City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone. I now call the April 7th, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. At this point, we will take a moment to take roll call of the council members by position number. Please say here when the clerk calls your name. Thank you. Council member Angulari

here. Mayor Thompson. Deputy Mayor Alder here. Council member Kurt here. Council member Miles here. Council member Dodd here. Council member Alcabra here. All presence with the exception of Mayor Thompson who is absent and excused.

Thank you clerk. Um on to the meeting agenda approval. Uh the Vikas Saki and Kala day proclamations have been postponed until Tuesday, April 14th. Are there any other agenda or any other changes to the meeting agenda for tonight? All right, seeing none, uh we'll move on to public engagement opportunities. All right, celebrate Earth Month throughout April. Um celebrate Earth Month with us and our partners with events and activities for the whole family. Learn, connect, and make a difference for our our environment. Some upcoming events include April 15th, a container gardening workshop, and April 25th, an Earth Day celebration at Ble Park. Uh for more events and activities, you can go to the website on the page for Earth Month. Next, we have Council and the Community event. So, Council and the Community events are back. Stop by to chat with your city council members. Ask questions, share feedback, and learn more about city services and priorities. The next event is scheduled for Saturday, April 18th at the BothL Fire Station 42 from 10:00 a.m. till noon. Next up is the pavement marking refresh map. City crews are planning to refresh pavement markings across the community, and we need your help to identify and prioritize where work is needed most. Use our interactive map to share locations where existing markings like crosswalks, lane markings, and bike lanes have faded or worn away. You can add to the map until April 26th at engagebl.com. Next up, we have um a couple of proclamations and I've asked Deputy Mayor Emmeritus Alcabra to read uh the proclamation for Eidal Fitter.

Um thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, so this is the end of Ramadan proclamation. Whereas Ramadan is recognized worldwide by Muslims as a holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal. And whereas in the Muslim spiritualist practice, fasting is a way to practice empathy for others, be more God conscience conscious, increase empathy, solidarity, and gratitude, and increase charity, spiritual soul cleansing, and community unity while also practicing deeper self-reflection and self-restraint. And whereas the end of Ramadan is commemorated by Eid al which translates to festival of breaking the fast a celebration of gratitude and a joyous occasion marked by sharing sweets gifts and good tidings with family, friends, and neighbors. And whereas the American Muslim community is among the most racially diverse faith groups in the United States with many Muslim Americans tracing their roots back to the African slave trade and African diaspora. And whereas both has a thriving Muslim community whose members contribute to our city as doctors, nurses, teachers, small business owners, volunteers, students, and city council members and more. And whereas Ramadan gives us the opportunity to recognize the significance of our Muslim community and serves as a reminder that Islam is a part of America and that Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our community and country. Now therefore, I Raml Kabra on behalf of Mason Thompson, Mayor of the city of Bathl hereby proclaim February 18th to March 19th as the month of Ramadan with March 20th as Eid alut marking the end of Ramadan and affirm our commitment to ensuring our city remains welcoming and compassionate and respects the dignity and rights of

all people regardless of race, religion, immigration status or country of origin. Thank you so much. And it's my understanding that you'll present that to um ICO. I will present it to the Islamic Center Bottle. Yes.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Um next we have a uh proclamation for together we shine and um I've asked Council Member Dodd to read it. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um whereas individuals with special needs are valued members of the city of both whose unique strengths and perspectives enrich our community and whereas families and caregivers of individuals with special needs show extraordinary dedication and compassion ensuring their loved ones experience dignity, opportunity and belonging. And whereas together we shine founded by both youth leader Shria Pala provides free inclusive social opportunities that foster connection, confidence and joy for individuals with special needs and their families. And whereas through community events, social groups and volunteer supported activities in both parks and public spaces. Together we shine strengthens family connections, builds empathy and inspires youth leadership and civic engagement. And whereas initiatives like together we shine exemplify the values of inclusion, compassion, and community partnership that make both a stronger, more welcoming city. Now therefore, I, not Mason Thompson, mayor of the city of both, do hereby recognize together we shine for its outstanding contributions to fostering inclusion, belonging, and support for individuals with special needs and their families. And I see Shita in the audience. All right.

All right. Good evening everyone here today. I'd first like to start with a thank you to Mayor Thompson and Deputy Mayor Alder as well as council members Dodd and Alcubra for your continued support. It is an incredible honor for our organization to be recognized by the city of both. Today we celebrate a vision, a vision that every child regardless of ability deserves to be seen, valued, and celebrated. As the co-founder of Together We Shine, I am honored to stand here as a voice for children who often go unheard. Together We Shine is more than a nonprofit. It is a movement. We have a commitment to break down barriers and to light the path of understanding, to create a world where differences are embraced. Through our teenled social programs, community awareness, and tireless volunteer efforts, we build a future where compassion is the standard, never exclusive. This proclamation by the city of both is a testament to the power of our community. It is proof that when we come together, we can move mountains, lift spirits, and change lives. Today, we shine not just for the children, but for the hope that every child has the right to belong and to connect and to thrive. Let's do away with those moments where we dream for things to be different, where we dream for people to change. Let's start making it our reality. So let this day, this recognition, and this moment serve as a reminder. Together we shine brighter than any challenge, any obstacle, and any doubt. The future of inclusion starts here with us, and it starts now. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Um, do we have another speaker? Yeah, we have a couple of speakers. Okay, great. And subsequent parents. Go ahead. We'll be quick. That's not my concern. Please, we're so glad you're here.

Today, I stand here not just as a parent, but as a voice of so many families who walk this journey every single day. Special need parents carry a quiet kind of courage. It takes lot of strength to step into community spaces, a park, a holiday event knowing that any moment or single stare or passing judgment or insensitive comment would push us 100 steps back. And yet we will show up. And let me tell you something important. We are not afraid of our children. We are not afraid of our children's disability. What we are worried is about the community around them. How they receive them, how they are perceived and how they will be treated in spaces that are meant for everyone. Because the truth is our childrens are ready for the world but the world is still learning for them. Organizations like together we shine help us to come out of our spaces where we often are in the closed doors. Together we shine has created that inclusive environment where we can celebrate with our children without a judgment or a stare. This organization has bought us our village back because when we create awareness we create a change. When we create an act when we create acceptance we create belonging. And today the proclamation is just not a recognization. It's a commitment. Thank you all for together we shine vish with pala. It's lot it takes lot of you. Initially when we started this organization as a youth leader as a mom I was hesitant whether it's too big of a job for us but Shria and her friends be proved beyond their capabilities.

Working with special need child doesn't need a special training or a therapist. It just needs a good heart. Thank you for letting the world know we are we are not alone in this journey. You thank you for belong bringing our village back. Thank you so much. Uh she wants uh a sibling of a special needs child. She wants to talk. Alina, come.

Hi, my name is Alina. I'm 15 years old and I'm the sibling of a special needs um kid. Growing up in this role has shaped who I am in so many different ways. I've seen both the challenges and the strengths in my family and has taught me patience, empathy, and understanding. There are times when my people don't understand my sibling and that can be very difficult for me and my family. But I've learned that a little awareness and kindness can make a big difference. My sibling is not is not identified by his challenges but by his personality because he's really funny, kind, and an incredibly important part of my life. I hope our community continues to grow in understanding and compassion so families like mine feel accepted and supported wherever we go. Thank you. Um good evening mayor, city council members, fellow parents and community leaders. Um thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here tonight and uh talk about our experience. I am a father of um two special need kids. Um it was it was um experience on totally opposite spectrums. One of them is high functioning and the other um has severe autism. So um we have seen days where um we had sleepless nights. We had to start therapy sessions from morning um take kid to school bring back take for another therapy session ABA take for speech sessions or occupational therapies. I'm glad we were here in a

United States where there is inclusive environment in the school especially the um uh Northshore school district had Ruby Bridges started the inclusive program that helped my younger one which was high functioning thrive um thrive at school and he became like um highly capable and in fact um outsmart peers at school. It's just because the environment was such where it was inclusive and he learned a lot and the other one um has different kind of needs and and probably like we still are not able to crack out the exact um uh environment that can suit him. But we had to wait like maybe 12 years just to hear mommy and daddy consistently being uh coming out of his like language and verbal communication. But we we still have um we are thankful that we have such an environment over here that is helping him thrive and now the communication is starting to develop and it is helping a lot. But um like the other parent mentioned, we want the inclusive environment to be established throughout maybe in libraries, in the parks and in other facilities where um we are encouraged to bring them. We like parents said are shy bringing the kids to to public gatherings. Not just that we don't have a courage. We build that courage. We come out and we try to bring them. But one glare, one um judgment or phrase past um takes all of our courage away. So uh we would be um if if we can encourage and and educate all the masses together that uh parents and and the kids themselves feel that they need more

inclusive and supportive environment. Um that will help and hopefully uh with time the culture and the society will learn and we will have a better future. together as um we shine has been um phenomenal. We have been part of it from like last 3 years we have been attending the events and normally like um whatever events like Easter um Christmas and other festivals. We usually like are shy to take kids to public gatherings. So together we shine provides us with an environment where there is no one to judge us. So we feel um very safe um not just in terms of safety but in terms of like being inclusive no one is going to judge us. So so more such environments and places will help us um thrive and and kids thrive. So thank you so much for your time. Uh well, I made some notes, but now it's deleted and there's a beautiful picture of something on my phone, so I'll just speak from heart. Uh thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm overwhelmed only because um usually I don't prepare a speech and I speak from heart. But today the fact that we are here in this capacity um I really want to thank this group um thanks to Kavita and family for forming this group for bringing such voices out otherwise we would find ourselves in really like closed rooms where we are like let's just hide from the world because that's easier um but today we have come out to celebrate this

pro proclamation is also it solidifies it reaffirms our faith In what we believe we have always manifested growth celebration for who we are. We celebrate this diversity this neurodeiversity these quirks these uh uniqueness. Uh only thing is that celebration has to reach the wider audience. The sky belongs to everyone but we are always uh fighting for a space but just to know that everyone in this room today it's such a safe space and they you are with us. So that itself is such a it gives us so much energy. It's the wind beneath our wings. And we know that we can conquer anything that we set our heart on, anything that our kids um want to do. We can do anything and everything. This is like building a bridge between the neurotypical and the neurodeivergent world. And that's all we need. Those bridges to be built and us coming together in this dream. It's not just a dream for a better future for our children. It's a dream for the better future for every child out there. They are dreaming to live. The dream is to live in a more compassionate, kind world, just a better place as they grow up, a world of utopia. And you are helping us build that with this proclamation. And thanks to groups like together we shine. Today we are here. And I'm really overwhelmed with a sense of victory I might say. Um and I would like to leave with something in the words of uh Lao Su if I'm saying that right that uh you know happiness there is no way to happiness and happiness is the way. This is the way to happiness just by doing it, believing in it and manifesting it and achieving it.

