City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the City Council meeting of 03/17/2026. Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone.

City Clerk, will you please call the roll? Yes. Councilmember Tim Chisholm?

Here.

Councilmember Arnold? Here. Councilmember Prem?

Here.

Councilmember Falcone?

Here.

Councilmember Pascal?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Black?

Here.

Mayor Curtis?

Here.

All present.

Thank you. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, a project update on the Marina Park Dock And Shoreline renovation project update and a proposed Marina Park parking lot improvement project. Second, we will have a first briefing on the 2027 Comprehensive Water System plan update. There's gonna be an acronym for that eventually, isn't it? We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 07:30. City manager.

Thank you, madam mayor. So I will say a better term would have been potential parking lot project. We're not necessarily proposing something. We wanna have a discussion with the about whether the council wants to see a project move forward into the CIP. But we're going start with an update on the Marina Park dock and shoreline project. We have an August panel here to walk you through all your topics in the study session. But to kick this one off is Brian Baker, our CIP supervisor.

Thank you, City Manager. Thank you, City Council. Let's see. There we go. So tonight we have about 26 slides we're going to walk you through.

I'll be discussing the park improvement project. I'll also be talking you through the construction work zones and staging area. Marika will be talking about the public impacts and outreach and Rob will be discussing the introduction to the parking lot project. Talking about the Marina Park Dock And Shoreline project. So funding and timeline, the project has $6,300,000 It includes $825,000 in contingency to address possible contaminated soils and construction impacts that will be occurring on the site.

The timeline of the project is we're expecting to start shortly after the 07/04/2027 celebration. And the reason for that is the in water work that has to be happening for the shoreline and some of the pile driving is only allowed to occur between July 16 and March 15 of any given year. And we're expecting to be complete by 2028. So let's talk a little bit about kind of the improvements we'll be getting on the Southwood project. It's essentially in two different areas.

There's an upland portion and also a pier portion. So for the upland portion there is two ADA compliant parking stalls we're going to be renovating as well as ADA compliant pathways to the pier and the beach. We will be doing some new picnic table seating and some stabilized sheet pile shoreline with a concrete cap and some areas that are being undermined currently and also some mitigation planting. This picture that I have right here is kind of showing a little bit of the challenges with the ADA access due to differential settlement of the concrete paving that we are looking to improve. Jumping over to the pier, we have 12 replacement piles.

We will also be doing some additional structural joists to support the decking and also some steel cross bracing. We will also be improving the fascia boards and replacing an aged electrical system. So in this left picture here, this is what the pier looks like currently a few days ago. And on the right you will see that the composite decking is over on Waverly. So it will look very similar to that product.

The fascia board, if you are not familiar with that term, is really just kind of the rub rail around the outside here, so we will be replacing a lot of that throughout the pier as well. Moving over to the north, we are going to be replacing about 120 lineal foot of concrete beach stairs and that is kind of shown over here and over here. We will be stabilizing this with a sheet pile wall and then the concrete stairs will be placed over the top of that afterwards. We will also be installing some exclusion fish screens and new 1,800 square foot of concrete paving near the pavilion which will work for events and things like that. You can kind of see that in this picture here, there are some temporary measures where we have stabilized this just to keep it going essentially.

Okay, so let's talk about construction impacts and construction staging and kind of give you an idea of where the contractor is going to be working. And there's two options that we'd appreciate counsel feedback on to let us know if there's a preference between the different options for staging. The main difference truly is going to be the beach access and it's going to be kind of in this area here. Do we keep that open or not? So think in your mind as I am talking about that if you want to have that open or not.

Regardless of those options, the boat ramp will still be open up here. We also have this North Pier will be open. You will be able to access the pavilion from over here and use that. We also have many walking paths around the park as well as the restroom will be open during construction. Some of the things that will be closed is some parking near the pier and that is in this location.

