consider.

Thank you. Any questions from counsel members? Okay. We will open up public testimony on this item only. So if you're here to provide testimony on ordinance 26 dash zero one two, please come to the podium or raise your hand online. I don't see anyone in person on this one. Any hands raised?

No hands raised.

Okay. So we'll close testimony and turn to counsel.

I move approval of Ordinance 20 six -twelve. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve ordinance 20 six-twelve. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll have a roll call vote. Vice Chair Lo?

Yes.

Councilmember Nearing?

Yes.

Councilmember Mead?

Yes.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Chair Dunn?

Yes. So ordinance 26 dash zero one two passes five to zero. Next, we'll hear, ordinance, ordinances, 26 dash zero one one, 26 dash zero one zero, and 26 dash zero zero nine.

Council considers ordinance 20 six-eleven, notice of intent to conduct a hearing concerning the assumption of the rights, powers, immunities, functions, and obligations of the Snohomish County Transportation Benefit District, Ordinance 20 six-ten, relating to the Snohomish County Transportation Benefit District, Chapter 2.85 Snohomish County Code, notice of intent to assume and assumption of the rights, powers, immunities, functions and obligations of the Snohomish County transportation benefit and ordinance 26 dash zero zero nine relating to the Snohomish County transportation benefit district amending chapter 2.85 Snohomish County code.

So if there's no objection from council, we hear one staff report on these items, and then we'll also open up testimony on all three. Okay. So hearing none, go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Dunning, council members. For the record, Deb Bevis and Bell, council staff. The following three ordinances are related to the transportation benefit district or TBD. And with the chair's approval, I will give the one staff report that will include the background and context of all three ordinances and then address the particulars individually of each ordinance.

Snohomish County originally established a TBD in 2011 with the adoption of ordinance ten-one 103 as a separate governing body to provide funding for transportation projects and unincorporates Snohomish County. The County Council was established as the ex officio governing body. However, the funding mechanism for transportation improvements was not included in the original ordinance. In 2015, the Washington State Legislature enacted RCW thirty six point seven four point zero one zero, which permits counties by ordinance to assume the rights, powers, functions, obligations of the TBD, thereby consolidating its operations under the county's direct governance. Under RCW 82 excuse me.

Under RCW eighty two eighty point one four zero, a county may impose by a majority vote of the governing body of the district an annual vehicle fee of up to $20 for the first twenty four months. These three ordinances were first introduced on March 17 to the Public Infrastructure and conservation committee and continued to April 21. The time and date for public hearing was set on April 22 GLS. For ordinance 26 dash zero one one, this is for formal public noticing and is required by RCW. This is more of a technical thing to do, housekeeping.

Ordinance 26 dash zero one zero would allow for the transfer of all vested rights, powers, immunities, functions, and obligations of the Snohomish County Council from the previous ex officio body. So it's transferring, you don't have to adjourn a meeting to start a meeting. And then 26 Dash 009 has four parts. The first, it would add a new section of county code, section 20 excuse me. Section two point eight five point zero three five vehicle license fees within the Snohomish County code.

This would fix and impose an annual vehicle fee of $20 as allowed by the RCW, and this fee would not be effective until six months after the proposed ordinance is passed. Next, it would amend current code, Snohomish County code two point eight five point zero one zero transportation benefit district established. Proposed amendment would allow for the geography or excuse me, the geographic boundaries of the benefit district to change with the unincorporated limits of the county, thereby accounting for any future annexations. Next, it would amend Snohomish County code two point eight five point zero two zero governing body by deleting the existing sentence acting in an ex officio and independent capacity in affirming that the governing body is the Snohomish County Council. And lastly, it would amend Snohomish County code two point eight five point zero four zero use of funds.

The proposed amendment would allow for the funds generated by the transportation benefit district to be used for any purpose allowed by law within the meaning of RCW thirty six point seven three point zero one five. This would also eliminate a previous exhibit and incorporate the county's transportation planning documents that are approved by the council within the annual construction plan or the ACP and the transportation improvement plan, the TIP, and the comprehensive plan and biennium budget. So in plain speak, this allows the council to approve funds for use on projects listed in the ACP and the TIP during the budget and mid budget process. Council has received public comments, those have been forwarded to all council members. The requested action is for council to take public testimony today on all three ordinances, either separately or together, and for counsel to consider each ordinance 26 dash zero one one, 26 dash zero one zero, and 26 double zero nine individually.