We already achieving it. This is an achievement which I'm taking home like my heart is so full. So yeah, on behalf of the parents of together we shine and just this whole community who has made us feel given us the sense of belonging. Thank you so much. This is Pion. Thank you. Oh, we have another speaker. Go ahead. Good evening. Good evening everyone. I'm Glit and I'm in seventh grade. I'm glad that I am in Together We Shine. As volunteers, we get to we get the opportunity to help special kids feel like they belong. I appreciate the shitta for making this organization and giving us and giving us this opportunity. Thank Thank you all for listening. Hello. Okay. Volunteering with Together We Shine means so much to me because it it has allowed me to build real connections and allowed me to give the children that we support real

Oh, sorry. I'm going to start again. I'm sorry. Volunteering with Together We Shine means so much to me because it allowed me to build real connections with the children we support. Getting to meet them, talk with them in between meetings, and watch them grow over time has become incredibly meaningful. Seeing them become more comfortable, confident, and happy in these social spaces reminds me why this work matters. I also love being a part of the birthday card project because art has always been something that I genuinely enjoy. So being able to use it for a larger cause makes it even more special to me. Together we shine is about creating connection, belonging, and joy for children who deserve to feel celebrated, supported, and seen. Thank you.

Could we get everyone up for a picture? Would you join us for that? Thank you. Please.

All right. Thank you to everyone from Together We Shine for being here tonight and for bringing just your your energy, your love, and your spirit to um to our meeting. Um, that basically con concludes the fun part of our meeting and we're going to get into uh into business. Uh, next up we have uh public comment. The city has accepted public comment in writing as well as accepted sign up for those who wish to speak at tonight's meeting. Written comments submitted to the city clerk no later than 3 p.m. today were forwarded to all city council members and are part of the record. When the clerk calls your name, you will have three minutes to speak. Please note that council will receive your input, but we do not engage in discussion of these topics. Staff will make note of items requiring follow-up. Clerk, are there any uh signups for speaking?

We do not have any signups to speak this evening. However, if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to do so, please step to the podium, state your name. You'll have three minutes. If you are virtual on attending virtually, please use the raise hand function and I will panel you in for three minutes. give folks a minute to do that. I don't have anybody.

All right, then I will um pass it over to city manager Stannard to give the city manager report. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and good evening, city council members. Um it's great to be here in a sunny April. Noticing the time change in full effect is it doesn't feel like it's time for a meeting yet. Um our deputy city manager and I are over here a little bit lonely today. We have a few uh people's shifts and outs, but I just wanted to note too for the council as you're participating that while our city attorney, Eileen Kefir, is away. Her partner at Madrona Law and Ray Sto is online and available. So, yep, she just turned a camera on too. So, she's with us in case you have any questions for our city attorney tonight. Um, we're well covered. Um, the other thing I just would want to acknowledge is that the month of March has five Tuesdays. So, what felt like it's been a while since we've had a council meeting was full of other activities of course and so um including back on the 24th the special meeting that you held to interview board and commission members which uh the opportunity to vote on those candidates is tonight as well as holding of a council retreat where the vision and priorities was discussed and just to affirm uh we are intending to bring those back to you on May 5th for uh discussion and some ratification. So, uh, with that, that brings us to a couple of updates for tonight. And, uh, the first one up is, uh, 2025 year-end budget report. And, um, like most of our households these days, we're all kind of watching our financial picture and where things are at. And one one of the many things that makes the city budget more complex than our personal budgets is that we don't have real time uh information in terms of there's uh there's a lag and as information gets reported and revenues get reconciled at the state and then trickle down to the city. So uh we're often looking at the beginning of the second quarter to know how we did at the end of the year. And that's the position we're in right now. So tonight you're going to get a picture of the 25 25-y year end budget report.

We're joined tonight by our finance director, Quan Wong. And I'm going to turn things over to our deputy finance director, Andrew Wang, who is going to lead the presentation. Andrew, thank you, city manager. Uh deputy mayor, council members. Good evening. Uh tonight we are presenting you the uh year end 2025 uh fiscal update as of December 31st, 2025. Uh this is only a staff briefing. No council action is requested tonight. Um looking at our citywide revenues and expenditures. Um we see there's uh a large uh underspend in expenditures and uh slight underolction revenues. The unspent in expenditures is uh mostly due to delayed timing in capital projects and the lower than expected uh revenue receipts are majority uh lower than expected sales tax. Um drilling in by fund you can see uh the expenditures in the general fund are um lower by about $3.5 million. This is due to delay in hiring of um the positions that were added in the last binium's budget. Um and then again the capital improvements and uh it's the same for the utility funds. Um those are caused by delays in timing and capital projects. And looking further into the general fund, um at the end of 2025, there was a $3.5 million use of fund balance. Uh which is slightly lower than um our 5 million uh expected use of fund balance. Uh revenues are 2.3% lower. Uh majority of that again is lower than expected sales taxes. Um and the 4.1% lower than expected expenditures is almost entirely uh salary savings from delay in hiring of those positions. Factors we're

watching into the future are uh the inflation rate. Um inflation for February was 3.8%. That was up from 3.1% in December. Um and those numbers came up before the start of the global conflicts. Um so we expect that number to increase. Um, and the sales tax receipts we just received, um, the numbers from January, they were down 6% year-over-year. Um, and in our budget, we expected a well actually an 8% increase. Um, but that again, um, one month isn't indicative of the entire year, but it's something we're watching. Um if we look at the uh major uh revenue types, we see sales tax is is down. Um and the uh business license was also down, but that is due to a large refund uh that was unexpected. And um there were also uh fines and for for fines and forfeitures were down um due to some equipment um malfunctions with our uh school zone cameras. Um looking forward slide is not changing but looking forward the finances um next steps are we're preparing for our audit the we expect the auditor to be here in May um and we'll file by May 30th uh with the state and we will come back to you um by July with a Q1 update for 2026. six. And of course, um, we'll have updates for you as the, uh, budget process proceeds, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

I'll look to council for anyone who might have any questions.

All right, council member Alcabra.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Um, one thing I mentioned to the city manager during our one-on-one yesterday, seems like forever ago. Um, uh, uh, thing this is good and it's, uh, I'm glad that we are conservative in as far as our forecasting, but given the, uh, the war that is happening and the, you know, the global issues that are happening and I think we're feel going to about we're we will are starting to feel it over here domestically as well. uh as we prepare for the budget for the next bienium, I think uh uh it would be good for us to be to on the side of being more conservative in my opinion than being aggressive uh at least for the first year perhaps. I'm sure you guys are the experts, so you probably are thinking of this, but uh just from u um from my perspective, uh it's from what I'm reading, it seems like things might get worse before they get better. So, uh just to to brace for the at least the upcoming year in my opinion.

Yeah, I would echo those thoughts as well. Is anybody else? Uh Council Member Kurt,

thanks. Thanks for the presentation and the update. Um, I also like seeing that we're conservative with funds and that we're stewarding the resources. Well, one of the questions I had after reading the packet was, um, in the sales tax, uh, kind of description, um, you mentioned that retail sales tax receipts were up 4% but still lower than budgeted. What are the other types of sales tax that would be bringing that 4% down? um construction sales tax. Uh there's a criminal justice component. Um one second I sorry it's an incredibly specific question. Sorry.

So it's it's retail sales tax, construction, there's an affordable housing sales tax, the hotel motel tax, and then the criminal justice Yeah. sales tax.

Great. So it sounds like yeah we are the sales tax revenue um fund is really highly contingent on economic regional economic performance and so um I share the same concerns and um trust you and your team to to keep stewarding it wisely and bringing it back when there's questions. Thank you. Last call. All right. I'll just say that um it's been a while since you've had to bring us bad news. Um and we appreciate that. Um but we also like I also just know how important it is to be able to uh respond appropriately when circumstances change. So we will look to you for you know uh communicating whatever it is we need to know so that we can make responsible decisions as a community. Um and so just appreciate the ongoing work that you do.

Yeah. Thank you. Uh but I also want to add that uh again because of your direction we're looking at a long-term budget stability plan. So we're not just looking at just short-term uh issues. uh we're going to give you some longer term uh projections so that you don't make decisions because of your couple months of information. So we're also looking at uh data from uh other sources to make sure that we give you the best information. I appreciate that. Thank you.