Obviously the South Pier will also be closed as well because that's where we doing the renovations. So jumping over to Option B, once again keep in mind that this is really the area that we are showing. This is what the construction impacts could look like if we decided keep the beach open. Now obviously there are some pros and cons to this. There is improved beach access.

There is also better water views. But the cons are going to be the safety associated with it and kind of an attractive public nuisance. So we are not actually able to fence off all the way into the water. It would have to be essentially the outskirts would be fence and then maybe a fence panel right here. So it would be very easy for someone to walk down, jump over the stairs, go through the water and then enter the construction access area on both this location and then down on the South Pier.

So that creates unique challenges where there's going to be sheet pile wall, which is essentially a steel piling in there where people could get injured on. The wave action could knock over fencing and that could cause some challenges as well. And just keeping people away from construction items and keeping mischievous folks from throwing construction debris into the lake. So those are kind of some things to consider when you're making some evaluations on this. Okay.

So this is a time that I'd appreciate some council feedback. I can go back to those slides if you'd like to see them. Does council have any preference towards a full closure or remaining the beach open or any other questions?

So

with regard to option B there's some risk there that somebody basically intentionally would violate the city attorney question. That somebody would intentionally that would be intentional, right? Yes. Do we have much exposure if somebody intentionally violates the rules and goes into a construction area?

No. I mean, someone's trespassing, we wouldn't have tort liability for that. It's an unusual circumstances. But I mean, I would say it's also possible given that you can't fence out the water that someone could accidentally end up in that area too. But that isn't to say we can't have them take precautions.

Okay. I'm comfortable with the risk.

So you're in option B. Thank you. Councilor Mabrym?

Just have, I guess, two questions unrelated. One is the timeline. You know, a lot of us wait a long, long time to get good weather, and July is very much a peak season, so shutting off the entire park between July and the following March is a pretty big deal. So I wanted to ask, is there any way to shorten that period of time? Like, how long it would actually take to construct and fix all these things?

Like, is there a way to condense that timeline so that we're starting in September, after people are back in school? And I guess that's the first question. And then the second question is, I'd like to kind of understand typically, when we do shut off these areas, how common is it for people to ignore the signs and go into those types of locations based off of our prior experience?

Yeah. That's excellent questions. So it is entirely possible if we wanted to start later in the season for this, realizing that this is a beloved park. The challenge is we also will be bidding later in the summer which usually results in poor bids and more expensive costs. Additionally, there is some risk associated with that where if the work is not able to be completed within one season you will then have to either wait until July of the next year.

So like let's say we start in September, construction goes into February, March, we are not able to stop. We have to basically close down the operations exactly how it is and wait until the next fish window if we not able to get a variance. Variance. So that would then push it into the next season which would be a challenge there. There is also some contaminated soil so we expect to run into some contaminated soils in this area.

So by pushing it later into the season we could run into that. And so typical process is you run into the contaminated soils, you will stockpile them on-site, you need to test those materials and it takes some time to do that. Then you are able to dispose of them properly in a certain disposal site depending on how challenging the soils are. And so that is going to take a little bit more time as well. So the whole, I guess the intent of starting earlier in July is to give the contractor as much time as possible to finish the in water work to make sure that we're buffered from getting that done as fast as possible. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, it does. And I guess the second part then, like, how common is it for when we do have these signs that say, Don't enter? How typical is it that people ignore those or just don't realize that they're there?

Extremely common. I would say they completely ignore them almost frequently. I can say I've built multiple parks, and it's not uncommon to come in and find the construction fencing cut, and people are in through the fencing, playing around on-site. It's also not uncommon that if you leave the fence open by about a foot, they will walk in and start walking among all the construction equipment and things like that, just kind of seeing all the excitement that's going on there. So it happens a lot, I guess you could say.

Not infrequently I mean, sorry, not frequently, but we have had contractors have their equipment vandalized on construction sites also, just to say that there are people who don't follow the sort of signs and clear guidance that you wouldn't go on to construction areas and construction equipment.

