City Council - workshop

Hey, Craig, how you doing?

Good. You're right here, Craig. It has to say, yes, it can't be exempt. And have you seen the new dollar amount for 2027?

Stacey would be a great one to answer.

Nobody's going to be exempt anymore. It's $91,000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas I'm like, let me look to my partners in public works. It's killing people.

It's killing the city too. Are we good?

It's been that way for decades.

all right good afternoon as it is 1 pm i will call this city council workshop of august 25th 2026 to order this is a reminder that this is both a physical and virtual meeting it may be viewed on youtube and on facebook following the meeting public comment is not normally taken at workshop meetings although council may allow or request public participation on action items we have no action items on our workshop agenda today welcome all of our directors and managers that are here We are devoting this workshop to the study of the capital projects in preparation of the 2027-2028 biennial budget. Before we delve into that topic, I will call upon council for their reports on any boards or commissions or committees on which they serve. Don't all speak at once. Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

More of a question, comment. I was looking through our last packets. I know this has been since May, since we had the administrator's report. I mean, I know things, is that coming back?

It is coming back. I apologize, council. We did have where we had some canceled meetings, and then we were planning to bring it back. But with a staff member going out on medical, I needed to adjust and just get the packet out. And just for all of your awareness, I had to do some workarounds to get that packet out. So this also was an email to you. So I apologize, but we will be bringing it back. Julie and I are working on that for the next workshop.

Perfect. Thank you much.

Yeah, to piggyback on that, I don't know, are you guys aware that we have a new system that we're using for how the packets get loaded and worked in? Okay, so all the details are we figured out when Mikhail was out that we don't have access to certain things to do things, so we had to figure out how to work around the process to be able to get that packet published in time. So we were scrambling at the end of the week last week, Sabrina and I, because we were the only two up here. So it was quite a fun week last week. So with that, anyone else? Nope. Okay. All right. Well, with that, then I will introduce our deputy city administrator and finance director, David Goldman to present director.

Thank you for turning the mic on. Oops. All right. So we have a presentation for you today. It'll be up in a second. All right. Thank you, Tim. So today we're going to go over the 2027 to 2038 capital projects. The first two years, 2027 and 28, are included in the budget. So they're proposed to be included as appropriations. The outer four years are just for planning purposes and they'll be included in the long-term capital plan and also when the capital improvement plan is put together based on the comprehensive plan studies and other work that's being done by community development. All right. So quick overview of the agenda. I'll be providing you an overview of the capital project submittals. I have a few tables for that. I'll also have a table to show you how the different submittals fit in with the city council priorities, which were adopted earlier this year by city council. And then we'll go over the department presentations. So there's a lot of different, there's about 64 different capital projects, and there's a lot of different presentations and different information from different areas of the city. And we decided it would be best if we broke those up into different sections so we could pause after each section and provide an opportunity for feedback and questions. So the first section we have is pretty much most of the general funds, finance, community development, general government, and also fire and police. And then we'll pause after that for any questions or feedback. Next, we have Marina and Parks and Recreation. Then after that section, we'll do a little pause. And then we'll move on to the next slide, which is public works. So we split public works up into two different areas. We have a lot of different projects in streets and the Transportation Benefit District, also known as TBD, on your screen. So after that, we'll take the pause, and then we'll finalize our presentations with the water sewer, clean water facility, storm drain, and Fund 510, which is basically utilities and the public workshop. So with that said, let's go into the first part of the presentation, the overview of the capital projects submittals. So this is a citywide look at the capital projects submittals by funding source. And as I said before, the first two years, 2027 and 28, they're included as part of the biennial budget appropriations. Appropriations is another fancy word to say expenditure lines. So I broke this up into two areas. And real quick, let me just get it on my screen so I can see a little bit better. So the first row is for fiscal year 27-28 in the budget. The total is $52.85 million. About $10 million of that amount is beginning fund balance or carry forward, which are projects that were budgeted in previous years. And the appropriation is proposed to be carried forward to 27 and 28 to continue the projects. Or if the project hadn't got started, the plan would be to do the project in those years. We also have about $441,000 of our general fund balance. We have other fund balances, all the other funds besides the general fund. I have another column for the real estate excise taxes, impact fees, and system development charges. Those tend to be real estate or development-related fees. Then I have grants split into two columns. We have grants unsecured, and then we have grants secured. And finally, we have bond proceeds, which is primarily planning for the bond for the marina breakwater and dredging projects. The next row are the outer years that are not in the biennial budget. The total for that is about $43 million, and you can see the breakdown of different proposed revenue sources as follows. And then the bottom is just a total of those two rows. The total for the six years is just under $96 million. So here are your projects split up into the different departments. There are 64 total projects. So capital project proposed funding sources by year and department. So you'll see that the different departments are on the left. And then you'll have a column for each year. Remember, the first two years are part of the biennial budget, and then the grand total over the six years. So first row is finance, and it goes down until you end up with the last public works department. So how do these proposed projects fit in with the City Council priorities which were developed over the years here by City Council? As you'll recall, the City Council developed nine overall priorities with various goals within those priorities. They're there on your screen for your viewing pleasure. And this table breaks all the proposals down into the different priority categories. Again, the departments and funds are on the left side, each one of those nine council priority categories. is our separate rows and we have an other category that was for the fire submittal because there wasn't a specific priority that dealt directly with fire so we have that we put it into the other category All right, with that said, we'll start with the department project summaries. I've told each department to try to allocate it up.

Hey, David, real quick question. On one of your initial slides, why is the REIT expected to go down so much? Is it just being conservative because of long-term projection, or are we expecting development to be quite a bit and then go down?

It's just the amount of REIT that's being utilized for projects. It's not just REIT. It's REIT, impact fees, and system development charges. It's not, I mean, the revenues are still coming in. It's just the amount that we're utilizing for projects. We're just using less to be allocated. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thanks. You got it. Okay. Let's see where we are. Oh, sorry, went a little bit too far. So department project summaries. I guess, are there any other questions before we move on to the various departments, knowing that we'll have about four breaks to ask more questions and to provide feedback? All right.

Feel free to ask your questions whenever you have them, too. This is a workshop, so.

So next we have our first department. I volunteered to go first. So we only have the one project, the ongoing enterprise resource and planning project. We're currently, we finished phase one. We're still doing some implementation though and just getting some training in some of the modules and looking at reporting and all that. Phase two is the human resource management and payroll portion. That's something that we're in the middle of implementing. We're looking for that to go live sometime in the spring of 2027. Most of this project, and I'll go to the next slide, put a nice graphic together. So most of the money is just carried forward from the council's initial allocation for this. We're suggesting to add about $35,000 for 27 and then another $35,000 in 29 for additional training and also to look at some of the modules that we may or may not be interested in, which we would bring forward for approval. There's some other modules that were not part of the initial purchase, such as performance-based budgeting, an open finance data porthole, business licenses, and a few other items, too. That's just there as a budget. We'll evaluate things. And also, we do want to put a little bit of an allotment in there for additional training. So that is the only thing we have from finance. And next on the list, we have community development.

All right. Yes. Thank you. Oh.

Thanks, Dave. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, City Council. The Community Development Department, we have three proposed capital projects to discuss, two of which are already funded through existing grants, and then one project where we would request 50,000 general funds over the biennium. Now the three asks all move the city towards fulfilling the objectives of the Housing Action Plan adopted in 2021. Those objectives are ultimately going to be implemented by updated policies and goals through the Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update. You'll remember from the Housing Action Plan, those objectives included things like planning for housing at all income levels, increasing the supply of housing by allowing more variety of housing, analyzing population employment trends, evaluating current housing policy, streamlining permitting. All these things are going to take place and be implemented through the updated goals, policies, and development regulations through the periodic update. All right, moving through the next slide. So Project 1 of 3 needs no introduction, I'm guessing, and that's the continued and state-required periodic update of the comprehensive plan and the implementing development regulations. So we anticipate the final adoption date of both in early 2027. This work is funded by a grant through the Department of Commerce, the Periodic Update Grant, or the PUG. We've already been fully reimbursed for that grant thanks to the timely submittal of our first tranche of required deliverables in mid 2025, in June of 2025, excuse me. And we will continue to spend those remaining grant funds to finish that project in 2027. Excuse me. Project two of three is really nested within the periodic update as climate planning is now a required element of a GMA compliant comprehensive plan. Now, we've separated out the two as their own capital projects because the funding sources are different. The climate planning grant that the city received from Commerce is separate from the Pug, the planning update grant. Climate funds come from the revenue that's generated by the state's Climate Commitment Act cap and invest program. So similarly, the city has been fully reimbursed by Commerce thanks to our timely submittal of our first tranche of climate deliverables in mid-2025. And we would plan to continue to spend down those remaining grant funds to finish the project to end in early 2027. So finally project three is a request to begin funding a joint city and county planning efforts to eventually annex the four unincorporated islands or donut holes as they're sometimes referred to as UGA that exist within that are bordered completely by city limits. The nascent step in coordination has already taken place. Our planning partners at Island County described the intent to pursue an interlocal agreement with the city and shared planning efforts with the board of county commissioners Um, at the hearing for adoption of the Island County comprehensive plan, the commission commissioners were very happy to hear that that was going to be moving forward. So the $50,000 that's being requested by CD, and I need to make a clarification here on the, um, on the slide would not be to support the development of the interlocal agreement in 2027 we don't need 50 000 to do that work the 50k requested by community development would be later in the biennium and it would be matched equally matched by the county and then support over the biennium consulting services to start those planning efforts so that we can start preparing to provide urban levels of service to those areas that would be eventually annexed. Also the public engagement efforts involved in that and of course planning for the timing of that annexation. And then you'll recall from the earlier slide looking beyond the biennium and later on looking at those unsecured grant funds. i appreciate mayor and council's time and i know we said we'd be taking maybe questions right now or later happy to do that all right thank you very much i guess next we have um council member has a comment oh i'm sorry

We welcome the concept of taking care of the donut holes. I mean, there's a lot of hate and discontent about that. So I just wanted to comment that this is great to have that.

Great. Yep. Looking forward to starting to work on that. Thank you, council member.

All right. So next we have general government. I guess we need the clicker. Steve or Sandra, maybe you can run through the clicker on that one. All right. Thank you very much.

We have a number. Me. THE FIRST GENERAL GOVERNMENT ONE IS THE CITY HALL AND POLICE STATION ALTERNATIVE STUDY. THE BUILDING THAT WE'RE IN RIGHT NOW AND THE POLICE STATION NEXT DOOR ARE GETTING VERY CLOSE FROM A PUBLIC WORK STANDPOINT TO THE END OF THEIR USEFUL LIFE. AND SO WE HAD THIS ON THE PREVIOUS BUDGET, SO REALLY WE'RE JUST MOVING THIS FORWARD. THIS WAS ALWAYS AN IMPORTANT THING THAT WE TALKED ABOUT WITH COUNCIL. THERE WERE SO MANY GOOD THINGS THAT THE MAYOR AND THE COUNCIL AND STAFF WERE DOING LAST YEAR. WE JUST DID NOT GET TO THIS ONE. BUT WE WANT TO KEEP IT AND WE REALLY THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO MOVE THIS FORWARD. This is about a 10 year process when other cities move this type of major item forward. Number one, where's the new city hall and police station gonna go, et cetera. So that's what that's all about. And again, questions anytime. The second one is the redevelopment of our city pioneer property. As you know, the city purchased that about three years ago that has environmental contamination. We got $290,000 in both federal and state grants to do a remedial investigation study and a feasibility study. And so that's been very successful. Out of that, we did the Waterfront District Vision to Action Plan, which council adopted unanimously. So we are really moving forward in a positive way. There's a reason why the private world did not address a waterfront project on the Puget Sound, right? It's a very complex process. So in late 2026, we'd like to bring a draft RFQ, a request for qualifications and proposals, to the building, world, the building developers. We've already been working with our city attorney and folks inside city hall on what that would look like. We wanna do a better job of at least internally doing like an internal charrette. So we really start to try to gather what we've heard from the committee through all that outreach we did for two years on what would be the public good for that area. There's thousands of private parcels. We as the city have an opportunity with a waterfront parcel to really think, okay, is this something special we want to do with this parcel that's not like all the other private parcels out there that are being developed or not developed as those private parties decide. So this is really a very unique property. opportunity that cities only get like every one or two decades. So we want to take our time and do this right. We want to do public engagement on the options and bring that forward. And then sometime probably 2027, 2028, we would have a signed public private development agreement. That would be our goal. The windmill, you already know about the windmill. We have an agreement with the Rotary Club from 2023. We had a pre-application meeting with them this spring, and there's four individuals, been very involved. And so the ball's in their court to really come back from that pre-application meeting. The community development department did an amazing job of not only doing our normal pre-app, but they did a, is it a bubble diagram? Okay, a bubble diagram to really help the Rotary Club understand the process. Unfortunately, it's, you know, within the FEMA floodplain, there's just a lot of regulations to go build anything nowadays, different than when I think the first one was built, right? But that is an update on that. And again, that is a $49,000 payment to the Rotary plus some other fees and permits and us doing our own in-house connection to the water and sewer. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Sandra Place.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. I'm going to present the City Hall Generator. This is one that we've been talking about and providing updates to City Council for a couple years now. It's a continuation of the 2025-26 budget project. We're in the phase where we're bidding it right now, and a lot of players have come to the table through a competitive bidding. And we found out that we can only probably afford the generator portion and not the installation portion. And that's why this is being brought forward into this new budget cycle to include the installation. And that's why we're seeking these additional funding, the funds. Just to put it into perspective, the new generator, we did put a sizing device on this generator. this building and we need a 200 KW generator. The one out there is only 60 right now. We do not have this whole building currently on emergency generators. So we'd like to put the whole building on that and to do so we'll need a 200 KW generator. This will prevent our administrative shutdowns. It will allow the municipal services to continue and public communication to be able to be not interrupted. This particular project, you would have seen it in the 2025-26. It's two different projects. I believe it was called City Hall Upstairs Remodel, and then there was a Downstairs Remodel. Again, this is the continuation of the 2025-26 project. We've completed several things. We've done a lot of security upgrades. We've added on a lot of office spaces to accommodate more staff. What we're in progress of right now is additional security upgrades. We've been given some quotes on upgrading the break room, which would be a great morale benefit when we refurbish that and make it look more comfortable for our staff. As well as, as you can see today, our city council chambers are packed. We would like to open it up somehow, make it more user-friendly, not have to put tables up and down all the time. We would actually have some more versatile features here. And then Also downstairs is, I don't know if we're going to talk about that later on this one or not. I might've forgot it, but we're also looking at how we can provide more security for downstairs as people come into city hall and they're just not rolling right back to the staff that they have a place to stop, get their questions answered. And then if they're able to, we allow them back. So our staff is protected as well as doing our city business.

Questions, comments for Sandra or Steve before we move on? Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

We're going rapid fire, so if I'm asking anyone to repeat themselves, I apologize. The study for the police and city hall, what was the time frame on that?

Ideally. Yeah, as that moves forward, I would hope that in the early part of 2027, we would pick that up and bring that back to council and then bring on a consultant to help us through that process. And then I think that process will probably take at least 18 months minimum to get to the end of it. So spring of 2027, all the way through the end of this biennium that we're discussing today.

Because I want to just make, I mean, obviously, we do a study, and then it may not happen. You know, money may not be there. Or we do the study, and it happens, but it's eight, nine, 10 years down the road. Government's not known for speed. I'm just making sure that we're not putting money into studies with something else, but then putting more and more money into this building that may or may not have a good ROI. Does it make sense to do the study first before some of these to at least even know if it's a feasibility, if it's even possible or not?

