City Council - Special Meeting

I think we'll get this show on the road.

Welcome to our special meetings, special city council meeting tonight, May 19th. We are live here at the mill and also broadcasting on YouTube for folks that can't be here in the room tonight. Thank you all for joining us. We have a great agenda ahead of us. I'm going to call this meeting to order and I'd ask you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Thank you. Clerk Chillin, could we get a roll call, please?

Absolutely. Council Member Araya? Here. Council Member McManus? Present. Council Member Donahue?

Present.

Council Member Shipman? Present. Council Member Jorstad? Present. Council Member Edwards? Present. Council Member Packard?

Here. Thank you. Council, we have an agenda before you. There's been one request for an addition, an executive session at the end of our agenda for 15 minutes regarding property sale. There's no action to follow. I'm looking for a motion to pass the agenda with that addition.

Pass the agenda as written with the addition of the 15 minutes. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thanks. Any opposed? Great. We will move right into guest business. We have two great presentations tonight. I would first like to welcome Tina Mandela from Volunteers of America to talk about the Resource Center.

Thank you for having us today, Council and Chair and Mayor. We appreciate you. I put together a little PowerPoint for everyone to see. So really, I just wanted to introduce VOA and the Lake Stevens Community Resource Center to all of you. And I am the operations director for the Community Resource Center. This is our executive director, Amanda Etchey. And many of you know Elizabeth Miller, who is our site director that works on site here at Lake Stevens. And she's on a lot of good work. So next slide, please. I just want to share a little bit of who we are and what we're doing with our community of lay students. Our mission, first of all, is to empower people and strengthen communities in need. Our vision is to build healthy, safe communities where all people enjoy sufficient and fulfilled lives. And that should be the dream of all of us here. Next slide, please. Community resource centers and what we do. So we're one-stop shop hubs for families and individuals who are facing crisis, and we're here to help them meet their basic needs. We provide emergency food, hygiene items, clothing, diapers, wipes, formula, case management on-site, assistance with employment opportunities, job referrals. We have a job assistance center on-site, housing assistance with our housing navigator, rental and utility assistance when funding, of course, we have funding for it, application assistance with DSHS, health care, housing, et cetera, really helping families navigate those systems that we all know can be very tough. Next slide, please. Okay, just a little bit of history of Lake Stevens Community Resource Center under Volunteer of the America. We actually have been in this community for well over 20 years. We used to be right here on this property in that little green house if you remember us. And then VOA came in and we've been very blessed to be under that umbrella. So in 2021, we came back into this community. The need was seen, and they reached out to us and seen the work that we had done in the past for the people of our community. So in 2021, January, we opened our doors. We rented a little space there at the church down the street, Lake Church, which is no longer there. Then we moved to Holy Cross. We were there for a year. In the last three years, we've been housed with the food bank, which has been and our reach has grown so very much. Our hours of operation are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We are appointment-based, but we do take in walk-ins on an emergency basis, and then Friday we work remote where we can meet people in the community who may have transportation barriers. We can meet them where they are. In 2021, when we opened our doors, we served, and that was at the height of the pandemic. We reached 3,055 individuals for a total of 1,216 families served. And I'm reading these numbers, I'm going back, so I want you to see how things have changed in time. 2022, we served 2,158 individuals for a total of 801 families. 2023, 1,993 for a total of 703 families. 24, 3,230 families. Eight individuals, almost doubling our impact, for a total of 1,188 families. In 2025, 4,543 individuals served in 1,612 families. The need is there, and it's growing. It's not just COVID. That's in the past now. Now we're looking at inflation in all areas, food, utilities, gas just to get to work. We served 500 more families served in the previous year. That's the highest number that we've served since we opened our door. We are a staff of five. LSCRC, we saw 224 families in 2025 who stated they've never used social services before. Our impact is huge. People that we are serving, they deserve to have us there and we are honored to serve people next year to do this. Next slide, please. So for the fun stuff, so some of our annual events that we do, I assume many of you there, to be quite honest, we have our Mother's Day card frenzy. We do cards, handprints, seed packets, and flowers. We coordinate that with food bank hours so we're reaching everyone. We saw over 100 little ones come and put paint to their hands and on cards for their, whoever's playing that role in their life, mom, dad, grandparents, whoever's playing that role. Our back-to-school celebration was very, Phenomenal. I believe we served 416 students this year in the Lake Stevens School District, providing backpacks and all school supplies. We do reach out to every school in the district and request their supply list and we fulfill it completely. We'll talk about that later. Creative kiddos. We provide paintbrushes, canvases, popsicle sticks, treats, aprons, markers, and positive childhood memories. And we also invite short community services for some support there. We have a birthday program where we can buy gifts, birthday cakes, decorations, two gifts per family. And we did 220 families in Lake Stevens in 2025. So that was pretty phenomenal. We'll leave our annual holiday toy drive. In the last two years, we're now in partnership with the Lake Stevens Food Bank. And that's just a magical time for all of us. Police department comes, Lake Stevens Sewer District, the library, so many different... businesses in our community come together so we can provide this for families. And the newest one that we started this October was the Boo Tea for families to come and get Halloween costumes for their children. Well, that's good times. Next slide, please. All right, a little bit more about our back-to-school celebration. So in 2025, we serve 416 youth during the day of our back-to-school event, which is held at Caballero, Van Ply. We provided lunch to all attendees, and that was through the Lake Stevens Food Bank. So no one went hungry that day. No one had to worry about a plump dollar out of their pocket. Everyone. Everyone was fed. I love that. So this event brought together, I was able to bring in 23 different community resources that served people of Lake Stevens. We had Gosh Boys and Girls Club. We had the Boy Scouts. We had PUD giving on-site discounts, bill discounts. We just had so many different organizations and resources. It was absolutely wonderful. And we also had a photography department for UW come in and take family photos. So I thought that was really neat to be able to provide that. One grandparent had come up to me and said, thank you so much. the stress that takes away off their back living in a law term. And this is the grandparent community raising two grandchildren. And so we were, it was nice to hear that. And this made my heart smile a bit, you know, it's that little human interaction. So next slide, please. R&A Toy Drive 2025, we held it right here. Every year we do it in the Target parking lot, rain or shine or snow. That's the truth. And if we don't have snow, we bring snow. It's a pretty great event. We serve 260 children this season out of the Lake Stevens Community Resource Center. That's five gifts per child, all brand new gifts, wrapping paper for the parents, bows, tape, stockings, all of the above. And that's what community does. They come together in trying times and make sure no child goes without. So really believing in that magic of Christmas and bringing it to our community. And we couldn't do it without everyone that's part of that, all the volunteers. Creative Kiddos and our Mother's Day Card Frenzy. I already talked a bit about Mother's Day Card Frenzy. We just had that a couple weeks ago. Great times. It was my team out there with some of the kiddos. We were able to get stuffed animals, a flower and the card prints for their mom. We had people come and do it with their dogs. It was awesome doing dog prints. Great stuff. Creative Kiddos. It was a pipe dream of mine. It's an opportunity for kids who are living with disabilities, intellectual and physical, to come together before school starts to increase their social, nonverbal, fine motor skills, listening and speech skills in a safe and comfortable environment. It just got picked up by a winery who's going to display all of their art for a donation. So we can keep that program going and it can carry itself. So this year is our third year and we're just super, super proud of it. This is the event that we invite Sherwood to come, have resources there for the families as well so they know how to advocate for themselves. All right, next slide, please. It's at Stake Village, we all know that. City of Lake Stevens, thank you. Thank you for your support through the years and seeing the work that we do in our communities. There's a ton of them up there. Lake Stevens Lime Club, Rotary, Lake Stevens Brewing Company, they pulled the box there for us for our Christmas giveaway. Lake Stevens Food Bank, Soroptimus recognized us for empowering young women. We hired now three different teen moms from our teen parenting group. I couldn't be more proud of that. They're making a livable wage and they're making a change in the community. One day they're going to be in my seat. So that's what we need to do. These are the people we want to invest our time in. So, yeah, I'm really proud of that group. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, sure. So we're seeing a growing number of families, as I mentioned earlier, who reported never having used social services before. In 2025, we saw 224 families, individuals. I mean, most families in Lake Stevens that we're seeing are families of three or four. The effects of limited community funding and the shortage of livable wage jobs and the ongoing challenges of job insecurity and layoffs continue to be felt throughout Day Stevens. We saw it happen with Boeing last year. And when people came in for help, we helped them. We were right there walking side by side with them until they were ready to go back to work. You never know what tomorrow looks like for any of us. And that's one great thing about the Community Resource Center. You need the help, our doors are open. As the cost of housing, food, and utilities, and other day expenses continue to rise, while average incomes remain stagnant, it's becoming increasingly difficult for many to get by. Now more than ever, we must continue to stand ready to serve all members of our community, all members, because life happens and no one should face it alone. For every dollar spent on CRCs, there's an average savings of $4.93. That's information that I've received from the National Family Support Network. Behind every dollar saved is a neighbor who avoided eviction, kept utilities on, accessed food, or received support before reaching a crisis point, and that's what we're trying to do. We want to be proactive instead of reactive, and that's how we continue to keep people going every single day. These services strengthen the entire community, not just the people we serve, but the entire community. Investing in these services is both compassionate and viscerally responsible. Okay, so... So your Lake Stevens CRC continues to grow in order to respond to the needs of our growing community. And it's growing every day. It's absolutely stunning. But we are growing and the need's going to grow at the same time. We've tripled our staff. We've expanded our reach to vulnerable households and have stepped in to support the community's largest social service events in the city of Lake Stevens. Next slide, please. So we thank you. Support from the city of Lake Stevens has been an integral to our growth in the community. We are serving more people and families because of this partnership. With this partnership, we've been able to open new doors with our sustainabilities. Investing in our services means helping families now and in the future. We're helping people in crisis and building their resiliency. At the same time, we're building the resiliency of our community. We thank you. This supports critical staffing, operation costs, as well as unrestricted emergency funds to support families and their children in their most dire times. Next slide. It's my favorite slide.

The future.

The future is right there. So the young lady to the left is actually a volunteer from Lake Stevens High School. Ms. Elizabeth Miller is in the center there, also our site director. And then there's me. And then we have the four little ones that came to actually our Mother's Day card frenzy event that we had. And just some contact information there. Reach out. If you guys know anyone who's in need, give them our information. Send them our way. That's what we're there for. We're there to help. Next slide. It's the easiest one of all. Thank you so very much for your time. I've also given our annual report from 2025. Council members, you know, every month I send out a impact report. I'm very transparent with where our dollars go, where it's supposed to be given in the community. And I share a success story for the month of a client that has been served. What you'll see on our annual report is three separate SUCCESS STORIES THAT WE HAD IN 2025. IN 2025, WE SERVED 4,543 PARTICIPANTS, HOUSEHOLDS. THAT WAS INFLUENCED TO 1,612. DIRECT ASSISTANCE THAT WAS DISBURSED INTO THE COMMUNITY WAS $77,044. AND WE FIELDED OVER 2,707 PHONE CALLS TO PEOPLE THAT JUST NEED TO BE HEARD AND HAVE A SAFE PLACE TO COME TO. I just wanted to introduce us to you. Please come by. You know where we're at. You're more than welcome at any time. Any of you, not just the council, but all of you. And I hope that what I was able to share today really just sticks with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. It's been a privilege to be in our community and watch the Community Resource Center evolve over the last several years. And Director Mandela's leadership and just energy around this work is contagious. And I appreciate you sharing that with us tonight. Thank you. Moving to our next guest business item, I would like to invite Sno-Isle Library up to the podium. Thanks.