Councilmember Arnold, were you ready?

Yes. Okay.

Thank you. So two questions. First, I agree with my colleagues so far trying to explore on how we can keep the beach open, especially for the summer, even given the risks that have been talked about. Kind of a variation on Councilmember Primm's question is, is there any advantage to saying have the beach open July, August and September and then do the full closure after that. Does that buy you more versus starting later?

That's a great question. It kind of depends on how the contractor sequence the work. I would almost expect them to start off by driving the temporary cofferdam sheet pile wall about five feet off of this shoreline. So they're going to mobilize in and just start doing that. And then that will allow them to work in a dry environment to remove this concrete stairs and all the other things that are in there and replace those with kind of a concrete stair because we're not allowed to pour wet concrete in the lake.

That's kind of the main purpose of the fish window and amongst the cofferdams. We will also see that over here on this side. So I would expect them kind of to drive the sheet piles first, then kind of mobilize some people over to the pier and start doing the pier pile drivings and then the general contractor will probably let that subcontractor go and continue to kind of work in both areas, either the pier or the upland improvements. I would expect them to start on all of the in water work first because they know they have a window that is nonnegotiable they have to deal. Does that answer your question?

Yes. The it sounds like all the in water work you'd want to do as much as possible. Does option B prevent that work from

It does not. You still do that work in there. It's just a little bit tighter and have to be aware of the public. Before

I move on to Councilor McFalcon, are you option A or option B?

Option B.

Thank you Madam Mayor. I don't have a lot more to add a lot of my questions and comments have already been covered by my colleagues. I will just highlight obviously what we're all thinking I don't want to speak for others but certainly what I'm thinking is this is a huge gem in our community, and it really shines in the summer, not just for the community, which it is, but also in getting people to our downtown core to support our local businesses in downtown as well. So I imagine that it would likely have an impact on our small business community if we were to close the entire beach. So I am in support of Option B.

I understand there's some risk with that, and I would hope that we would do everything we could with really clear signage, etcetera, of the risk to try to prevent that so that folks choose to make a bad choice, that that's on them. But I think that here, the benefit to keeping it open in my mind outweighs that risk. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, just to kind of expand on some of what's already been said. Downtown community has been impacted for the last many years. It's like kinda one thing after the other. You know?

First, it was COVID, and then it was the scramble. And so now it's going to be this, you know, realizing that there are benefits here with the investments that we're making, but there's construction impacts that are real and tangible and that really affect the business owners in these locations. And this is a draw, like Councilmember Falcone said, to the area. And so even having it open for, you know, even partly, it still enables people to access the beach, which is why they're there. Having a chain link fence up for months.

And so this is the thing that I hear from folks. Like it's it may you can argue that logically, this makes sense. You close it down. There's gonna be less risk. The contractor is gonna be able to move faster, get it done. But what unavoidably happens, and we've seen this in probably many different capital projects, is the contractors work for a few days, then nothing happens. Everything's closed. People are peering in through the chain link fence going, why isn't any construction happening? And then maybe a week later, it starts going. And then something else happens. Everything shuts down. It's closed. People wanna enjoy. It takes another couple weeks. Contractor gets going.

Because construction is is unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen. So I really favor option b because it provides maybe it has more risk, but it I think it has less risk in terms of having a beach that could be closed for a much longer period because they're gonna uncover things that we we didn't we weren't expecting. So that's one of the reasons why I would choose option b. The other thing is can't we craft contract documents that incentivize getting done earlier so they get maybe additional monetary value if they're done by that so that we can be more kind of head off the potential of going into the the c you know, beyond March or whatever that deadline is.

And then could we bid out earlier and then just say the start date is after August? So I I it seems like there's some kinda contracting mechanisms that we could really think about and actually talk with contractors and get their feedback before we actually

put this out and see what they think. Excellent feedback. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor?