All right. Thank Thank you, council. And we definitely do we have a great finance team that always brings options which is really appreciated. We have a second uh staff report tonight. So, we'll do a quick staff shift. Um, and as you may have noticed, I've actually was um I felt a little guilty as I headed out to dinner with um with my family one night and I saw a downtown walking tour. Um, but we've had a number of events going on. I was planning for the downtown sub area plan and um while we have a brief update for you tonight just because we want to make sure council is following along for the ride and kind of know what to expect and what's coming up. So tonight we have a staff briefing to provide a few highlights of what we've heard so far and what's coming next. And we're joined by our community development director Jason Greenspan and he is going to be uh accompanying Cabern Culvin who's our senior planner with community development who will be leading the presentation. So Cameron, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you very much and good evening council. Uh my name is Cameron Culvin. I'm a senior planner in the community development department. And as mentioned, I'll just be providing a brief update for you all tonight on the downtown subaria plan and our recent engagement work associated with that project. Um, our last touch point with council was last November. Um, so since that time, we've really been focused on inventorying existing conditions downtown and working with community members to begin identifying uh key topic priorities, issues, and opportunities uh to inform the plan and policy direction. We are still aiming for adoption um early next year. Um, and we uh are aiming to have a draft plan available

before the summer in July for review. And we'll be hosting some more detailed study sessions with you all to dive into um more detail around those. So, um, one of the opportunities, um, that we've promoted and recruited for is our downtown ambassador work group, um, which is a voluntary project steering committee of community members. Um, the primary role of this group is to provide ongoing input on the plan, um, share perspectives and help provide connections with the broader community. Um to help advertise this opportunity, we utilized existing city communication channels, our website, list serves, and social media. Um we worked with our consultant to do in-person tableabling at a couple of events as well as at the downtown library. Um as well as door-to-door outreach to downtown businesses and apartment buildings. Um and then as part of this recruitment process, our consultant also conducted a series of initial interviews with um downtown stakeholders that either they were previously aware of or that they got introduced to um through our recent tenant protections uh workshops and focus groups as well. And so we ended up uh receiving a lot of interest in participation. uh the city received uh just over 40 applications which exceeded our initial goal of about 10 to 15 participants. Um so we did work with our consultant to develop some selection criteria and narrow that list down uh to about 24 participants um that ended up being selected. So, um, the factors that kind of went into that, uh,

selection process were affiliations with downtown, um, those that live, work, visit, uh, or go to school downtown, their ability to attend the regularly scheduled ambassador meetings, um, and ability to represent and engage diverse communities downtown. So, thus far, we have held two meetings with this group. um and we'll be holding four over the course of the project with them. Uh the first meeting was mostly an initial orientation to catch them up to speed on the downtown sub area plan, what it covers, and what their work will involve. And then we followed that with a uh walking tour of downtown. And uh we had our ambassadors take pictures of areas of downtown that um they saw as successes or challenges or opportunities that we may want to address or highlight within the plan. Um we ended up assembling over about 160 photos across the group. uh compiling those into a a set of topic areas um by theme. And so the main ones that kind of popped out from that work was housing and development, transportation and mobility and public space and activation. Um so at our second ambassador workg groupoup meeting we shared out those um the results of the photo walking tour and then broke into small groups to start diving in on these topics in a bit more detail. In addition to the ambassador workg group, we've been hosting a series of public downtown walking tours um which has provided an opportunity for community members to speak directly with staff, learn about recent downtown

projects and development, um and share ideas, uh that they have for the future of downtown. Um so we've hosted two of these downtown walking tours thus far, one in February and one in March. Uh the Saturday one, we did not look out with weather. It was completely downpouring, but the people that showed up for that one were troopers. Um and we we bore through the rain. Um had about 15 participants at that one. And then the Thursday one uh was in the evening and we had about 35 participants at that walk. Um I also wanted to highlight quickly the social media reach from the project thus far. It's been garnering a lot of attention online. Um so between 15 different Facebook and Instagram posts, we've saw um 65,000 unique accounts reached, uh 99,000 views, about 1,500 interactions, and over 150 clicks. Um, so given the amount of online feedback that we our comm's team has been receiving, we've also made an effort to begin pulling some of those and factoring that into our larger community engagement um work as part of this project. So just a couple of themes in these topic areas that I wanted to highlight for council. Um, we've heard some concern around pace and direction of recent development downtown. Um, some concerns around affordability and displacement as a result of recent development. Um, and the prevalence of either vacant or underutilized properties downtown. In terms of transportation and mobility, uh we've heard a lot that there's

concerns around parking availability. And this seems to be a combination of uh both awareness about available spaces and uh hours of availability for the downtown parking garage as well as street parking uh in addition to enforcement as well. And so, um, just for council's awareness, in a couple of weeks, there will be a discussion around, um, curbside management and parking enforcement. Um, so we've been coordinating with that team and we'll incorporate any feedback from that discussion, um, as part of this work as well. Um, other common themes or topics that have come up are around bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, continuing to make downtown more walkable, improving a desire to improve um road crossings and safety particularly on 522 and some of the other major corridors. Um and then uh desire to improve connectivity as well between surrounding neighborhoods and between downtown and the university. And then finally, public space and activation. Um we have commonly heard that there's uh lack of awareness about some of the privately owned public spaces that are available throughout downtown. Um, people really appreciate the access to nature and the large concentration of parks and open space downtown and along the Seamish. Um, they would love to expand public art and heritage landmarks downtown. Um, we've heard some feedback around Main Street and Triangle Junction, um, and those opportunity areas and then around event programming and ideally expanding that in the future uh, if resources are available.

So, in terms of next steps, as I mentioned a little earlier, we are uh, aiming to have an initial draft for review by July. Um we will also be hosting a um public char that same month um where we'll be able to uh present elements of the plan uh and get some more detailed feedback on points where there may be a lack of uh consensus and then aiming for plan adoption during Q4 of this year. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions uh council members may have

council. Council member Kurt.

Hi. Thanks. Uh thank you for the presentation. It's encouraging to see so much outreach um for our downtown plans and um it does not surprise me that there's a lot of interest and excitement. I'm really happy that um the engagement that you're doing is interactive. Um I know when um previous efforts for walking tours around downtown um have come up to the city and in maybe earlier phases of of outreach spreading into the physical realm um with the city. Uh a lot of feedback that we got was about accessibility on walking tours. And that's not to say that um the lack of accessibility in certain areas should be um uh would be a really valuable contribution to any feedback. But what kind of other alternative um ways are you gathering feedback from folks who might have difficulty getting in and around downtown?

Yeah, so we did take that into account in planning these events. Um I believe at the uh some of the initial walks we did provide more of a virtual option um to essentially take the same route that we did with the physical walking tour, run through those areas in the same um information and content as we did um during the walking tours and gather feedback that way. Um and then uh but some of those concerns that you brought up around accessibility have come up on the walking tour. We had participants with um uh mobility uh uh assistance or uh with their kids in strollers. And so, uh, definitely navigating some portions that definitely raised some of those issues of accessibility that, uh, we still need to address downtown.

Thanks. Yeah, I um encourage I mean, you're not even halfway through the process. So, these are really encouraging um, developments and, um, your approach is really sound. So, I appreciate it. Thanks for the feedback. Um and uh yeah, encouraged to find out more in the summer.

Council member Dod, I don't have any questions. I just didn't want to seem like we weren't talking to you. So, thank you for the update. It's really good information and I appreciated all the detail. So, I just want to say thank you. Do you have more to say? Go ahead. I was like, your light is on. Just checking.

Yes, I remembered what I was going to say to you about um your engagement with downtown property managers. Um so, I know that there are other parts of the city that are also trying to do outreach to property managers downtown. I'm wondering if there's an economy of scale or learnings that you've had that you can maybe share with um I'm thinking specifically um storm water education and outreach. Um we know that um downtown is an uh an active um um educational campaign for pet waste management in multifamily housing downtown. So, I'm wondering if there's been any like small group meetings across departments that you've um had or if you have been able to share any um feedback or lessons learned about connecting with those um apartment complexes that are difficult to maybe just knock on a door. Um yeah, I will say that uh you know uh some properties are more difficult to reach or or managers are more difficult to reach than others. Um that's why we did kind of rely more on some doortodoor outreach um just to make sure that we were able to talk to people that maybe we weren't regularly hearing from uh in other efforts. We have tried to work um with uh not only other departments but our housing action plan outreach work as well to uh combine efforts so we're not kind of duplicating some of the same things. Um so that's definitely something we can continue to share kind of best practices and work on. But

cool. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Okay. Okay, I'm going to say last call and then it'll be my turn. All right. Um I in addition to all the work that staff is doing, I also want to thank uh the community for showing up and um for all of the um interests that we've seen. Um I I think that you know we do not up here have the luxury of saying we had so many great applicants for boards and or boards and commissions, let's just have more. Um, so thank you for taking the opportunity to include more people in in the process. Um, because later we're going to be having to make some selections that we don't have that same flexibility. Um, so I'm I am grateful for all of the folks who stepped forward. Um, I think that the the small group discussions that you ended up having around the different themes and topics is absolutely on point with what we're hearing as council members. Um, and what we experience as residents of both and visiting downtown. Um, and so I just appreciate the direction that this work is going in. Thank you for all of your work in it. And um we're looking forward to when you come back with with a a draft um so that we can also Oh, and then one of the things that I heard I I heard that might be a possibility is that there might be a future downtown walk for council members. Is that something that is a possibility?

Look at Kyle. It was his idea. Um we would be um open to some opportunities to learn from um the experiences we've had thus far on these walks. So we could feature some of those kind of standout locations and what we've heard from the ambassadors and from those that have participated. Um we could certainly work with the city manager's office given the logistics of arranging something like that. Great. I'm glad that there's openness to it. It sounds like there might be interest from folks up here too to participate. So, well, thank you. Appreciate the this update.