Thank you, council members. My name is Eric Howard, the executive director of Stone County Libraries. And what we thought we would do today is just sort of take you through and zoom out around the whole big picture of our library system, which exists in both Snohomish County and Island County as well. So this is just a broad picture of where we are located. We have 23 libraries. And we also have a very robust bookmobile service. So one of the functions of a lot of the work that we do is reaching into daycare centers, early learning centers, and then also senior centers, places where geographically they're not too connected to a branch. And this is something that we're taking a deeper and deeper dive into around early education in particular. because when we think about it, schools are really positioned to be around, or schools are really there to support the pre-K to 12th graders, but at that period of time in our lives when the brains are really exploding at zero to five periods, there is no significant organized entity other than the public library. And so we did our first early education conference. One of the things that is not often recognized about public libraries in Washington is that we worked So that is something that we're getting a deeper and deeper dive into and. And these are the areas that we are really leaning into for this year. And one thing that we'll probably be hearing from us more and more on is our strategic planning process. I believe that we are doing a really healthy and strong job for the community, but I also think that we almost do a better job. So we are reaching out right now to find out what we can do. I will say this, we are, throughout the 23 libraries, more excited now than we probably have ever been. down the road, not too far away, we're building a new library. And it is getting close to completion. And I really am also here just to say thank you for the partnership that you have had with us for a very long time with the library, also just down the road, and through the partnership that we have going forward with the library. I'm also really excited that we have your community library, your internet, to talk a little bit about that move that we're doing. And I was also gonna, I promised some staff that I wanted to throw in a pitch So that when we do move, anybody that ever moved, you know how stressful that can be. And it never really lands right on time. And so we're moving not only items from the library down the road, but also because this building is going to feel larger than our current size, it's going to triple the size of the collection. And that's good news for the entire system. And I was sharing on Whidbey and sharing with them this success story here. And the reason why, and I'm going to nerd out on you a little bit, is because the larger our buildings are, the larger the collection we can provide for the entire system. So if you're in Clinton and you have a relatively small library, you benefit significantly when we expand anywhere in the system because we share all the books across the entire system. And that also goes for residents here too. If you don't find the item among the 23,000 items that we have in the new library, it's somewhere in our system, whether it's in Darrington or in Oak Harbor, we can write those books for you and turn it around really quickly for a service. So I just wanted to mention that, but the whole point of saying that was, in a water-winded way of saying, Once we close down this library to move into the next one, I've experienced this in other systems I've worked in. We open a new library, we'll see it open, and they're like, why is this not open to the public yet? Because it takes a lot of energy and time, 23,000 points. So I last year, in 2025, when I was discussing with our board, what are we going to focus on in 2026, we zeroed in on a couple of key targets. One that I mentioned at the beginning, which is the strategic plan. And that's really critically important for us to figure out how can we continue to evolve. The second one, There's a number of capital projects that we're also moving into that will follow Lake Stevens. Of the 23 libraries that we have, there's one library that does not have air conditioning. And so when we talk about being a resiliency center, about smoke events, heat events, to be honest about that, we have to have all 23 have air conditioning and a really strong HVAC system. So beginning in 2027, we'll be able to redo the Arlington Library. It's the one library So we are, um, we purchased land from money that we got from the state. And so we intend to build a new library there as well. It's one of the most densely populated communities, um, in, in Washington state, but it's considered the library of destiny. Um, and just like Lake Stevens, as it expands, we'll be helping out the rest of the 23, 22 libraries, um, to build a new library. The other big project for us here at the end of the life for the levy. The last time we went out for it was in 2018. And so we are restricted as I'm trying to make you aware by state wall. We can't increase the amount of money that we're going to be spending on the levy. We can't increase the amount of money that we're going to be spending on the project. We will need to go back to restore the levies that's going to be on the ballot in August to restore it back to what it was in 2018, which was $0.47 per $1,000 of assessed value. In Snohomish County, the average property owner pays less than 5% for the library, which when you kind of consider the investment that we made in early education, We do much more than that. And that's what I was going to talk a little bit about.

Thank you so much, everyone.

It's good to see you again.

Pop quiz time. I was here a couple months ago, and the big theme for that five-minute quick presentation, which I'm sure you all absolutely remember, was that the Lee Stevens Library is a community-driven library. We respond to community needs, but we have the resources of this large system. So as Eric was just saying, we have 23 libraries. Our collection is going to triple. Of those 23 libraries, The current Lake Stevens library at 5,000 square feet is one of the smallest in the system. Our collection is one of the smallest in the system. But we have the seventh highest circulation of children's books of any library. So knowing that our collection is going to triple in size, we know that that need, that desire, that increase in circulation is going to happen too. And we're really excited to be able to invest in that need here in Stevens. I want to thank Council Member Shipman for coming and touring the library. It was wonderful to get to show her all of our plans for this amazing space. The library is beautiful. There's one very small picture there. And we're really looking forward to welcoming everyone in the PZ&E to the grand opening. just as soon as we get every single one of those 20,000. And in order, right? You got to be able to find it. But I wanted to talk a little bit more about some of the ways that the Lake Stevens Library specifically has been responding to community needs here. So last time I talked a little bit about memory care kits. During that time, we were loaning some of our memory care kits, which we developed in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association. We loaned them to the Oak Harbor Library. The program was so successful there that Oak Harbor is adding 12 of their own kids. So Lake Stevens was able to pilot this project. It was developed by our own librarian, Kelly Jade. She formed the partnership, we developed the program in response to needs that we were seeing in the community from caregivers who needed that support for folks with memory care issues in their own homes. We also have the highest number of student card usage in the entire library system. 95% of Lake Stevens School District students have activated their student card. That's super high. That's crazy high. And a lot of that is the work of our librarians who are going to the schools, supporting our educators. And that's not the work that you see, right? You come into the library, we're there, we're checking out the books, we're putting stuff on hold. Behind the scenes, we're doing the outreach. We're connecting with Tina and her team. We're at the backpack events. We have the Boys and Girls Club coming, sorry, the bookmobile coming to the Boys and Girls Club this summer. So really, there's a lot of work that we're doing in the community that's not visible, but has huge, huge impact. The last thing I wanted to pitch, because it's super popular and it's a beautiful time right now, we just launched a seed library. We launched the seed library at the end of March, so it's been open for less than two months. We have already distributed over 100 packets of seeds. People are coming in. You don't have to have a library card, but we absolutely encourage you to get one. Help me out. Maybe you look good in front of the box. Got to get that library card. But 100 packets of seeds, and we're encouraging folks to plan an extra row for the food bank. So just one more way that through something that's fun and exciting and new and cool, we can also contribute and improve the local community. We're very, very excited for our grand opening later this year. We thank you all for your patience and grace and understanding. and really look forward to welcoming you all there on our grand opening day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you both so much. I just want to say I got a sneak peek and oh boy, is it beautiful. I mean, I didn't share any pictures or anything because I don't want to ruin your great, you know, your big reveal. But seriously, it is gorgeous and huge. And one thing you didn't mention that for me, I mean, we use your mobile library. So our preschool and pre-Kers. Every other month, their guest speaker is from the library. And so there's circle times done by one of the librarians. Amazing, amazing program. And the whole bottom floor, if I understand right, is going to be for children. And then the teens are upstairs, if I remember correctly. So, so much thought has gone into this. And, oh boy, are people going to be excited when they see it.

Yeah, that first floor is going to be completely dedicated to early literacy, to children's services, which will be great for those who want quiet second floor. But also great because it gives us the opportunity to cultivate that learning through play. We're already exploring so many ideas for interactive elements, for outdoor exploration, to really use the native wetlands and the opportunity to teach and learn about that. Um, we're, we're just so excited. Um, we're, we're already the librarians, the library associates have developed so many great ideas. I've been working on this for a year, uh, and we're really excited to be a purpose-built library, which will be the first purpose-built library the city of Lake Stevens has ever experienced. Um, and I think once you see what a library that is built to be a library can do, it'll really, really be impressive.

So it's also the first one that the system has built in over 20 years. And the very first one, that's two stories. So we are, as a system, we are super excited.

It's very exciting. Please, when you know the grand opening is going to be, come back here and we'll help you spread the word. We're all very excited. Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We will now move into citizen comments. We have regular public comments and then we have a few comments specific to the public hearing. So we're not gonna do the public hearing comments now, we're just gonna do general public comments. So you'll have, I'll call your name, you'll have three minutes up at the podium to speak your mind. We're first gonna start online and see if we have anyone online who would like to give public comment tonight.

I do have some people attending, so let me just make another announcement. If you are online on our Zoom meeting and you'd like to speak to the council on general citizen comments, not public hearing, please raise your digital hand. I am not seeing anything.

All right. Well, then I'll start with my green sheets in front of me. The first one I have is John Short. Thank you. You have three minutes.

This past week, we actually had a vote for a salmon natural resource over at Lake Stephen Woods HOA. And we passed it where we were going to not have a covered bridge. Basically, just a natural resource for the bridge. Stevens, that there would be a bridge anyway. One of the things that we were concerned about there was the attraction of the youth at night, and if they're creating this natural resource for a salmon to swim through, honestly, I was a teenager once, and if I was hanging out in the woods, there's going to be a big garbage collection back there, which would then go into the streams, which would then affect the salmon. We asked for a gate to be put on the end of the road. So it eliminates a lot of traffic coming in. And I just wanted to voice my concerns about that. I think it could lead into a problem area. And that's behind a lot of house. So think about who is behind your house. Would you want kids hanging out in your woods, partying all night in the dark? That's it. We just wanted to make a voice saying eliminate the bridge if you could. and just make it a natural resource where people will be hanging out or trying to ride a bike over the bridge. Okay?

Great, thank you.

Thank you for your time.

The next name I see is Bruce, is it Woolerton? Woolverton. Thank you so much, you have three minutes.

thank you so much for the work you guys have done in our ponds and the runoff and stuff like that to clear out the woods that have basically grown up in the middle of the weeds and just make it a lot more useful for the runoff water to get out and back into the stream. Also, I'd like to We have been responsible for the financial responsibility of the park there at Bryce Park.

And I was advised this week by your parks director that you guys are now taking that part over.