And I'm available for any questions along with executive staff. That concludes my staff report.

Thank you. Questions from council? Councilmember Wahneering?

Yeah. Thank you, Chardan. So just to clarify, the first two or I should say action items two and three are technicalities. Action item four is the actual revenue.

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Other council questions? Okay. Seeing none, we will open up public testimony on these three items. If anyone, we did have a sign up sheet. So we'll turn to the clerks for the sign up sheet for people remote or in person.

We wanna call up sheriff Johnson first to this podium, please.

I'm sorry. Actually, we were gonna invite Kent Patton Oh, sorry. To speak. And I was reminded of this, and I still forgot. So

thank you, Karedan, and thank you, counsel, for giving me a couple, quick minutes to speak to this. For the record, I'm deputy executive Ken Patton, and I'm here today on behalf of executive Summers, who unfortunately had an family obligation They couldn't make it. I I would urge the council to adopt these three motions today, to, create this transportation benefit district and support our county road network and the people and businesses who rely on it. As you know, Public Works is responsible for 1,600 miles of road in unincorporated Snohomish County, and these roads represent a lifeline for our residents, whether they're commuting to work, going to the grocery store, riding a bus to school. The road network is our link to these essentials.

Obviously, sometimes little literally, our roads are saving lives because our first responders need to rush to people in need. Our public works team also responds when there are floods, snowstorms, wind events. They're keeping us safe and mobile 247. And as you know, building and maintaining infrastructure is very expensive. I'll give you an example. Construction costs between the year 2000 and 2020 in those twenty years increased by 70%, seven-zero. And then between 2020 and 2025, they increased by another 70%. That's just for construction costs. Obviously, you know labor costs. Everybody looks at the headlines about inflation.

That impacts us too, impacts public works intensely. And as has been true for the last ten years, for executive summers, when faced with these financial headwinds, we first look internally to cut and save money. And that's exactly what we've done. Our public works department has already cut $100,000,000 in short and long term spending, plus 10,000,000 in annual operating expenses. We've tightened our belt over and over and over.

Any further cuts to public works will be damaging to our road network and the people, businesses, schools, and public safety agencies who rely on that network. We need to ensure funding is available for key maintenance that helps keep the road network safe, such as trimming vegetation so drivers can see around corners and see signs. We need to take care of potholes so our residents' cars don't get wrecked. The longer potholes are there, the more expensive it is to fix. We need to fix sidewalks that become uneven due to trees.

That keeps our kids safe, our pedestrians safe and allows access non motorized access. Without this funding that you're considering today as well as establishing the TBD, we risk returning $66,500,000 in grant funding and canceling 14 associated projects. We would lose 34 full time positions, representing our extraordinary public servants who work hard for the people of Snohomish County and whose absence would impact our ability to to do the work that residents and businesses rely on. Our ability to respond to emergency needs, including culvert failures, which we had a lot of those back in December, flooding, winter snow, wind storms, we risk degradation restrictions or closures on bridges and roads, which slows response time for emergency services, reduces speed and reliability of transit, creates a burden on businesses that need to move or receive freight and makes it harder for our residents to get to where they need to go. We also lose our ability to maximize the impact of local dollars by leveraging other funding sources.

Right now, for every $1 in local funding that we spend, we get $3 in external funds from state and federal government primarily. We can't leverage those other funds if we don't have local money, and we hate to give money back once we've received a grant. I know executive Summer appreciates the steps already taken by Public Works to be fiscally responsible with the road fund that's under intense pressure. It's vital that we keep our county safe and moving, I hope you will consider approving the three motions today. Thank you very much.

Thank you. So we'll have our first, public testimony on this. Sheriff Johnson, welcome.

Thank you. Susanna Johnson, Snohomish County sheriff. I won't need my full three minutes, so I appreciate the opportunity. I'm here to support, these proposed ordinances and ask for your support as well. The mission of the Snohomish County's sheriff's office is to safeguard and serve all communities of Snohomish County, and there's nothing more fundamental than when we talk about traffic safety. I think we all know between injuries and fatalities, we work very closely with Public Works. There's only so many areas that we can impact, and enforcement's obviously when we partner with Public Works, but also engineering. This is so critical. As well as critical incidents we've talked about in the past, like our recent flooding. Not too long ago, we depended on them to help us keep these roads closed, keep people safe.