Thank you. All right, deputy mayor. Thank you. And that does conclude the city manager report for tonight. Thank you. We will move on to council committee reports, community reports, and conversations. Um and uh and I will just tee it up that if there's any um updates that anybody wanted to share around the retreat, I think it would be appropriate to share some thoughts or reflections on that. If you are interested or open to doing so,

Council Member Angulari,

uh thank you. Uh retreat was a great opportunity. uh 2040 vision was uh put together by uh council members in 2023. That was a great vision and I loved uh our tagline for a day or a lifetime no matter who you are or where you are where you have come from. Both is everyone's hometown. I just loved it and uh uh thank you for fellow council members participating and it was great opportunity to learn from each other and to see our city staff and uh uh the consultant put together from 26th to 28th. It was a 3day 3-day event. Uh a lot I learned uh it was a great experience. Just want to say that thank you. Thank you,

Council Member Alcapra.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. This isn't about the retreat. It's about uh I attended last week uh Cascadia College President's Advisory Council. It was last Thursday. Uh there were a few folks from the together from Redmond Together Center, uh Community Transit, community members, Kirkland Chamber, um Cascadia College Trustees, Evergreen Health, Woodenville Rotary, King County Library, uh and Northshore Rotary. It was uh interesting uh good to meet everybody and uh to talk um about things. Uh Dr. Murray uh said that they had a 9% increase quarter over uh this quarter year-over-year growth uh of enrollment which is less than it was been in the past. But uh the legislature uh reduced their budget uh and uh which uh because of the that anticipation they had to let go some folks at Cascadia College unfortunately. Um they the ledge did ask for a study on efficiency of community colleges. Um I I don't didn't I didn't jot down the timeline for that but that's going to happen. Um and the uh there were a few things uh let's see uh two big takeaways for me from that. one is our uh um Katie Boyce was there of the King County the library both library um service manager was there at the meeting and she mentioned what is called the u oh I should it's a '9s KCLS rewind that's what it's called uh it says um

summer reading challenge

summer reading challenge for adults And it's a '90s themed uh challenge. It goes from March 2nd to April 30th. Uh for folks who are watching, you know, the three people, uh go to kcls.org/kclsenre for information about this. There is u a very cool um little uh pizza. I don't know where the camera is. I don't see myself. Oh, there it is. Okay. There's a little pizza uh thing where you can get stickers for the activities that you do and all that. It's like you can be a child adult again uh if you want. So, it's really cool. Check it out. Uh and uh they didn't pay me for this promotion. The other the other other takeaway was there was a a presentation by a professor Aaron Richards. Uh she does um let's see she is a professor over at Cascadia College like I mentioned teaches uh local uh policy and law and she was promoting um a program called the citizens service. So the citizenservice.org or og is coming came out of the east coast and it's really a way it's a 10step no blame problem solving solution uh program that helps folks come together and discuss issues uh um to achieve results versus uh you know continuous disagreements. Uh it's called http uh the citizens service.org ORG and uh for more information and uh if anybody wants to learn more about this uh I can send a deck was sent with her contact info and more information about this 10step no blame problem solving program.

That's all. Thank you for that update. Um, I told my kids about the rewind event and I explained that in the '9s as kids in America we could read and then uh Pizza Hut would give us pizza and their first thought was or first comment was could we go back and do that again? Like we'd read for pizza. So if somebody's listening, well now they get stickers instead of actual pizza. No, there's pizza, too. Is there pizza? You still get to earn pizza. Yeah. Nice. It's not just it's visual pizza and edible pizza at the same time. Um, literal and metaphorical

indeed. Um, any other updates from committees? I've got one. Oh, go ahead, Council Member Kurt.

Thanks. Um I attended Snowish County tomorrow on the 25th of March and um just following up on some of the earlier convers conversation that happened in February about the growth targets and the MUA map of unincorporated both which is both um city of both's responsibility to incorporate sometime in the future and um as a result of our um work on council last end of last year and our feedback back to that committee. Um, uh, the committee voted to approve the, um, revisions to the Muga map, um, that I had outlined last time, um, that I discussed. So, it's just kind of currently on its own, uh, unclaimed, uh, jurisdiction. Um, I think that we still need to um uh investigate opportunities to um uh receive information and information sharing with city of Mil Creek as they pursue um uh uh annexation, holistic annexation conversations and um learning and sort of investigation. So maybe there's an opportunity still there for us to um to join them because some of the same information about annexation that they're interested in um or interested in learning about I don't speak for their council obviously um is relevant um to um considerations that we might take in the future. Um um so still kind of uh ongoing there, but uh that was kind of a wrap on and a tie of the bow there on that map um put out by Snomish County. And then um yeah, just um uh take homes from the retreat. I think it went well. Um I was impressed

by um how solid our earlier vision aligned with like some of the conversations that we had. um it aligns well with our current vision and um there's a lot of overlap. I think that we're all strengthened by um the diversity that each member of this body brings to the organization and to um uh I don't think that any one person on up here on the dis um uh represents everything. And so it was cool to see um us collaborate on our different interests and expertises um to develop um revisions and updates and clarifications to our strategic goals for the next three years as well as our vision. So really appreciated the work of the executive team to put it together um and uh other council members for um providing feedback and um and uh yeah bringing theirelves Thank you for sharing. Um I I do have an update from K4C, which is the um climate collaborative with uh King County Cities. And uh I attended the April 2026 meeting. Um, and not in in something that is not particularly surprising, uh, King County's climate studies have found very similar findings to what we found here in the city of both that buildings are the largest source of carbon emissions and vehicles are the second largest source of carbon emissions. Um, and so they um, presented on some of the King County strategies to address those, including um, the Energize King County grants, which are available. They're currently open to um and accepting applications from affordable housing buildings and community spaces. So, um I'm sure staff is aware of that and working with our community partners, but

um it's it's great for uh council to be aware of these opportunities as well. The grants are installing heat pumps and offering um home weatherization uh tools to reduce energy bills and improve home comfort especially um to those who are you know living in affordable housing units. Um very overlapping as well was their EV charging grants avail um that have been they were sharing through commerce and ecology. There are not any open rounds right now, but it very much overlaps with the work that the city was doing and the community and contributing to the map of where charging stations should be located in the city. So, there may be future opportunities to um to get that funding so that we can start installing some of the chargers throughout the city. Uh there's also mention of an apprenticeship program that was available for young professionals that as we are as the countyy's trying to install a large number of charging facilities throughout the county, there are jobs available there. There's training opportunities um as well. And so I I hope that um in our effort as a city to partner with our ed our educational institutions that we're making sure that our education partners are aware of those opportunities as well. Um, one question which I probably am going to save for a check-in is around opportunities to uh partner in with um local public works uh efforts that are occurring in the city. So, but I'll save that for a check-in. Um that's my update from K4C and thoughts on the retreat was that it was really a testament to the good work of of staff to take the vision that we had shared in 2023 and turn it into a lot of plans.

And so a lot of the feedback was do the plan you like we said we wanted to make a plan for this thing. So, climate, urban forestry, um there were others that I'm not thinking of right now. And it really is an opportunity for us to to follow through on that vision and and get to work in those areas. Uh it looks like Council Member Dodd also has an update. I was going to update. So, last week, um Mayor Thompson, Deputy Mayor Alder, and I were able to attend um a meeting, a gathering. There were cookies, so maybe a gathering um with North King County Cities. Um, so executive Zahalai was president was present, not president. Um, and we also had Tyler Cone from his office who focuses on North King County Cities. We had other members of his staff. We had Woodenville, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, and Shoreline and both. Um the main themes that we talked about um a lot of it was about making sure that through King County Metro we have the transit we need to build out the the growth that a lot of these cities have have tried to take to heart in their comprehensive plan. So really just sharing that it's not going to work long term if we don't see transit service come back especially fixed route service. Um so that was a big part of discussion and then also just the intersections between our cities. We have some cities that are bordered by other cities all around them. Um, both and Woodenville in particular are bordered by unincorporated areas. Um, and that's a different kind of challenge. So, it was a really good discussion. There was talk about making it perhaps an annual thing. Um, and uh, for anyone who missed it, I know that Tyler Cron has said that she is available to anyone who would like to chat. So, there you go.

Go ahead, Council Member Miles. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I just wanted to say I enjoyed the retreat a lot as a newcomer. Um, I am honored and pleased to serve with all these people and to be a part of developing both's future towards 2024. And thank you staff for putting this together. It was a really good retreat, good offsite. I've been to many, so it was good.

Thank you. I think that was the first time we've heard from everybody on the dis during council committee reports. I'm proud of us. Thank thank you for everyone your involvement in uh committees and and the opportunities that have been available to us. Um next up on the agenda is projected uh agenda discussion. Are there any other items that you would like to discuss? Council member Dodd.

Thank you. Um I would love to just gauge interest on I'm really flexible on the format. I promise I haven't been planning it out in my head um too much, but um I would love to talk about sort of a boards and commissions and just volunteer appreciation something that we could do. I see some other cities do that. I think acknowledging people like the downtown ambassador program is another example, but there's been a lot of people who have taken extra time to help plan the future of the city. Um whether that's regular boards and commissions or not. Um, I think of the the DEI advisory group, the the chief's advisory group. Um, but if there's any interest in figuring out kind of a way that we can do that, you know, being respectful of our budget situation, but just honoring people. So, that is my thought for the day.

Thank you, Council Member. And I'll I'll just note and the city clerk can correct me, but we do um recognize outgoing board and commission members uh in May as the transition takes place, but um happy to talk about expanding that too. But Laura, is there any other details you'd add to the recognition that goes to boards and commissions? No, I hit it. All right. And then for us to move that to the agenda, do you want us to vote on whether there's interest up here for that? How what do you need? Three. Yeah. The council protocol is as long as there's three council members that support an idea, we'll bring back information of what it would take.

I support. I support. All right. You got your three. Okay. So, just to clarify too, the the scope that was brought up was went far beyond council appointed groups. Is that correct? Correct. I'm I'm thinking of volunteers holistically. Um just because Kyle picks them or the chief picks them, it doesn't mean they're not spending time for the city. So I I'm thinking of of and and also I appreciate the outgoing board and commission member recognition, but while they're here, let's also say thank you. Understood. We can I'm sure we can talk about this for a very long time.

All right, we'll bring some information back. Thank you, city manager. Um, any other items to uh put on the projected agenda, council member Angular?

Uh, thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh, I requested uh Elrak uh study session. I think I had to check the mail from uh uh our city manager. So, that's one item. uh uh we've been doing a lot of analysis on last 5 years of performance on Elrak. So we would like to present and uh seek uh city uh council direction uh while we are planning for 2627 as well from ELT. So it would be a great opportunity to provide uh information that we have uh received so far. Council member, I did respond to you and suggest that we meet and put something in writing for council to consider, but if council has everything they need to consider, you can certainly um do that tonight. I think the question that I would have is um around doing a study session. Um Elac is advisory to the council. So, what would be the what's I think helping your colleagues know the request that ELTAC would be making to council for consideration um would be helpful, but we can if that's something you're prepared to discuss tonight, great. If not, we can work together on getting something in the packet either next week or the week after.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely not tonight. uh but uh definitely uh to provide the information that uh we have for the last 4 years uh and so that we can plan rest of it. So it's a study session that we can plan in the future as soon as possible if we can. Okay, let's work on that and we'll bring something back. Yeah, thank you. Does that sound good to council? Okay, thank you. All right. And if that is the end of projected agenda discussion, we can move on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion from council member Dod? I move to approve the consent agenda.