And so I'd like to say thank you for that. Back to what John was saying. We did get together with the HOA and we had a meeting. We met with strange people. We met a couple of people. the ponds and run off water and had a great meeting. And we were encouraged to have a vote on whether to have a bridge everybody there was hoping for no bridge and i do understand that bridge would be necessary to make the development for the stream and salmon to get up there and that's one thing we all want but as john was saying the issue i think that if we could get a gate or something like that that comes in off that old service road that used to be in there off a great road I think would be a great return for whoever is coming in and we just had a couple break-ins of the cars where people are going through and then people are finding the wallets and stuff that are taken from the car out on that little trail that leads back over to Great Road. Another thing with the road to, or that trail that leads to Great Road is that you have a lot of little kids that are riding bicycles back there. they ride out onto Gray Road, they get ahead of their parents or whatever. And because, you know, if you put in the bridge, it's going to be a great spot for the kids to go play. There is the sidewalks on Gray Road there. And so I think that having a gate in there, I've been talking to Shannon from the, from the county, or from the city here. And, you know, she was saying that, you know, A gate wasn't really permissible, but that's really not a trade that has always been used. I mean, nobody but the people in our community actually use it unless there's somebody coming in at night to do whatever. And if the city had keys to it, you know, that way they could get in there, they could service that, you know, whatever it is they need to service in there.

But I just think it... Bruce, we're at three minutes. Thank you.

Most people would be happy with that. Some sort of security, if not just not doing it.

Thank you very much for your comments. Appreciated. The last name I have is Tyler Rhodes.

I'm also a member of the neighborhood, Lake Stephens Woods. I'm not on the HOA board, but I did attend the meeting that we had last week to discuss remediation of this bridge barrier and the construction of a bridge to replace concrete bridges that are currently there. The consensus of our community was that we would widen the remediation to continue. We care about our safety. The reasons being the main thing was rather unsafe. There are no sidewalks on it on great road. The path leads right up to it. If the screen were mediated, and then it would remove a big danger. So, um, so, um, so, um, so, um, so, um, so, um, so, um, Other people have expressed concerns for your meetings. And although I know that some of my neighbors had their cars broken into and found their effects on that trail. So maybe it's an avenue for criminals to enter the community. But I think more than anything, we would like to have We did vote enough to kind of trigger a more official vote by email since we didn't have a form at this meeting. But, you know, sort of immediately after we were told that the city was just going to go ahead with building a bridge. And I think that's a tough set of votes that we would like to be able to vote on the construction projects. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. The next item on our agenda, we will be reopening two public hearings. Before we do that, we have our city legal advisor, Greg, who's going to share a few words with us. And then Russ and David have some information to share about these public hearings.

Okay. I want to just discuss a couple of concepts that are related to these, the two public hearings. They both involve what we call quasi-judicial decision-making as opposed to legislative decision-making. With respect to making your decisions, with respect to the respective rezone request, you're expected to be impartial, right? You're supposed to make your decision based upon the information that has been provided to you in the hearing record that came from the hearing examiner. If you look at the hearing examiner's reports, there's a list of exhibits. Those exhibits at your hearing record, the information in those as well as the testimony that was given at the hearings. With that, these hearings are closed record which means, and we do that because under Washington law, there can only be one public hearing on a development application. Only one is permitted. So we hold that hearing before the city's hearing examiner. who collects the evidence, receives it, and makes an initial recommendation to you based upon their reading of the Lake Stevens Municipal Code with respect to the evidence received at that hearing. Your decision is to be based upon that hearing record. When we held our hearing tonight, people could comment they can make comments to you regarding the recommendations. But they can't bring in, say, I've got this new study. We've discovered since the hearing that this is happening on these properties or whatever. That will not be permitted because under the closed record hearing rules. Because it's quasi-judicial and you're supposed to act like judges, this comes under the spectrum of Washington's appearance of fairness doctrine, okay? And it's a statutory doctrine that says when you're making these sort of quasi-judicial decisions, you need to be impartial not only in fact, but you need... to have the appearance of being an impartial body. Because of that, I have a few questions to ask of each of you, and then we'll have one question for the audience. So the questions to you as a panel are these. Is there any member of this council that has discussed the subject matter of this public hearings with any proponent? of the rezones or opponent of the rezone?

Do you want us to answer individually or just shake our heads?

Well, if you have, yes. Okay. And you have then an opportunity under the appearance of Fairness Doctor if you've had that discussion to explain the discussion. and what the substantive was to demonstrate there was nothing said or done in that conversation that would demonstrate that your prejudice or have pre-decided the issue. But we have to ask that particular question. Second question, do any of you have any financial or personal interest in the outcome of the proceeding? Okay. Don't see anyone in that. Do any of you live on the property or in the near vicinity of the property? No. Okay. Do any of you believe that you have any special knowledge outside the hearing record that would or could cause you to prejudice the outcome of your decision-making? That is, that you would be considering that information rather than what's in the hearing record. Okay, nobody's negative to that. Is there any general question? Is there any member of the council believes that he or she cannot sit and hear the matter fairly and impartially, both as to the respective positions of the proponents and the opponents of this proceeding? Anyone?

No.

Okay. And then the question for our audience. Is there anyone in the audience who, because of the state's appearance of fairness doctrine, wishes to disqualify any member of the council from sitting in the hearing on this matter? Anyone? This is your one chance. If you have the chance and you don't object, you can't bring it up later. The courts have said if he didn't do it, he didn't let them know, we don't want to hear it. Okay, so it sounds like that we've gone through that. Unless there's any questions, we can go ahead and open the hearing and

the first hearing great start all right so the first hearing on the agenda is the um the ripper rezone and it's a continued public hearing so that is now open and i would like to turn it over to russ to provide some additional information

Okay, thank you City Council for the record. Russ Wright, Community Development Director for the City of Lake Stevens. Before I go into the hearing itself, I want to just add a few more comments about how the agenda usually flows. So as part of this closed record hearing, there will be a staff presentation. That's essentially a review of the record and the recommendation of the hearing examiner. Then you would move into your public comment portion. The applicant would go first, and then the rest of the public comment would follow. And as already stated, the public comment should be just a summary of prior comments that have been entered into the record, not new information. Point out for the record, some cities don't even allow that. And the issue comes up from RCW 3670B050. Again, that is just the act that our city attorney was talking about a little bit earlier for the appearance of fairness and one open record hearing. And then at the end of the public comment portion, counsel can reserve that time to ask questions of staff or the applicant. If they need clarification, you would close the hearing. You would go into your deliberation, make a motion, and then make your decision. So with that, I am going to share my screen, and I have prepared a brief presentation for this evening. Come on. Okay, there we go so we're going to start tonight with the the repeater rezone this is under city land use file lua 2026 dash 0006. This is an application submitted by LandPro Group on behalf of KNA LLC. And there are six properties located off of 99th Avenue Southeast. And together, they're approximately 9.2 acres. The property currently has a comprehensive plan land use designation of high density residential. And there is no proposed change to the land use designation And under that land use designation, there are several zoning districts that can implement that land use designation. The existing and the proposed zoning district both comply with that land use designation as implementing zones. So the current zoning is multifamily residential. That zoning was adopted in 2024 as part of the city's comprehensive plan update. The proposed zoning would take it back to R8-12, which is a single-family residential zone. On the right side of the screen, you see a general vicinity. It shows the parcels that are under consideration. And it also identifies the different land uses in vicinity. So you'll see higher density residential, single family neighborhoods to the north and across the street to the west. The properties to the south are currently zoned multifamily residential, even though they are currently have low intensity land use designations. The properties to the east have what's called mixed-use neighborhood and consist of a dense townhome development that could allow for some commercial space as well. Okay, so again, I just want to talk about what site specific reasons are quickly and then delve into the process. So, site specific reasons they are type 5 permits with a hearing examiner review held at an open public hearing and the hearing examiner provides that recommendation to the city council. The public hearing was held on March 26. There was a reconsideration request on April 23, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. So, one of the things to keep in mind, rezones are what you would call a non-project action. So, They're exempted from some types of review. For example, under state statute, a site-specific rezone doesn't have to go through the State Environmental Policy Act because, again, if you look at what we talked about earlier, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan zone, so you don't have to really review new parameters at all. That stage, you review the parameters at the future development stage. That's where your technical review takes place, such as your SEPA analysis, your transportation concurrency, looking at other development standards. As noted, city council makes the final decision at the end of the hearing, relying on the information in the record. So council did open the hearing back on April 28th. As mentioned, there had been a request for reconsideration for the hearing examiner to look at a couple of technical points on the related application for Dawson. So the hearing was held over until May 19, which is tonight. So going through the process, I won't read everything on the slide in the right, but it just illustrates for you that the city has followed the process gone through the steps of holding, you know, noticing the application, holding the public meetings, having the public hearing, And it notes the kind of citizen participation that occurred. There were 16 individuals that submitted comments. Most of the commenters did support returning the zoning to our eight twelve with some specific comments really related to. Perceived compatibility with existing neighborhoods to return that to a single family use 1 of the commenters question if the proposal was consistent with the rezone criteria and with the development agreement. The proposal is a little bit non-linear because different activities were happening at different times. I just want to spend one slide talking about the development agreement. So the City Council did approve a development agreement at the end of last year with the applicant. This came in specifically tied to the Dawson project, but as the request was related to a density transfer with the ripager process, both applications were tied into the development agreement and both applications were required as part of that development agreement to go through this rezone process to show consistency with the criteria before any development applications could move Forward and the staff report that was provided with the development agreement went through some of those findings that relate to the development agreement as well as the zone capacity for the city as we look at our growth targets. Okay, so this is just a summary of general ideas of what is included in the hearing examiner's decision and some of the factors we look at. So when you look at site-specific reasons, you have to show that it complies with the comprehensive plan, and in this case also with the associated subarea plan. Those items are described in the hearing examiner's report in detail. It has to be compliant with the Growth Management Act, including growth targets, and those things are also covered in the hearing examiner's report and the staff recommendation. It has to show that it advances the public health safety and welfare, and this really just relates to that again back to its consistency with the comprehensive plan. And is it able to meet those levels of service that the Council has established? Which is different from the project specific issues that I mentioned. Before such as traffic, walkability, critical areas, other topics, those happen at the development review. So, at a later stage of the process, and then we look at is the amendment warranted due to changes in circumstance. And in this case, the development agreement shows that change in circumstance. We also need to, again, make sure that there is adequate area. So can the proposal develop in the site? Will it be detrimental? Can it happen under the current city regulations? Is there adequate existing or planned infrastructure for the site? And are there any impacts that will need to be mitigated? And then in this case, we're also looking at consistency with the planned action that was adopted. So that was the SEPA threshold, the environmental threshold adopted with the subarea plan. Is it going to exceed the thresholds of that plan or can that be mitigated? So that is something also that was taken into consideration. And so again, the hearing examiner looked at all of these factors in the decision and any materials in the staff report are really just sort of a summary of these actions and setting the stage for what you're considering tonight. And again, most of that is, well, all of that's included in the written record in your packet. So again, this is just a high-level summary. The hearing examiner did find that the proposed rezone satisfied the approval criteria found in the municipal code requirement. And it should be improved found to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. It meets the intent of the zoning district. It directs new growth to areas where infrastructure and services are available or planned. It does demonstrate a change in circumstance. And as conditioned, it will meet the city standards at the time of development. So those are those phase two things we've talked about, and it has met the procedural requirements, including public participation. So after the council takes comment from the proponent and from interested parties, and for the council's benefit, I have provided the council president with a list of parties of records that can provide comment tonight. So the staff would recommend that the city council adopt the hearing examiner's recommendation and approve the rezone. Again, LUA-2026-0006, subject to the conditions of approval by the hearing examiner. And then the second action would be for the council to adopt Ordinance 1218, rezoning the Ripperger property from MFR to R8-12. And so with that, I'll yield back to the council.