Well, you. I don't need to repeat what's already been said by my colleagues. A lot of good ideas and thoughts and questions. And I agree with most of what's been said. And so I'm in support of Option B, just given the balance of the benefits and the risks. I do have a question, though. It's kind of been hinted at, but I want to make sure I ask it. As between Option A and Option B, is there any time saving that we're expecting between Option A and Option B? We understand the risks. Is there a time risk associated with Option B?

I would think they're pretty similar.

Okay. That's what I suspected. Yes. So with that, option b. I, you know, I thought I heard from council member Arnold kind of the the kernel of an idea, which is like, maybe when it gets to late October, early November, and there's much fewer people wanting to get in the water, whether we could consider putting up the fence for Option A to if we honestly thought maybe based on some of the experience we had over the summer, if we honestly thought that there was meaningful reduction in risk to the city and frankly to community members who might make bad decisions by installing a version of Option A really, really late in the season.

And I think that's what Councilmember Arnold was kind of exploring. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Prev? Yeah, I just want to add, I do really like Councilmember Pascal's ideas of putting in some contractual provisions to help speed up this whole construction project, I think, and really encouraging you to evaluate the possibility of us at least keeping July open because, again, I think a lot of people do wait a very long time to be able to enjoy this gem that we have in our city. Thank you. I'm in option B.

All right, thank you. I will pass it on to Marika.

Great, thank you very much everyone. Nice to be here to discuss the PCS impacts with the Marina Park construction. So I want to just mention that with our programs and services that we have, It does affect our primary rental areas as well as our permitted events and that impacts our special events and the need to relocate and or have a temporary suspension of some of our permanent events as well as our rentals and then mortgage and our vendor concessions because that will be a need to pause there. And then of course as we all just listened and discussed, you know how people use the park will change during this time and then there'll be some revenue effects as well. And I will go through all of those areas that I just brought up and discuss them more at length.

I will first and foremost talk about we have about 15 recurring events that will need to be either relocated or scaled back during this window of July through spring but I will say that this the option still exists for people to be able to for permitted event users to be able to use Marina Park. They can use this area east of the fence line here as well as the parking lot. So there will probably be folks that want to use that space still. We don't anticipate people needing to put vendors on the beach, for example. So there's still that option for folks to use.

And again, it's perhaps a discussion on a reduced map site or footprint for their event. It does involve some potential revenue change because some people may choose not to or they may choose to go to a different site. But the potential still exists to be able to have events at Marina Park during this time. Some of the strategies that we have include looking out and scoping alternative sites that have amenities available such as restrooms, electrical access and we will be discussing early right away with these permitted event organizers that we anticipate will be coming back and submitting permits within this thirteen month prior timeline that we have ahead of this to discuss what their options could be. Do you want to go to an alternative site?

And very specific to what their needs are, what the uniqueness of their event is, from a customer service standpoint, we can discuss that with them. I will say that permit submission timelines can still remain the same like they always have, but we will be working with those organizations to have those discussions and that way they can make informed decisions on what they'd like to do. Rental mortgage and vendor concessions that is mostly the area where we will need to pause because that's the major part of the construction. As far as Owloc Pavilion, you saw the fencing was kind of surrounding the pavilion so rentals will be paused, mortgage at this time will need to be paused as well as many of the vendor and concessionaires will be unable to operate during this time because they're at the dock and then our touch and go activity as well. Some of the impacts to that obviously are changes in revenue, approximate revenue loss as you see there.

The mitigation strategies that we have is obviously the boat launch will remain open, which is really big for our boaters and folks that enjoy the lake. And then early coordination with our vendors and our concessionaires, as mentioned before. We'll continue to discuss that. And again, they'll still be able to submit permits. And just to make sure everyone still can enjoy the park like they always have, maybe with a little bit of a different sort of circulation around the park, Access to the waterfront will be different between July and spring of that time period.