No, thank you. That's a really good comment. So let me provide just some detail from my understanding, and others may have a different understanding. You're right. Two, two and a half years ago, we looked at this building, we looked at the police station building, and we said exactly what you said. How much money are we going to dump into these buildings? I am not an expert in all these areas, but looking at this building, when you updated it, you'd get very little remodel from it after spending... millions of dollars, including seismic retrofit, HVOC retrofit, energy code retrofit, electrical grade retrofit. So it is possible that this and the police station building will be saved. That is a possibility. But it is also a high possibility that they will be recommended for full demolition. based on their age. And that's what the consultant will help us move past that. But if you wanted to get a peek at those options, I think both of them will very much be on the table. So yes, as we've been working with the executive team, we are trying to limit how much we, put into these buildings in the meantime. Now, we did a roof replacement that Sandra placed, took care of. We just can't have water leaking, but when she brought to us, you know, you've got the 25-year roof, the 50-year roof, and the 75-year roof. I got those wrong. We picked the 25-year roof, right, the cheapest one, because we need to be water-free in the meantime. um... correct we're trying to do that but i think it's going to be uh... a process that we all go through but i think in the and uh... you know two-and-a-half years from now we want we have the goal would be that the community the mayor and the council know what the plan is and that we then really step forward into that plan and that plan might have still three or four alternatives right but we really step into it and we need this first step to really not spend a bunch of money designing anything but really to to get us going toward that next arena

Well, I look at like the generator, which has been, I mean, it's been kicked down for a little while now. Why can't it be, I mean, is it that essential, being that it's already been kicked down, to kick it down until the completion of that study as opposed to paying $200,000?

So I just want to say for staff, I think that's a consideration when we talk about this building. If we don't have a generator, we can't do the work. We have several windstorms. We've been impacted by them before. And it right now impacts certain departments that aren't able to function because we've been borrowing a generator to use when we need it. And it's also about emergency services and protecting an emergency event, that we'd have spaces that people could come into to utilize if needed for charging their phones in an extended event. Unfortunately, the challenge with emergency management planning, and Chief Anderson can talk about this way more than I could, but it's about providing the space and services that you need when the event happens. And we have to plan for those. The other thing we've had even during these council meetings is where we've lost service and been in the dark, which is also a safety factor. It's very challenging when you lose all of that power in that moment. And then for staff, I would say, Staff has been doing an awesome job, our procurement department. They cannot control the distribution of goods that are held up. We have this affecting the marina, our road projects, some of the procurement that we're doing for IT. There are changes in the way that things are being shipped that are impacting things being pushed down sometimes because, in that wording, in that we can't get them as quickly as we used to. So some of those changes are what are impacting us as well. So I think there's a multiple layer approach to that.

But I really, just to add a little bit onto that, I really appreciate that question. I think for all of us, that's gonna be the, where we're gonna be at for a while. So for this generator, I say the answer is yes. I just talked to Sandra Place, she can answer it too. We can reuse this generator in another location. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of value in it. It doesn't just like it, we throw it away. Would I recommend we go do a, you know, a million dollar seismic retrofit of this building at this time? No. That might be an option. If this is really where we're going to invest our money and it makes sense, then we start making those millions of dollars investments in this really old building. But until we have that fuller picture, we're going to hold those type of decisions till later.

I like hearing that the generator is... I mean, obviously a good portion of it is installation, which that's a sunk cost, but okay. All right. Thank you.

And if I could add that too, we've done that several times. The current PD station generator actually came from the public workshop because it wasn't sized properly. We sized it to a bigger size to get our fuel island on and we ended up needing one there. So we moved it over to there. We've also done it with a generator that meant to a lift station. So there's lots of opportunities we have to do that.

So, Steve, the study will take 18 months, correct, roughly, for a new city hall and a police department?

Yes, and so, again, excellent question. I think the time that we'll take will mostly be internal.

Yeah, no, no. You know what I mean?

What kind of issues do we want to address and how soon?

Go with my logic. That's going to take 18 months, correct?

Correct.

Even if we start taking action immediately, how long is it going to take to build a new city hall and police department?

A long time.

There you go. So if we recoup this $200,000 over a long period of time, it's really not that big of a deal, right?

Yes. Okay. Yep. And then I think I need to throw this out, if I may, sir. This building is, you know, we've had a number of earthquakes in the headlines, and this is one of those buildings that could very well come down in an earthquake. So, I mean, is it urgent? No, I mean, this is going to take us a long time, but we need to make a decision from just a public safety standpoint of upgrading to a code that, you know, can survive even the most basic of earthquakes. And that is true for the police station building also. They were just built in a time where that engineering was not as robust.

Great. Thank you. I think we got our answer. Yes, Eric, Council Member Marshall.

Sorry, Eric. Thank you, Mayor. To kind of, I understand where Council Member Stuckey is coming from. I guess part of the bigger question for me then is that $300,000 or almost $300,000 for internal improvements. Is that a wise investment given that this potentially could be, is that more cosmetic? Is it functional? I mean, what is the actual, the best use of that?

Well, I personally would say that we're being very purposeful in the three projects that we already have in play. Like I said, the lunchroom. It's very outdated. If we're talking about council priorities, one was staff morale. That would definitely be an enhancement to our staff. Downstairs security, that's another one that's on the table. We're always trying to figure out ways to make sure that this building can be as secure as possible, but still being open to the public, because it's a public building. So these things that we're doing, honestly, they could probably be moved as well. I mean, we're talking about access doors. That can get moved to other places. Again, we're just being purposeful in here. It's just a lot of just removal of the the second level there Maybe that will help us give us some more space Really not having to put up tables every time and take them down every time We'll actually have some that can just stay in here and just get moved very easily So we're being purposeful and what we're trying to do And we again we could reuse those a different place as well. I

And then my other question is for you, Steve. The $62,000 for the Pioneer Way property, what is that actually getting us?

The short answer is I don't have a total list of that for you. That is a placeholder based on my best guess of going through this process before, but probably only a half dozen times in my career, so not that often. We want to do this RFP and RFQ, so a lot of the costs are that advertising to get that word out and to get the best private developers, not only our local private developers who are awesome, but to really get a regional approach, maybe even a national approach to bring in those types of people, because that's where the city's at now. As you know, at Oak Heights, we have DR Horton, the world's largest home builder now in the city. If you're a local home builder, you've got some national competition, right? That's a good and bad thing. So part of it for sure is to do that. And then as we meet with that team and we do, let's say, a request for qualifications, this is where I have in my mind, is that I've seen it a lot of times, you bring on that partner, this information will come from them. They'll say, hey, we really need to know some more information about, and you name it. geotechnical, electrical, right, other code issues, you know what I mean, that we might want to bring in a consultant. So this is not a lot of money to do a lot, but it's to get that information so that you can make, we don't want to just give you a bunch of options and not base that on some good expertise. And so we wouldn't be hiring people, for example, in my assumptions, we're not hiring a firm to go do a $50,000 study, but we're hiring someone to go do a $5,000 study so we can just get some answers that we need to get and provide those to you, right? So for example, you said, gosh, I looked at both options and I really think we should stay in the existing city hall. And then we did a $5,000 study to find out, again, how much it would cost to upgrade the energy code, and someone gets us that number, we plug that in, that would help you make your decision. So it's those sorts of things that I can see that we're gonna need. Did that help? Not anyone to design any, this isn't about designing anything. You're not going to have finalized plans. This is really conceptual, but we want to, I strongly feel like you're going to want some outside expertise.

Okay, appreciate that. I see part of that comes from a beginning fund balance of $25,000, but I could not find where that fund balance actually originated from in last year's budget.

You got it?

David, I think they're waiting for you.

No, Chaz got it.

I'm sorry, guys. We're in the middle. No worries. So let me, we did have a past project. Oh, what's the name? Ecology Integrated Grant. Integrated Planning Grant. Integrated Planning Grant. There were dollars left there, and I think we have about $44,000. So that's where our fund balance, we're going to take it from there.

So we have 44,000 remaining from that grant and we're going to use 25 of it. What we're going to do with the rest of it.

Yeah, I'm not sure other than we've got the 25 that we were requested to use from the fund balance. So we do have dollars left, but that's where it's coming from.

Could the entirety of the 44 be applied to this?

Sure. Yeah, we can definitely make that change.

Steve, did you have any other ideas for the rest of that money?

No, I really appreciate us starting this dialogue because I'm excited to get this project forward. You know, I'm fine either way. I think as we proceed and a year from now we come to you and we say, hey, we've got someone on board, but, you know, here's the things that are coming out. We'd like some more money or we'd like to discuss with you what the options are and where that takes us. I'm fine doing it now as part of the budget, but also this is going to be an iterative process as we move forward.

Thank you.

David, who's next?

I was taking notes. Fire department is next. Travis.

All righty. Well, thank you for the opportunity to, I guess, sit in front of you and present our one item. So this is a carryover from our current funds left over from the bond. Right now, as of today, I show we have about $2.2 million left over on the bond. But some of that we still owe our last payment for the building construction. We're waiting on some things to get done before we make that final payment. We have some equipment we still need to purchase. some engineering fees that we're going to have to pay at the end of the year in arbitrage. So with all that said and done, I feel working with finance safe saying we're going to have about 1.5, probably a little bit more than that leftover from the station. I would like to say that two-thirds of that money that's leftover came from The amazing job that finance did in investing the money while the station was being built. And then the other third is from us doing a really good job of coming in below budget. We have spoken to the bond council resolution 22-18 the general obligation bond section 5 says insufficiency of bond proceeds if bonds Proceeds are more than sufficient to carry out and accomplish the project the city may use those excess bond proceeds To acquire construct remodel renovate install equip furnish and make other capital improvements to facilities for fire protection purposes So as we look at station 81 There's a number of things that are failing. It's just dated. It goes back to 1992. And I just want to kind of reiterate that this is the headquarters of our fire department. It's the location of our emergency operations center. Our server is also housed there. We use it for a lot of training and outreach classes. So it's a super important piece of infrastructure for our city. Again, it's 34 years old and investing in that's going to continue to invest in public safety in the city of Oak Harbor. So some of the things that need to be replaced, the lighting in it was retrofitted with some LEDs, but they're old can lights. The lighting is terrible if you've ever had to work in there, especially when the sun goes down at 4 o'clock in the wintertime. So poor lighting. And what we found is a lot of the LED lights, since they are recessed cans, they're burning up. They're actually a fire hazard. We had to go and buy different brands. I could have brought some here and showed you them all melted. So that's probably the biggest problem. thing that we need to update is the lighting throughout the system just because of the issues that we've had with it. All of our bay doors, except for two, are original. They're starting to fail. We have to wait for new motors to come in. We got a quote to replace all those. It's $35,000 for the motors on those. We've had plumbing issues. We went four days with no water in our kitchen, which is a you know, safety concern when it comes to health. We have no way of waking firefighters up other than outdated pagers that we spend a lot of money on. We spent about $6,000 on pagers in the last fiscal year. Unlike our new station where there's alerting systems to wake them up out of bed, this one doesn't. So we'd also be putting that in to improve our response times, get people up, not rely on outdated systems. Some of the other systems, our air compressor unit was out, which feeds air to the air brakes in our vehicle so we can get out the door quick. The training room, the AV system that's in there, if anyone that's been in there, it's a projector from the rear. And when you're teaching a class and you need to open up a file, you got to walk into the closet, leave the class, do all that. It's just not a great place to provide community education. So that would be something that got updated. Our EOC, we have discussed it, that there is going to be a separation. We were housing a lot of, most of the stuff in the EOC was island counties. They decided they don't want to continue moving forward as a joint EOC. So we're going to have to outfit our entire EOC ourselves. So all that AV equipment, computers, phones, all that kind of stuff. So this would also go to help outfit that. We've had some leaks. I showed some images on here. I'm not going to go through all of them. You know, just the bathroom, the kitchens, everything's kind of outdated because it's 34 years old. So there were some pictures in there. You guys got the package. You can see it. I don't want to take up too much time. So that's really it. So any questions?

Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

First, hats off to being under budget for all that are involved. I don't think I can highlight that enough. Could you read me one more time? It looks like you're reading off something. Exactly what the overage can be used for.

Yeah, so it says, if bond proceeds are more than sufficient to carry out and accomplish a project, the city may use those excess bonds, proceeds to acquire, construct, remodel, renovate, install, equip, furnish, and make other capital improvements to facilities for fire protection purposes.

So it can only be used... Okay. Okay. Yeah, it can't be used, obviously, for staff because they're bonds. It can't be used for...

It can't be used for replacements. It's got to be new stuff. Yeah, so we got... And I got some emails from the bond council and stuff that we made sure we did our due diligence with this as we were looking at knowing we were going to have some excess funds.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right. Thanks, Chief.

All right. Next up is.

Next, Chief. All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. So I'm happy to be here talking with you about our capital projects. All of our proposed capital projects are deferred to 2029. There are five that we're talking about. The first I guess I need to just do it this way instead of the other hand the first one is Parking lot repairs. So this is both at the training center and the police department We're having open asphalt surfaces tree root damage water penetration That is at both locations It is more than just a surface topcoat top coating that we need. At the police department, we actually need a full reconfiguration where we remove trees and remove some of the center islands. Um, what we're recommending is that in this next, um, 2027 budget that the police department pays out of our budget to have city staff come and remove the trees and patch the open asphalt locations to just preserve the parking lot until we can get to 2029. And then, um, in, in the 2029 year that, or that budget cycles where we do both parking lots. The reason that the cost for the training center is also at $65,000 is that's to do the entire parking lot, both sides of the building. We do believe we'll recoup funds as part of the condo agreement that we have for that facility, for that. So that'd be one-third of the cost. Next is the purchase of our new additional police vehicles. I know I've come and talked about police vehicles a lot over the last three years. We are in a assigned vehicle program where each officer has an assigned vehicle. We do have two spare vehicles for when a vehicle has to go to maintenance at the Ford dealership or we lose a transmission or vehicles in an accident. We do need three additional vehicles to be completed for this program. We believe that we can defer this purchase until 2029. We are seeking grant opportunities for buying those vehicles that potentially could be available as early as next year. A couple of things about the vehicles that we've ordered. We actually have one vehicle that we ordered this year. We've been noticed that the vehicle has been canceled. The order has been canceled by Ford. They didn't have enough hybrid vehicles that they've made for the year, and we've been pushed to a 2027 year order. And then the last item that we have are actually two items that we deferred from this year. And I'll take responsibility that the reason we didn't get these items complete is staff time and getting the RFPs pushed out to prospective contractors. So those two items are the locker room restroom remodel and also the prosecutor annex repair. We have done a deep clean in the restroom and locker room areas for staff to make sure that it's the best possible conditions to be using. But we are recommending to push those out to 2029. and we'll monitor both of those locations in the next two years. I'm happy to take any questions.

Questions? Yes, Council Member Romero.

With regard to outfitting the patrol units, that's included in the cost that you're... Yeah, so we're budgeting $100,000 per patrol vehicle. That includes all of the upfit costs and all the equipment, including radios.

Thank you. Yes. Refresh my memory, you mentioned the condo agreement. Can you refresh my memory exactly what that involves?

Yeah, so we're 2 thirds of the condo agreement. The way that the agreement was set up is that any of that common space work is divided equally amongst the entities. So we would have 2 thirds of the cost of that for the common spaces, like parking lots. what are we sharing it with? Uh, DTS is the DTS. Yeah. That building that's behind the training center.

Okay. And then when you're talking about police vehicles, how we have two spares or in a pinch vehicles, and you just talk about three more, is that to take into account getting more officers to fill those? Is that, is that why we need that?

Yes. So we are, so we are, uh, for example, we have a new officer starting or a new employee starting on the 1st of September. Uh, they do have to go to the police Academy. Um, They're not going to need their patrol car until they come out of the academy and they're on field training. But as we're onboarding new staff, which is 34 commissioned staff, we're trying to get to 36 vehicles. So two of them are spares, and then the other ones are all assigned vehicles.