Thank you, Director Wright. Would it be preferable to, if there's any questions, to ask those now or to wait until after public comment?

The council can proceed as they choose, but I think it would be at least appropriate to wait to hear from the proponent before posing any technical questions. Excellent. Thank you.

Then we will move into the public comment portion of this closed record hearing on the Ripperger parcel. I would like to invite the applicant to speak first if there is any information that you'd like to share. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Mayor, Council, thanks for the closed records in tonight on the proposed rezone for the Ripinger property. My name is Ryan Larson, L-A-R-S-E-N. I work for LandPro Group, and I'm the applicant's representative. The request before City Council tonight is to review the proposed rezone of the Ripinger property located on 99th Street to make a decision on proposed ordinance 1218. I would like to state in the beginning that we have read the original staff report prepared by David Levitan for the hearing examiner and supported staff's recommendation of approval to the hearing examiner. Also, I have thoroughly read the hearing examiner's decision and support the hearing examiner's recommendation of approval to the city council. Finally, I have thoroughly read David Levitan's recommendation to city council tonight and support the recommendation of approval ordinance 1218 approved for approval by city council. The furniture property is part of a developer approved by city council and reported so much. Under section two of the developer agreement refers to the rezone application analysis. This section reads as follows. It's section two, which states rezone applications to, to again, excuse me, to give effect of the agreement. The SLL property will submit a rezone application for the SLL property. such application shall require a rezone of the SLR property from R8-12 to NFR. The K&N property will submit a rezone application for the K&N property pursuant to like Stevenson's 14 . Such application shall request a rezone of the K&N property from NFR to R8-12, which is the rezone you're hearing tonight, right now. And it didn't in addressing the decision city and addressing the decision criteria in lmc let's do this over 1416 see on a G he trades on application shall demonstrate that the proposal. will not negatively impact the city's ability to meet is adopted 20 or 2024 growth target at all income levels and associated housing tax. Provided the rezone applications are consistent with this agreement, they shall be given all due consideration, given the mutual promises, benefits, and obligations set forth herein. If either of the both rezone applications are denied, GAN and SLR may, in their sole discretion, terminate this agreement effectively and immediately by recording a notice of the same with the reference of this provision. It is my opinion and supported by the hearing examiner to the city council and recommendation to city council that the proposed rezone should be accrued on the consistency with section two of the developer agreement, the city of Lake Stevens municipal code for rezone applications and the findings and conclusions of the hearing examiner's recommendation to the city council. With that, I thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Larson.

I have two public comment green sheets here. I have confirmed that they are both parties of record for the Ripperger Rezone. So I'd like to ask Sally Jo Sebring to the podium.

Mayor Dorsett, if you said this, I'm sorry. Are these three-minute comments?

Three-minute comments, yes. Thank you. Sorry, thank you for clarifying. You have three minutes. Yes.

Sally Jo Sebring, and I live on 99th Avenue Southeast, south of the Ripperger. HAB-Masyn Moyer- I love it for a long time, so I know. HAB-Masyn Moyer- i'm just going to take a snippet I hopefully you read the whole packet have lots of comments in there in both packets but i'm just going to read a snippet of a comment, I mean in the. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Surely develop an agreement hinges on a reason cannot then be used as a supporting argument for the reason, thank you.

HAB-Charlotte Pitts- Thank you. The second name I have here is Spencer Brown. You have three minutes, thank you.

I'm Spencer Brown. I'm an HOA board member at Eagle Glen, which is a community which is just north of this resort. And since essentially the community's inception, we've had apartment development next to us. We've had an apartment complex put in, So I'm here to represent not only myself, but 122 other homeowners within my community. Um, there's a couple of reasons that we'd like to do that. Um, but first is that the neighborhood was not meaningfully consulted during the updated comprehensive plan. Uh, next, I said, four apartments, town homes have been just coming on and right next to us and just getting some semblance of uniformity would be nice. Um, and in addition, uh, yeah, the proposed result does that our community, uh, and then in addition, uh, You know, we asked that you just give us a little bit more time.

Thank you very much. Mayor George said we have a hand up on our zoom. Oh, wonderful. Okay, let me. Dane. You have three minutes to speak to the council regarding the closed public hearing for Rippinger. And you need to unmute.

I'm not looking to speak. I'm just attending today.

Okay.

Okay. If there's anybody else, uh, since I see other attendees that would like to speak, um, to the council, please raise your digital hand. Okay, I'm not seeing anybody.

Great, thank you so much for checking. I appreciate it. So that will conclude the public comment portion of the- You might ask, is there anyone who didn't submit a green sheet? Thank you. Is there anyone that didn't submit a green sheet that would like to speak?

There hasn't.

Thank you. Appreciate it. This moves us to an opportunity for council to ask questions of our... Would you like to close the public comment portion first? Let's do that, yeah.

Any rebuttal from staff or the applicant?

Thank you. Does the applicant have any additional comments or rebuttal to public comment? Nothing further? Okay. Then we will close the public hearing at this time. And then we will move to council discussion and questions for staff. So the floor is open.

As if I may. If I look at the two properties, and I'm sorry that I'm kind of taking them together since we're discussing one, but they're tied. So it kind of feels like there are two sides of the same coin. One of the properties, I think in some of the documents, it was eight acres. Now it's 9.2. So I wanted to make sure one of the properties is 9.2, the other is 2.8. Or is the other 2.1?

The Dawson property that we'll discuss later, it is 9.2. And I was going to point out that issue. Excuse me, backwards. Rippager, the current one we're discussing is 9.2. And I'll look at the other one, which is 2.something. Okay.

So is it my understanding that for the one property that's 9.2 acres, the request is to go from about 100, a little over 100 units to 65. And then for the other property that is three times smaller, the request is to go from 32 units to 72. Is that how I interpret it? Yeah, that's approximate to what's been described.

Okay.

That was mine. The other question was, The one was the the the comment that the change in circumstance is simply the development agreement that was in December. And is that that's that's the the case that is change in circumstance that prompts the rezoning is the development agreement that was passed in December.

That is one of the considerations of change in circumstance. as council deliberated on this issue and those two properties and the potential benefits and impacts. Also, what played into this is also changes in state legislation and how we will be looking at densities and the ability to meet our targets in other areas.

And one more question, I guess. From what I reviewed, there was adequate infrastructure and services to the site or planned infrastructure and services. There is bus service on 99th, and that's where the current zoning for the multifamily is. There's no bus service or planned bus service on South Lake Stevens Road, where we would move the... MFR. Is that my understanding?

There is bus service within walking distance, probably quarter mile of the site. That's getting a little bit beyond probably the hearing, but there is bus service in the vicinity of both properties.

Okay. Thank you. Any further questions?

Let me just say that the development agreement reflects a change in circumstances in that it reflects a development proposal for these properties that can only occur with the transfer density between the two parts and the development agreement is simply as a reflection of that change of circumstance that did not exist at the time of the originals of the last zoning of these two parcels. So it's, I don't say the development agreement itself is the change of circumstance. It's the circumstances that are reflected. It's a proposed development and requirement for the density transfer that's reflected in that agreement that is actually, I think, a more accurate statement of the change of circumstance.

So do I understand this correctly that both have to be adopted and approved Or it can't be done. Like we can't say yes to one and no to the other. Both have to go through for it to happen since it is an exchange.

Yeah, I mean, you make a separate decision on each one, but unless they're both approved, yeah, the development won't happen.

Okay.

Any further discussion or questions? If not, do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 1218 for the ripper ripper Jerry zone.

Just to clarify. I'm sorry. I get a second. Sorry. There's a motion. We have a second.

I'll second.

Do we need to motions? Do we need one adopting the hearing examiners recommendation and approve the reason as well as the as the ordinance are going to be put together?

No, it's reflected in the ordinance.

Okay. Yeah. Recommendation. I just want to make sure we were clear.

Okay.

Okay.

Recommendation.

Okay.

Thank you. Sorry.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the clarification. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

Yeah, I would just like to kind of reiterate from my own knowledge and everyone else here, if we are to vote no on this, essentially we have to point to something in the review criteria where we feel it's deficient and we disagree with the hearing examiner, correct? Okay. So absent some basis in those criteria, we have a choice.

Right. Okay. The essence of it is that if our code establishes criteria for a rezone and an applicant complies with those criteria, then following our code, the matter should be approved. If there's a deficiency that can be identified in meeting any of the criteria, then that would be a basis for denying the requested rezone in this case.

Yes.

Thank you. Any further discussion?

Yeah. So if we go ahead and approve this tonight, they still have to go through the same criteria for traffic impact and all that for the site development?

Right. That all comes next. Yes. Those issues, yes, would be addressed at a later stage. They get the raison, and that gives them the opportunity to go ahead and proceed with that. They're developing traffic, but then those traffic and other site-specific issues would be more examined during that process. And you would make your decision whether to... At a later date on the full fund. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Thanks. Any further questions, discussion? All right. All those in favor of adopting Ordinance 1218, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No.

I'm opposed.

Okay.

One opposed.

One opposed. Motion passes. We will move on to public hearing 7B and continue the public hearing for the Dawson Rezone, Ordinance 1217. We'll go through the same process we just did. Although, Greg, you don't need to speak again. No, you're good. No, not yet.

But I said apply to.

Excellent. I mean, you're welcome to, of course.

I was going to say, was that a question?

I'm not saying you can't.

Procedure that Russ outlined for the reverend's property. Excellent. Excellent.

Thank you very much. I will turn the mic over to Russ or David.

David's out for a bit, so I'm pinch hitting tonight.

Excellent. Thank you. Yep.