Not only all of our residents, I think this was already covered by the exec's office, but anybody who educates here, obviously, our residents. This is a beautiful county. People recreate here. We need to keep this place safe for people to come through and to us as a destination. Most people don't know that there's currently 13 bridges where rescue apparatus cannot travel. I think fire might be talking about that later today. But we also have a rescue tactical vehicle where it would take longer for us to drive around. So these are important things that are are important not only to everybody at the sheriff's office, but also our regional partners. I appreciate the time today, and these are critical issues. Ask for your support on these ordinances. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker.

Next speaker is David Sherman followed by Brent Kirk.

Council staff and guest, thanks for having me here today. My name is David Sherman. I'm an assistant chief with South County Fire. I'm here representing the governance and the board of commissioners as well as the chief's office. South County Fire is in support of this, and I'll start with what the sheriff said. Yes. There are restrictions on bridges that would impact the fire department's response. And so we rely on these roads to get from a to b. Everybody's seen our big shiny red trucks, and everybody knows how heavy they are. So we we need this infrastructure.

It's important to our deployment. It's important to our staff, and it's important to our governance. One of the things that that South County Fire does is is work with the other agencies around. And so when we were aware of of this transportation benefit district, we we talked to the people that were involved and we found out where does this where does this go if if if something like this does not pass? And what I would tell you is it will affect the fire department. You've had people that have said, well, no, it won't. The fire department will overcome and adapt. Of course, we will. That's what we always do. But overcoming and adapting can only go so far.

And so when minutes count when minutes count, that's where the fire department is gonna get involved. And what I'll tell you is we work very hard to shave seconds off of times. We tell our firefighters, if you can't go from a to b, meaning if you can't get the call, get to the truck, and get rolling within a certain amount of time, we crack down on them. And what I'll tell you is that time is not measured in minutes. It's measured in seconds.

And so every minute does truly count. And so I just wanted to come here today and let you know that on behalf of the governance and behalf of the chief's office, South County Fire is in support of this. We need the infrastructure for the roads. We need the infrastructure for the bridges. And we're relying on the county governance to help our governance be successful in our mission. So I thank you for your time today, and I thank you for letting me speak. And once again, South County Ford South County Fire and our electeds are in support of this. So thank you so much.

Thank you for your comment. Next speakers.

Next speaker is Brent Kirk followed by Ray Steffensen.

Hi. I'm Brent Kirk. I'm here on behalf of the city of Granite Falls to support support this. We went to a similar situation on a much smaller scale, of course, with a small city in 2015. And we created a TBD with a $20 car tab taxes similar to what you guys are proposing.

And at the time, we barely had enough money in our streets fund to pay for half of one FTE and everything was going upside down. Since then, we still to this day subsidize our streets fund for 15% of the revenue from our property tax and probably about 8% to 10% of the revenue from our sales tax goes into the streets fund just to keep it whole. And obviously, as you guys know, we are kind of an island in the middle of unincorporated Snohomish County. So we are a bedroom community. We always say we're part of the regional Snowmish County network, obviously.

And everybody in our town that's a resident uses your roads. That's how they get to work and that's how they do their commerce and whatnot. And it's just for us, it'd be nice if we are I think the council was a little bit taken back of the fact that you guys haven't done this to this point because it's been in play for so many years and seeing what's happened over the summer with the loss of like summer employees and things like that. It also hits us with what we call our work order agreements. So the cities had partnerships with the county for years to do things like street striping and shoulder mowing and things of that nature.

And I have noticed over the last decade that the ability to utilize that service has kinda gone downhill. And it's because you don't have the staffing that you used to have, and it's hard to help out other cities with our interlocal agreements when you don't even have enough staff to cover what you guys need to do in house. So I think there's couple of reasons why the City of Granite Falls supports it, but we just want you guys to know that we did it and feel like having it countywide makes sense and for all the obvious reasons that Susie and everybody else has already mentioned here today. So appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Ray Steffensen followed by Natalie Rieber.

Council chair Dunn, vice chair Loe, and council members. I'm Ray Steffenson with the Economic Alliance Snohomish County. Safe and reliable roads and bridges are essential to public safety, emergency response, economic opportunity, and access to daily services throughout Snohomish County. Yet the county's transportation system faces growing funding crisis that threatens its ability to maintain critical infrastructure. Snohomish County Public Works is responsible for maintaining some 1,600 miles of roads, 200 and, 10 bridges, and more than 200 traffic signals.