And when you hire an officer, at what point do they get their own take-home vehicle? Is it like day one out of the academy or is it after a probationary period?

Yeah, so right now it's after FTO. So once they've completed FTO and now they're on an individually assigned vehicle on their own. So that's where we currently are issuing it. We have retained management rights on that program. It's not in the collective bargaining agreement. We do have the ability to... make changes to that based off of the conditions of available vehicles, all of those type of things.

So we're not, I mean, it's a good thing from where I understand everything, but we're not obligated to do it because it's not in the... Not at all.

I will say that we have a, we've seen a quicker response to emergency calls. We have had several different incidents where we've either had to go to an in-progress call where another agency has requested assistance or It's an in-progress call with our own agency where we needed additional resources. And what we've had is a 50% reduction in that response time because they have their own assigned vehicles versus having to go to the police department, get a pool vehicle, get all their gear out of the locker, and become available.

Plus, I mean, for me, the big thing is the visibility. Seeing the vehicles in front of somebody's yard, it has to help.

We hear that all the time of people saying, hey, you've added more police officers. And I'm like, we actually are down a few. We're down some officers. But they just see the officers' vehicles around more, and that's providing a sense of security.

Well, we can let the narrow duels believe that we have gotten tons more officers. Sure. Thanks.

Council Member Marshall. Thank you, Mayor. So, Chief, I understand not having staff availability to do the two projects that are on the screen right now, but why push them to 2029? These are already budgeted projects, correct?

They are budgeted projects in this current budget cycle. I think I'll defer to admin on how they would want to support that. But I think that we have the ability to push those to 2029, maintain the condition that they're in, They're not deteriorating much farther. We do know for the annex, it is a full siding window and door replacement. So those things that would deteriorate anymore are already going to be replaced. And then for the locker room, bathroom, that deep cleaning really helped a lot in maintaining the current condition.

But as we know, everything goes up is the longer we wait. And so the cost of that site and the cost of the window, the cost of labor, the cost of everything continues to go up. And so if we kick this down another couple, two, three years, then that beginning fund balance potentially could not be enough to cover the cost of that.

We would have to definitely get additional quotes. I mean, we'd have to get quotes or those RFP quotes when they come in.

Yeah.

So I think one of the things that we have to consider is when we're talking about the overall budget, and one of the things we talked about in the capital meeting when we had this with the directors and some of the key staff members was, you know, we have to look at the overall budget, we have to think about expenditures and revenues, and we have to think about where is the best place for some of these costs. And I understand your logic, Councilmember, that maybe in a couple years it might cost more, but there were a lot of projects on the table and a lot of things to consider, so we were looking at the best way to utilize our resources to cover those costs. And sometimes that does mean pushing some items back. An example of that is when looking at the vehicles, we had the police chief provide a list of the cars who's assigned to those vehicles, vehicles that we don't have assigned, for example, the motorcycle program that was started, and all of those things as those factors as well as the spare vehicles they have and how that would work as we get closer to having those numbers since right now. I believe it's six vacancies that we currently have in the police department. yeah so so those positions aren't currently filled in with the vehicles we have and with the turnover of staff so those were some of the factors that we considered as we looked at all of those things

In addition, as we add vehicles to the budget, our operational costs increase. So you'll see that there's charges from the various internal service funds for vehicle maintenance and repair, and also for reserve for replacement for future. And you'll see that as we add vehicles to the city's fleet, those costs will go up, and those are operational costs. Those are things that we need to consider ensuring that we have recurring revenues to cover as opposed to just using one-time fund balance to purchase.

So in order to cover those costs, so do you take that money from this beginning fund balance that's already allocated to a particular project, or does that money just sit there and then just wait for the 2029 budget process?

So it just stays in the general fund, basically. So if we utilize beginning fund balance, it's the same as utilizing general fund. So those two columns that you see there, the beginning fund balance carry forward and the general fund balance, for the police department, those are pretty much one and the same. So if we don't spend a beginning fund balance, funding from the general fund in 27-28, it ends up not being an expenditure impact in those particular years. For other funds, it'll be, you know, if it was a streets fund, it would be streets fund balance, would be the beginning fund balance. But for the general fund, it's basically one and the same. So we're looking at the overall picture as our revenues and expenditures go for the biennial, and we're looking for ways to do our best to control costs for things based on the priorities that are set.

For the same reason that Sandra mentioned, in terms of public or employee morale and such, you know, we're talking about fixing up a break room. We're also talking about a locker room and restroom remodel for the PD, which is, again, already a budgeted item.

Well, and I know that at the police department we've added a training facility this last year that was 2.75 million dollars we added um we have some repairs that you guys have done around the building and some reorganization of some of the spaces so there have been some other improvements that have been made and again as city administration we're also looking at costs across the board to all of our staff So it's not one focus or one department. We're looking at different things. We also just built a new fire station as a city. There's different aspects that we have in different buildings that we're creating improvements. And some of the things, if you want to come back to this break room here, is it was a simple thing in comparison of cost to one of the things that staff really wanted was a fridge with an ice maker. As silly as that sounds, it's a huge morale point for our staff. It's something that really matters to them that they could refill and get ice. But that is something that also makes them feel better in their day to day and the work that they're doing and being able to get through the day. So I think it's a balance of things that we need to do with the resourcing, as David talked about, and the funding that we have available.

OK.

I appreciate the fact that you're looking at us not kicking in the can down the road. I just hope that you continue to do that when we talk about the Marina again, because we inherited a huge problem with the Marina and a hundred million dollar problem, as well as a new fire engine that we've just continued to kick down the road for years and years and years. When I was running for this position, I sat in these meetings for a year, watching this council kick that can down the road for an entire year. So I hope that we continue to look at all of those things, too, as we continue to do the entire budget.

I would say, though, Mayor, is that this is a funded project, right? These are already, we have funds allocated for them.

Yeah, but we also spent $2.75 million that wasn't last year funded.

Understood. I understand that. I'm just saying.

So you have to take all of those things, and you have to weigh those things, and you have to spread that out over an entire city.

I don't know. Okay.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Romero.

So with regard to law enforcement and the police work, I strongly favor the take-home vehicles because the response time is critically important and also the perception because criminality, predatory behavior, whether it be white collar, blue collar, no collar, it's really based on opportunity. And the lawless predators, they rejoice when there's no ability to respond or be present. So I strongly favor that part. And I would add here that I read a report that was saying that overall Washington State has one of the lowest numbers of police officers per thousand persons across the country, maybe except Washington, D.C. But don't hold me to those numbers. But, I mean, I'm confident that... we've got to have that deterrent. Because when you don't have the deterrent, then it's just an opportunity. And so as a matter of public record, I stand for the plaintiffs and the victims, or the potential victims, who shouldn't have to be going through these experiences because of a lack of adequate enforcement, prosecution, and execution of punishment. That's all I have. Thank you.

Elise of the marinas next Thank You mayor and council I will get started here so the breakdown our beginning fund balances are located in the marina fund 440 and those have either already been put forward to projects that we're combining into a new project instead of having um three smaller projects we're deciding to do one larger project to make it more cost effective and these are critical infrastructure needs that we're asking for So our first one is our breakwater rehab and repair and the mitigation that goes along with it. As Steve Schuller mentioned, it is very difficult to do anything on the waterfront here in Puget Sound. So we are trying to get as much completed in one project as possible. I'm happy to go through all of those options that I listed here, but I'd rather just kind of give you an update on what that will get you and the purpose of us asking for this. So this will extend the life of the breakwater for 15 to 20 years. And that will allow the bond that we are going to take out for the breakwater and the dredge to be at a 20-year bond. Because the dredge itself would not last for 20 years. And you have to have a project that lasts that long for that bond to be taken out for that amount of time. So I know solar powered navigation lights is probably one thing that you've not seen asked for at this point. I will tell you we currently have an obsolete system for our navigation lights. We are responsible for the ones along the breakwater. And just right off of the breakwater, there's a dolphin or set of three piles on the north side and a navigation pile to the south at the marina entrance. We own the only four existing relay switches on Earth. And I have begged, pleaded, and tried to borrow anything that would work otherwise. That is not going to be an option. So the solar powered actually will be a mitigation factor for us. We will be removing electrical out of the water because currently there is a line that runs from F dock out to that dolphin pile. And I can tell you the new navigation light that we had put on the pile four years ago when someone accidentally took it out for us is solar powered and it works wonderfully. The zincs on the pile, that is literally a piece of metal that will get eaten up instead of the pile being eaten up due to corrosion and that energy that's being put back into the water that we're trying to get rid of. The breakwater is deteriorating at a fairly fast rate due to the grounding and also the design of the breakwater. So we are looking at in this rehabilitation and repair if there's anything we can do that will cut down on the maintenance of it and or how we can extend that life even more because I have heard you say you don't want to throw good money after bad on this project so I am taking that into consideration and we are thinking outside of the box as much as possible to stay within our budget for that particular project Next one is our dredge and mitigation. The image you're seeing is what the marina looks like at a minus 4.3, which is a common tide at this point. We had at least three of them this year. And that will show you how much water there is not. So the marina dredging will actually increase our revenue because we will have the ability for boats to move around at any tide. It'll be better longevity for our infrastructure because there's less grounding and it's less stress on the through rods. And the reconfiguration using that as mitigation construction is again using the best way possible for us to spend the money to increase the revenue but also get something out of it. And we do have two items in our mitigation that are DNR lease requirements that must be complete no later than 2029. The sunken barges that will be removed, they served as our first breakwater. They actually have to be removed by 2028. That is part of our DNR lease agreement that we signed back in 2019. And the siltation rate, you have where it says at least 180,000 cubic yards. We just had another siltation rate done in June. And we are grounding or we are collecting more siltation faster than anyone thought. We didn't have good numbers, unfortunately. So now we do have better numbers and we can better plan for the future dredge, which is part of why David Goldman mentioned projects to 2039 because that would be the maintenance dredging that we have talked about and you voted to move forward back in August of last year. Moving forward here. So next one, we're calling it Marina Renovations and the mitigation that goes along with it. I left it broad on purpose so that we could, as emergencies pop up, be able to take care of them. That West E Dock Electrical was deemed our next failure point in our electrical system back in 2024 when we had the failure along the main walkway. We will be bringing that particular section up to code there in the marina. And the new code does add quite a bit of safety features as well as some new infrastructure needs. The building two restrooms, much like everyone else, our restrooms are from the 90s. No, excuse me, mine's 84. And it needs a new lift station, which is a budgeted project from the 25-26 budget that we are actually working on currently. The new partitions have arrived and should be installed in the month of October, just waiting to get through busy boating season before we eliminate the option for people to use the restrooms. we'll be redoing the floors to make them more for a commercial restroom not one by one tile and the ceiling tile will also become what should be used in a restroom itself and new countertops so if we were to lose building two restrooms we would be losing six showers two toilets and one urinal and our laundry facility That would leave us with two showers, three toilets, and two urinals for the entire marina property. I can tell you that would not be a good day for any of us. That would be a pretty stressful situation, especially if that were to happen in main boating season. We are also looking to have that new lift station put in, not only due to the failure, but looking to the future. That would be an infrastructure upgrade that, as we realize the Harbormaster building will be something that we'll have to address in the next five to 10 years, most likely, then we could relocate something off of the water and already have new infrastructure in place. I will tell you, both of those projects are funded by a Department of Commerce grant. So we have funding for both of those, and we're looking forward to start those very soon. Last one we're asking for is to replace the southern log boom. For those of you that don't know what that is, it is literally what it sounds like. It is logs attached to each other that form on the south entrance of the marina, not allowing any debris to push into the marina, possibly damaging infrastructure and boats. We have been in contact with DNR, and they have granted us the ability to use lumber again instead of plastic lumber, which is a huge cost savings for us. Part of why we're looking to get this replaced is as we remove those sunken barges in our mitigation construction for the dredge, we have been informed that most likely there is no way that log boom will withstand the opening and moving as they're doing the removal for those particular sunken barges so we wanted to make sure that we're ready for that hit to the budget instead of it being a emergency kind of situation and the current one it has become waterlogged and weighed down with a lot of marine growth And yeah, those are my four. So I'm happy to answer questions. I'm sure you've got lots of them.

Council? Council Member Romero?

With regard to the lifespan or the service life of the log booms, they're not treated lumber. And so I mean, is it just?

That particular log boom, pieces of it are probably older than I am.

Okay, so they last, though, once they're installed. They do last, yes.

And sometimes we're able to salvage and reuse. I will say it'll be easier to maintain when the sunken barges are gone. That is part of the difficulty is there is that debris that sets just below the surface, so you can't get a work boat right up alongside to remove a lot of that marine growth that's on the bottom.

How many barges are there?

There's five total, and I have a video of them at low tide if you'd love to see them.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Wittgenstein. Thank you for that. One question. Are we treating the reoccurring sedimentation only as a dredging problem or also studying why the harbor accumulates sediment and whether long-term Bayshore interventions would reduce future dredging?

So currently just a dredging. I am open to doing a siltation study and feasibility of what we could do differently. Um, I think our biggest hurdle will be permitting anything differently. Unfortunately, um, it's really difficult to permit anything new in Puget sound in the water itself.

What about restoring to its natural state? So removing the marina and going back to... Not necessarily moving the marina, though. I mean, more like the natural spit. And I keep coming back to this because I'm a firm believer that there's greater entities involved and should be involved in whatever's costing the dredging of this marina because of the alleged 900 feet that was removed off the Mailer's Point.

I will say that the marina was on the word of bill, which hold on, let me get you the exact definition of that water resources development act for 2024. And that was to study the breakwater and the channel of the marina to figure out the best way to maintain that navigable channel. So we have made the first step in trying to get someone else in on this situation as well.

Just want to make sure we brought it up again. Can't let it die.

No.

Thank you. Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

More of a David Goldman question.

Okay.

When it comes to the future bonds, If I remember correctly, those future bonds were going to be paid for with the B&O, a little from the LTAC, and then some from the budget that was being paid for the prior dredge. These numbers, are we still on track for that to be it?

Yeah, we're definitely on track. The B&O will pay the majority of it. A good portion, about 320,000 or so, will be from the dredging fee, the mortgage dredging fee, and about 55,000 will come from LTAC to service the debt on that plan. So at that level of bonds, $15.4 million, 20 years, 5%, about $1.2 million per year, we would be definitely on track to cover that debt service.

Do you know when you'll have, I mean, the B&O tax, that was a... An estimate, a good estimate, but do we happen to know when, at what point we'll have enough data to see that those estimates were fairly accurate?

Oh, we're looking at it. The trend is good. We don't have a full year yet, but based on the first two quarters, we're on target. We're supposed to get about $878,000 a year from that, right? And yeah, we're definitely tracking for that. So it looks good. okay yeah that was that was my main concern because i mean being on track that's great i just didn't want it to be like well we're coming up short looks like we're going to need another 150 000 a year or something like that that was the fear for me it all depends on interest rates too i don't know where interest rates are going to be next year i mean if i knew that you know you wouldn't you might not be working here i get it you know what i mean and also it just depends on how the bids come in too i mean we have our estimates in there and um you know just just is based on a lot of different factors that are beyond our control you know Okay, thank you.

Those are good questions, O'Brien, and those are weekly conversations that we have. We are checking that weekly. Brian's doing a fantastic job, by the way, Brian Rockford and Wendy. Yes, Council Member Arms.

Elise, how are we coming with the permitting? Where are we at?