Okay. So the next hearing the council will consider is the Dawson-Reeve zone. That's city file number LUA 2025-0089. So some similar things to the last application. LandPro is also the applicant on behalf of the owner, South Lake Ridge LLC. This property is located off of South Lake Stevens Road. The site size is 2.84 acres. Again, the comp plan designation is high density residential. There is no proposed land use change. And the proposed zoning district, as we talked about earlier, can be implemented under this land use designation, so the current zoning is already 12 that is a. Higher density single family zone and the proposed zoning is mfr and one thing i'll point out for the the record within single family zones. this single family zone in sub areas, it does allow for more intensive development, including multifamily development. So that does remain an option for this property. Then the information in the box shows different consistencies and the different types of zones and land uses for the site. And you will see a little bit to the west in the brown would be the Rippager site on the other side of the pink area, which has townhomes and apartments. So I won't spend a lot of time in the blue box. We've talked about what site-specific rezones are, but I will just run through some of the dates quickly. So there was a public hearing held for this project on March 26th. There was a reconsideration that was requested on April 23rd. The hearing examiner reviewed that request for reconsideration and denied the reconsideration on May 4th, 2026. And as we talked about in the prior hearing, Council had opened this and moved it to a date certain following the conclusion of the reconsideration. So on the right, again, it just runs through some of the project information and key dates. Again, I will point out that there were 10 individuals that submitted comments or testified on this project. Some of the concerns were about proposed apartments versus units. Townhomes and there was concern that there might be potential impacts on traffic and walkability in the area And then again there was a question posed if the proposal was consistent with the rezone decision criteria which became the basis for the reconsideration Won't spend any time on this again. You've already talked about this, that there was a development agreement process that went through in the middle of this rezone process and council did take action on that in the prior year. Again, there are some specific criteria that rezones are held to. And again, these are redundant to the last slide, so I won't spend any time. Just let you take a quick peek at those again. So really they're just about consistency with the criteria that's outlined in the city's municipal code and making a determination that there's adequate facilities and that the city will have standards in place to mitigate any potential impacts at the time of future development application. So again, like the prior application, the hearing examiner did find that the proposed rezone did satisfy approval criteria found in the municipal code. and, again, that it met all of these individual criteria. For the point of the record, I will, as I mentioned earlier, some of the comments in the staff report really are just a summary, and you may hear testimony that there's question when there was language that said non-substantive items were included in the hearing examiner's response, their revised decision. That, again, is just a phrase. Between the original hearing examiner decision and the revised hearing examiner decision, the hearing examiner added footnotes for clarity. The decision did not change the recommendation. And findings did not change. There was clarification added in footnotes. That's why that language of non-substantive differences was included. But again, with that, the hearing examiner did recommend moving forward to or made a recommendation for the council to approve this application. And so, following that, staff does recommend that the City Council follow and adopt the hearing examiner's recommendation and then move to adopt Ordinance 1217 after you've heard from the applicant and the public on this proposal. With that, I will conclude my presentation.

Thank you, Director Wright. We will now move into public comment. I would like to invite Mr. Larson to the podium. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Mayor and Council, for the closed record hearing on the proposed rezone for the Dawson property. My name, again, is Brian Larsen with the RSE Input Record, and I'm the applicant's representative. The request before the City Council tonight is to review the proposed rezone for the Dawson property located on South Lake Stevens Road. decision on both ordinance 12 and 17. I would like to state again from my previous record that I thoroughly read the staff, original staff report heard by David Levitan for the hearing examiner in support of the staff's recommendation of approval of the hearing examiner. Also read thoroughly the hearing examiner's decision and support the hearing examiner's recommendation of approval to the city council and his re-approval of the reconsideration to the city council. Finally, I have thoroughly read the date of the recommendation of city council support. The recommendation of the approval board is 12-17 being approved by county budget for approval of the bank. The Dawson property is part of the developer agreement approved by city council and reported under social accounting. I have the law agreed as I did previously did under section two, the developer agreement that's referred to. Again, that is my opinion. of rezone should be approved based on the consistency with Section 2 of the developer agreement, the City of Lake Stephen's municipal code for rezone application, and the findings and conclusions of the hearing examiner's recommendation to send to council, and the follow-up reconsideration decision by the hearing examiner. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I have one green sheet in front of me, so we'll start there, and I would ask Sally Jo to the podium.

I'm actually gonna, and I, this is a little bit tricky because David Leventon, the principal planner has been seen this process all the way through. So he's the one that's most familiar with what happened at the hearing. And so I'm gonna read part of the, from the revised findings, conclusions and recommendations for the, for the Dawson reason. This is what the temp. First of all, this is testimony of David Levitt. This is in her words in the hearing sound as it was planned or doubt to testify that the city council's approval of the DA was a change in circumstances warranting a reason. Below that, this is on page 12 of 16 of the hearing sounders revised fund. Under item 13, this is about Ryan Larson's testimony. He testified that in this matter, the reason for the rezone request is a change in circumstances, which is the development agreement approved by the city council. In the hearing examiners, let me see, on page 15 of 16, on the conclusions, she wrote, the proposed rezone is warranted by changed circumstances agreement, DA, by the city council. And then she's, I'm skipping a few, and she says county staff as a mid-state. The county staff determined that this approval is a change in circumstance that would warrant a site-specific rezone. That is the reason that, anyhow, I'm just going to repeat her words. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in the room that would like to give public comment on the Dawson rezone? Kelly, do we have anyone online?

I don't see anybody online. But again, if you'd like to speak to the council regarding the Dawson rezone, if you could raise your digital hand. I'm not seeing anybody.

Thank you. Mr. Larson, do you have any rebuttal or further comment? Thank you. So at this point, we will close the public hearing and open it up for questions from the council.

I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. I think when I was looking at both proposals, for me, what stood out was the difference in lot sizes between the two properties. And I think that one being three times the size of the other And I appreciated the community involvement and the public hearing comments from both parties. Even though they're not in agreement with each other, I think all of the comments agree that they don't want more development in their neighborhood. And the comments reflect that for both sides. And so to me, it seems the burden of supporting the total development number of units between these two properties was falling too much on the smaller property. So therefore, that prompts where I stood on this. So I felt the need to explain that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Could I ask a clarifying question on that? So I'm looking at page 13 of 16 or page 109 of our packet, the criteria for review. Which criteria, I guess, are you Would you say your comment is directed towards just because I want to make sure I fully consider all of these in light of what the hearing examiner said. And if there's a reason that one of these criteria is not met, I would be very interested in that.

I would say that at this point, you would have to approve this one. So I don't know that my... I can't find what you're...

And I think I jumped the gun there on Council Member McManus. So if you want to look at those for a second.

What page number?

It's 13 of 16 on this agenda item or page 109 of the packet. And it's the criteria for review. Council Member McManus.

Yeah, just a clarification question. So on page 98 of 184. Mr. Larson states that it would convert it and it would be a minimum of at least 72 to 72 units, 70 to 72 units. Can that be amended to a lower amount at the time of the site development? Is that a city law, state law?

It would be inconsistent with the development agreement. And the proposal was to transfer the density to make the one site compliant. So I don't think that would be consistent to put a new requirement on top of it at this point.

But we would still be, each property still has to go through a review with traffic, SEPA, all that stuff, correct? Before it's developed. So we would have an opportunity to either approve or deny both the developments based on what is put forth. And my concern is.

It won't be the city council's decision to review and approve any future development applications.

Okay.

It would fall under the permit department, correct? That is correct. Because they haven't pulled permits yet. They're looking to swap the zoning, but the permits and plans and everything involved with doing this, as you mentioned, from traffic studies to, I would imagine, stormwater and all of that, they still need to go through all that process and get those permits approved. That is correct.

Councilman McManus, are you suggesting that the city impose a different requirement, or you're worried that the developer could make a change in the plans as part of the application process?

Both, right? Because it says here that at least 70 to 72 units, depending on the type of units, they could add additional units if consistent with municipal code. That tells me they could put 100 units there, and that's a concern from a traffic standpoint. So I just want to know if the traffic study's done, do they pay attention to it? You know what I mean? That could be potentially 140 vehicles on South Lake Stevens Road. That's a lot for that road. It's pretty small. That's the concern.

I can answer your question. In my opinion, the amendment does not serve to advance the public welfare because it disproportionately puts the burden on a smaller property to absorb the total now 72 units on three acres versus 65 on nine acres, whereas before you had 100 on nine acres and 32 on the three acres. So this is, in my opinion, not in serving to advance the welfare for at least... the people around the smaller and the zone there. Thank you.

Tough call because one neighborhood, I agree with comments made by citizens that you want to keep it consistent and keep it as a more of a single family neighborhood as it's kind of designed now, but at what cost to the other property?

Councilwoman Edwards. Yeah, so I spent hours looking over all of this stuff and I have the same initial concern. But what I what I ended up coming to, I guess, is You know, we here in Lake Stevens have had an abundance of single-family homes packed in like sardines. The original zoning would have had 103 houses, single-family homes in that Ripper Ger development. For the Dawson, we're talking about multifamily residences. So this is apartments, condos, much higher, more compact density. So I took that into consideration. when looking at the lot sizes. And I think that that would be more detrimental, in my opinion, to have 103 homes versus 64, than to have 70 apartments instead of 28 townhomes. So I just wanted to put that information out there. Thank you.

Can I ask a question? This is of Director Wright. If this is approved, will there be additional comments from the public in the neighborhood's input as it moves forward?

There will be an opportunity for the public to comment on both proposals according to the municipal code, whether through notice of application or environmental policy activity.

I'll just say I wasn't in favor of the original developer agreement when it came to council in December. But given that it did pass, I think that we're in a situation in our city where we do need additional multifamily options. We need options that are affordable to a broader range of folks in our community. We've heard multiple times from different neighborhoods that they don't want multifamily housing in their neighborhood. It has to go somewhere in our city. And we need to expand the diversity of housing that we have to offer to our community members and their kids and their parents. And so while I would agree with the public comment and I would agree with comments from my fellow council members, it's not ideal. I personally feel like this is something that I'll be moving forward on and I'll be voting yes for.

Thank you. Russ, if I could ask a historic question, because I'm trying to remember as much as I can about when we did approve that agreement. If I recall, the situation was effectively, if we didn't approve it, it was somehow through some mechanism it was going to happen anyway. But if we did approve the agreement, we got, I think it was a study, a traffic study paid for out of it or some kind of improvement. I've and maybe I'm mixing up the projects in my head, but I thought there was something to the effect of if we did it, we got a benefit. If we didn't, it was going to happen anyway, and we didn't get the benefit. Does that ring a bell?

So I think what you're referring to is there were proposals for two different types of land use applications, you know, one, a single family, one, a multifamily, and there was going to be traffic impact. It, um, did create a discussion about concurrency on South Lake Stevens Road, which did allow the city through another process to have our consultant reconcile the impacts on traffic, looking at both scenarios. So that has been accomplished already, which was described also in this, that that would be a future action. So that action has occurred.

Okay. Thank you.

Any further questions or discussion? Is there a motion?

I will make a motion to approve Ordinance 1217 for the Dawson Rezone.

I'll second that motion. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No.

Thanks.

Thank you, motion passes.

Thank you, council.

Next item on our agenda is action item 8A, a funding request regarding music in the park, and I will pass it over to Director Garceau.