Oh, second. I and a second from council member Alcabra. All right, let me read this. I'll get there. You need to say city clerk. Oh, I could I could No. Oh, I might be. Any discussion? Any discussion? Thank you. Seeing none, city clerk, thank you. Please, please say yes or no when I call your name. Council member Angulari, yes. Deputy Mayor Alder, yes. Council member Kurd, yes. Council member Miles, yes. Council member Dodd, yes.

Council member Alcabra, yes. passes 6. All right. Thank you. Next up is um appointments. So, city clerk, back to you uh to present the item for boards and commissions appointments.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Alderks, uh and council members. Um before you this evening is the opportunity to appoint 11 open positions on the five council appointed boards boards and commissions. Council interviewed applicants uh at a special meeting on March 24th and per the protocol manual section 208D2. Council will cast their ballots cast their votes using the written ballots provided that you should all have a ballot in front of you. Um, after casting your ballots, please return them to me and I'll ask that we take a short break while I tally the votes. Applicants must receive a majority vote of the council members present to be appointed and we will vote as many times as necessary until all appointments are made. After I announce the appointments, council's asked to ratify the results via motion. Before we do that, I do want to let you know that we we have two openings now on uh Landmark Preservation Board. Uh we now have two openings and we received only one application that person dropped out. So we may it may be that we have to go back out for them if there's not a consensus on write in if people. So, I just wanted to let you all know that. And um we're prepared to do that if necessary. And before we begin casting our ballots, does anybody have any questions about the process? Okay. Thank you. Just pass them down and to me and then we'll take a short break.

All right. Thank you.

Sure. All right. So, I think we're waiting for one more to come in and um once that's collected, here it is, uh we're going to take a 10-minute break to allow the city clerk to do the tallying. And that means we will return at 7:27. And then

all right, we are back and I'm going to kick it over to the city clerk to tell us next steps. Thank you. Um next step is we've got the votes we needed for Eltech. So I can tell you um those or I can wait till the end, but we have that. So, we're going round two on arts. We did have one. We got five votes for one person on arts and that's Holly Hughes. Uh we need one more for round two. We need uh one more for parks because uh Whitney and Manny Campo received enough votes to get reappointed. What's that? One more for parks and we need one more for planning. uh as Kevin Karinan received a majority vote for reappointment there. I will say if anybody wants to write in any names on landmark, we can reach out to those folks and see if they're um so for this round if anybody wants to write in any names we can do it that way. If we don't get it, we can go back out. So I need again I need one on arts. Eltech has has been confirmed and those are Natalyia Montavo, Jesse Jesse Olsen and Tover Reed. I need one for parks and one for planning.

Can you tell us who got like of the people who didn't quite hit the threshold, where were we voting? Like this person got four votes, this person got three votes. Well, nobody got four, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I can tell you in round one, um, Daniela Peterson for Arts, Patterson, sorry, uh, received one. Holly Hughes received five, Johnny Jones received two, and Tania Kadina Sahagun received three. So, Holly Hughes has received the majority. So, we just need one more there. On Eltech again, it's Natalia, Jesse Olsen, and Tova Reed. Nobody on Landmark. Um Johnny Jones was a ride in. He got one. And Ellis Kinszer was a ride in as well for Landmark or not. Yeah, Landmark. And then on parks, uh, Connie Lee received one, David Bane received one, John Gray, none. Jolene Freeman one, Kavithia Kavita Palm Moola two, Sarah Goodwin none. Tyenia How three. Whitney received five. Many Campo received four. So we need one more for parks and in planning. David Lynn none, Ellis Kinszer 2, Jonathan Morales three, Kevin Kieran one, two, three, four, five, six, and U Marapali one. So we need one more for planning.

What's that? David Bane received on on parks. Sorry. In planning, David Lynn. None. None. You said no.

I'll need one for arts, one for parks, one for planning, and if anybody wants any writeins for landmark, feel free and we'll go from there. All right, we'll just pass them in when we're ready. think if you want to take a 5 minute break, short break, 2 minutes. I don't know how long it will take me. I'll let you know.

Let's say we'll return at 7:38. Thank you. We're good. We're back and we're checking in with the city manager to see if we have results. Sorry, city clerk. Yes, we do. So, uh, round two. Uh, Tan Tania Kadina, and I can't I wrote it down in my notes as Tanya. She pronounced it Tanya.

Tanya Tanya Kadina Sahagan received four votes. So, she is appointed. We are good with arts. Um Landmark, we had a couple of writeins. We had um Alice Kzer received one, Johnny Jones received one, and uh David Lynn received two. So I think we're going to probably have to go back out for Landmark. Uh the parks on parks, we have Tani. No. Yeah, Tani How received four votes. So that is done. And on planning, Jonathan Morales received the majority vote of four votes. So we are we are done with all but landmark, which we will go back out with. All right. So I'm going to read the appointments to the record and then ask that you ratify the votes via motion. For the arts department, arts commission, we needed two. Uh that would be Holly Hughes who's the incumbent and Tanya Kadina Sahagan as the second one. Altac Natalia Malt Mont Mont Lavo, Jesse Olsen, and Tova Reed. Landmark will go back out. Parks is Whitney Neganar, uh Manuel Campo, and Tani How. and planning is Kevin Kieran and Jonathan Morales.

All right. Can I get a motion? Council member Dodd. Thanks. I move to ratify the boards and commissions appointments as read by the city clerk. Second. And all right. A motion has been made by council member Dodd and seconded by council member Alcabra. Um does anybody wish to discuss? All right. City clerk, go ahead. Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name. Council member Angular, yes. Deputy Mayor Alder, yes. Council member Kurt, yes. Council member Miles, yes. Council member Dodd, yes. Council member Alcra, yes.

Passes 6. And I will let the all of the applicants know and uh we will get those that were appointed on boarded. And thank you very much. Thank you, city clerk. Uh, next up we have a study session. So, we will transition down to the seating. Um, and we will not be taking a break since we already just got two brief ones unless somebody wants to twist my hair. All right, to the study session.

All right, we are here and ready um for our study session from the ethics officer and the annual report. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. And we do have two study sessions tonight and as you mentioned, the first one is with our uh for our ethics officer annual report. Just by way of background, as council may recall, um we've had a ethics code on the books for a number of years and um there had been a gap in having an appointed um ethics officer. And so at the end of 2024, we conducted an RFP and selected Ognen Murphy Wallace to serve the ethics officer fun function. Um we'll talk a little bit more about what they do tonight through the context of the report. uh and also have um options for council to consider if you would like to update the code already or or have any options brought back to you. So um for tonight the purpose is is to simply yeah consider the recommendations from the ethics officer and advise uh if there's any any uh further to implement and then we are uh we're joined tonight by Oscar Ray and then Karen Sutherland who are both here from Ogden Murphy who will be doing the bulk bulk of the presentation. Um tonight again just a a be a a bit of background will be shared with you as well as the recommendations and areas and then a conversation about any potential next steps. With that I'm going to turn things over to Oscar.

Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. Uh I'll just introduce myself real quick. Uh I'm Oscar Ray. I'm a municipal attorney at Ogden Murphy Wallace. And prior to that, I was at MRSC for eight years. And I have experience uh training and presenting and consulting with local officials on um ethics issues in uh both my current capacity and my MRSC capacity. And I also want to give uh Karen Sutherland um a chance to introduce herself. She's joining us online.

Thanks. I am a member which is the equivalent of partner of Auditor Murphy Wallace and I've been a member since 1991. Ethics and conflicts of interest have been part of my law practice since the 1990s as an adviser, educator, investigator and an ombbuds and we appreciate the opportunity to serve as the ethics officer for the city of Athel. Great. And Karen, I think you're going to get us started on this first slide.

Right. So um the city attorney is the staff liaison and support for the ethics officer but the ethics officer acts as legal counsel for the city under the direction of the city attorney for administrative purposes but performs the duties specified in the code independently and free of interference from city staff and officials. and Oscar is going to talk a little bit about um what that means and what um possible things the uh council could consider as a result of that.

And we got one slide um ahead. So on the current slide, I just wanted to um be clear that um the code of ethics does provide that we uh will review the code of ethics an annually. Um, and we have a summary of four areas where we think there's going to be um the opportunity for council to consider whether it wants to make changes. And the one point that I would really want to emphasize is that since this is an annual process, you don't need to say all of the above and you can say none of the above. And um I would encourage you to think about it as a uh process where we can work on some of these issues on an incremental um on an incremental break basis. So next slide please. So as as Karen mentioned um the city attorney is the um staff um liaison and support for the ethics officer. Um, one of the roles of the um, uh, beyond that, the relationship between the ethics officer and the city attorney is not always clear. And there are instances in which we have discovered that it might be nice to add a little bit of process to or a little bit more information about exactly how the role of um, uh, works and how the relationship works and how information is exchanged between the two of them. And so the first area we have for consideration uh would be to um have council consider whether it wants to um direct um that there uh that we come back with some ideas for for having more clarity there. Next slide please.

The next area that we wanted to talk about is providing more information on process. And what we're thinking about as a possibility here is not something that involves a code change, but rather providing more process information to stakeholders in the public. And that could include information on the role of the attorney client privilege, who it applies to and when, basically, um process details and timing for advisory opinions and for complaints and the decisional criteria that are used by the ethics officer. And we think that is we think that is um information that could be useful to individuals who request advisory opinions under the ethics code as well as um individuals involved in an ethics complaint and also members of the general public who may u be interested in more information about how the um uh ethics code of ethics works. Um, and that information could be placed on individual forms or you could devote maybe some space um on the city website for um additional information on on on how that process works. Next slide, please.

The next area that we wanted to bring up as a potential for consideration is resolving inconsistencies with other policies. And what we mean by this is that the code of ethics says in it that it prevails in the event of a conflict with other city policies and protocols, but we don't know what we don't know. Um, and so what we're talking about here is moving forward with trying to learn more about what that might entail. Oscar,

and this is one of those areas where we think the work could be done incrementally, but if there are conflicts between the code of ethics and other city policies, it might be nice to know where those lie and take appropriate action. And one place to consider starting would be um conflicts with the council u protocol manual. And um council could decide if it wants to explore this option to take a broader look at other uh policies. Uh but that might be u uh one place to uh one place to start. Next slide please.