I've got my permit update on the back of my sheet. Hold on. I didn't want to lose any of those because there's only seven different agencies we get permits from. Only seven? So I know, only. NOAA and National Marine Fisheries have, we've been assigned a biologist. The biological opinion should be complete by the end of the year, which, thank goodness. The Army Corps of Engineers would then issue their permit 30 days after NOAA or National Marine Fisheries. So we're looking at the end of January. Army Corps of Engineers also does the tribal consultation. We were going to say that would be done by the end of last month, but we are throwing a Hail Mary because they have asked us to shorten the dredge window. Instead of it opening August 15 for the fish window, they had asked for it to open November 1. We're looking at, again, like I said, almost 200,000 cubic yards being removed. That's a lot of sediment that needs to be moved around. um we did not get an absolute no when we asked can we stay in the normal window our reasonings were due to different construction companies so we are not the only marina that will be dredging in 27. We are looking to compete against Port of Everett. We will be competing against Anchor Cove up in Anacortes, Twin Bridges up in Anacortes. And there's only two disposal sites that are easy for us to do in water. And I say easy, we are literally in the middle between the two. And they have, like I said, we have not been completely shut down at this point, but the tribal... Fish Committee, I believe, is the committee that makes these decisions. Don't quote me on that one. But they are now actively in fishing season. So we're probably looking at more the end of the year to get the official tribal answer for that one. US Fish and Wildlife, the endangered species consultation is complete and approved. The EPA 401 water quality certification, complete and approved. The Washington Fish and Wildlife hydraulic project approval, we put that on hold because it's only a five year permit. We didn't want to submit it too early and then the permits not all line up and we have to do a extension or resubmit that permit before the other ones came in. It only takes 45 days to receive and it is ready to go. We're going to release that most likely in November. Washington Department of Natural Resources aquatic use authorization actually just got an email on Monday saying we had a small victory that that will be ready in two to three weeks. So the other two permits were City of Oak Harbor permits. They were our SEPA, or State Environmental Policy Act, and our shoreline, and both of those have been completed. So we are on track for April going out for RFQ to start construction in August. And the breakwater permits will be submitted soon, and we have full faith that there will be no slowing down, and those will be ready for the April going out for RFQ again. So we have one big project. We can be more competitive and save as much money as possible.

Council Member Merrill.

Better you than me. So my salute to you and your team for not only getting these permitting going smoothly, but you have not lost your cheer. So that is exactly one reason that I'm glad not to be in your shoes. Now on a more technical, just in a general overview for the matter of public record, because... Councilmember Marshall showed me how the Skagit River dumps silt. And I mean, it was like, it was a real eye opener. So I'm going to state what I understand. And then you correct me or in general terms for the public record is that The Cascade Mountains gets eroded and swept down by the Skagit River, and it forms what amounts to a silt-laden river in the saltwater that comes straight over and then bifurcates and puts a half of it or some of it in Oak Harbor and half the other way. So could you speak to that just briefly so that the public understands what we're dealing with here?

So I'd say you are right on track. I do not know specific amounts of what is received in Oak Harbor Bay from the Skagit. I will say it kind of swirls in and almost does a toilet bowl motion inside the bay itself. And I think that is part of the reason we are seeing the siltation under our FDOC patios is there's enough power to push it in. just not enough power to push it completely out, because those patio pickets do go down an additional four feet underwater for wave attenuation, which works wonderfully. I mean, even when it was blowing 70 straight out of the west, in the areas where the breakwater was, it was pretty much flat calm inside. Now, where the marine entrance was, there was three-foot rollers. So it does its job very effectively. But we're just trying to see if there's any modifications we can do to work with the siltation issue we have.

Thank you.

Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor. One thing that I noticed missing that was in our current 2025-26 budget is channel dredging.

Ready.

Okay. I'm just curious as to why, I mean, going back to the idea of not kicking the can down the road, right? This is something that we are going to have to address at some point. And so keeping that on our radar, keeping that as part of our project budget, I was just curious to why it's not.

100% agree. And don't worry, it's always in the back of my mind, part of why I don't sleep well. The channel itself, we've had multiple conversations with the Navy and the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the ownership and authority to dredging the channel between Mailer Point and Scenic Heights. And that is the channel you're referring to, correct? OK. Now, it's been determined that that is outside of our jurisdiction. And if you look at any of the RCWs, you'll see we stop at R12, which when you're looking out at Windjammer Park, that's that last marker that you see there at Mailer Point. And we draw a line straight across. That's where the city's jurisdiction ends. And so this is going to have to be addressed by federal agencies. As I mentioned, we did make it on to that WERDA bill or the Water Resource Development Act, and that is step one in that process and how we can move forward. I will say we're always looking for creative ways to bring commercial activity into the marina. That makes it that much more appealing to the Army Corps of Engineers to want to help dredge. So I promise you it is not forgotten. I'm just trying to eat the elephant one bite at a time.

So if I understood you correctly, there's still a portion of it then that is our responsibility from that Mailer's Point City or Windjammer Park kind of inward, that that's still going to be ours?

That is considered Oak Harbor Marina property. I will say that part of the channel is not the issue that everyone is talking about.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

And we are still pushing this with the Army Corps of Engineers and Representative Rick Larson's office. So he's working with us. Yeah. Any, yes, Council Member Arms.

Yes, and Rick Larson's office has been very helpful. His liaison is very prompt in getting back, emailing me. I'm sure at least he has been pushing it really hard to do it. And so when we went and talked to him, he got on it immediately. I'm saying within a week. And so they are doing everything they can. But there are so many entities and so many little, this guy, that one, this one left, or whatever. And this is the problem with what happens with the Marine. It's not, oh, I want it and it's done. This is a long project. And this is the problem. White House, we've done right the first time. So hopefully we can be ready if we have to do it again. That's the problem. But they've been very active. I will say Rick Larson's office has been really helpful. I mean, more than helpful. So I appreciate that.

Good? Everyone's good?

Parks and Rec.

Oh, you have a question?

No, Parks and Rec is next.

Oh, Parks and Rec is next. I'm sorry. All right, Mr. Craig Lama School.

All right, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Council.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem has a question. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Craig, hold on one second.

All good, all good. If Elise is still... She's right here. I didn't leave. I can't tell from the little tiny picture on my screen. Okay, first, the emotional rollercoaster that I went on when you said we had a dolphin, and then I realized what you're really talking about. That was a ride. So if we could arrange to get a real dolphin, that would be super.

We have co-hosts coming instead. We're here.

And one of the things that really stuck out to me in all of the things that you just said was you gave us a kind of a verbal you are here in terms of the red tape and the bureaucratic process and the permitting and all of the ducks that we need to have lined up in a row. Is there a way that we could... get that visualized somehow. whether, like, an infographic or just a graph or a spreadsheet. I love how, Marina, there's a... On the screen now, he has, like, you are here, and it's Marina, but it also shows you, you know, all the things in Oak Harbor, and I'm thinking about the overall picture when it comes to permitting and dredging and long-term planning, and this is all of the things that are required of us, and these are all of the things that we have checked off our list. And so if we could get a visual... you are here in terms of where Oak Harbor is as a municipality in the greater process of trying to move forward with our big projects at the marina. I think that would be really helpful to visualize. I don't think that would be helpful for anyone else.

I can do that that would be fairly easy I can try to put a timeline together and the ultimate goal of construction starting barges on site and leaving from back in 2022 when this process started and we were talking about feasibility of it yeah or yeah or just even even just a list of these are all of the things that need to be completed and and

This is where we are on the list. Just being able to, you know, it doesn't need to be super complicated, but you said a lot in your recap, and it would be really great to have that in an easy-to-share, easy-to-understand format that we can... share with people. Thank you so much for all your hard work.

Mayor Patem, that's a great point and like what I hadn't had a chance to talk to Elise about yet because we just met this morning as an executive team, but this would be a great visual aid that we're going to use as part of the state of the city as well.

Yeah, because even just the scope of the number of ducks that we need to get in a row. It's hard to visualize when you're just talking about it. And so, I mean, that would really make it real to be able to see the amount of work that's going into this. Just phenomenal. For sure.

Yeah, I agree. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? Otherwise, we're moving on to parks and rec. And that would be Mr. Craig Lomas-Cole.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. So with the park and recreation capital improvement projects, I inherited a large amount of projects and most of the projects from the prior year were going to be funded through grants, unsecured grants, and a lot of the grants were not secured. So a lot of them are moved forward and a big reason for what we looked into, reasons we have not received these grants is RCO specifically had told us that for us to get a lot of these grants, we're going to need to have a better PROS plan, Park and Recreation Open Space Plan. So that's a big part of what we're going to do now, and a lot of our other projects are being put on hold, both for planning purposes, but also in an effort to make sure that the grants that we go after, we're going after with a lot better chances. So that takes us to our first project. This one is actually a funded project. This is through grants we have received, and this is a Catalina Park improvement. We are going to be creating a community gathering space with food truck access, as Catalina Park was one of the locations around town that we have the easiest access to install something like that. And we're going to be adding and replacing some playground equipment and moving forward when we do that, our plan is to make the playground equipment universally accessible. Next we have our PROS plan and that is something that we're really looking forward to. It's the replacement of our 2019 plan which really needs to be updated now that we have a park and recreation department. We have $80,000 set aside from that currently, and we're going out for a grant. We're in the process of applying for, this is a $125,000 grant. The awards will be announced for that grant October 14th and officially awarded October 21st of this year, so we will know by the end of this year what we'll be doing moving forward. Next project we have is our pickleball courts. This project is a big project. We are putting on hold for a couple of reasons. Number one, the grants that we received were not funded. But the other issue is the location that was selected for that really is not a reasonable site. We were looking at Fort Nugent in the past. Fort Nugent is an extremely used park. Parking is... extremely challenging as it is. And truthfully, any time you're going to have a project location change, a project of that size brought into a park of that usage, there needs to be community outreach. And we need to make sure that we're talking to all the users. There's the Football League and the Soccer League, which use that a lot. And I know that project kind of got snuck in behind them. And if we're going to move forward with projects like that, we want to make sure that we get the community out and make sure that we're doing the right thing. We have our Windjammer Park improvement projects. This is moving forward on previously planned projects that have not been taken care of. These include improving our pavilion. We're talking about adding a drop screen and adding better sound to it. Improvements to the interpretive center to be able to host events and things like that. We're looking at, again, potential screens to host events, sound. extra doors, locks, just things that nature to make sure that when we host that place, it's, or when the interpretive center is hosting events, we're hosting things properly, uh, adding a shade structures, uh, small things like chairs over at the lagoon. Uh, we have a, the dock replacement project that was happening in the past that we are going to continue and move back into that and move forward with that project as well as look at improvements to the kitchens. We have our new multi-use sports field project. This is the big project that you heard recently that we are working together with the schools, with Oak Harbor Public Schools to find accessible spaces to improve and build new fields. And these fields would be turf, lighted fields in Oak Harbor. This in a big part is gonna take over not necessarily replace the athletic field renovation project because it's moving forward, but really work together to make sure that what we are building, it's within the scope of what's going to work together. We're not building fields and then replacing them immediately. We have the center generator project. This is similar to the other one, a continuation from 2025 to 26 project. We're facing the project. delaying the installation and seeking additional funds. I believe that's for the installation, yes. This would be for public shelter and safety, providing indoor lighting, heating, cooling and security equipment for the building so the building can be used as a warming or cooling shelter or community resource during severe weather. We have our athletic field renovation, which was the original project that was brought forward from before. It's just general rehabilitation is needed on all our fields throughout the city and equipment purchases are needed for better maintenance of the sports field. We have purchased some equipment, so it's not a project that's been completely untouched. We were able to, that is where the funding came for the Windjammer Park baseball field improvements. And I know we are getting a turf aerator and a large mower coming from those funds to help us improve. So that is something that we are continuing with. Things are just being put on hold again. We want to make sure that what we are doing is all within a good plan. We're not going to be putting money into a field that we're going to be replacing shortly after. We have Ridge Haven Park renovation. This is a simple one. Playground equipment needed to be replaced. We took out old unsafe equipment and we're looking to replace it. Like most projects, this will be on hold. The PROS plan is really going to give us an idea of what we want at each park and really talk about the types of activations that we want at every park. So it would be silly to go too heavy and replace playground equipment at one place if we've decided that that's a place that people want to see something else at. So again, it's just really putting these on hold so we have the right information that we could operate with the best interest of the city. We have our Sumner Park renovations. This is a similar project, replacement and modernization of existing playground equipment, and then improvements to the remainder of the park, just to keep the park improved consistently. Again, on hold, making sure that that's a project that we want to move forward with after the PROS plan comes out and find the right type of activation for that park. We have our universal playground. This project is put on hold. A big part of this is the site is gonna have to be changed. We were gonna have this site be another asset at Windjammer Park. I know every time it was talked about in the past, there was really, where are we gonna put it? Where are we gonna fit it in? I think ultimately after going this long, not deciding on the location, it's really time to admit there's just no more space for something of that size at that location. And we need to find a better location, something that will work. Again, work for the whole town and be put in a place that it can be used. It's going to be accessible, you know, accessibility of the playground. Also make sure that there's going to be adequate parking and adequate space for people to get there. And lastly, we have our volunteer skate park renovation. The skate park needs to be resurfaced, removing excess graffiti and adding appropriate spaces for the graffiti to happen. It's very common in places to add graffiti art walls. That is just something that could be consistently painted and it's a very simple add to that project. but it would really deter future graffiti, hopefully. Again, that is on hold, just making sure that we're doing the right thing and putting everything in the right place. That is it here. I'm sure I have questions.

Questions for Parks? Council Member Merrill?

You got a full plate. That's all I got.

Council member Marshall.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. I'll start with the easy ones. Beginning fund balance for the center generator is showing a $75,000, but we had initially budgeted $60,000. Where did the extra $15,000 come from?

I'm going to defer that to Chaz. Chaz.

I tried to be kind to put these questions ahead of time so you guys could be ready.

All right. So we had council priority projects with the CPP. And so we had some dollars there. Let me bring up the... Let me bring that particular report up. There's all different worksheets we track with dollars and stuff. One moment.

While my staff looks for it, maybe we go to the next question.

The second part of that question is the cost is now $100,000 more than what it was originally. Is that also for the hard wiring of that? That building seems like it... May not necessarily be as problematic as this one, but...

Well, oddly enough, that generator is going to have to be almost the same size as City Hall, which I actually was shocked about. It needs to be 150 kW. So the price was taxed of that alone was $119,000. So it was already above just buying the generator. And then the install were roughly $50,000. So it's kind of both, both the generator and the install because of the size. We put, again, a size meter on it, ran it for 30 days, and it came back way higher than we thought it was going to be.

And that wasn't, I'm assuming that it was not done when we put these original budgets together. Correct.

Yeah. If you remember, these were actually funded by what was previously the ARPA funding. We were putting as much as we can, you know, what we knew at the time. And really, again, we wanted to right size this generator and that's how we did it. And that's under full capacity.

No, and I appreciate you taking that extra step because we want to make sure we get it right the first time.

So just to confirm, we had $75,000 budgeted from the council priority funding. So formerly unused.

Yeah, I found it here in 2022. Yes, it says $75,000. So yeah.

All right. Stand by for me. So what I'm looking at on the center generator, which is on page 271 of our 2526 budget, we have $60,000.

Yeah, I'm showing 75 in mine. So, yeah, maybe it was added as a budget amendment or such. That's a possibility. We'll get, you know, we could look into that and get back to you.

All right. Wendy, you look like you want to say something.

I was just going to say, I think the 60,000 was originally an estimate. I got you. It was tagged to the CPP funds. Okay. And then we upped it to 75. The committee that was meeting at the time approved that, and it went back to council for your approval as well. I can get the dates, but I don't know about them.

I believe you. Okay. So, Craig, we're putting a lot of stuff on hold for the PROS plan. What is plan B if we do not get that grant?