Thank you, Sarah Garso, Parks and Recreation Director. I'm here to facilitate the request from an external event, Music in the Park, which is held by the Lake Stevens Arts and Parks Foundation. They do have representation tonight, and I'll have her take the mic in just a moment to give you guys an overview and a little bit more information. Music in the park is not new. It's been around in Lake Stevens for a few years, specifically in 2024 as well as 2025. There was $5,000 in the budget to help support the event. This last year, we weren't sure that they were going to continue holding the event, and it was not requested as part of this year's budget, and therefore, there is no money. With that, we're bringing the request forward now as the Arts and Parks Foundation has decided to have music in the parks for 2026. They will be having five different nights right here in North Cove Park. It'll be on the same nights as Farmers Market on Tuesdays, starting at 530 and ending at 730. Even though they start off coinciding, they are two separate events and they do have extended hours past the market. With that, this year, even though it was $5,000 in the past, they are requesting $2,500 for this year. If approved tonight, that would need to come back in a supplemental budget in order to get that paid. I'll go ahead and invite Kate McKenzie up to the microphone to represent the Arts and Parks Foundation. Welcome, Kate. Thank you.

Hello. Hello, Council. Thank you for having me. I'm Kate McKenzie, and I sit on the board of the Lake Stevens Arts and Parks Foundation. and I'm also the chair of Music in the Park Committee. Thank you for letting me have the opportunity to speak tonight. For those of you who are new on the council, I'd like to provide a little bit of background. Music in the Park is a free outdoor summer concert series held right here in Northfield Park. It's organized by the Lake Stevens Arts and Parks Foundation and it features a variety of local and regional musical ensembles. It's completely free to attend and it's open to the entire community The series runs five weeks during July and August, and in that short time, we're able to build quite a lot of momentum. It's something that our community has come to expect and look forward to every summer, and that is why we would like to continue it this year. From the beginning, Music in the Park has been held in partnership with the Farmers Market and the City of Lake Stevens, and we're proud to continue those partnerships this year. The market, even though it's under new management with the Chamber of Commerce, we already have a strong relationship with them, and they are very excited about this collaboration, and we believe this pairing continues to be a very natural fit for us. At the heart of this series is the Lake Stevens Community Band. This is an ensemble that is made up of your neighbors. We have many local musicians here who are extremely talented and are eager to volunteer their time to Green Lake. Lake Stevens live music every summer. The community band consistently draws some of our largest audience members for the season, and they are the cornerstone of what makes Music in the Park the uniquely unique Lake Stevens tradition. This year, Music in the Park actually will have a special meeting because we are honored to have already received a small grant from the Washington State Arts Commission to fund Lake Stevens community dance participation. as part of their statewide America 250 celebration. As we do every year, we will honor our veterans and our active duty military members at our summer concerts, and this year that recognition will be even more meaningful in the context of that anniversary, and we're proud to bring that celebration home to Lake Stevens. The City of Lake Stevens has generously supported the music of Park Avenue, and that partnership has been essential to make this Like Sarah said, last year the city contributed $4,000 in cash funding in addition to valuable in-kind support from the Parks and Recreation team, and that support made a huge difference and we're deeply grateful for it. This year we found ways to reduce our costs without compromising the event or audience experience. We're requesting only $2,500 from city funding for this season, which is deliberately less than prior years. We're still anticipating strong attendance for our community members from not only Lake Stevens, but also neighboring communities like Monroe and Marysville. That means more people will be in our park. There will be more customers at the farmer's market and more visitors supporting our local businesses downtown. We want to sincerely thank Sarah, and the entire Parks and Recreation team, not only for their help for bringing this request to you guys, the council, but for the years of in-kind support they've provided in making our event successful. This partnership means the world to us. So in closing, Lake Stevens Music, Music in the Park is a five-week summer tradition that brings our community together, celebrates local talent, and honors those who have served. And this year will help us to join the nation's American 250 celebration. And your continued financial support will make all of this possible. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer questions. And I also have a copy of our budget available in the video.

Thank you so much. The most important question. Now that you're going to be playing on Tuesdays and we have council on Tuesday nights, will we be able to hear the music in here?

Oh, even better. Even better. Right.

Any questions from council for either?

It sounds like either Kate or for Sarah. I have more of a comment than a question. First of all, I appreciate that you've obviously taken our city budget into consideration. You put forth the effort to search for and acquire a grant. It looks like you've got other support in here as well. It looks as if we saved about $1,000 last year because of the weather, which is so unpredictable even in the summer. and I've attended Music in the Park many times, and it gives me goosebumps because what I see is I see families with their lawn chairs and their blankets and their picnic baskets, and they're all out there enjoying this free family event that your volunteers put together. The hardest, probably the biggest challenge for them is parking. and walking to the event. You'll stand there and watch as kids are doing cartwheels on the lawn and everyone's just enjoying themselves and toddlers are waddling around. And the community band is such a huge, huge group of our community. And so this is I want to say thank you for all the effort you've put into it. Thank you for considering. You've probably heard numerous times about our concerns and about us tightening the belt on our budget. You know, working with Sarah and the Parks Department, you have gone above and beyond and are asking for half of what you received last year. And I fully support this. And I want to thank you for taking the time and sharing your excitement and your exuberance and everything that you've done to

try and make this possible again this year thanks do we have any questions for Kate or for Sarah I have a couple of questions what um what happens to music in the park if we don't approve it what would you plan to do how or how would you still execute it what would look different

We do have sustained support over the years from a couple of business sponsorships. So we'll be going back to them and asking. The community band plays completely free. And so the money that goes towards that helps pay for getting our sound equipment there and our professional equipment there. And in the very beginning, when we had no financial backing, we loved that. My husband and I, my husband's the conductor, and Jim, the three of us loved it all ourselves. And it was tough, and we did multiple trips on our back of the SUV, but we would do it again probably. Because the community band, like you said, it's a big group. We have about 50 people, and so not only is arc service to the audience members who watch, but it's to those 50 players who want and need a place to perform.

Kate, is it also the community band that plays at Winterfest? Yes. Yeah, so they do multiple events throughout the year.

We also have absorbed or created a youth jazz band, so a lot of the kids from high school are in the jazz band and don't get to play in the summer because of the school programs. have started their own program under my husband and I's advice. And the Monopoly Stevens Arts and Parks Foundation has taken them under our umbrella as well. So that is giving, I think they're about 30, local youths in a park doing something cool and productive and not something that people are complaining about as a community thing. So, yeah.

Can I ask a follow-up to my question? So the packet that we had talked about filling some gaps in the schedule with hired bands. Yeah. Can you just talk about that and what is typically, what are we paying a hired band versus you're saying the community band's playing for free, which is great, so...

We are going to, we are in the process of trying to schedule other community bands from the Monroe community, the Monroe community band, and there's a Marysville jazz band, also a Cavalero jazz band, and we were talking about giving a small stipend just to cover their travel to get here. And that's part of the reason why it's a less

So this isn't a KISS, you know, comeback tour. You know, I'm not saying actually KISS, but some local group trying to put on a good show. This is pulling other community bands from other cities.

And we're hoping that they'll bring in their big, large groups as well and their families and then they get to experience it.

Thank you for clarifying.

Just have a real quick question about the jazz band from the high school. Is Mr. Prof going to be involved with that as well? And will they be able to qualify for community service by providing this as well? So I know for their senior year, they have to do a set number of hours of community service. So this could count towards their community service.

Yep, and all the kids that are in our community band too, from what I've been told, is that band kids don't need community service. But yes, they're all available because the arts is a non-profit.

That's great. Any additional questions? Just for the record, music in the park in the summer is the only time I can get my teenage kids to come hang out with me at the park.

So it's important.

It's important.

Thank you so much.

I did have one question for Sarah. Just so kind of getting shades of our AquaFest discussion here. I want to make sure we're all on the same page. So when you are requesting an approval, are you looking for a formal vote from us tonight to approve the $2,500? Correct.

This is under action. So it would require a motion to pass this. And then if it is passed, it would come out on supplemental budget the next round of thought tonight after you all.

And then that would be approved in a separate vote. Okay. Just wanted to kind of level set. So there's no more surprises with budgetary policy.

Thank you.

I would like to make a motion to approve a $2,500 cash contribution to support the 2026 Music in the Park series.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

Just have a comment. I'm in favor of this, and I don't want to haggle over $2,500. I just heard your comment, Councilmember Donahue, about we had something for Aquafest. We've had... the food bank and the trees thing. I just, it would be nice if we get got all these all at the same time. So as we look at budget for next year, I think we need to be very conscientious to try and identify all of these types of things all at once so that we can look at them collectively because individually they're all very worthy causes and any number of people could come forward with additional very worthy causes next week, the following weeks. And so they add up and we've just got to be cautious. So.

I would agree with that. And Sarah, I just want to double check that I read this correctly and that this was part of the budget, but because it got canceled one year, it was not then included in the budget going forward. So we're approving a one-off now. And then to Council Member Packard's comment, this would be something we'd integrate into the budget going forward.

How it worked in 2024 and 2025 is that request did come in in the fall during budget process. And so the mayor included it in his budget, which then advanced to council. Yes. In this case, the status was not moving forward in fall. So the mayor did not include it in his budget and it didn't come forward. So I hear what you're saying. Try to collect all these. We'll certainly put notice out to all of the events that we know about. But it will be hard when. We don't know about events when they come forward. It'll just have to be established that maybe council isn't willing to do supplemental budget and approve them along the way. And that's certainly within your ability.

Understood. Thank you.

Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. Moving on to discussion items, we have a budget amendment discussion item, Ordinance 1219, to talk about tonight. And Matthew Heist is going to lead us through that conversation.

All right. Thank you, Council. Give me a moment here.

All right.