And at the same time, rising construction costs, inflation, increased regulatory requirements, and declining gas tax revenues have created a significant funding gap. The county has already reduced pending road projects by more than $100,000,000 which you've heard earlier, making it increasingly difficult to keep pace with even the basic maintenance needs. The proposed transportation benefit district and the modest $20 annual vehicle license fee for residents of unincorporated Snohomish County is practical, locally controlled solution. The fee would provide stable funding for essential transportation services, including pavement, preservation, pothole repair, bridge maintenance, culvert replacement, guardrail repair, and ADA compliance sidewalk improvements, and emergency response readiness during floods and snowstorms. Maintaining safe and accessible transportation infrastructure is critical to connecting peoples to jobs, health care, housing, and community services.

Deferred maintenance not only increases the long term costs, but it also risks road closures, infrastructure failures failures, and disruption to affected residents, residents, business, emergency responders alike. Their proposed fee is modest, equitable, and consistent with TBDs already used successfully by cities and counties across Washington state. I would encourage the council to support this initiative. I can tell you from my experience at the city of Everett, we had a very robust, street overlay program, and it was really essential to maintaining our cost position. If roads are neglected, the cost of replacement and repair long term is much higher than it is if we're, staying on top of this.

So I wanna thank the council for the time and encourage you to support this initiative.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker.

Natalie Rieber, followed by Nathan Howard.

Good morning, council members. Natalie Rieber representing the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. I won't repeat many of the things the other speakers have said and likely will say this morning. Just want to reiterate that, we support this measure and sorry. I gotta put my glasses on.

And we appreciate the effort to establish the transportation district to align funding with established transportation plans. Just as importantly, we think that this approach helps to ensure that infrastructure costs are shared broadly rather than falling disproportionately on new housing. It's really important that we keep the infrastructure reliable, so that we can continue to deliver housing to our our growing communities. We think that this these ordinances take a practical step forward, establish a modest vehicle fee and create a stable and predictable funding source for your desperately needed transportation improvements and to keep just the roads, going. We cannot have the roads go into arrears.

That would be highly detrimental to our industry and to homebuilding. So we support this ordinance, and we thank you for your time. And I yield my time to those that are next in line.

Thank you for your comment.

Nathan Howard followed by Merle Ash.

My name is Nathan Howard. I'm here on my own time as public works steward at large for local one zero nine e, and I'm here to urge a vote yes on the transportation benefit district and the $20 car tab. This shortfall isn't from mismanagement. It's from declining gas tax revenue and ballooning construction costs year over year. And our staff have stepped up, working harder, taking on extra duties, giving up equipments that make our jobs easier because we know every dollar matters.

We do it because it needs to be done. I'm asking you to do what needs to be done. Without this measure, 34 of my coworkers face layoffs in 2026 alone. We returned nearly $70,000,000 in grant funding. We faced building moratoriums that will drive up housing costs, and we set this county back ten to twenty years.

Anyone who works on roads knows there's a sweet spot for maintenance. Repair too early and you waste money on spending on a road that is in good condition. Wait too long and the structure fails and a simple repaving job becomes a full reconstruction at much higher cost. That's where we are today. Do the routine maintenance now or pay many times over for the reconstruction later.

I won't pretend that this is popular. Nobody likes car tabs. This isn't the long term answer. It's the stopgap maintenance that keeps 34 families employed and keeps this county moving forward and not backwards. It takes courage to do an unpopular thing that is right to do. I'm asking the council to have that courage today. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speakers?

Merle Ash followed by Carrie Carrie Caffrey.

My name is Merle Ash from rural area of Arlington, Washington. You've had a lot of good speakers here telling you about all the technical reasons why you should support this. I just in plain language, like, think that it's a no brainer. I'll just tell you about the trip I took just getting here today, you know, on the on these roads. I graduated in 1964 from a high school here in Stanwood, and there was less than 200,000 people in the county at that time.

And as I was driving down the road to the freeway, which used to take me five minutes to get to, which would have taken me a lot longer, I had to go cut off and do some back roads. And I was looking around at all those roads, and I said, these dang roads are the same roads that were here in 1964, and they haven't been improved that much. And then as I I finally made it, I got a little bit early, and I stopped at the coffee shop. And by the time I got out of the coffee shop, I'd spent $20, you know, which, they're asking for here today. So I I mean, I I just can't understand why we wouldn't do it.

I looked at my property taxes, and, you know, I got my taxes have gone up from $500 a year to close to $9,000 a year. And I look at you know, 7,100 went to state school and fire district. And the rest of it, the the balance, a little portion of that went to roads. I mean, I think we got a big problem One of our big problems, anyway, we got lots of big problems, but, one of them is housing. You know?