At that point, we're going to have to look into getting a PROTES plan with what we have, lowering the scope and getting some sort of direction moving forward. And we can always revisit getting the plan updated in a stronger fashion in the future. But we definitely want to make sure that we get to with what we have. So if that just means we put those resources into it, then that's what we're going to have to do.

How long does a PROS plan take? Once we go out to RFP and then we hire a consultant and then they do their thing, how long are we looking at from the time from start to finish?

Probably about nine, closer to a year, I would say, to probably about 15 months. Okay.

So I'm not super comfortable putting a lot of these things on hold. You know, the field renovations need to happen, whether we are moving forward with this additional location, whether pros plan. I mean, some of the equipment we're talking about, like the aerator you mentioned that we were getting ready to purchase, you know, that could be used whatever fields that we were at. But in the meantime, we still have to maintain the baseball fields. We still have to maintain the football and soccer fields. Those things still have to be done. And so I'm not super comfortable in putting those things on hold until we have a pros plan. We know that those are going to be utilized fields Yeah. through the PROS plan, until we get whatever agreement with the school districts or whatever the next phase looks like, we're still gonna need to be able to maintain those fields and do that type of work. And so I would very much like us to continue down that path. I mean, it's the same, in my opinion, the same concept that we're working on this building, right? We're gonna make improvements to this building, even though five, 10 years down the road, this may not be the place that we're gonna be, but we still are gonna make those improvements. And so that's the same, in my opinion, the same philosophy, right? We gotta maintain what we've got while we've got it and use it to its fullest potential through then. So do we have any kind of a timeframe on, you know, the items that we talked about are the Harper TV 60 Turbo Vac, the Ventrac 4000 with attachments, the tractor with the cab, do we have any kind of a timeframe on when we're gonna be procuring those items, Sandra?

Absolutely. We have all the quotes in. We just need to meet as a team. It's been a little bit crazy because of all everybody's schedules, but we potentially could come to council in September if we agree upon the ones because we have all the quotes in and they're all on cooperative purchasing agreements.

Okay. And they're all within budget too, I'm hoping. Yes, they are within the budget funds. Yes. Awesome. All right. Yeah, let's let's get that. So the pickleball court, I know that's not your decision, right? But I can't say how frustrated that is, and that we talked about that not being a great location, given that the parking just doesn't substantiate that. What does that look like in terms of, you know, we did studies to say, okay, what are the best places to put these? And for some reason that came back as that. What is this going to look like in terms of cost? We have to go back and then study the different locations again. Do we have to have another... design element that goes along with that. Cause we're at like, if I understand this right, almost 90% design, right? We're, we're very far in the design phase. So what, how far does this put this back? And then how much more is this going to end up ultimately costing us? Cause we're going to, we're going to reshift our focus.

Yeah, as far as the design, the design was made for Fort Nugent. So I would imagine a lot of it is going to, I mean, we can take components to it, but, um, it's definitely going to have to be redone. There is going to be a cost with that.

I couldn't tell you the exact cost, but, um, why would we need to redo it if we're just looking at the same specs and size of space?

Well, it was specific. A lot of those were looked at for the space available, the groundwater situation at the park.

It was all based upon the core samples and all that other kind of stuff that we did there.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff was very specific to that. I just want to say that that's the importance of doing things and when we go through these projects, doing it right and making sure that we're taking the steps and doing it properly. And that's a big part of why we're putting these things on hold. So we're not getting ahead of ourselves and we're not jumping the gun and putting something somewhere without talking to the community first, without making sure that this is the right spot to go. And again, that's what I came in to try to fix is just making sure moving forward that we're not fighting ourselves in these situations.

And again, I'm not blaming you by all means. By no means am I upset with you by that. So Flintstone Park Pier I did not see as part of the 2027-28 budget or even as part of the further 29 to 32 planning. And that is something that was identified in last budget and was talked about is when the study was done, we had approximately five years left on those pilings. We're going to be outside that window here after 2032. And so what is the plan for that?

Well, the plan was essentially the reason it was not submitted again was because everything was all theoretical and unsecured grants, so it really wasn't. We weren't doing anything but just saying in the next budget phase, since we know we're going to be taking it over in 2029, we'll be submitting it. We just want to submit it right, make sure we know the scope of the project and know what we're doing with it. That project we just want a little bit more clarification on before we submit it.

Which I appreciate, right? We want to make sure that we're doing things right. And your department can't run strictly off hypothetical grants, right? And that's where a lot of the department looked like the funding was coming from, is these unsecured hypothetical grants, putting a lot of pressure on Wendy to try to fund the department. And that's not sustainable to do it that way. I would like to see it, though, if it's not on our planning projects, right? Then does it fall off the radar? And I don't want to see that fall off the radar. And so even if, even if it's just, you know, a placeholder, um, you know, maybe we keep it on the 29 to 32, just so it's, it's out there as something that we're continuing to look at and make sure that we're, we're trying to incorporate that into our long-term planning. So.

And that is one of the reasons why we keep it on a long-term capital plan, because there's some requirements for some of the grants she applies for, but it has to be part of that, which is one of the reasons why we put it on there as unsecured grants for future applications. And also, We found, while the other discussion was happening, the date that the $15,000 was added for the whole $75,000, it was on the ARPA subcommittee met on February 23rd, 22. We had a workshop to council the next month, and there was a budget amendment on May 3rd, 2022 to make it 75.

I should have remembered that. My bad. Well, thank you.

Council Member Arms.

Craig I have a question the student or the volunteer at the part at Windjammer we have that raft or whatever is in there and we've never really fixed it and we thought we were on base to do it what is happening with that since it's a pretty dangerous thing I thought there was something to do with the water close to the water or some reason I don't know

Yeah, we've been looking into that. That was brought up at the recent council meeting, so it's taken a step forward, and we're making sure that we have all the information for it on that. We're going to take what we have and try to get an answer. I have not been able to find an answer on what specific problem there was with it, what safety hazard there was. I know there was mention of it, but the thought is we're going to take it forward, make sure that... it's cleared through insurance and legal, and if that's the case, that would be where we would find where the issues are and get clear direction from that.

I thought it was to do with the nails and also how it sits, and I think the problem I heard before was it's the type of material that we have to put back in, and it has something to do with the water again, the environmental thing again. Sabrina, that's not the question.

So we're talking about the dock on the lagoon. OK, yeah. So Craig and I met on that, as I promised that we would. We had a conversation. We do have the item from T-Mobile. So what we're just doing, and I've already called the gentleman who came to council back. Craig and I are going to be following up with him. The discussion was about the fact that we need to, we're looking at doing the T-Mobile ramp. Again, we're just confirming our permitting. We're confirming WCIA concerns, if there's anything with liability. Because as a city, we always want to check that. and then seeing how we can get that installed. And again, that's why we added it as part of the Windjammer Park improvements project that we're doing. We already have the dock. We think there's some minor additional costs that might be associated with it as well. But overall, our projects that we have in working with Sandra, Brandon, and Craig is to create a team that's going to work on getting those items done. So there was a list from the community, and we're adding this to the list because it's something we need to fix. So yes, it is on the list.

Council Member Stuckey.

The PROS plan, we've talked about that for a while. I remember even last year, we were in a workshop. I agree with much of what Council Member Marshall says. If we don't get that grant, I mean, we just need to do it. If that's what everything is being held up on, we just need to do it. I am curious, though, because if the PROS plan is good for six years, and the last one was done in 2019, and Wendy, you would know, 24, 25, I don't remember us getting a whole lot in the way of RCO grants, yet we had the PROS plan. So why do we think this will be different?

Actually, with this grant itself, they actually provide a lot of technical expertise so that we are more competitive going forward with grants. I know that sounds odd, but... That makes sense.

Yeah. It's also that I don't think that our projects were shovel ready, which is a big requirement of a lot of the grants. And we're closer to being shovel ready now with a lot of the planning that has been done. So I think that sets us up better.

The other thing with the PROS plan is that it helps us have a strategic plan going forward with what we're going to do in all of our parks. So it's having a very clear planning document that we're referring to instead of, oh, let's work on Windjammer. Oh, let's go over to Ridgehaven. Oh, let's do Catalina for a little bit. And it tells us what we're planning to do at each of those parks in preparation for the projects, grants, or other things that we want to go out for. It's a full picture look at all of our parks instead of certain parks that some people may feel are more important than others. And the other thing for staff that's been a challenge, and I'm going to say staff in multiple departments because I've had these conversations, is we've got to get a way of Windjammer Park is not the only park we have in our community. We have lots of parks around. And the other thing is if we're really planning on growing as a community and putting in density potentially as part of the future comp plan, There is a need to have better parks throughout our park system and our staff has already done a great job of like with the Catalina Park project looking at adding universal playground equipment into improvements that we put in to these parks so that all parks have adequate fixtures that are available for all people to use. So that is something that we're already looking at as well.

I just will piggyback on that and say that I know that we don't like the longer processes. I don't always like them either. But if we don't slow down and do this the right way, we're going to continue to be reactionary in everything that we do. And I have spent the first two and a half years cleaning things up. And we're now moving forward on a path where we're actually planning with plans in place and actually getting things done. Yes, council, oh, are you done? Council Member Stroud, go ahead.

A few more questions. Just, okay. No, no, no. I mean, it's extremely germane to the conversation. Go ahead, I'll defer to you.

I agree 110% with the mayor's comment about getting it right the first time, and the administration, the executive team has really taken a great job of tackling these old problems. Thank you.

I'm looking at Windjammer, the improvements you had with the pavilion and things of that nature. I'm really sensitive to the Windjammer improvements because we had a whole survey in 23 that listed

what we would like so those items are actually coming out of that survey so i sat down with a team of staff members we pulled the survey data from that i want to say it's 2024 please don't quote me if i got that wrong and in that there was a list of items amphitheater improvements shade i did not bring that with me today i apologize but some of the items that craig listed off so what we did is pull those items the only thing we've added in addition is this item around the dock because if we're already working in Windjammer Park, let's just put those together as one big project list that we're working on towards completing. So that's where all of that came from was the feedback that we got from the community out of the survey on that back page. I want to say it's one of the last pages in the packet.

And I agree, and I'm glad you're looking at it. I'm looking at it right now. When it comes to things like the amphitheater, it's on there, it's pretty low. I mean, it's below shade, it's below picnic areas, so... I just wanna make sure we're not losing sight of, I don't wanna take the things that were lower on the survey and put those above things that were voted most, a lot higher on the survey.

So I completely understand your concern around that and that's why as a team we sat down a couple weeks ago and we really re-looked at this list once We knew that we were preparing for this and having a new director come on to Parks and Rec and what we did was we looked through the list and said let's start getting quotes on those items so that then we have a better sense of what those costs are looking at the overall budget that's available and then working through it. But we did have the things like the shades, the seating, improvements to the interpretive center, things like that so that we can utilize those spaces more instead of them just having a space that just sits. It could be more community use space.

Okay, that makes sense. I just, again, I want to keep those, like even when I look at council priorities, I see playground, lagoon, windmill. I don't see interpretive center improvements. I don't see, I don't even see the interpretive center improvements on the Windjammer survey as being rid of any.

No, the concern that came up is people wanted to utilize that space more. And so in looking at that feedback, what we thought is, for example, right now we're using it every summer for our summer camp. And being that it is the clean water facility and we have security items there that we need to address, we wanted to make sure we were doing our most to address security concerns that might come up. So as we've utilized these spaces and we've had other requests to use that space, we're making sure if we're doing projects in that area, what would be the cost? And again, just to clarify, we're looking at the list- the things we've heard about and the potential costs, and then bringing that as what we'll be working forwards on.

And if I may add to that, they are talking about picnic tables as one example. As Sabrina mentioned, we just can't keep piling things onto Windjammer, and I would love to add picnic tables to it, but... I think picnic tables is something we need to look at where that needs to go and what other parks need to go there. That being said, the interpretive center does have the potential to open up as a rentable space if these improvements are made, and that does create potential. It doesn't exactly create an outdoor picnic area, but it does create space that kind of solves the same problem, and I think that's really what we were looking at with that.

Do we have, and I'm looking at the slide that lists the fiscal year 27-28, do we have a beginning fund balance on the Wind River Park improvements, or was that 1.3 million from when that survey was taken? Is that all gone?

I'd have to work with the team on that. Sorry, I don't have that number prepared off the top of my head.

I don't see a beginning fund balance or carryover, so that's why I was wondering if that money was all gone or not.

We did ask that the finance team carried over the funds that we had remaining so that we could utilize those starting. I just off the top of my head don't remember that exact figure.

Okay. And then when it comes to the inclusive playground, a couple questions on that. And everything's always an estimate of, but it was estimated at 1.1 million. Now it's got a grant of 2 million. I mean, that's not like a 25% increase. That's almost a double increase. What did that new number come from?

I mean, just general estimates. I think just what I was looking at for that, just that's where the estimate came in. I couldn't speak to the prior estimate. I didn't do that one.

Okay. I mean, I imagine for something like that, and I get being intentional on where it is, and speaking here kind of as a parent of a children with special needs, I like the idea of incorporating inclusive playground equipment within our parks here and there. And that makes sense. I don't want to take away from that. But there is something to be said with having a dedicated place, even if it's only the parent mentality of, I'm here with people who probably get it. as parents. You know, you don't always get that just from a random piece of equipment here. That's a good start, but there's something to be said for it's kind of like our place, even though we want it to be for everybody. We want folks of all abilities to be together, but is something to be said for a dedicated park There has got to be something outside of an RCO grant for special needs children. Have you not seen anything?

So I think one of the limitations that we've talked about too is that some of the communities who had these grant dollars before, because they were referring to differently-abled children or other needs, they were sometimes losing their funding. So David and I have heard stories from communities who thought they had a $2 million grant, they finalized it, and the administration at the federal level said, nope, it's a universal playground for all types of children. So those concerns have been something that we've been aware of. And the other thing to these grants that we've also been concerned about is parking. When you were talking about children with special needs, we do not want to put it in a place where parking is limited or difficult because that makes it also a usability difficulty for those families, and we didn't want to have that. So really right now what we're looking at is, you're right, we're doing the first step of saying, how can we look at the equipment that we're adding, and then moving into the next step of saying, on a future planning, as part of PROS, can we identify a space within our park system that would work to both meet parking needs as well as space needs for putting in this type of equipment. But Wendy does an awesome job, as we all know, of trying to find these dollars, and so that's what we've been really searching for.

And the last thing is, at some point, Mary made a reference to projects being shovel-ready, because we have things that are shovel-ready, then we have kind of things that are almost more of a wishlist. Like some thought was put into it, but they're not really. It'd be nice at some point if we could get an update on what projects really are shovel ready. It's like, all we need is the funding. We're good to go. And other ones that are more, this would be a nice to have maybe one day possibly. It'd be nice to get a breakdown on the park projects as far as that goes at some point, especially with the new director. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And just one thing I want to say to the universal playground point that you made is really just the trend in recreation in general. I mean, they're creating parks that are entire parks devoted towards accessibility. And the science behind it is really advancing at a really quick rate. And that's really what we're talking about is... That just becomes incorporated into anything we do. So if we're going to be building a large playground, regardless of where it is, what it is, it's going to be accessible because that's just how recreation is planned moving forward.

Yes, Council Member Marshall.

Thank you. All right. So I have a question that came up when, when I think Sabrina was talking is about our, our, our pros plan, right? And I get the need for the pros plan, but we're talking about a potential large project that involves the school district. How, which is still hypothetical, right? We're not at the point where we're actually signing agreements. So how is that going to affect the pros plan? Because that potentially could be a lot of field spaces, a lot of park. And so what is that going to, how will that impact our pros plan when we do this?