It did the same. Try that again here. See There we go. To the right one this time. All right. Thank you. Actually, tonight's kind of a special night for anybody that's an accountant here. Today is the National Accounting Day. So I just want to take a moment to recognize that for us accountants. Yes. Thank you. So as we so, yeah. So here. Oops a little. Okay. So so this is the twenty, twenty six budget amendment number one here. And we are going just go through this and we'll see. Hopefully I'll try to go through this. I know quickly here. I know in your packets we had some information. some details in there. So I may not cover every single line item, but if there are specific ones that you have questions, please feel free to ask. I'll try to point out ones that there might be some questions. But here we are. This is our budget amendment summary here. This is just overall. This is what our budgeted beginning balance at the top line there. at the top and what our budgeted resources, budget expenditures, and what our budgeted ending balance was at that time. Down below there is what the changes are to each of those line items. So just so you know that beginning balances are estimated during the budget process by attempting to project the receipts and expenditures remaining throughout the year. which include capital projects. Once 2025 year-end actuals are known, that's when we are able to figure out what the true 2026 beginning balances, and therefore we correct them. So overall, the beginning balance increased by 7.9 million, and our ending balance is expected to end at about 4.6 million more than originally anticipated. The majority of the resources and expenditures are related to ongoing capital projects, which is what you will see. I just do want to point out, too, as we do see that budget, that budgeted ending balance ultimately increases. We we are not bringing forward. There's a. There's a roll forward that we have. We're not bringing forward every single budget line item from prior years for that. So I just kind of wanted to point that out as you see as that 4.5 ending balances can kind of signify that there are savings. We don't go line by line item of what our savings are. um necessarily but but this does show that there's savings from prior years there for that uh so here is the budget amendment changes for all the funds the highlighted blue ones are our primary funds that we have um in the uh for their uh the major operating funds um so yeah those are highlighted and then Our general fund ending balance has increased about $1 million. I'll go more into that into detail in the next slide. The streets ending balance increased by about $588,000, and the stormwater increased by about $63,000. Overall, the ending balance, as I mentioned, increased about $4.59 million. And then also... Just to mention, just reiterate that again, the beginning balances were based on estimated during the budget process as of fiscal year 2025, had not concluded at that time. So you do see a negative change in some of those beginning balances. That's based on the estimated ending balance, not negative balance. budget. So we did spend within the budget. And so those negatives do not indicate that we spent over budget. Just want to just point that out to you if you may have questions on that. So here, this is our general fund. It's actually broken out into five different funds that we have. And the purpose for that is because for reporting and budget purposes, we are only allowed one general fund. So all of the funds listed here are just managerial and are rolled up into one fund. So this slide lists the managerial funds separately and just helps us understand, or helps you understand the changes. And when we separate out the general fund operating ending balance is 625,000, and that's mainly personnel related savings. The permit fund is used to accumulate revenues received from building and land use permits, which are then restricted to be used for permanent operating expenses. The sub fund ending balance increased a hundred hundred and fifty one for the for the permitting. That's zero zero three for their again, mainly due to personnel savings. We receive all lease revenues in the commercial rental fund to be used to receive for the maintenance of those buildings and also pay portions of the bond debt. This fund expense. Expenses increase as the fund receives a portion of the public or affiliate division staffing costs. A large portion of these staffing costs will be then redistributed to the general operating fund. Once the city hall relocates to the new building as a proportion of commercial rental facilities of the facilities will decrease just. And then you can see here that we did receive a grant funding in 2026 for the PD HVAC system, which was done in prior years. And that's why in 005, that's what you see those resources are. That project is done. And most of the additional expenditures is for the ongoing HVAC project at the actual commercial buildings, not the police station. All right. So the next couple of slides, I'm just going to just looking at revenues or resources that we are receiving. And they come from different types of categories. You will see these in later slides, but I just kind of want to... Segregate these just to show as our grant revenues. These are all the grant revenues that we expect to be receiving. So some of them have been approved during this fiscal year. As you see that we have the Commerce Grant for the Salmonella Basin and the Department of Homeland Security Grants for IT-related purposes grants. We had two grants. that are being reduced. That's the Commerce for Bayview and the RCO for Frontier Heights, because we received the grant funding at the end of 2025 when we were expecting to receive them in 2026. So we received those a little early. We are also Are rolling forward other just various grants remaining from the prior year and then the corresponding expenditure budgets for these projects and grants were included in adopted budget and as grant revenues. If you're not familiar is that usually that's on a reimbursement basis. So with the when we receive grant funding, it's typically for us to be spending money. So you will see corresponding expenses related to that were there. So just some other revenues that we have. We do have, and here's the rest of those here. We do have anticipated sale of property for about 3 million. I do want to just point out that I did just, I got some clarification with that as well. We are working with an interested party right now on that particular property sale, but it probably won't finalize and we probably won't receive that revenue until 2027. So that will just continue to carry forward until that property finally sells. and just want to be upfront with that about that. We also have the Public Works Trust Fund loan, which is similar to a grant. That's the $911,000. We only draw down on the loan after we submit reimbursement. So we started to draw down on that loan in 2026. And the reason we would use a Public Works Trust Fund loan is it's significantly reduced interest rates and that interest rate for that particular loan is at 0.86% for that. So as you see, that's a lot lower interest rate that we are paying down on that. And then, so project retainage, these are restricted amounts. So when you see that retainage, we do receive that or we keep that for contractors. And by the end of the project, when they get the proper authorizations, we do have to pay that money back to the contractors. And then also due to sewer rate increases, we do anticipate additional $300,000 in sewer utility tax. sewer district pays and also the sewer district also pays the city uh half the utilities for the use of the decant facility and we anticipate receiving additional four and a half thousand in reimbursements of shared costs from the district um so uh we uh and those are just um and i know that i've had um questions too about what that about with the 300 000 in the sewer utility tax Those are what we're just looking at is what the anticipated revenues will be based off of what the adopted rates that council has approved. So that if there's ever any question on changing that, that would probably be more appropriate to discuss during the actual budget portion of that. So right here we have the roll forward summary of it right here so just give you a quick oversight roll forwards or requests are. For reappropriation of remaining budget from the prior year for continuing projects so examples include. revenues that are typically grants originally expected to be received in 2025, but are now expected to be collected in 2026, purchase or work performed in 2025, but not paid until 2026, and then ongoing capital and operational projects as well. So going into the details of that, these are all of our roll forward for the operations specifically. So you'll see here that the notes will give you details of the purpose of the rolling forward. The funds are four. Starting off, like you see there, there's in 2025, finance started work reviewing its current finance software and looking into whether to update its software with the new software or building on the current software. So this role for it allows us to continue those efforts and potentially using consulting to work to assist in determining the best course of action with ERP systems and ERP software for our financial systems.

Matthew, I'm sorry to interrupt. Give me one minute. It's 7.59. We're going to need a motion to extend our meeting. I understand we need about 10 minutes for the city department report and 15 minutes for executive session, plus we have council business. So I'd like to recommend an extension until 8.30, if someone could make a motion.

I'll make a motion to extend the meeting to 8.30.

Second. Motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. We'll extend the meeting until 8.30. Matthew, please continue. Okay.

Okay, so here we, there's, and then you can kind of see that there are over there under the project, it says what it's for, but then there's notes that's a little bit more specific as well. So you do see, for example, the parks operations, you see 10,995, and that's to help us wrap up with the pros. plan, which I think that they presented a few council meetings ago. They finished that up in 2026, so rolling forward that amount to cover those expenses. There's also some, you see some, when you see LE, that's law enforcement, you see some minor equipment, $10,440 for the accreditation private grant. They receive granting for their accreditation And so they have to spend that money on. So when we receive that, we have to get also approval to spend that money. So that's what that is. And same with the donation funds right below that. The uniform clothing for the law enforcement, those were for. Those are things that from prior year that they scheduled out for for officers to be hired. As you know, that we do have those vacancies still going. And so we want to be able to roll forward those amounts to continue to be able to pay or to be able to have the proper clothing for our police officers when we do hire them. We also there's the CJT grant remaining as well as well in the janitorial allocation to the law enforcement facilities. For that, and then we have, and as you kind of, so those are just examples there. And then we have like, you see the 69,000 for the gateway sign that was purchased in 2025, but it wasn't invoiced until 2026. So, so as according to accounting standards, we have to. Since it was paid in 2026, we have to roll that forward to show that was paid in 2026 as well. So those are some operations that we have. Here are the roll forwards for the capital projects. I won't go through all of these capital projects, but these are just projects that have that have started. As you can see in the type there row in the middle, you'll see some green, which shows those are the revenues that we are receiving. And those are some of those grants that I had already. Most of them are grants. Some of them are some of the other revenues as well that we anticipate on receiving for these specific projects. And so since we've. haven't completed them, we're rolling forward those capital projects. I guess I'll stop right there. Any questions on that?

Just one question. Can you talk about the 2.2 for the historical museum, the budgeted versus the total? The budgeted shows zero. Is that a case of where we're spending and...

I'm sorry.

So in the capital projects, I think it's kind of halfway down in the facility. There's an expenditure. The budgeted is zero, shows zero, but the amended is 2.2. So the new budget is 2.2 as an expenditure. How does that, I'm assuming it was.

Yes. Let me see here.

The page number of the packet?

It's the one that... 181 in the packet.

Yeah, the 181.

About halfway down. Let me see. I guess that's the biggest one that I see. I just want to...

Yeah, so I think, so a lot too is like, if it was budgeted, is that it was one of those ones where, where we had anticipated on starting that in 2026 and, or sorry, we anticipated starting in 2025. And I, and, and so we hadn't yet rolled forward. We were kind of waiting to see where that would start before we actually kind of rolled forward that budget. So, so that, so when you see that budgeted, that means what we had, Kind of at the beginning of the year, knowing that we were going to be rolling forward these projects.

So that would be part of the addition to the beginning balance of the 7.9, the 2.2 would be part of that?

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions at this point?

Okay, so, and then these ones are just represent Council approved items that we've brought to Council this last year. And that we must bring these items as budget amendments. So right here, you will see, as you do see, I was point out with open gov. This is one that it technically, if you, you see that there will be no additional costs. costs to that, but because we are taking money from the different funds and working with that from the different areas, is that we have to transfer that money or how those costs are being paid out. And so since we do approve by the fund level, that's where we have to get approval for that as well. So that does negate itself to zero as i said again um and there's uh there there's a lot um there's a lot going on right there but just because a lot of how the fund accounting works uh for that um so uh so we have that you do see that you have the grant revenues um and the expenditures for the i.t operating supplies as well and then the public defender um here is one place where we brought that to council and We had budgeted more than what we anticipated, and so what was negotiated, and that was one that did increase, but because we had budgeted that, we're actually reducing that by $21,000 as well. And then here, I just have the projects of what had been approved, and that's just the stormwater, Salmonoid Basin comp plan as well there with the grants and then the expenses along with that. Other things that the council had approved is the org chart here. And this is one I did send out an email this last on Monday, yesterday about there is a, there, there is an omission and I apologize for that, but, but that is part of, but, and that was with the parks department of the revenue developments or no, sorry, the parks planning and development coordinator to the parks planning and reclass coordinator. from that position to the Parks Planning Development Manager, but also the other one was that we removed the Revenue Development Specialist from the org chart. Public Works Department removed the City Engineer and Senior Civil Engineer, and added a Deputy Public Works Director and Capital Projects Coordinator, and then the Admin, which is under HR Department, is added Management Analyst. On the next page here, you see this is the salary schedule amendment here. In your packet, you will see the monthly salary. And here, I'm showing the annual salary of those right there. The red ones are ones that, as I had mentioned, we are keeping them on the salary schedule until 2027 and then those red ones will be will be removed from the salary schedule and then the bold ones, there are the ones that we have added as well. Any questions with that. Okay. And then these are just transfer summary right here. So these are ones that are for just reallocating approved amounts from one fund to another and ensure the costs reflect in the correct funds. You see, I highlighted ones that are related to each other. We have the vehicle replacement. So we have the The vehicle lease for the building supervisor and the building for the new traffic engineer, those were moving funds around to be able to pay that through the fund. So we put them in the internal service funds is where we're putting those costs for that. And then the projects we also have, there's the North Cove Marina feasibility right there. And some of those costs were not eligible for the 302. And so we moved those costs to the 304 as well. And then the adjustment summary, these are just adjustments that we've, that throughout the year, they are generally made to operating lines due to changes in cost estimates. And as you'll see, I did color coordinate these. The blue ones are items that align with the police department. And then you have, so all those blue ones there, we had changed it. So according to the, The collective bargaining agreement for the police, they are allowed to cash out their holiday pay. And we've seen an increase in police officers using and paying that out. So we've increased that budget as well. And then jail services as well has just continued to go up. And so we need to amend that budget. The opioid settlements, These are restricted funds that we get. I think I discussed what these this funding that we get. So we again, we have to get approval for how how we spend that. But those are restricted specifically for specific purposes. And so we're asking to for budget to have those budgeted in our in our budget to be able to pay for some of those items that are eligible for the opioid settlement. as well. There are some reductions in some grants funding, the WCA grant funding, so the expenditures are reduced as well. And then we have the park storm drainage. as you see in the green there, we have to charge our internal service funds, or we have to charge our funds stormwater fees. And these are just the adjustments that we ended up After doing our analysis of how we need to readjust those fees to our own funds there. And then I know that we talked about the utility sewer district amounts as well for the revenues. And those are there in the, I guess, the tannish orange colors there as well. So any questions on the operations for the adjustment details there? And then these are just projects for the adjustments here. Again, a lot of them are retainage. You see those top couple of them are just our anticipated retainage we're going to be holding for projects. So we have to have the revenues and then expenditures as well on that side for there. And then adjustments for tree replacements, expenditures, we're required to to have tree replacement and we have those those budget or we have those in our we have line items specifically as we collect those those revenues during the permitting process. We do have to use those for specific projects and replacing the trees. And so that's and This is increasing those for there as well. And then for the marine units that I think that's the North Cove dock, if I'm not right, where the fire department is contributing some costs to that as well. Oh, it's Davies. Sorry, Davies, not North Cove. That's Davies. Thank you, Sarah. Um, and, um, that's pretty much it what we have. So, uh, next steps is that we have our questions or comments with the budget. No, there's a lot of different items in there. Um, and then, uh, then after tonight, uh, this is just discussion. Um, we'll bring to council for approval, um, next week and, um, and depending on council on, on where you guys, whether that's either on consent or that we bring that back as an action item. That's up to you as counsel.