We got, when we've gone from 200,000 to 800,000 people today, over 800,000 in the county right now, And housing costs, I mean, I don't know what there's 14% or something are new time buyers. Nobody on the average new first time buyer is 40 some years old. I mean, what do we we and building the houses need to be supported by the roads. You know? So we're just I just can't figure out why you'd say no. As a matter of fact, I think you should double it. So that's that's that's

Thank you for your comment. Next speakers.

Carrie Caffrey followed by Heidi Reynolds.

Good morning, council members. I'm Carrie Caffrey, Snohomish County resident out of District 5. Gonna take a little different approach here with you all. I wanna remind you all that next week is National Public Works Weeks, which starts May 17 through May 23. Next week, as you the council prepares to vote today, I want you to take this into consideration.

I believe that it's important for you to hear what the APWA's theme is for 2026. This year's theme is rooted in service and powered by community. It acknowledges the roots of service that run deep in public works. It is what propelled public works innovations that have helped our communities evolve into places where people can lead lives of purpose and possibility. Some work, like building roads and bridges, are highly visible, while other public works contributions, like maintaining water and sewer systems, are sometimes hidden from view.

Together, these efforts form the foundation of thriving communities, reminding us that every project seen or unseen powers the connection between the service and the people it supports. As you cast your vote today and prepare to recognize Public Works Week next week through proclamations or resolutions in honor of Public Works and their contributions to our communities, please remember that adequate funding is necessary to keep our communities thriving and connected. Thank you.

Heidi Reynolds followed by Brad Wright.

Hi. My name is Heidi Reynolds. I live in unincorporated Snohomish County, in District 4, and I've lived there for more than twenty years. Forgive me if I sound a little nervous because I am, but my support for this far outweighs my anxiety about getting your peer to speak. I came to support the TBD.

I think it's imperative to maintain levels of maintenance and repair on our roads, that we all use every day, to commute and for commerce and, as people have said, for public safety. It improves the quality of life for residents, and ensures that public safety. And, really, that's all I had to say. I wanted to come and show my support for public works and for the TBD. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Brad Wright followed by Brock Howell.

Hello. Brad Wright. I'm a resident of Unincorporated Linwood, and I'm asking you all to to adopt TBD ordinances. Funding road funding is essential for public safety, commerce, and sustainable growth in our county. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Brock Howell followed by Lance Calloway.

I probably can be that short. My name is Brock Howell. I'm the executive director of Snowtrack or the Snohomish County Transportation Coalition. I'm also a resident of the city of Everett. Snowtrack works with the public and decision makers in Snohomish County and beyond to create and connect affordable age and ability friendly communities for all people.

We primarily focus on the transportation needs of people with disabilities, older adults, youth, and low income, but we do care about how all people get around, making sure we can get around. Two main points I wanna make today. First, part of creating great communities where all people can thrive no matter their ability or age or income is making sure that they live in an affordable place with all the services that they need. And so the region has really prioritized building in South Snohomish County along the future light rail line, around the bus rapid transit system. So that's a really key strategy for us both from a housing perspective as well as economic growth.

And to not maintain a rose in that area is going to mean that we're gonna be able to build less housing there, be able to not provide the types of communities where people can easily access services, and obviously not be able to access transit. And so it's really key that we invest in that strategy that we have as a region and that we have as a county. Second, we prioritize a lot of our work on making sure people with disabilities and older adults can get around in the rural area. We without having services like Homage Senior Services, which provides paratransit like services in the in in rural Snohomage County, they would be stuck in their homes. That service relies on good quality roads.

And so for the sake of all of our residents of the county, I encourage you to pass the TBD and support our infrastructure.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Last on the sign up sheet is Lance Calloway.

Good morning, council members. My name is Lance Calloway. I'm the northern district manager for Associated General Contractors of Washington. I represent the contractors that build the infrastructure that we all enjoy and will build it into the future. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about the TBD, and I'm gonna copy the young man comment here when he said this does seem like a no brainer.

But this isn't a a situation just about funding. It's about safety, reliability, keeping up with today's realities, and also it's fiscal fiscally responsible. Snohomish County, as I've stated before, maintains 1,600 miles of roads, 210 bridges. That's a massive system. Right now, we simply don't have the funding to keep it in the condition the citizens have grown to expect and deserve, and the impacts are already starting to show.