The next area that we wanted to talk about as a potential um is evaluating differences with state law. under um state law, the state law is only setting minimum ethical standards and local governments can be more stringent. And so Oscar is going to talk a little bit about why that might be something that um the council may want to consider in various areas.

Yes, I think in a lot of cases there are good reasons for local governments to be more stringent than state law. And there are other areas where it's helpful to consider, well, is this something where it really makes sense for us to be more stringent than what state law requires? And so, one example where it's common and arguably good is um nepotism, which is not really prohibited under state law. And um but local governments frequently do um prohibit certain types of uh nepotism. And the reason it's not prohibited under state law is that it can really depend on whether you're in a sparsely populated part of the state where it's harder to find people who are available to do certain types of work. And so at the state level, it's permissible to uh hire uh family members or um people with whom you reside. In more populated parts of the state, you don't really need that because you have competent people who um can carry out roles. And so it makes sense to have a provision to say that the mayor can't hire their parent or their sibling for city employment or something of that of that nature. But there's instances in which it maybe doesn't make sense. And so one example is that there are provisions in the BALL um ethics code that talk about um the applicability of uh family members and individuals with whom a city official resides. And that might make sense in the nepotism con context, but having such a broad net may not make as much sense when you're talking about somebody who has a minor contractual interest that we call a remote interest under state law. um because it could potentially um circumscribe the number of people who are able to serve in a particular role

when there isn't a large financial um um conflict of interest at stake. So um so so that's an area where uh the council could decide to explore further. A scope limitation might be to simply say, well, find the areas where it's a little bit ambiguous under our code because there are a few and um and and and provide some recommendations about what we can do uh to make those more clear and make the decision about whether we really want our um our ethics code to be uh broader than the the minimum state requirements. And something I'd like to tack on to what Oscar just said is to keep in mind that the ethics code doesn't just apply to council. It also applies to members of councilapp appointed city boards and commissions and other council appointed task groups or committees and you know being able to weigh whether uh something is a potential nepotism issue for example um and how that's going to impact uh people that are on boards and commissions especially when you're dealing with remote interests is something to possibly uh keep in mind and look closer at.

Next slide please. So, we're we're just presenting these um for discussion purposes and obviously further action um following the review is at the discretion of the council. Uh and we're available to help with this. Obviously, staff is available to work with it, work on it. And so, uh, what we'd really like to do, because I think this is the most important part of the presentation, is to turn it over to you for, um, questions and comments and, uh, thoughts. And so, yes, again, with uh, with where we're at tonight then is no uh, no actions being taken tonight, but uh, the ethics officers are here to receive feedback on if there's any code changes council would like to explore or have further analysis conducted. And with that, we'll open it up to questions. Thanks for the presentation, for coming to talk to us about our ethics code. Um, I don't see um any of these items as especially like urgent um because I don't see this current moment as being on the verge of any ethics violations and it's good to review like you said. Um, one of the things that I think would be most helpful is to institute more of a policy procedure for whenever a like council protocol manual is updated, it gets reviewed for ethics. So, I think more systematic um and institutional uh checks and balances in our ethics um code could be helpful um just to resolve any issues before um we adopt a large um

policy document. And so I think that kind of um gets into your area too a little bit. Um, as far as ethics officer roles, I think that we have an understanding of what the ethics officer role is. Um, and it's kind of outlined in contractual language too a little bit. So, I'm I'm not certain that um it would be a huge lift to enshrine that um in in code, but um I'd obviously defer to your expertise um with other municipalities and whether that um uh role definitions are are um helpful uh to to clarify some of the um inongruencies or or questions that might come up. So, I don't see nothing is jumping off of the page is like we need to devote all of our resources to fixing this right now, which is a good thing. It's a good position to be in. Um but um yeah, I'm really more curious on your area one whether you see uh um inconsistencies right now where our city attorney is providing um feedback that isn't um the same sort of standard of care as an ethics officer or what those two roles if that definition is really clearly needed um in a city of our um size.

Yeah, I would offer that um I know Eileen Kefir and uh we have chatted about um this and and I think option one might be the one area. I don't think it's a heavy lift, but I think it's the one area where it might be helpful um to have a tweak because when um I've spoken with Eileen, um we've had consensus that this is an area where uh a little bit more clarity would be um good in terms of just defining roles and responsibilities um uh moving forward. And um um and I think you know we haven't had um u any kind of major ethics issue but I think having that um information a little bit more dialed in and a little bit more um clear about what process and um what level of communication can take place would um uh would be would be helpful. Yeah, I agree that that process information would be helpful to outline especially before we get into advertising to the community how our process works. Um and so um uh when I was mentioning area two, I I meant area three is resolving those inconsistencies with like maybe our um our council protocol manual or these big policy documents that we adopt. I assume they go through review, legal review, but legal review is separate and distinct from an ethics review. So I think that's where I'm seeing

if we were to prioritize these areas, I'd want to prioritize area number one to set a process. Area three to resolve those inconsistencies more structurally and more systematically throughout our process. And then area two is advertising and informing um people on what the process is and the criteria and you know sharing it with the community because we want to make sure that the process is set before we start confusing people on it.

I like that. Um I and thank you for this report too to circle back and start there. Um, I think recommendation number one makes a lot of sense. Just codifying what's expected. I think it's great that you guys have a good working practice, but making sure that that lasts beyond, you know, your firm and our current city attorney being involved is really important.

Um, I also think recommendation number two is really important. Just better dissemination of the code of ethics and the processes around it. Um, I had to take advantage of a decision that was made around compatible offices when I ran for the Snowomish County Charter Review Commission. Um, and Council Member Mankey was on council then and shared that with me and so we both used it. Um, but it is it's just good for us all to know that and I think it is really good for the public to know how they can make a complaint and even just some information about like and I don't know how you would share this but like I think people sometimes have this thought of like I don't know what that ethical complaint is but I'll know it when I see it. And I would love to have some education around like what people should be watching for with ethical complaints. We've had a lot of different people in office in both just in the time I've lived here and everybody's approached it very differently. So, it'd be good to sort of set a good like common definition of what kinds of stuff should be reported and what people can watch out for. Um, I think evaluating differences with state law, I'm I appreciate it. I don't know if it's a top priority for me. Um, I would love to know more about what other cities that are sort of in the more populated area of the state have done to understand if there's like I think we like to crib notes a lot to see what's worked in other places, but to me it's not like right now let's do it, but I I would like to sort of keep track of it. I'm looking at you Kyle like you know um when we have some free time as a city. Um but yeah, and then inconsistencies with other policies. Um, again, same thing. I think that's important. I like the idea that Council Mard had of sort of um building building that into our update processes. We have a lot of things that get updated regularly. So, just how can we kind of build that in um

because I would I would hate for us to do a big separate ethics update and then just like some council in the future has to be like we want to do this again. Like putting it in a normal process feels really important. Well, thank you for being here and for doing this. Um, I think it's it's really important that we are um following through on what our code says we should be doing.

Um, and so just grateful that you're part of part of the team and working on this in both. Um, I had a couple of of thoughts. Um, I was actually interested in evaluating the differences with um with between state law and um what's going on here at the city. Um, and I think part of part of the challenge of this discussion is that um is some of the vagueness around like it's figuring out if there are not necessarily knowing exactly what they are going into it. And so you might have some ideas um and and I think that you know for us to make use of your knowledge and expertise. It's it like and this being a new process to us that we should do the work and learn what we can um and see and see what you're you know going to propose to us. And so I I am interested in um particularly that area. One question that came up to me in area two um and and could be that I'm just a little jaded, but um was how like how do you manage um when like maybe members of the community are weaponizing the advisory review process

in in a community? Can you speak to that briefly if that were to become an issue?

Yeah, I mean that's a difficult process. it probably wouldn't be the advisory um opinion process, but it would be the ethics complaint process. And um and I've seen it happen in other areas and I've seen it happen between council members and um um and it's one of the things that's can be difficult about um having this type of process. I think being really um clear about scope um is important and um and I I like the comment that I heard earlier about sort of what you should be looking for and maybe having information about you know what's what's not an ethics uh complaint topic or or or violation. And I think I want to maybe give Karen a chance to chime in on this one as well. Um, something that is helpful is only the what the public is going to be able to do is make complaints and your your code already has a process where city attorney does an initial review of complaints. Ethics officer makes final decisions and both the city attorney and the e ethics officer have the authority to administratively dismiss complaints that are frivolous. So um at multiple steps in the process and again maybe you want to clarify how that works but in any event you know as written currently and certainly under anything we propose as a change there is the opportunity for um the city attorney or the ethics officer who understand how the code is intended and how it's implemented to dismiss complaints that are frivolous. So, that is a check on the process.

And council members, I'm I certainly don't have the experience that Oscar or Karen do. Um, but I've been around and I think that one of the things that that you'll have see in your code, um, and and for the public for that clarity, I I like the suggestions to making sure the process is clear. So, in the code, it does also spell out, as Karen mentioned, the reasons that a um that a complaint wouldn't be compliant. And one of the things I think is always important to remember, especially in the day and age that we live in, is that not only is there a timeliness provision, but the complaint has to be signed under oath. So somebody actually has to come in and identify themselves and say, "This is I believe this to be true and factual." So you're not going to see a rash of ethics complaints that are upheld that are from anonymous individuals or, you know, you're not going to get a chatbot that's submitting three of them a week or anything like that. So it does put a formality around it which I think is also a helpful thing because you want to have that provision in place so that if there is truly an ethics complaint absolutely it needs to be looked at and responded to but you're not going to have the ones that are to your point of weaponization. Um you're not going to have ones that are just let's see let's see what sticks. So I think um the code is written helps in that way.

I appreciate the discussion. So, thank you.