It's not really going to impact the PROS plan. It's more the other way around, that the PROS plan is going to really impact the other project and really give us the ability to move forward with the guidance. A major part of the PROS plan, and I think one of the most important things, especially since in 2019 with the last PROS plan, we were not a recreation and parks department. So people weren't necessarily thinking of the possibilities of what we have currently. So getting the PROS plan moving forward is not just about getting direction, but it's about getting the public engagement aspect of it and really getting the community out, really talking to people and finding out what is your priority. We know field space is a priority, so we know that's going to be involved in anything we do, any large project we do. But again, just making sure that we have the preparation for it, and that's really what the PROS plan is about, and knowing what people want to see in town. As far as the effects of it on the other project, truthfully with that project, that is a massive project and I mean with all the support we're gonna go as big as we can on that one as big as that project can go so I mean that's definitely a unique project we're definitely not holding up things on that necessarily but the pros plan will give us good guidance if we know these are the things that we've all been talking about but that the town agrees with it, that gives us the ability to move forward with, for example, turfing Fort Nugent's field. But I just want to make sure that we are doing it in the right order. Again, the community engagement phase is the most important thing that we really want to get the community out and find out from the town, from the city, just what you want to see and what direction that they want us to go.

All right. Thank you.

Okay, yeah, Council Member Stuckey.

When we talk about community engagement, and this is something we've talked about for a long time, and what do we need to, when can we get a joint workshop with the Parks and Rec Commission? I mean, those are people that we, in any of our commissions, those are people that we bring on to be hyper-focused on that issue, and that's valuable. When can we get a joint meeting?

So we have scheduled some joint meetings in the past. Right now, we are currently with Craig coming on board. We were just getting back into the groove of we have new people in place. We want to make sure everybody's working together, that we understand. We've also done the mayor coming in and talking about what everybody's roles are so that we could get that established. And then the other thing that I'm just going to say is I know nobody likes it when I say this, but it is very challenging to schedule these joint meetings. For a lot of our people on boards, they work during the day, having a topic that you guys want to cover jointly. So what we've done in the past is sometimes invite them to a workshop session. But again, even this time, we sometimes need to shift with them because this time of day doesn't work for some groups. And then if you meet with one group, then all the groups potentially want the opportunity. That's just an awareness for you. I know it seems like we have a lot of meetings and a lot of availability, but we also have a lot of topics that we're discussing, you as a counselor discussing. So those are just some honest feedback on to what we'd have to do around that. So if that's something the council is interested in, we just need to be aware of it and schedule it. But we also need to know what it is we want to come prepared to talk about.

I would love for all the commissions to want that for that to happen. I don't think that there's a reason why once every other year, I mean, I'm not talking monthly. I'm not even necessarily talking yearly. But like once every other year, we can't have a joint meeting. And we have. All I can think of off the top of my head is the planning commission. Nope. What was the other one?

The parks commission we met. They were here. Last year. Your wife sat right there at that table.

Yeah, they've been here. I want to say every year, the last couple of years, the parks have been here.

I know there's been the updates. I know there's been the yearly updates that some have been invited to, but it's not been a come-around-the-table workshop.

Well, I think the question would be is what is the come-around-the-table workshop discussion that everybody's interested in? Because... to bring everybody together and have material prepared or know what it is that people want to talk about or have questions on and so staff can be prepared we need to know what those items are and so we're just looking for some information on what that would look like and what's requested but when the parks commission had asked for that we did bring them here i want to say it was eight months ago i'd have to look at a calendar but it was within the last year we've had them here Now it wasn't a sit around the table workshop because they were presenting the items that they had and then it was a conversation. But again, that's open to the discussion of what it is we're looking to do in that format. And then being prepared that if you do it with one commission, it is likely that most or the other commissions would be interested in having a similar discussion with you as a council. So it's scheduling that time out, which takes away from your regular agenda or other workshop items you want to discuss.

Well, I just think like with parks, that's mostly capital improvement things, mostly with parks. And so going through the things, what's shovel ready, what's not, what do you think, is this something, because a lot of these things we have talked about for many years, and maybe it's time for some to be moved up or some to be dropped off. And so getting that feedback from them would be helpful.

Yeah, and I'm going to call on Council Member Marshall. He has a question. But before I do, I just want to point out that, again, I just want to point out that we've had a leadership change in this department. And we've had to kind of go back and reassess some things that we need to take a different course of action on. And we're doing that now. And I think that we need to show the department and the commission, as well as the liaison for that department, who is Council Member Marshall, a little bit of grace to get everyone acclimated and on the same page to move forward in the same direction. Because there was a lot of confusion, I think, on the part of what the roles and responsibilities were and where they were going and what was actually happening. So with that, I will turn it over to Council Member Marshall. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I was just going to say, yeah, that's partly our responsibility as a liaison, and I know that I don't make a lot of reports because there really hasn't been a lot of action. I mean, Craig has been kind of cleaning it up and getting us where we need to be, and it was brought up at our last meeting, and, you know, Craig rightly mentioned, you know, when we get into the pros planning is when we need to talk about what our priorities are and what our planning element is, and that's a great time to have that meeting, and so...

until then we're just we're talking hypotheticals until we start really kind of getting into our planning and that would be the right time and I also want to just remind everybody that what we've been talking about consistently is that all the planning that we're doing is going into that the comp plan the forestry management study the Parks and Rec I'm sorry the recreation center feasibility study I do that occasionally sorry All of those are going to be references as we get into the PROS planning. So we're building all of the pieces to become the start of that process. But yes, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission would be a part of that process as well.

Council Member Romero.

I'm in favor of joint meetings, but as a cautionary statement, I want to state the inclination to have a scheduled meeting just in order to have a scheduled meeting for something like updates because everybody's time is worth something, especially our volunteers, and so it needs to be very much laser-focused and I would say not necessarily regularly scheduled, but rather scheduled based on the need Because how many meetings have we been at that really were fruitless for the time spent? Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with Council Member Romero and Stuckey, and I... Sabrina and Mary, I know that you guys know that I'm always advocating for joint meetings with our commissions, but I think that a workshop is a better word for that because we have had annual reports and it's all very structured and we have an agenda and there's backup documentation, which I appreciate because if you just stuck a bunch of people in a room somewhere with no guidance, you know, not a whole lot would get accomplished. We wouldn't really know where to start. And so laser-focused is definitely, I think, the key to making those meetings productive and effective.

So instead of...

I would like to be in the same room with our boards and commissions... you know, maybe once a year. But in terms of actually really having a back-and-forth discussion, workshop, tabletop kind of deal, we could do that. That could be framed around priorities, you know, like after Council's established their priorities or after the... whatever board or group or commission has established their priorities and we want to hash those out or do that together. But, yeah, a big consideration is what specifically do we want to spend our time talking about? And even if it's just one, like, we're just going to talk about Windjammer. We're just going to, there's not going to be a bunch of visual aids and stuff. We're just going to talk about Windjammer and, you know, what our perceptions of it in terms of how we'll have a priority. Is it to the community? Where should we be focusing our efforts? Something like that. I mean, it would be a jumping off point. I think that that would be a productive... use of time, but they're, but yeah, we do need to know exactly why we're coming together and not just doing so for the sake of doing so, if that makes sense. So, yeah, we appreciate all of the feedback from the council and staff so far on the topic. It sounds like we'd all like to get there. We just, we don't want to waste everybody's time, and, you know, nobody does, so just... Let me know how I can help.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing from staff is if there's a specific area or topic that you'd like us to bring together for a joint meeting, just let us know. And if it's a specific commission, that helps as well. And then on a separate subject, you asked about the budget that was carried over for Windjammer Park. It's approximately $400,000. So that is what has been carried over. So hopefully that answers that. But again, if there's something that you as a council want to meet on, and then just being prepared that if we're scheduling the meeting that we all just need to be available to participate in that meeting. So I think that helps as well for the discussion, because we want to get all the perspectives included.

Thank you. And I do appreciate the fact that there's been a, you know, it's a new department. Talking about Parks and Rec specifically, there's been a recent leadership change. We have a council liaison. We have a board. So sometimes you just need to let a little bit of time go by and get everybody get their feet up, you know, under them. And then if we need to address something, then we can. But you don't want to pile on any more pressure than absolutely necessary because that can sometimes be counterproductive.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. So before we continue on, do we need a break? Because we've been sitting up here for two hours. Are you guys good? You want to just power through, or you want to take a quick break? Five-minute break?

Yeah, we're only halfway through the slide deck.

Oh, yeah. Well, let's take a 10-minute break, then. We'll come back at 3.20. all right it's 3 20 so we're gonna call this meeting back in session and we are gonna proceed with Public Works and streets I believe is where we left off Thank You mayor you're right we're less than halfway through

But Public Works is prepared to not go through each and every project. A lot of these you have seen before in other presentations. So we want to rely on council on stopping us when you want to get more information. And then I did want to pause and just say, you know, honestly, as we prepare for 27, 28, this is what's on my mind. This is an amazing team that Mayor Wright and Sabrina Coombs and David Goldman. These are people we trust. I am so impressed by the leadership team that's in this table right now. I can go to every single person in this room. feel like I can have a very honest conversation, and that's when we see good things happen, right? We can have those tough conversations, we can support each other, but we can also say, hey, I really want you to go in this direction, or why aren't we going in this direction? So I really appreciate it, and this is great feedback from the council so far, so thank you. Alex Warner's not here today, he's on vacation, but we've got a great team here. I know they're maybe not losing as much sleep as Elise, but I know that they are up many times. Late hours, we're a 24-7 operation, but we only have one shift. So we have to figure out, and sometimes that doesn't work with the robots and the computers, so people actually have to be there. But this is an amazing team that we have here, and you'll hear from each one of them. A couple other things. We heard from our great finance director, David Goldman, that as we look ahead, we want to be very sensitive to the general fund costs. So you'll see we've moved everything we can think of that we thought was appropriate. But we want to hear from you out into 29 and beyond when it came to the streets fund. And the reason for that, and I'll start with the first one, is arterials. So the very first one, and you know, this is a whole conversation, right? But for the last 20 years, how we fund streets as a nation and as a state and as local governments has been in crisis. What happens to a crisis after 20 years? I mean, it's kind of weird where this crisis just becomes normal news, right? It's not a good place to be. And so we have a transportation benefit district that funds only local roads, the way that was written in with the vote. And so to cover arterials, which is where most of the transportation happens, is through this fund. And so this is an ongoing fund. It's not serving itself well. If someone can solve, transportation's really about energy, and as you know in all the headlines right now, the world is trying to figure out, energy is how we have a modern world, and it's very complex, and how we do it in the future is gonna be something we're gonna continue to discuss. All right, Midway Boulevard, we've talked about that before. We have a consultant, great group, Transpo Group. We're gonna be bringing a scope of work to council back on that. That is a design project. Pioneer Way, SR 20 to City Beach. We have heard from the community. We have heard from the mayor. We have heard from council members. This is a priority. We want to go ahead and fund this. The funding we have here is to just do a conceptual design so that we know what that new pioneer way will look like with the new work that's going to be in the EIS that you're doing. And so that's to move this project forward even though we know that money is tight. We felt that that was a priority we were hearing from a lot of people. Straight Streets implementation. This is, again, back to Wendy, wonderful grant program that we got in. This is a very tough program to get funded. It's through the feds. We don't think we're going to get funded through this, but we want to do it. We've heard a lot about pedestrian safety. There's a lot of areas in the city that don't have any sidewalks. People have said, my kids can't walk to school. So we'll see where that goes. The shoreline restoration, that's part of our stormwater comp plan. You know about that. We just talked about that in May in a workshop, and you approved it in June. The Swanton Avenue vicinity roundabouts, that's a combination. We know the state has $30 million in the year 2030, and so we know when they come out and do a major $30 million renovation, which may be the last renovation of SR20 any of us ever see, We'll have to see, right? We want to know there's going to be utility issues. There's going to be local street issues. So we put some money aside. It's just placeholder adds up to $500,000. That's what that is. Eagle Vista Avenue to SR 20 roundabout. The Deer Horton Platte Oak Heights. As part of their plat, we have some partnerships to install a roundabout. That is nearly complete as far as its design, and that would be at Eagle Crest and SR20, and so that's moving forward. Transportation comp plan, we just talked about that, and we've talked about the ADA ramp improvements. That's from that Westwoodby improvement.

So, Steve, the design for that roundabout that you're talking about is nearly complete. When is the potential implementation of that?

I don't know. The design was very clearly on the developer. How it gets funded, that is not, there's no agreement you can point to that spells out all those details. So it's going to be a work on the part of the state and the highway department. That's what I was, yeah. The city and the developer.

Yeah. So, Sabrina, can you just put that on our list for tomorrow morning for IRTPO?

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, that's the kind of foresight that we need. All right, so I went through all that first thing. I'm going to catch up where we were. Okay, so I can stop now, or I can keep trucking. Okay.

Brian has a question. Council Member Stuckey, I'm sorry.

So just two, if someone were to ask me what I think would be the biggest things, it would definitely be Pioneer, as you mentioned, and it would be roundabouts or some sort of traffic congestion relief around Swantown in 20. I see Swantown Ave vicinity roundabouts, 500,000. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? I mean, because obviously being 20, we need the state for that. So what's the $500,000?

Yes. So the $30 million will be coming from the state as part of the 2015 Connecting Washington gas tax. So the state raised the gas tax, and as part of that legislation, they included $30 million for SR20 in Oak Harbor. That area is from Swantown and then it doesn't get too much detail. And it kind of depends on what things cost. But that's where, in essence, the work starts. So starting in July of 2027, $6 million of real money will be available and the design process will start with the state and they've been very good at reaching out to us saying we want you guys to be very much involved in what the let's call it the new SR 20 looks like right and so that will be state money so We know that as they work on this, that there's going to be water lines that we want to take care of under SR20. We want to do that while it's ripped up. We know there's stormwater issues that we'll have or sanitary sewer issues. So that $500,000 is our contribution to their project. And again, that $500,000 is just a placeholder. As we get into the design, we'll start to go, oh, there's a big, huge water line, and we're going to need whatever x. So we're just trying to, it's a thought more than actual money that means anything, if that helps. So when I say real money, I mean that $6 million has been allocated. This is where you need David Goldman to understand obligated versus expense. But you're right, that $6 million has been obligated. It exists in a budget. The state knows that they don't have enough money to fund everything that's already been allocated, and they're going to be going through that in this long session and trying to figure out what they can, but they already know that they're in trouble. So we don't know what that means yet.

So when it says $500,000, other fund balances, you're saying that's just a placeholder? What fund is it? I mean, what is the other? Yes, so I can tell you that. And it's funny, that's the one sheet I printed out.

I got lucky. Well, so far, we've only been talking for five minutes. Okay. $150,000 coming out of our streets fund, $150,000 coming out of our water fund, $100,000 out of our sewer, sanitary sewer fund, and $100,000 out of our storm fund.

And then going back to Pioneer, I see $200,000 is the beginning of fund balance carryover. Is that enough for the initial? Because I understand it's for the initial. Is that enough?

Yeah, I tried to think about what's enough, you know, to hire a professional. Almost anybody is between 275 and 350 now. So I'm getting used to what it takes when you hire a professional to come on board and provide that expertise. So we really want to keep it focused. I think a lot of the work we're going to do as far as the community engagement is going to be in-house to save money. So that's how I'm thinking we're going to do that. I'm not quite sure how we're going to do that, but we're going to try to get in-house as much as possible to do that so we don't have consultants helping us with that. Not that they're great. They do it really well. They've got great figures. They've got great graphics. But it's just really expensive. So we're going to try to balance that. And so where we need the true expertise that we don't have in-house, things we can't do, that was what that $200,000 would be for.