We have bridges that our fire departments are unable to cross and can't safely support their vehicle weights. That means that someone, when they call 911, their life may be a danger. You know? And those that takes makes those vehicles go long distance to get around these obstacles that shouldn't be there. And it's not getting any easier.

Our county is growing. Traffic is increasing, and vehicle weights are also getting heavier. You know? When we have more and more electric vehicles and more and more of the fleets that are delivering all those great little packages received almost daily, you know, that has a toll on our roads and infrastructure. And and at the same time, we're losing ground very possibly by traffic by the pardon me.

Losing ground in a very real way. With new funding, the county may may not get without new funding, the county may have to give back $66,500,000 in grant funding and cancel up to 14 transportation projects, projects that would improve safety, fix bridges, and reduce the congestion. If we don't act, the result is clear, more deterioration, more closures, slower emergency response, and higher costs down the road. The transportation benefit district is a practical solution, a modest $20 annual fee that would generate about 6,000,000 a year, funding that stays here locally to go directly into maintaining the roads and bridges in this community. This isn't about overbuilding.

It's about maintaining what we have and protecting public safety. Because once roads fail, bridges are restricted, and emergency routes are compromised, the cost to catch up is far greater. Time to act is now. We have a choice. Invest a little today or pay much more later in dollars, reliability, and potentially lives. I recognize this is not an easy task, but doing nothing will cost us far more. I strongly encourage you to move forward with the TBD, and I wanna say thank you for your time and leadership. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. That was the last person signed up. So is there any other in person, speakers today? You don't have to have signed up. So anyone else in person? Okay. We'll switch to online. So if you wanted to provide public testimony on any of these items online, plea please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute if you're joining by phone. And we have a lot of attendees, but I don't see anyone raising their hand. So okay. We got one. Let me see.

We have Robert Leonard, and you should be able to unmute your microphone.

Hi there. Thank you. My name is Robert Leonard. I live in the city of Everett. I just wanted to speak in support of the TBD. That's all I had to have had.

Okay. Thank you. We'll do one more call for anyone else online. Please signify by raising your hand. And I don't see any hands raised.

No other hands raised.

Okay. So we'll now close public testimony on this item for now and turn to counsel. So any discussion? Conservative low?

Yeah. Thank you. First of all, I just want to thank the public for coming today. It's great to see the chambers here full. They're not always full for public testimony on items. And so the fact that you came out to share your point of view, think, is important. We also received a bunch of emails on this topic too. Before I get into my my comments, I do wanna thank our public works workers. They I'm impressed by the work that they do across our county. We have a tremendous road system.

They do a great job maintaining that system, but the finances we have are clearly not enough for them to do the job that they need to do. I've been able to do ride alongs with our public works crew, be out and and see them on the job, and and we have, in my opinion, probably the top public works crew in the state. I mean, their professionalism is incredible. The work they do for our county is incredible. I also want to share that as I've learned this process over the last few months, we're gonna be the second county in the state to do a TBD when we do a TBD.

You know, this is something new for for us to consider, but what we have here is not enough money. As I've learned, the $6,000,000 that would come from this is really just gonna help for preservation and maintenance, really not get to helping with the other bridges that are struggling. We heard testimony about doubling it. We can't double it, at this point. Because of state law, you can only do $20, and I then down the road, we can do more.

So there needs to be broader discussions on this because this is not enough. I I'm I've heard proposals over the last three months of possibly doing a levy lid lift. I've heard proposals of transferring some funds from our REIT or some of the other areas to help with this. I think it's gonna be a multifaceted approach. But one thing I'm convinced of is it's not enough right now.

And so I have concerns not about doing the TBD, but I have concerns about making sure that that we do the right thing for our county on this. My recommendation is that we vote through the first two today. We do need to establish the the benefit district and and the guidelines on it. But my recommendation is that we move this back to committee not to say we're not gonna do it, but to have more a broader discussion to make sure that we're covering all the needs and everything that needs to be done with this. So that's how I'm leaning today, but I do wanna listen to my colleagues.

I again, I appreciate the public. The public matters in this process, and I really wanna take the testimony I've heard today and make sure that I can reflect on this as as we go forward. Tomorrow, I'll be chairing the state transportation improvement board. We do use, as we heard from one of our members, the gas tax revenue, about 150,000,000 a year that we put into different counties and cities and unincorporated areas across the state. And and I know that if cities and counties do not take care of their infrastructure, it deteriorates really, really quick.