All right. I think we got good feedback on what to what to work on and appreciated to the um the feedback of the the importance but not urgency. And so, we'll be able to work with u with our team here and be able to uh figure something out. I will end with their final slide which also has contact information which I think is helpful too because as a as a good reminder these um the I often insert the word independent because I think that's what the law gives you as the independent ethics officer of that you can go uh as council members you can go to them at any time with questions. So um happy to have both Karen and Oscar joining us tonight and really appreciate their support.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Next up, we have um a study session on proposed both municipal code chapter to establish legal consequences for exposing a minor child to domestic violence. And it looks like we have well, I'll let city manager make the uh make the introductions. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. And I do have a habit of doing introductions. Travis, you may have joined us once before, but this might in fact be your first presentation. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, council, just by way of background, while Travis is, uh, new almost by definition to a council meeting, uh, he's been with the city for a little over a year now. And um as you'll recall as we did seek legal service from Madrona law um one of the things that we we noticed in in uh the wake of that was uh the importance of having some additional leadership for our prosecuting um team. And so the position that Travis is filling of supervisor supervising attorney was created at that point. and um we have just been really fortunate to have him and his uh expertise and his leadership uh in place and really helping um helping support our our prosecution team and also being a great member of the city. So, as you'll recall, this was uh this potential code update was something that was requested by council member Dodd. Uh and we are here to to respond to that request. And I'm going to turn things over to Travis then and um you can you can take it away. Hi everybody. I should introduce myself. My name is Travis Johnson. Um just a little background. Uh as Kyle's noted, I've been here about a year. It's first time actually been in a council chambers other than for other uh proceedings. Um my background in

criminal law started I'm getting old. 2001 I started Snowish County Prosecutor's Office as a deputy prosecutor. I worked there for over 20 years. I did all types of type types of crime ranging from property to homicide to uh I did a number of years in domestic violence, felony domestic violence. Uh from there uh after 20 years I went to Lewis County Prosecutor's Office and worked as a deputy prosecutor as well. Um so my expertise is and not expertise but my experience is criminal law prosecution. Um I've seen a lot of cases involving domestic violence. Um, I did draft um what essentially matches a lot of other jurisdictions um regarding this type of proposed code. Um there we go. My eyesight has gotten really bad as I get older. It's all the fine print I've been reading. But um to focus on the council vision 20 240 um plans that you have for building B's beloved community. Uh there's a number of jurisdictions that do that and recent laws in other cities address minors exposed to domestic violence. Um I am not an expert in the studies. Uh I've I've talked to a lot of experts about this. It's basically a profound consensus that children exposed to domestic violence is a very profoundly negative and and powerful um experience for children. It can expose them not only to uh personal psychological um social issues but also it creates a number of other health mental health issues. So this is uh some a subject matter I'm very familiar with unfortunately. Um you as you can see there's cities list there's Mary'sville Snowquami Lake City Auburn uh Everett has gotten gotten that recently the similar law regarding exposure to

domestic violence by minors um and that very I looked up other places is Sagua Takila very very similar it is the re sorry I have a frog in my throat sorry about that the proposed code would provide additional tools to the prosecutor's office uh not only protect ize the domestic violence victims but potentially stop perpetrators from continuing the cycle of violence. Um just so you know how my perspective is is that as a prosecutor I know that what you see on TV or what you see um let's say on um in social media is different from the everyday life of most prosecutors. Um, I look at as a holistic effort to fix as best we can a situation, not just focusing on uh, can I get the prosecution or can I get the conviction, but also can we help this person, whatever their reason may be for being a perpetrator. Domestic violence is extremely complex. There are programs that both the city offers and state programs as well regarding like moral uh, cognizance training and therapy. Um what the hope is is that it stops that cycle because the cycle what we see over and over again is what'll happen is uh children see things and it affects them and sometimes some of those children will also act out as they get older because that's the model that they've seen as they've been growing up. So we see this as a tool. Um in January 26, Council Member Dodd brought this forth. Um I noted about uh damage to children. Children witness approximately 68 to 80% of domestic assaults. That's according to the CDC. Um and studies show that witnessing domestic violence is sufficiently damaging and post-traumatic stress in children. And that can be even just uh not only experiencing themselves but

also just observing it uh between partners. Um, children witness domestic violence are abused themselves are far more significantly at risk because they not only see it but they also experience it. And children can also be at greater risk of being violent in future relationships if exposed to acts of domestic violence. I can speak from experience, not my personal experience, but my professional experience that because I have done this a long time, I got to the second generation of perpetrators and families and we'd see the children and they would become adults and they would follow some of the same patterns unfortunately. And so if you can stop that cycle early on, it's it's a it's a good tool for that. Um, I can tell you working with Baffo PD, the officers are very well trained in this. um the the training required would be very minimal because they have extensive experience not only in the field but in training uh prior to that for domestic violence. Um very comfortable with that if this ordinance or this code is actually adopted. Um just so you know how to understand it would work as a prosecutor. It's a separate law from other domestic violence acts. and say uh one partner attacks the other person assaults them and there's two minor children present their children that crime would pre-charge separately in the same case as the assault. What may happen is sometimes is that um the perpetrator wants to fix that situation. We may or may not charge this. Let's say this crime is actually enacted or uh put in a code. We may or may not charge that because what it allow is leverage or an encouragement for that perpetrator to get the tra treat treatment and training that they need. If it's a perpetrator that does not want to change, it provides an additional tool. Sometimes I've had cases where the victim in a

relationship just needed the additional time period away from the perpetrator in very dangerous circumstances so they could settle their life somewhere else, move away, that type of thing. So it's just an additional tool that would be added in uh in theory um to let's say other domestic violence crimes. Um so it's done in conjunction with usually assault but unfortunately there's other types of domestic violence crimes as well. Uh the conviction proposed is result in a sentence of 30 days in confinement that would be consecutive to any other sentence arising from the same incident. I would note that when I drafted it, the courts generally are very unhappy about being forced to make a certain specific sentence. So, it allows certain parameters of the court if there's findings for whatever reason. There may be far more serious circumstances or maybe it was just the first time. It allows them a little more latitude as to that sentence. If that person's convicted of that crime, that would be the proposal of that. um appreciate any questions. I know that um when I went through this I was surprised how many jurisdictions in the state actually already have this law and uh it's not it's actually pretty a lot of them pretty similar. There are some differences. Any questions about that? Some municipalities have 15 days as a as a penalty. Others have uh 30. It just depends on what the folks that from the council representing the people want to do more than thinks appropriate. So, um I enjoyed this. I appreciate you.

Yes. So, yeah, with that, um the there is draft code uh for consideration in your packet. So, that gives you the place to start from, but any feedback or questions for Travis will be happy to take them. I have a question and thank you for your presentation. This was very fascinating for me. And you were talking about the other municipalities. You said there are 15 days, 30 days. What's the most stringent? 30 days is the most stringent I've seen. Okay. Um I pulled up like Tquila has 15 days. Mhm.

As possibility and I had you see I'm very much a Gen X. I just use paper. Isiqua um has 30 days. And it it varies from there. Everett I think is 30 days. It could be 15 days, but it can vary. Usually 15 to 30, but there's no generally it's a gross misdemeanor. So, in theory, you could do anything from 0 days to 364 days. That's generally the the process is 15 or 30 days for most, you know, municipalities. That's interesting because then we could have an opportunity to maybe take some leadership here and maybe make it a little bit more stringent. Yes.

You're not you're not confined by that. Absolutely. Yeah. U speaking of that the question that you me well first thank you for nice to meet you nice to meet you and uh thank you for uh for the presentation uh as you walked in I heard the law and order thing oh usually that's my kids make fun of me that's usually the sound I'm used to so all right

so now that I got that out of the way the question I had was about the courts the last comment you made about courts don't usually like uh to have specific um a law about to specify things because they want to have their own discretion when they sentence. So the 15day, 30-day, 365, 4 day, whatever the number is, like won't that constrain the court? And

you could you could make it that way. Um there's parts of the statute that in other municipalities where they don't have it um they don't allow the court to do that. you can make uh because my professional experience is mostly with felonies. There was certain drug laws or firearm laws where the court was ordered they couldn't change the sentence like 5 years for possession of firearm and commission of a felony. Um here you could as the council if you chose not to allow to have that discretion um you you're not required to do so. If you wanted that to be more strict, let's say you wanted the 30 days consecutive to any other crime, you could certainly do that and not allow the court because that's your your right separation of powers. You can make that the law.

Would it make sense for the court to provide their input or is there a separation between the branches? Uh I I don't think it'd be a problem at all because you're considering the code. You have the separation of powers essentially is obviously the court can't tell you and you can't tell the court

what parts of the law. They review it. You make the law. Um I don't see that being a problem. I I I know Bob I'm sorry. I I remember Bob being hired at Snowish County. Uh Judge Langman um he's very amenable to speaking. He's a very pleasant person. So I don't see that being a problem. There's no ethical reason I wouldn't see for this type of discussion because it's in the public or defense bar or whoever. I I re I I think that would be a great idea.

No mean to hog the conversation, but please feel free to jump in as a convers. The question I have was about uh the number of was that the intention from the other uh cities or jurisdictions? What the int was the intention for to just keep the the perpetrator away from the victim for that amount of days or was was there another intention for keeping it 15 or 30 days? I can't speak to most of these municipalities. I know that ever had findings that they were concerned because domestic violence is still an ongoing problem. It crosses all socioeconomic and other groups essentially exist amongst all in society and their concern was because of the damage that that's done to children, they felt it deserved a much more serious punishment. So that was that concern because domestic violence unfortunately in the line of work that I do. Um rarely do you see a decrease or an increase in it just statistically it tends to be an ongoing issue. There's been some inroads but there's it's always um been a part of society for a very long time. So it's very difficult. So I speaking looking at Everett's um when they enacted it, their concern was is that they were they wanted to make sure that um that the punishment maybe it was a a warning to perpetrators that they're taking this seriously cuz sometimes unfortunately I can only speak from my personal experience professionally a lot of times domestic violence cases are very difficult because you have it's you have an inter relational interf family circumstanc ance. A lot of cases can't be prosecuted because there's a number of reasons that maybe that relationship the person that's being uh the victim is afraid or there's financial circumstances or they're fearful for their life and sometimes the perpetrator isn't prosecuted. My reading of whatever

the city of Everett did was that they wanted to u make sure that um that these crimes were taken very seriously. they wanted to make sure that was especially involving when children are present because of just the the reports and um the studies that they found. I can just tell you from my personal experience again I deal mostly with felonies before I started working here. Um in the felony domestic violence unit we generally called it the homicide prevention unit because so many homicides occur out of domestic violence and so that's why we take that very seriously. That would be my guess, but I could certainly look that up for you. Whatever you wanted to do.