As mentioned, there's noise, some fencing, limited park access around the construction areas, and then active park goers may choose to go to other parks and that will impact those parks as well, but they'll still be able to enjoy Marina Park, just maybe a little bit differently. And then we expect community questions around the park, and I will say this more than once. We will plan on clear public messaging what is available at Marina Park, what is not available at Marina Park during this time, and we'll be working with the CIP group and the CMO office to make sure that that information is kept up and timely during this timeframe. And then something that I know is important to everyone and that is our outreach plan. Not our Ouch Plan, but our outreach plan.

Again, just we know who our organizers are, we know those impacted, we have the general community out there wanting to use the park and also they want to know what's going on. So we're going to have a two phased approach here. Again, starting in March, late March after this meeting, we will be reaching out. We're not going to wait. We're going to be reaching out to those stakeholders, our vendors, those that we really know that they're going to want to come back and provide a permit or submit for a permit for us.

And then the rentals at the pavilion, it's way too early to be blocking out those rentals so dedicated information on the webpage when people inquire about that will be there as well. And then as far as more of a broader approach, again, with CIP and CMO to have those additional timelines targeted, discussed, planned ways of communicating to folks out there. And I will say too, back to the general park use as well, we'll have signage there as well. And thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about this.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Real quick question on this. When we talk about the broader public outreach and coordinated messaging with CIP, I'm guessing maybe parks there's a division of labor here parks is communicating to park users and park key stakeholders, and maybe CIP is communicating to the business community that might be affected, they're going to have questions and wonder what's going on down there, too. I'm seeing a lot of head nods. So that's happening.

I would say our outreach, in particular, are very active during construction. You'll often see them addressing a lot of complaints and concerns during construction. But I definitely think for the broader community, we're going to rely on parks and CMO.

But downtown business owners, we're going to rely on

public Yeah, P outreach.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank

you, Madam Chair. Well, thank you for this really thoughtful presentation. I'm just putting on my TUC chair hat a moment and thinking about those events and those event organizers. I really appreciate that you mentioned on one of the slides that you added Peter Clark Park to that too because that's something that I know that, you know, we talked about earlier about the impact on our local businesses, and I know there's kind of mixed feelings about some of the big events and the impact, positive and or negative, they have on our local businesses. But I think having the ability to still have whether it be at Juanita Beach Park or Peter Kirk Park, having some of those larger events close by to some of our business core is really a good thing to try to encourage, so I'm happy to see that.

And as far as the outreach plan goes, I think you've shared that it will include some of those event organizers as well. And my question is for those who are not yet event organizers, but we're going to be collecting grant applications for TDC funded events, if it's something that we're including in that communication as far as when we're asking when we're publicizing that grant application. I just want to make sure that the message is out there that folks who may be new and may not be on our list of folks to contact are also getting this message so thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? One of the things I thought about when I was reading the packet is Heritage Park doesn't have a public restroom. And if somebody is using the Heritage Hall, then they don't have a restroom. So I would be interested in exploring what the cost would be to supply a restroom so that that park can be activated more for these events just because there's the advantage that it's close to downtown.

It's adjacent to downtown. So I think there might be if we're moving people out of Marina Park, there's probably going to be a lot of interest in both using Heritage Peter Kirk Park. So I'd like to explore that. And Brian, going back to you, I just want to clarify, we know the fish window is July to March, but that's not the construction schedule, right? I don't want to set expectations that we're going to be done in March. When will we actually anticipate being finished with the complete project?

We're planning to be done in March as well.

That's the best news ever. All right.

But I will say, it sounds like there's a lot of interest in getting done early. So we will explore those options.

Okay, good. I'm happy to hear that. The other question I had was, and Julie made me think of it because we're talking about the parking lot, is construction staging. So where are we anticipating that that's going to happen?

Excellent question. So there's really, it's going to be a pretty tight site because in order to keep the boat ramp open we're going to have to be able to stage near the pavilion kind of on that Upper West portion of the city, the Marina Park and as well as a lot of staging will likely happen kind of by down where the parking stalls are on the south side of the pier. So they'll probably put stuff in both spots there but it's a very small area for what we're trying to accomplish. So that's going to be one of the challenges.