So I know how important this is. I've made my life work in elected office to work on transportation issues. I do not wanna run from this issue. I wanna support our transportation network, but I want to make sure we fully fund it appropriately. So that's my thoughts at the start. I don't know if I'll add more to that, but that's my thoughts.

Other council members?

Thank you, Chair Dunn. And I want to start by saying thank you as well, particularly, you know, everybody giving public comment. It's been a couple of months. I've been engaging with a lot of the people in this room on the dynamics here, the executives team, Kelly, thank you. And our public work staff, thank you for taking time out of your day. Your days off, your precious time off to be able to come here and tell us what this means to you all. So thank you for being here. I tend to agree with the sentiment that council member Lowe is presenting there. This the reason that I'm trepidatious with this policy isn't because I don't believe we have a massive problem in our roads fund. We do. It's not because I think we can cut our way out of the problem. We cannot. It's because this is $6,000,000 on a $30

plus

million problem and if we use this tool now, we're going to be back here next year if we don't fix the structural issues with how we approach roads funding and how we approach, I think, county funding and our priorities. County government should be focused very strongly on public infrastructure and public safety. Those are our core responsibilities. I think we are coming up short and we have for years. We have to make adjustments structurally.

This isn't a structural adjustment. This is a band aid on a gunshot wound and it's also not going to even buy us a year and we'll be right back here next year with no tool for revenue if we don't have a broader discussion around the structural issues that we have to fix. So I I like the idea of being proposed by council member Lowe to take a little bit more time. I have been working on a proposal, some of the things that were mentioned with REIT dollars and I think that we as a council should really have this as a broader conversation including the TBD, but also including our structural approach to roads funding in general. So I think we need to have robust solutions.

This is a really serious problem. We need serious solutions and I don't think that this is it.

Conservative Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Dunn. And again, yes, thank you all for coming out. As as many of you know, if you've had conversations with me or listened to five minutes of a council meeting, you know that I can turn about any conversation into a conversation about affordable housing. You all did that for me, so thank you for doing that. But that really is one of, I think, one of the critical issues that we have to deal with.

As many of you pointed out, we have an incredibly robust growing county, and we need housing. One of the ways to get to and from your housing is by having quality roads. And I think one of the issues gets maybe a little wonky, but I I think some bank banks would be reluctant to lend money if we had a county that had failing roads because they understand the need for that infrastructure. So that drives up costs. That reduces the amount of housing that so many of in our community need.

One of the other things that was was brought out many of the other things that were brought out, but it's really, you know, and I and I understand right now with the affordability crisis that we're in, that adding an extra $20 car tab is not an easy thing. And thank you for those of you pointed out this is not an easy vote. I'm I'm ready to move forward with it. But I think one of the things that we also have to remember is that it's the people that will benefit from this are not only the people that have a car and will pay a car tab, but for so many in our community that do not have access to that kind of personal transportation, that rely on buses, that rely on sidewalks, that rely on other modes of transportation to get from point a to point b. Those are the other people that we need to look out to and those are the other people that we as a community can do that with with the inner with a TBD.

We can make sure as as you know, thank you Snowtrack for for bringing that forward. We know that people are struggling to get to the grocery store. People are struggling to get to the doctor that no longer drive or aren't old enough to drive. This TBD will help make sure that those people can get to the services that they need. They can get to school. They can get to the doctor's office. They can get to other family members and other places in the community. So this is more than just about housing, even though I try to make it everything about housing. This is really about access for everybody in our community. I appreciate council member Lowe's thought process.

Yes, we need to do more, but I think this is something we can do now. Again, I think the idea of handing back $66,000,000 in our budget because we can't come up with the matching funds is pretty devastating. But I do appreciate that we will continue having this conversation, but also just want to appreciate all of you that have come out with so many different perspectives on the need for this important piece of work. Thanks.

Customer O'Neary?

Yes. Thank you, Chardan. I appreciate it. And I appreciate everybody for taking the time to come out and share your comments today. It's really helpful for us to hear from you all on on the impacts of this. I I agree with what other council members have said. I think it's very clear that there is a need here. You know, I've had a lot of conversations with public works, and I think they well, maybe I'll take a step back. You know, I'm a big believer in trying to make sure that government is efficient as possible, that we're very careful with our tax dollars. I'm convinced after conversations with Public Works that they have been doing that to the best of their ability.