No, I was just curious if it came through your findings. I have enough information though, but I don't know if others do. Okay. Thanks for the presentation. Um, Travis, good to meet you. Good to meet you.

Um, I um appreciate the conversation that's been had and I appreciate this being brought forward. Um, in general, I really, um, look to restorative justice practices, and it's really important to me that the city and the state have opportunities for restoration, and that this is an enabling condition. Extra time gives a little bit of leverage to redirect um, folks into into those programs that can help and assist. So, I feel like if we didn't have access to those programs or if those programs weren't around, this would be purely punitive and it wouldn't really be doing anything. But because of the programs that we have, um I feel like that's really critical. And um when it's brought back to us, I'd like maybe a little uh highlight or bright line on what are the programs that the city uses and that will be this will be as sort of like leverage or um uh um help push people in a more restorative justice framework. So I think um it it makes a lot of sense. Thanks for answering some of the detail questions that I sent ahead of time. Um, and I don't really have any um concerns um, you know, as far as the conversation, how far do we go? Um, I would like input from um, the implementers of uh, of the law. Um, because it doesn't make sense for us to just set an arbitrary date or 364 days when that might not be um, relevant. Um, so would like more information on that, but it's not um going to change the outcome for me.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I had a question. Um, what about a repeat offender? Did does the clock get reset so you get another 30 days if you reaffend?

So, the way I would look at it, I can only speak to the philosophy that I had. We do get a criminal history including out of state criminal history from the federal agencies, the FBI. And so, I would look at those things. um let's say it was an ongoing pattern. I've had defendants that have come here, but they have a long history, let's say in California. Uh usually the recommendation is much higher if they're found guilty. Um the 30 days just provides a framework within whether we're going to charge the person or not. I could tell you as a prosecutor and in my office I would recommend to my prosecutors is this is that if there's multi multiple charges of domestic violence in the past whether it's arrest there's probable cause found maybe not convictions because a number of reasons um that person and I've dealt with some pretty dangerous people that person would I would recommend much higher I could tell you I can't speak to the new judge um but generally judges have a very and most people have a very low regard for repeat offenses because it's so damn damaging and it's a very destructive thing that's as I noted before can become very dangerous. So yes, you can definitely ask for more that's been I can't speak to obviously won't happen here because we don't have the crime yet but um I can tell you that I've dealt with cases before where we recommend double or triple the time uh whatever that range may be because of the the ongoing and including times where the victim would come in and demand that you not prosecute the person even though there's there's a number of reasons. It's not blaming at all. It's because there's a many many reasons and some are absolutely valid why they would do that. So yeah, I've done that before and that could that would be a possibility because if this code isn't enacted or adopted um the framework if it's a gross misdemeanor, it can be anything from whatever you find folks want to do um 0 to 364 days. But the discretion would be for a prosecutor, can I ask for more time from the judge? And of course it's up to the judge to do the sentencing, but yeah, I've definitely done that many, many times

over the years. Yeah, you're welcome. All right. Um, so this is actually this is a topic that I work with professionally. Um and and specifically around the the the topic of adverse childhood experiences recognizing that if a child witnesses domestic violence and it is then uh succeeded by a incarceration then they're also experiencing incarc a a family member who is incarcerated and parental separation often right

um and not to say that like any like even if the child didn't experience any abuse and neglect from that individual, we're already talking about a kid at risk for lifelong uh physical and emotional and mental health effects. Um, and so I take it very seriously that even the process of trying to get a a child and um often a mother to safety means that there's additional trauma that's being in inflicted by the criminal justice system. Um, and at the same time, the responsibility is on the perpetrator for creating a situation that is contributing to all of those factors. Um and so with that I I take it really seriously. Um knowing the impact that it can have on kids and and you know working with uh providers who are trying to help kids recover from the traumas that they have witnessed. Um I am more of the opinion that uh leeway is like the the judicial um just leeway of I I would like to leave more of a range rather than a specific time like um amount of time. Um to council member Kurd's point, the importance of restorative justice. Um in both we've really worked very closely with the municipal court to create alternatives um you know diversion programs, treatment options, therapeutic um court options and Snowomish County is a really great example of the therapeutic court options that are available. And so um you mentioned uh moral recognition the uh therapy and the ability to refer to some of those programs and treatments. U I think is really important. Um and I would like to see and and I don't know if that can be

written into the policy. Um I think so. Okay.

Um I'll have to look up it ranges everything from a very small like Tuckwell has a very small section to every there are whether there is certain municipalities I I look through it quickly. They do they you can add components to that if you wish to do so that if a perpetrator um is convicted of this the court can order or the court shall order however you wish to do that. Um different different types of therapies. Um the misconception you of course you know this already but misconception is that it's anger management that's not what's recommended. Anger man anger management is not a treatment for domestic violence. It's a much more serious therapy that fits the uh the circumstances. So yeah, I would agree. I'm a big believer in that. I think part of the reason why I was attracted to this job was that I felt I could have a much more immediate impact because the cases I used to do were basically extremely dangerous, scary, um violent cases. And I was mostly just trying to maximize the punishment because it was so over the top involving weapons and other things. um if we could head it off at this point, no matter how many people that may be, it's going to be much more profoundly helpful to the community and and the family that's involved and say wait till it's a felony and then you know we're just sending people off to prison. So I'm a big believer in that too. I'm not just in it for getting people punished because frankly I could punish people all the time but what does that help if you're not really doing help to the community if you don't get that type of um holistic look at it. So, I I agree with you.

I I really appreciate that. Thank you. Um, you know, and Justin's and you mentioned it a little bit too, the um the transmission of intergenerational trauma and how a a child who previously had been abused or had witnessed abuse then goes on to become the perpetrator of abuse. Um and so recognizing that um well and also just keeping in mind that our prison system is the number one provider of mental health resources and um and services in the state. Um I think it's important for us to be able to connect the the person who's experiencing the consequences of their actions with therapeutic support that will help them reflect on and and you know come to other alternatives for more positive behavior. Um, and so I appreciate what you're saying there. I think if it's possible to write in some um some of those pathways, um, one thing that I'm particularly sensitive to is that when judges order treatment, um, the treatment time frame that is put that is written into the law often does not reflect the clinical guidelines for treatment. And so you might have, you know, the the judge can order 180 days, but there's no treatment option that LA lasts 180 days. The most appropriate clinical option might be 45 days. And so can we like and that might be a bigger conversation for the state but like can we align um any court-ordered treatment options to clinical guidelines for that treatment so that we don't have those mismatches of like well how do you how do you fulfill the requirement of the sentence if that treatment doesn't fit in that timeline

right um sorry to make it a bigger issue no that's right um but because of that I would like there to be like the wording that I'd feel most comfortable with is maybe a minimum of to a maximum of and then leave that to the judge's discretion. Okay. Instead of like a strict 30. Sure.

There because they're very well may be circumstances where you know a a family with you know a parent with children needs more time to create a safer environment. Um you know navigating the court system for protection orders for their own recovery and retreat treatment. like I it really weighs on me how very um not victim- centered the criminal justice system can be because it doesn't often take time for the processing of the emotions that are coming up from the experiences of being wronged. Um, so I am just very sensitive to these issues and to the best of my ability, that's what I would suggest for for this particular topic that you've brought to us. Okay.

Thank you for listening. You bet. Thank you.

Can I ask can I ask you a question? So, are you suggesting a minimum of like a day minimum or do you want to see what the what Travis and the judge come back with? Or do you want to say 30 to 364 and then the the sentencing prosecution and and judge figure out how to or the judge I guess to sentence? Yeah, I I think it's more of the second of we can write it into the code to allow for that. Thank you. Allow for that that um that range. And so I I'm kind of leaning towards like in the circumstance of less severe and I can't necessarily imagine that but like if we put the bottom limit to 15 um I could be easily convinced to keep it at 30 and just say between you know the 15 or 30 to 364 um that seems appropriate to me. um if if the judge's discretion seems to think that it's warranted and also the ability to access treatment options is continuing to be available during that time.

Right. Thank you.

I agree. And just so you know, from my perspective as a prosecutor, I treat the law as it's important that um elected officials make those determinations as to I I can only tell you what I see through the law. If you feel as supports or helps the community and you in your best interest to help in the situation, whatever range that may be, I will follow that law. I don't want to advocate any specific days because it really depends on the community and your direct connection to the community is vital for that process constitutionally and just for the community that uh the law that you enact um it follows with the values that not only you have but follows the values of the community. So I'm not advocating that 30 days is absolutely necessary or 15. I I'll defer to you folks because like you have that background. Um, I just wanted to advise you kind of what other communities do, what other mun municipalities do. So, I totally understand. I just don't want you to think that I have to have 30 days or 15 days. I think if you fashion something that you all agree on, I will abide by that. As long as it's constitutional, which of course it would be, I that that's the law I would follow because I have to as an officer of the court, I have to do that. So, I appreciate that. I just don't want you to think I I really need 30 days. That's I really want to make sure that you folks

I I do not think that that is what the the message that you're getting is for me it's more of like what's what is the appropriate lower limit. Um and I I guess I'm asking my colleagues you know if they have thoughts on that. Understood.

I mean I like the 30 days minimum. I like the range and then the max is determined whether there if we decide to go the uh the therapy like if there's any help that matches the maximum and leave it to the judge's discretion. Okay. Um on uh you know could be 60 days and there's a program that's 60 days so it's 60 days you know type thing. So I I pref I prefer the 30-day minimum to give that buffer. I think um I don't even know if it's enough. It'll be interesting to see if we can, god forbid, you know, we get some of those things, get some of that information back. Uh, and then at some point once you start prosecuting those cases and then we can start getting that data back and to see if 30 days appropriate, maybe it's 45 days, maybe it is 10 days, who knows, you know? So, got 30 days. I'd like to start with uh more uh let's create that separation up front and then we can adjust from there. I sense I sense general agreement with that.

All right. Well, thank you for um for being here with us for the study session. Um it sounds like we have reached the end of our agenda, so I can officially adjourn our meeting. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you.