So that $200,000, and this is fiscal year 27-28, is the thought then that nothing will be tangibly seen to at least $29,000?

yes i i think i'm really excited about pioneer um but you're right it's going to be a long process and so will we have a new city hall and police station or a new pioneer

You put that one out to the public, I think I already have your answer.

Maybe that's not fair enough. So, for example, the EIS, as you recall, shows a lot of those areas 55, 65-foot up zones. And so imagine the properties down there, right? So let's just use one example because I've talked to both of these property owners, right? You own that huge area of property. asphalt parking, and now it's zoned 55, 65 feet. You know, that pioneer is not going to be the same one that was there for the last 75 years, right? And that road that serves it and all those utilities, not just our utilities, but all the dry utilities, fiber, electrical are going to change tremendously. The amount of energy and professionalism that it takes to go to that next level, which has been done all over the Puget Sound region. You can go to downtown Bothell, downtown Woodinville, Fairhaven, Bellingham. It's been done over and over again, but it really is a transformation, and it brings in a different type of investment.

I seem to recall... there was a meeting that we were talking about Pioneer sometime this year, and you're talking about looking into different options, you know, doing the whole thing or smaller things that could be done. I mean, is that, does this bring a bell or am I just?

Yes. Oh, totally. Yes. So we've, we had the crew out there to fix the worst of the worst. And so we've invested money to, to make sure that decay doesn't get much worse and slows down. That just, that doesn't mean that it looks pretty when you go out and, fix it right and so again i think it's very similar to city hall we're still going to go out and fix the roof but we're going to pick the cheapest roof cost because we don't want to spend we're spending hundreds of thousands of your dollars we don't want to start spending millions of your dollars on a road that's not going to be there 10 years from now that's that's the balance we're trying to strike we want to hear from you we want to hear from the community because we know that we're always playing that balance game right okay And then a lot of people just have no idea what things cost, right? So they want it, but if we ask them, I would tell you if people really knew what it costs, they wouldn't ask us anymore to do some of these things.

Well, then there's government doing it and private parties doing it, and government tends to be a little expensive.

Yeah, and we're going to talk about that. I won't jump ahead too much, but I'm hoping to talk at our annual public work report in September. We have seen annual construction costs in some of our paving projects go from $12 approximately estimated in 2018, and this last bid that we did for Forth and Glencoe was over $50. So that's 300% inflation in eight years. Thank you. So this is something we are struggling with, right? So we're... I'm not gonna try to keep going on this, but I think it's worth talking about and we wanna talk about it in September. This is something that we and our nation and the world is facing is that people's understanding professionally on what things cost, especially in some of these infrastructure areas, nobody knows, nobody applies. The global economy is changing so much. The mineral prices, the crises we're dealing with, right? You can turn it political if you want to and rant on Facebook, which does no good. But we as a culture have to come together and figure out how we're going to solve these problems. I'm very excited because when this has happened before in the past, because I'm a little bit of a history nut, it leads to new renaissance. So because you get to the point where people now want to have answers. And so the government becomes strong and we come together and hopefully we do it in a really good way that leads to some good outcomes.

Mayor Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor. Steve, I see Serendipity Lane mid-block crossing. That was in a funded project in the 2025-26 budget, but it's now being pushed back 2029 to 2032. Why that significant delay?

Good segue. You're right. I covered the projects that are in 2728. So you're referring to a project that we pushed out to 29 and beyond. Right. So everything on that list, let me get to that list so everyone can see that or at least if those that are listening in can.

There we go.

Yeah. So I'm not going to go over this list at all except hit a few highlights. And so let me get to those. You're right. Let me see if I need to hit any more before I get to your question, sir. You're right. Let's just talk about that one I think for now. We know that's kind of a priority. We don't, at least internally, we don't see that it's necessarily a safety issue and would improve safety. It's certainly something we can do. People tend to cross that road all over the place. They're not going to necessarily use this crossing to cross. I think the long-term solution for that Bayshore is to stripe it in such a way where people get used to it being where you drive slow, you take your time, and people can park their car on one side of the road and feel comfortable crossing the road and not jaywalking, so to speak. They don't feel like they're jaywalking. To me, that's what that road is going to become. I see that investment as one that won't last very long. That Bayshore, kind of continuing with Pioneer, if you imagine the whole Pioneer Bayshore becoming more mixed use, instead of a single-story 1960s so-so shape commercial building, you see a brand-new five-story building. That's going to change the nature of that, and you're not going to need these mid-block crossings. So we see it as a very low priority and kind of something that if we put money into it, you're not going to need it in, you know, five to ten years. But we understand, I mean, if you're feeling, you know, that people really want it now and they feel like it is. I think the Serendipity Lane was a beautiful project in partnership with the Main Street Group. Turned out really well. That gets you where you want. Now you're at the water. Now you can kind of decide are you heading down to the baseball fields or are you heading over to go take a look at the marina.

Is that? Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Fort Nugent active transportation or multimodal project. What does that entail?

The mayor and Sabrina have done a really good job of going to the IRTPO and advocating for the city and representing us very well. And so we want to be able to get that federal money. And so we've heard a lot from people about wanting to be able to walk to Fort Nugent. There's no sidewalks can't get you there. So this is really a sidewalk project to get you from parts of the town where you really can't walk on Fort Nugent without being on the side of the shoulder. And so this would be one of those unsecured grants. We try to have as few of these as possible, but this is one that we think will pop up. If we can get it on our list, we can get it on our CIP, then when we go to the feds, that's what we need. That's what they ask us. They're like, well, is it on the council's list of priorities and CIP? Yes, it is. So this is one to get it on the list for a future grant.

Okay. And staying with the unsecured grants, $4 million for Pioneer Way and SR20 to City Beach. Do we have any idea where that grant would come from?

Yeah, federal and state grants. And again, we've been really successful in the last few years of getting those. So I think it's very possible that we'll be very successful in those areas. Yes.

So we had initially budgeted about $3 million for that project, and now looking at what we've got there on the line items, we're about $5.5 million. Is that part of that contributed to the cost of the?

That is a complete guesstimate. What's worse than a guesstimate? Do you have a name for that? Yeah. Shooting from the hip? Yeah. We didn't even shoot from the hip. We got up to the ankle and shot. Okay. I can't ask any professional anywhere what that's going to cost you. I can't get that answer from anybody.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right. Appreciate your honesty. Thanks.

You tell me what wars we're in and what oil prices are two years from now, and then I'll have a better idea.

All right. Thanks, Steve.

Yeah. Excellent questions. Council Member Romero.

So, Director Shula, I just wanted to thank you for you and your team, the great work that you're doing so far under less than wonderful circumstances. So keep up the great work. But I did want to make a mention for the public record that in a matter of residential and commercial development in urban settings, it's very common. to underestimate or neglect the matter of roads and related infrastructure because they're not necessarily big money makers for the developers themselves. So we look at SR20 and Swantown Road. And of course, there's going to be roundabout put in there supposedly because that's what my understanding is but the the traffic is already backed up i mean it's a two-lane road and i'm saying here we're looking at you know 10 20 30 years down the road and we're building these residential facilities so i'm just uh as a matter of record i want to make sure the public understands that that i've been on record that we need to be looking at how we're going to deal with the traffic piece and but it's a notorious problem because developers and they build up and then they say, whoa, we can't get anywhere. Now what are we going to do? Well, that's all I have to say. Thank you.

So council member, I will say at IRTPO, Commissioner Johnson and I had a very heartfelt, stirred conversation with WSDOT where we said, You put things in. We don't really get the conversation. We know our communities. Our councils take the hit. Our boards take the hit. It's not fair. So you need to work with us more. And one improvement we have seen lately is they are doing a better job of doing advance notifications to both our engineering team, to Maggie, our communications officer. But it is sometimes what we're stuck with, as Steve has explained before, and Alex, that WSDOT comes in and WSDOT decides. It is something that we're all impacted by, but we have brought it up. The IRTPO has brought it up with several projects with Washington on the call to say this is a huge challenge for us as a community. And I even said, hey, if you think they're so great, please come to the island during one of our tourism peak weekends when you can sit in the lineup for miles because it's super exciting and affects our tourism. And so we did have those very straightforward comments with them.

Thank you very much, City Administrator Combs.

All right. Steve, were you done? I think I am because it'll be not public works, but let me get through that.

Excuse me, I have a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Peterson has a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

Hello there. Not your fault. How are you? How are you? Scientific wild guess is another word for guesstimate.

A swag.

On the streets, we talked briefly about midway. MID-BLOCK WOULD BE ACROSS FROM SEARS BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NOT WALKING ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CROSSWALK AND WE'VE GOT THE RETIREMENT HOME AND THE APARTMENT COMPLEX. WHERE DID THAT EVER LAND? I KNOW IT WAS NEVER THERE, AS FAR AS I KNOW, UNTIL I BROUGHT IT UP. I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO IT.

THAT'S WIDBEE AVENUE, RIGHT, THAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT?

IT IS WIDBEE AVENUE.

I'M SORRY. OKAY, NO WORRIES.

YEAH, SO WHAT INTERSECTION ARE WE...

So there's a bus stop on Whidbey Avenue that people cross from all the time where there's a retirement home and apartment complex across the street, and they're not walking up to the corner.

On West Whidbey by SARS? Yeah. Yes, yes, I remember that discussion.

So there was a question about whether or not, like, flashing beacons or another crosswalk could be put in there. I think the problem was, though, when you looked at that initially, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that within, like, 100 or 200 feet of the other crosswalk?

Yeah, we definitely heard that request. We discussed it. It is a difficult one because you've got multiple lanes there. So it's not like crossing and people are turning into all those driveways. So we're still processing that one is the short answer on what makes sense, whether that would really improve safety or what we'd need to do to make sure that really works. wall so what would that do to the traffic because you could have potentially light at the traffic then you have a light at the crosswalk i mean it's the national standards are pretty clear that the rapid flashing beacon that you see in this city is great for a very low speed mid block crossing when you get beyond that you go to almost bit like a full traffic signal it becomes very expensive and appropriately so because you just you as a pedestrian are trying to you know Yeah, but we heard that request. We have that on our list. We know that's something that you'd like to see. Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

And I appreciate that. I just, I'm very concerned that somebody's going to get hit there. And I understand there are rules. I see it happen because I live near there. So thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you. This one will be short. We already talked about streets. This is the Transportation Benefit District. This takes care of our local roads. Really impressed with the team and what we're doing there. We've gotten grants now four years in a row from the state. And so we're using a lot of other people's money And the local match that you provide to your local money is, you know, giving us money three, four, five times more money because of that. And that had not happened at the city for 15, 20 years. So this is making a big difference in our roads, even though it's not solving all of our transportation problems. And with that, I'm going to move to water. And our wonderful operations manager, Chris Price, is going to go over the water items.

Thank you, Steve. For those that I have not officially met, I am Chris Bryce, operations manager for us. It's nice to meet you. So, yeah, I'll try to speed this along just kind of like Steve did. Maybe not as quick, but yeah, we have 15 minutes and we still have quite a bit of slides. I believe this meeting is supposed to go to four. So that's not how it works. for those of us that have things to do at 4 o'clock. So yeah, the first item is the annual steel and AC water main replacement. This is a recurring fund to invest in our older infrastructure. We do have some old steel pipe that was installed in the 1940s. And asbestos cement pipe was popular in the 60s. Both those pipe types have about a 50-year useful life on them. And that brings us into the 1990s, early 2000s. And obviously, we far exceeded that. That's a way to word this is it'll really cut down on emergency service calls at night. You know what I mean? We've probably this last quarter, um, I've had personally responded to maybe about a half a dozen, you know, to where we've worked, you know, maybe midnight one, two o'clock. Um, so investing in that infrastructure helps with that. And also if you guys, I think, I believe I put it in a council report months ago, but we have the department of health requires a 10% leakage rate between our source meters and our customers leaders. It has to be added below 10%. We're at about 3.7%, right? Which sounds great. Sounds awesome. But still, that's about 27 million gallons that we're kind of losing into the ground and not through the customer's meters that could be revenue, right? So this is a really, you know... really big item um that's we're losing some revenue and it's and some some money um some past projects that this has been used for is west would be avenue which you guys all saw southwest fourth avenue uh northeast seventh that you guys that was a big project and also southeast fourth glencoe which is occurring right now so the next one is the oh i need the clicker oh i'm sorry thank you i got ahead of myself here i got an assistant um so the next one is the 2027 hybrid pickup um this is for our new water specialist position we have not hired that position yet and kind of a method to that is we have a new operations foreman in the water division um he we hired him from outside kind of wanted him to get acclimated to the water division learning staff their strengths their weaknesses day-to-day operations project priorities and things of that nature so we didn't want to really put the task of a brand new employee and having to train him so we kind of held off on that position so this hybrid or this truck goes with that position and i we plan to hopefully put out for that next month if not soon so And another thing is, you know, sharing vehicles is not the most efficient way. We could go that route, but the water division, 95% of their work is out in the field, right? So it's not the most efficient to share a vehicle. When you have two or three guys in one truck, it's just, you know, assigning tasks and managing work, it's not the best route to go. The infrastructure master plan, this goes hand-in-hand with the utility comp plan. It provides long-term design for the downtown redevelopment, ensures proper infrastructure design for growth for that downtown development, ensures that, you know, water main and sewer and such is sized appropriately. And we do that. uh southeast fourth and glencoe street water main replacement this is currently under construction it replaced undersized asbestos cement water lines this was a major deficiency in our 2014 water system plan this project is should close out in early 2027 if not later this summer there probably will be some closeout paperwork in 2027 to close that up water system plans and studies. Water system plans are required by the Department of Health. They're required to be updated every 10 years. And the planning ensures a safe and reliable and sustainable water system. I asked for a, let me see here. Where is it? Did I not print that out? I got a the last plan was done in 2014. I got an extension in 2020 to take us to where we're at now. This is about a 900 page document, so it's a pretty heavy lift. You know, and the other studies that are in that budget line are include an optional ten inch transmission assessment. just to see the condition, the route that we want to take with that 10-inch transmission main, if it makes sense to keep operating it, and also a seaplane-based service feasibility due to aging maybe transmission main. They've kind of expressed verbally their cross-city transmission main is aging, and they're wanting to take a different route. The next step on that, we actually have a walkthrough tomorrow with an consultant. And then the next step on that is to schedule a kickoff meeting with the Department of Health shortly after. Water system, telemetry upgrades, which is the SCADA system. This allows for automated controls, operational efficiency. You know, if we didn't have these controls, it would literally be a guy. We'd have to have a guy 24-7 turn pumps on and off. And, you know, you kind of like... uh homer simpson at the uh the plant there so so um it allows for data logging and history alarms and alerts just you know just real operational efficiency the project right now it's under construction uh we have factory testing early next month which we meet with the consultant and we kind of go through the software make sure we like it make sure it looks the way that we need it and meets our needs then that project close out should be early 2027. Well, nine replacement is this is one of our three emergency wells. I consider this to be a high priority. It's our emergency It's emergency water source, critical infrastructure. It's part of our emergency preparedness plans where the 24 inch was to go down across the bridge. You know, this is all we would be able to rely on is our storage and our wells. Right. So so that's and right now it's the the screen around the screen is collapsed. So we can't get water we're only getting like 40 to 50 gpms out of it we used to get about 200 so we just have to move it to a different location so we get that uh that restored gallons per minute again and then i tried to go through this stuff quick The next one is West Side Reservoir exterior coating. This is our exterior coating is peeling off one of our reservoirs. Obviously, an exterior coating prevents corrosion. We had tank inspections last week. I had to wait for the inspectors to complete and then I'm waiting on their full written report because external coatings are completely complicated, very complicated. and they have to be amp certified which is association for materials protection performance and i am not an exterior coatings professional you know i might have ate some exterior coatings as i was a kid but that's about it but uh so yes i'm awaiting that final inspection report and then once i get those recommendations we can kind of move forward on the route we're going to take on that so And with that, I think that's all I had. Oh, 29. Yes. So again, this is the annual steel AC water meter placements. Again, that's a recurring fund to replace aging infrastructure and the SR 20 Campbell Lake water main replacement. As we all know, there's a roundabout going in there. This is phase one. Phase two could be a possible fish passage that connects the wetland area to the lake, and we might need to move our water main during that process. So that is what those funds are for. And I would be happy to answer any questions.