I think we've heard a little bit about, you know, the various cuts that have been made and the different steps that have been taken to to try to do what they can internally, and I appreciate the work that's been done there. I think there's been a lot of effort on behalf of the director and all the staff to to do that, and I'm very, very grateful for that. So I think clearly there is a need. The question is how big is the deficit and what's it gonna take to overcome the deficit. And I think just as there's, I think, gonna be very little disagreement that there's a need here, there's also probably no disagreement that this does not overcome our deficit.

And And so the question is how can we how can we do that? The only proposal I've heard to date that gets us from where we are to where we need to be is by voter approval. And so I think what council member Lowe has suggested of sending this back to committees that we can have a broader conversation on how can we get from point a to point b, where I think we all agree where we are, where we need to go, and how can we do that in the best way, which, again, I I think requires going to the voters for approval. I think that's a a prudent move, and so I support doing that and then having that conversation. And whether it involves REIT dollars, whether whether it involves the proposal that's before us today or looking at going to the voters for a levy lid lift, I think those conversations need to happen, and hopefully, can come to some agreement on the case that's gonna be made to the voters and how we can make that case to the best of our ability as a county.

So appreciate all that's been said. Really appreciate all the testimony and look forward to further conversations on this.

So I'll just share my appreciation as well, especially to the leadership in public works and and the executive's office for working on this and spending many months meeting with counsel on this. I'm concerned with the uncertainty to our workers and our families by not deciding an amount today. But if it's the will of the counsel to refer this back to committee for more study, I'll support that. I do think it's important that we have we're depending on different funding sources. So we have property tax.

We have sales tax. We have our road levy, but this will offer a different form of revenue. So having that diversity of revenue is important in your business, in your home, and also for the count for the county. So, we know that a majority of our city residents are paying for this, and I think one of the commenters was really eloquent in saying that this is something that would be sustainable and is seen across the county. So for me, I'm I'm prepared to move forward.

I'm I am concerned about the uncertainty for the next several months if we can't find agreement. And so it's more more work, more number crunching, but I do appreciate all the leadership and the work and the and the comments today. So, yeah, I think that the diversity of revenue is one just one of the one of the more important things to highlight. So other comments?

Yes. I just want to conclude my comments and say that I don't want to delay this too long. Obviously, I'm Chair of the Public Infrastructure Committee. I have a meeting on June 2 and June 16, so that's coming up really quickly. I promise to get it on one of those two depending on the schedule and I'll work with our staff to make sure which one of the two.

But we'll get it right away. I mean, I don't want to drag this out too long, but we need to have the broader discussion as a counsel. We're not here to have the broader discussion here today because we're here to vote on these measures. So my recommendation is that I'm going to make a motion here in a second to move the first one and the second one, which is number two and number three. And then I'll make a motion to move the third one, which is the funding portion, back to committee so we can have the broader discussion and then have another public hearing after that, depending on the outcome of that meeting.

But my goal is not to delay this too long. Let's have those discussions, and we can come forward with a unified message from the council, hopefully. So unless there's any other comments, I'm happy to make a motion.

Any other comments? Is there a motion?

I move approval of ordinance 20 six-eleven. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded to approve ordinance 20 six-eleven. Any other comments? Okay. Hearing none, we'll have a roll call vote.

Vice Chair Lo?

Yes.

Council Member Nearing?

Yes.

Council Member Mead?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson? Aye. Chair Dunn?

Yes. So ordinance 20 six-eleven passes five to zero. Next is ordinance 20 six-ten. -ten.

I move approval of Ordinance 20 six-ten. Second.

Been properly moved and seconded to approve Ordinance 20 six-ten. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, we'll have a roll call vote.

Vice Chair Loe? Yes. Councilmember Nearing?

Yes.

Councilmember Mead?

Yes.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Chair then?

Yes. So ordinance 20 six-ten passes five-zero. And is there a motion regarding ordinance 26 dash zero nine nine?

Yeah. And I'll defer to the clerks if they wanna correct what I say on this one. But I wanna make a a a motion to move ordinance 26 dash zero zero nine back to the public infrastructure committee That is correct. To have a discussion in June. Second.

Okay. Motion has been made regarding ordinance 26 dash 99. Any discussion? Nine. Nine. Thank you. Okay. Hearing none, all in favor, please say

aye. Aye.

Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, ordinance 20 six-ninety nine is referred back

to zero zero nine.

Zero zero nine is referred back to committee. Thank you. And the record will remain open on this item. Okay. That concludes our business, and counsel is adjourned for the day. Thank you.