And we'll send this presentation out to all of you.

Thank you, Matthew. Any questions?

Thank you. That was very thorough.

Good job, Matthew.

Yeah, as a new council member, having these supplemental budget overview. This is the first one that I've seen. And so this is really helpful to see it makes it more clear when we hear things in budget discussions that says, well, historically, this comes back later. Well, now we're seeing it. So I appreciate you doing that. Thank you.

I'll just piggyback on that. I think in my years up here when we see the supplemental budget, we typically, if not always since I've been here, have seen an adjustment adding money to the budget. And I think that's because our finance staff does a really great job being pretty conservative about that. expenditures and forecasting. And so I just want to say how much we appreciate that conservative approach. It's certainly, I would assume, much easier to see a supplemental budget that adds a little money versus that takes away a little money. And just also to counsel, typically this discussion is loaded with a lot of information. And if there aren't a lot of questions or discussion, then it usually does come back on consent. So if Folks are comfortable with that. I think we can give that direction to staff. You always have the chance to move it off of consent between now and then if you come up with additional questions.

I'm good with it being on consent.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate the information. We'll move into the City Department report. Yes, City Department report. Sarah's going to talk to us about park management in HOA areas.

All right, round two for me talking about park properties. One of the things I want to correct immediately in this report is the opening sentence reference 11 properties. There was a mistake in our spreadsheet, and that is actually 10 properties. The spreadsheet attached to this staff report is correct. It does show the 10 properties that are affected. As many of you know, the Parks Department was officially formed in August 2022. Before then, the field was ran by Public Works employees and had a a division of parks that was only formed a couple years prior. Prior to that, even there was only one person that was actually dedicated to parks, otherwise it would be somebody from the other divisions. And then from the admin side, it was from the planning and community development So as we formed parks, we went through all the steps of inventorying our properties, walking every inch of them, talking to staff about what we actively manage. And what was discovered at that time is we had these 10 properties that are owned by the city. but that our staff had not actively managed historically. How that works is as the properties were developed, when we went through the official plat maps and the developer created the HOA, those properties were dedicated to the city for public use or open space or stormwater. And it was agreed with that plat map that they would be dedicated to the city for public use. And that is how they got transferred for ownership. A lot of this occurred back in 1990s and that era, so not incredibly long ago, but we were still a small city and needing to meet requirements with open space and the growth, manage all the growth that was occurring. After that, the HOAs really were the ones that maintained these. The city wasn't mowing them. We weren't removing trash. We weren't actively inspecting parks or playgrounds or fixing amenities as they needed to. Of course, the properties were newer, so they didn't need a lot of fixing or repair. As they aged and as time went on, there were a few years where a mayor or a departmental department head of that time would have a public request comes in that says, hey, our property needs XYZ. A lot of those requests were denied. Periodically, a staff member would be sent out to the property to take care of something, especially if it was a high safety risk. And so that It kind of began where staff were sporadically responding to these, but since it wasn't an active management at the formation of our department, we deemed all of these HOA managed areas. Requests continually came in both before the department was developed and afterwards to say, hey, we are an HOA. We really don't know about maintaining public parks, and it can be expensive to repair certain things. The city held that they needed to manage them, but as time went on, we discovered that there is no real way for the city to require them to maintain these properties. And so today, as some locations are not being mowed, or some amenities are not being fixed, the city has removed playgrounds. The most recent one, which wasn't corrected on your spreadsheet attached to this report, was the Greenwood Village 4th Street. It was a wooden playground, and we responded to a public Notice that came in showing that one of the boards off the wooden playground had fell into the ground. And so as we went to it, we knew this was a playground we were watching the last two or three years of its life. It's not something that we could continue to repair. So it was taken out of service. When this city owns property, we need to make sure that they are safe. And we have something called recreational immunity in Washington State and states across America. And what that states is if your lands are open and free to the public and you're inspecting them, taking care of any risk, repairing these items, we're covered by recreational immunity, meaning we are not responsible for a lawsuit if somebody's walking in the park and gets hurt because they were recreating. However, if these liabilities are there and we're not fixing them, the city takes on a huge amount of risk. I recently spoke to our representative from our insurance company and reached out to legal counsel. I also then updated our risk manager. The city can no longer not maintain these properties. We need to take them under our belt to reduce our risk and take care of liability. More importantly, we never actually want anybody to get hurt on our land. These are our residents. So with this, this week our staff are going to visit all of the locations. If something is broken, they will take it out of service or repair it if they're able to. We are going to provide the most um basic level of service by removing trash cutting grass needs to be cut and taking care of anything that is a hazard on that property. With this, I'm going to bring it back to council in a few weeks so that we can deep dive into each of these locations. I'll categorize them into what type of service level they should receive. Some of these are just grass parcels. The smallest one is maybe a tenth of an acre, really, really small, if not even smaller than that. I didn't include the acreage on here. Other ones do have a playground that are open to the public. When I bring that back to council, we can discuss any additional service levels or desires. Replacing playgrounds are not in the capital budget. That is not something we will be taking on unless we plan for it in the future. We'll also then update our operations and maintenance manual to include these and get that updated. Do you have any questions for me at this time?

Can you clarify on the chart that you gave us what the A's and D's are for in the walking trail column? Yes, I apologize. I didn't put the key down.

That is an asphalt or a dirt trail on the property.

I have a question for the parks that belong to the city, but the HOA is still active. Can the HOA gather the money to pay the city for a playground replacement if they choose to?

So great question. A good example of that was Bryce Park, the Lake Stevens Woods HOA that was here today when their playground failed. I think it was 2009, if my memory is correct, 2008. The city didn't have the funds to replace the playground and they wanted to maintain their playground. And so they did reimburse the city for the playground. We negotiated what that budget would be. We purchased it from Game Time, I believe, who is a professional playground company that provides those public playgrounds. And then from there, the city had a small cost as we had a volunteer day to install it. um and contributed a small amount to the fall material at the time but the majority of it was paid by that hoa and they have for years reimbursed the city for some small replacement parts that were needed

Thank you. I just want to thank you for providing the history behind this. I received a call from a citizen last week on this subject, and they were going back and forth on so confusing as to whose responsibility it was. And so I just appreciate the clarification of the history and how we've moved forward. Welcome.

Any additional questions?

Sarah, do you know if there are any more parks out there like that that we've not run into or discovered yet? This is all of them.

This is all of them. We have combed the property records. These are the ones that are owned by the city and in the park's jurisdiction. We have several other NGPA areas, open areas that we oversee. Those are really responsive when there's a hazard tree reported by a neighbor.

Okay. I know there's one on Meadow Drive that's like this weird lot that's a hill mostly. The kids use it for sledding in the winter, but there's a small playground on top of that. Is that already part of the park system for the city?

There are a lot of HOAs that still own their own land.

Okay.

And so when those come in, we certainly look at them. But we haven't discovered any new ones in the three years that I've been here. I also have a GIS layer that I personally combed in my first couple of months, spanning the aerial view to mark all properties. And so we have those marked as private playgrounds, public playgrounds.

Okay. Could they potentially try to become part of our system if the HOA failed or didn't want to maintain them?

By default, no. They would be fully responsible for their own land. They could certainly not replace their amenities and just turn it into a grass lot or replace it with rock or other means. However, anybody could come and request to donate land to the city. And at that time, it would come forward for consideration and, of course, would go through the public process of the department, then the Parks Board, and then City Council.

Awesome. Thank you. I echo that. Council Member Shipman's request that you did a great job. Thanks for the overview.

Thank you. I have a question on that note for HOAs that have dissolved. So if they dissolved and there's no more HOA and the property is not owned by the, you know, direct vicinity homeowners, what can, I guess, what happens then?

As long as the property was originally owned by the HOA, it would be considered a shared interest parcel, and it is still linked to that original HOA, even though it was dissolved. The original covenants that were filed with a plat map at the time the location was developed are what exist. And so even though the HOA itself has... dissolved and they're not taking dues, all of those homes are still financially responsible for upkeeping those. With the ownership still being in that shared parcel interest, that is something that code enforcement could follow up with if, for instance, there was overgrown grass.

Okay. Thank you.

Awesome.

Anything else? All right. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. We will move now into council business.

Council President, I would like to make a motion that we forego council business looking at the clock.

We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No.

One opposed. Motion passes. We are foregoing council business for tonight. That moves us into executive session. Before we go into executive session, though, I understand 15 minutes is needed and we are scheduled to end at 830. So we will need a motion, another motion to extend.

Motion to extend the meeting to 835. 45. 845, sorry.

845. 840. Does that work? All right. Motion, second, and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Thank you. Motion passes. We're extending to 840. We move into executive session where we will be talking about property sale. There is no action to follow, and we will need 15 minutes.

Make a motion to extend the meeting to 845. Did I give us enough time? 850. Make a motion to extend the meeting to 850.

Second. Motion and second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Nay.

I'm going to check my minutes to make sure I got all this right. Okay, City Council is going back into executive session.

I'm going to do anything until Nick says it's okay. Councilor Donahue is going to vote no on this, isn't he?

Can we make a motion to adjourn the meeting?

I have to ask Nick, I guess.

Move to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Thank you, Council. Thank you, staff.