Questions, comments? Chris, what was that number of gallons, again, that you said we're losing?

26 million that we're losing.

There you go, David. Do the math. Yeah. Councilmember Marshall, it's late today.

Thank you, Mayor. Chris, did we know that we were going to need a truck as part of the new water specialist position? and we we approved that position last budget cycle why was the truck not included with that because we bounced around kind of we bounced around sharing vehicles

It has been done, but I believe in this division it is just not efficient at all. Like I said, 95% of the work is done out in the field. It's hard to assign tasks and manage the work with guys sharing vehicles. So we decided that this position does need its own vehicle.

So with the last or current budget, we allocated $50,000 for a locator position truck. Has the cost of trucks gone up that much from $50,000 to $75,000?

It's not that significant. But the locator truck is a smaller truck. It's like a Ford Maverick. It's an S10 it looks like. S10. Yeah, it's a smaller truck. And then the truck that we're asking for in water is a larger Ford F-150 to accommodate for more tools, pipe, fittings, you know, all that stuff. So it is a larger truck.

Okay.

Can I add to that? Yeah, please. If you remember, when we bought the locator truck too, we bought an in-stock unit that was available. That may not happen next year. It could be the full-on $75,000. So we're going for the high and hoping for the low for sure.

Yeah, that's great. Let's do that. Appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. I'm like the Debbie Downer. I go for the worst-case scenario. I love that.

Yeah. So one thing I didn't see that was in our last budget is the Eastside Reservoir demolition. That's nowhere in this current budget or future planning. What is the status of that project?

Yeah, so we moved that out of the six-year. Yeah. So the status of that is... my opinion is 500 000 gallons is quite a bit for you know us in the harbor especially living on an island when we need that 500 000 gallons of supply yeah um so to me that demolition of that reservoir isn't the highest priority especially when we have well nine down you know um i would like that extra 500 000 and also We want to address that in the new water system plan. We want a little bit of guidance with that because there are some options that we could take with rehabilitation because it's not seismic. It's just sitting on the ground, so there's no seismic, you know, whatever you want to call it. So the cost of seismically retrofitting it might not be the most efficient, but there are other options. So we're looking for a little bit of guidance from the water system plan when it comes out on that. So we decided to move that out to the past six years.

As part of that water system plan, are we looking at other storage capacity, other locations that we could put additional? Oh, yeah. Okay. Perfect. Good. And then the last question I had, and I think Steve may have addressed this, is in the current budget we have... the SR 20 swan town roundabout that was part of the water is that part of that 500,000 that you talked about Steve is for all utilities then because it I didn't see it in sewer this time or in water this time. So I want to make sure that we're still accounting for that somewhere. But Alright, appreciate it. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Nothing else. Thanks, Chris.

All right. On to sewer and the clean water facility. So the first project is the Influent Inflation Correction Project. We just recently brought this to Council to award it to SRV. Our senior utility engineer, Andy, is doing a great job getting everything lined up. Meetings are already starting to happen. So all positive news on this one. Again, it was federally funded and this is going to help replace and rehabilitate some lines on our southeast side of the city. We also, again, the sewer comprehensive plan, it's already been brought forward to council. It's in the works. We've already started talking to RH2 Engineering, who is leading this particular piece of the master plan. And again, this was last updated in 2008, so this is just a continuation into the new budget cycle. This one is a new one, sewer lift station preliminary engineering. So what I love about this one is, as we've been going through these master plans, we've talked about the what ifs. What if this lift station isn't big enough? Can it hold the capacity of the DH Horton? All of the growth. So we were talking as a team, and Steve pitched us to be able to bring in an engineering firm that would be able to come in and actually assess some of our lift stations to understand if we really are where we need to be, and if we're not, how do we get there? And so that's what this new project is for. Again, a lot of our lift stations are older, they need some TLC, and we're just hoping that we can keep patching them up and going forward with them. And just another thing on the lift stations, they all have, pretty much all of them now have generators too, so it's just not lift stations, it's lift stations and generators to be able to power them up. This one is a major in O&M. So what we decided to do on this particular one, you saw a few specific projects in this last budget. One of them was the screens. One of them was the compactor. I'm gonna be the Debbie Downer. This plant is almost 10 years old. It's not new anymore. We have to keep remembering that things are wearing and tearing. It is being used Things are going to happen and so we're planning for that. We're planning that in you know that things are going to start happening and we need to just have some money available in that in that case that it something does happen and we do have a list of items that we would like to address, but there's nothing critical right now that we have to hit. In fact, we're working on a DOE issue right now with the conveyor, so we're really trying to make sure that we're staying compliant with our LNI requirements for safety as well as our DOE requirements. And this screen just shows you, you know, a membrane plan cannot function as reactive. We don't fix it when it breaks. We really need to have a financial model that really helps us be ahead of the game. That way it's continually operating. Consistent repair and maintenance funds, it's unpredictable for operational emergencies. That's not manageable. We want to be manageable down there. And this steady financial support that city council, as well as an administration, has been helping us put away this money into our infrastructure funds is fantastic. And it really helps us sleep better at night knowing that we have these funds when we do need to do these things. And that's the sewer projects.

Yes, Council Member Romero.

Thank you, Sandra. I was going to make this comment because I've heard it from numerous constituents, and that is depending on which way the wind is blowing, whether off the water, most often, or from the land. What's anecdotally been said to me was the fumes of the drying function of the wastewater plant it makes a very acrid smell so i'm not asking for any kind of reporting but i'm just letting you know that that is a ongoing concern because we have commerce right there and then of course windjammer is on the water side so it normally doesn't get that so and i don't know that it would be a health hazard but i'm just I just find it phenomenal that we have that kind of issue with the millions that we spent on the plant. But that's not in your field, so to speak. But I thought I would make mention of it. Thank you.

Yeah, I often joke with Jack about the Disneyland model and how they pipe the vanilla into the road. So when you go into Disneyland, you're actually smelling that smell and not the actual... nasty smell that you would be smelling with millions of people going through there. And, you know, at Christmas we could do peppermint or something, who knows. But we often talk about what else can we do. We've toyed with, you know, coffee grounds. We've toyed with a lot of different things in the process.

Well, we're also getting positive feedback that it's getting much better. So I don't, I just wanted to share that too, since you're getting negative. Yes, Council Member Marshall. Thank you.

Sandra, I love the O&M model, putting money aside and not waiting until something breaks. I mean, that gets much more expensive and time-consuming when that happens. And so I appreciate that foresight. Obviously, I looked at our current projects and I looked at what our budget is right now, right? And one of the projects that's not listed is the sewer lagoon decommissioning. And I was just wondering where we're at with that project.

Yes, I'm going to pitch that over to Sue.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, we've been in contact with Hillary Evans and our other city attorneys in that office and have taken a look at those original agreements and what are the city's obligation and have met with the mayor and Sabrina and others. And so I think answering that question would be best done in a different forum. Okay. All right. If that's all right. Thank you. Yeah.

So you mentioned the second screen. That was part of the 2025-26 budget. Since it's not on the current budget, was that project completed?

It is not completed, but it is in that list of projects. So I've spoken with Jack. It's just not the top of the list. Like I said, we're working on that conveyor issue and we're working on some safety confined space issues and those types of things that we really want to put as our top priorities. But we do have good news on the centrifuge that was going to be a big repair. It ended up being a fuse. So our staff investigated, found it was a fuse. We're rolling again. So that's great news.

That is great news. Yeah.

Yeah. For those of you in the know, it's three phases, right? So you still got power going through it.

So yeah.

But on the screens, yeah, that is something that is my fault. That is something that our operations staff would like. I think it would be a good benefit. When I came to the city, I think I met with six of the seven council members at the time. The number one issue they talked to me about was the expense of the plant. And so we've been trying to hold off on things that aren't high priorities. And that's always a delicate match, so we appreciate the feedback on what to do. So we're trying to... Number one, Sandra and Jack are doing a tremendous job. And, you know, we're trying to balance making sure we have a plant that meets our compliance with the state. If we don't do that, then we can end up in tort lawsuits. And everything else we're questioning three, four, five times. Do we really need to do that? Is there a better way to do that? Having been in this business for a long time, especially in this area because the regulations have changed so much, the first idea, never take it. There's always, it's idea number four, five, and six are just better. So holding off and not doing anything is sometimes a really, ends up being a good path forward. So we have not moved forward with the course strings. And again, that's because I'm holding off. I don't, it's not required.

Yeah, it's not required. From reading the packet, though, it sounds like it would help with some of the wear and tear and provide some redundancy. It would. We made the investment. We have to protect the investment at this point, right? Yep. And so the cost is what it is. That was decided. It's done. The investment's been made, now we have to protect that investment. And so continuing to fund the O&M and the other projects, I think.

Yes, and especially at this time in the afternoon, I would love to spend another hour talking about... The poo plant? I'm with you. Oh, this is when it gets fun. So no and really good questions Councilmember Marshall. So you're right that core stream is important but we've really spent a lot of time making sure the fine screens the two millimeters that those have been those were not operating properly when I got here and so we worked really hard to make sure those fine screens which are what really protect your investment of those membranes that's what needed to be taken care of and those are working much better. Great thank you. Yes.

uh anyone else well yeah as long as nobody else has any questions all right next up is public works storm drain all right

I'm not getting any sound.

This next one is Southwest Sixth Avenue Storm Drain Replacements. This is replacing a deuterium storm drain pipe. It's adjacent to the Oak Harbor Intermediate School. So timing will be of the essence on that one. We won't be able to do it during school time. It will have to be done during the summertime. I think there's a delay on here. Sorry, he's not moving. I think it froze. Or this died.

Mayor, just a heads up, and Sandra, sorry, there's some folks on the line who lost audio, so we're just checking real quick. We can hear now, though.

We can hear now, though.

Okay, now they're good. Sorry, we're just checking. Yeah, audio appears to be back.

Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, that's it. We're done. Storm Brain.

Questions for Sandra on Storm Brain. All right. Moving on to Public Works Fund 510.

Me again. Okay. Where are we at here?

Oh.

So first of all, I want to talk about on this particular slide, I just want you to know that we had a lot of projects for 2025, 2026 specifically for the city shops, let alone the whole entire city. And we have accomplished all of them except for we decided to take off the annex bathroom and we are not doing or and then two other projects are in progress. We're doing a perimeter fence is still being finalized as well as the covered storage we're still working on. So I just want to make sure that that was put out there, that we've accomplished a lot of good projects in this last budget cycle. The roofs were an enormous boost for everybody. the city shop parking lot extension we'd like to extend the parking lot i originally brought this to city council in 2015. that's when we actually needed it was when we were growing in 2015 we didn't have enough money um there's things that trigger it storm water issues that trigger if we go over a certain amount of um uh square footage i'm not saying that right but We're hoping to be able to minimize that by going a different direction and maybe not go as big as we were initially going. So just with the growth of our people, adding on the new department, adding on meetings out there that happen more often than not, this is just something that we wanted to put into play. Again, I've talked about the seal coating. This should happen every three to five years across this whole city, all of our parking lots. We have not done it for a long, long time. I want to say before even COVID, just one of those things that has not happened. Of course, the city shops is the largest square footage. It's going to take a lot of money to do it. But the benefit is that it acts as a barrier against the water, UV rays, oils, chemicals, all that stuff that our trucks are bringing in. And we don't want that asphalt to degrade. We have done a phenomenal job of keeping that shop looking great. It's 30 years old. It is a really good shop, and we take great care of it, just like our other facilities are taken great care of by their staff as well. And so we just really want to invest in that if we can. And this company would come in and do the cleaning, the cracked ceiling, steel coating, striping. We move everything out. We tell everybody don't park there. We bring it all back in. It really is not that big of a deal. It's just a lot of area. We've been working on security upgrades, access doors throughout the whole entire city, city hall, the new fire station has them. We don't have them at the old station yet. We don't have them at Public Works, but we have the gate system. They all run on the same system. software platform. Marina has them. So we just want to move towards getting rid of physical keys and moving towards access cards. That way we know who's going in, who's not going in. Have we had any issues? Absolutely not. We have cameras. We have the gate. We're very diligent about keeping our facility closed, locked. We have a walk around every day. This is just an added security enhancement to our shop that we would like to put in play. And of course, it's all three buildings. There's a lot of doors. It wouldn't be a new software. It's just existing. It would exist into our existing software. Our covered storage, I know you've heard this over and over again. I wish I didn't have to say it again, just like the generators. I really wish that I had the time to really just knock this one out. It's just a matter of, I need another eight hour day. You know, we just, just things get pushed to the bottom of the list. This is one of those things that is pushed to the bottom of the list. It's really ideal. We want to do it. We want to protect our vehicles. We want to protect the materials over there. We'd love to start doing bulk salt instead of buying it in toters. That would be ideal, but we have to have covered storage to do that. different things like that. So we are still moving forward on this project. We put the funds away in the facility replacement fund. So it's just a matter of getting it out to bid and getting it built on that. It would be on the north side of the building. And hopefully in a few years in the next budget cycles, we can come back and ask for the other side of the building because that's more assets are over there as well. And that's it.

Doesn't the expanded parking lot also help with the covered storage too, like a freeing up space, or no, does it?

No, it wouldn't. That would only be for employees, yeah. Good question, though, but it would be only for employees.

Okay, do you guys have questions for Sandy? Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

When it comes to the parking lot, isn't there any of that can be done internally, like the striping?

Oh, yeah. We could totally do it. Yeah. We could totally do that in-house. Okay.

I mean, I understand the seal coating, maybe not. We probably don't have the equipment for that.

Yeah. I would have to give you the numbers to see if what would be cheaper or not. And also to take away from their jobs that they're already doing. But, yeah. It totally could. They could do it for us.

Yeah. I'm just curious what could be done in-house. They freshen it up in the end. What makes sense. Sometimes, I guess, it doesn't make sense. But, I mean, when I think public works, that's kind of somewhat what I think is. It is what we do.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Marshall.

I just wanted to commend you on getting all those projects done during this budget cycle. That's a lot. Yeah. So great job.

It's a team. Again, it's a team effort. We're all in this together, but I love it when we get into meetings like with David and he's like, okay, what, where's the status of this done? What's the status of this done? You know, those, those, that's a good feeling to have that at the end of the day that, that we've accomplished so many different things. And as our public works team, we have done a lot in this last two years. And with the, in addition to hiring new individuals, training new individuals, our normal day-to-day operations,

it's we're rocking it we really are great job all of you thank you all right anybody else all right well before i adjourn i just want to publicly recognize and congratulate chas on finishing her mpa i'm very proud of you we're all very proud of you and excited so congratulations Yes, Mr. Goldman, are you going to speak again?

Yeah, I have about a 30 minute dissertation I'd like to know. So I just like to I just like to provide counsel with the next steps from here. So last week we had the revenue meeting. Today we had the capital projects meeting. So from here, we're going to put the budget together. We're going to use some of the feedback that we received from city council today to design the budget. We'll be working on the operating portion of the budget over the next month or so, and we'll have something to counsel in October. probably late october the uh deadline for for providing this to the council is november 2nd we're going to try to get ahead of that a little bit so that'll be one you'll see the budget next um and then feel free to continue to send your questions to uh to me or sabrina and we'll be do our best to answer them all right well no there being no further business then we