Okay, thank you. Last question is we're going to have mortgage customers that are used to coming over from Laurelhurst. Obviously we can't do outreach to them, so I imagine we're going to put some signage on the end of the dock. I can just see a lot of boat traffic circling around looking someplace to dock.

Were you asking me about that? So yes, we do have a webpage about the mortgage, so we have that. We also have signage that we could put at the pay station which is always there and we sell seasonal boat launch cards and so at least for those folks we can let them know in advance about that.

Council Member Pascal?

Yeah, to kind of expand on the construction staging, are we going to allow the possibility for contractors to use over water barges for staging a construction material?

Yeah, if they get a subcontractor that barges in materials and utilize that, that would be acceptable.

Okay, especially if it reduces impact to kind of on-site.

When we renovated the pier last time, we utilized a barge system to do some of the improvements.

Councillor Mabryum, then Deputy Mayor.

Is there a way to phase, like put phases for this whole construction project, like the left side first, close that down first, we work on that, and then we do the right side next. Is that an option?

Of course it's an option. One of the challenges is really the in water work limited time frame that we have to do it. And so if we restrict kind of work on the Northwest and then go on the South, that will likely drive up costs and can be challenging towards getting it done in the shorter time window that's designed.

So like once it starts, it starts everywhere?

It's likely going to start everywhere. You're to see essentially like a subcontractor working on some areas and then the general contractor will be doing other things in I other expect it to be very busy if they're going to be able to get it done in that time frame.

Okay, alright, thank you. Deputy Mayor?

Thanks. Real quick, Council Member Pascal asked my question about the barge, but then I started thinking, if the answer is yes, so there's gonna be a construction barge, and that construction barge is gonna be 15 feet off of the beach, sitting there right where we've gone with plan b because we're expecting people to use the beach. I wouldn't necessarily reverse my opinion about Plan B or Option B, but it's probably going be a disappointment. Is that what imagining are in our head? Is there basically a barge sitting there all summer long just off the beach?

I would expect barges are really expensive to mobilize in and then keep in one spot. So what I would expect is if the general contractor is not able to drive the cofferdam sheet piles from the land side, then that barge would be coming over there installing those sheet piles. Then moving out into the pier area and kind of further away from that beach where they would be working on driving the piles and removing the piles that need to be removed. And then they're going to go away, likely for a long time, and then maybe come back at the end to pull the temporary sheet piles.

So it sounds like to be realistic, there is a chance we're going to all unanimously go for option B. But for some period of time in July and August, while they're doing the sheet what you call them, the cofferdams, there is going to be a barge sitting there a few feet off of the beach. Quite likely.

Yeah.

But it would be probably a shorter timeframe, maybe a few weeks at most.

Well, at least it won't be news to any of us. We now know. Okay, alright, thanks.

Thank you. Alright, back to you guys.

Rob English, Capital Division Manager. And the second part of our presentation tonight is on the Marina Park parking lot and the potential for a project at the site. And this is just an introduction to the item. We're looking for council feedback. Within the council memo, we've identified three potential options for levels of improvement at the site.

And this was based on preliminary discussions when we started having related to doing a pavement grind and overlay of the lot and restriping it. We also, when we started having those discussions, started to ask questions about what's the existing infrastructure, buried infrastructure like. Is it time to do bigger project potentially at the site in the future to correct some of the damaged sidewalk and pavement that exists. So again, this is just an introduction item tonight and first review, so we're looking for Council's input on it. So the first few slides I have are basically just some background information.

The existing parking lot has 116 parking stalls. There are parking sensors within each stall that detect vehicle for the parking paid parking program. There are sidewalk that exists along the perimeter and within the islands that separate the parking stalls. Existing street lighting is out there. There's approximately 30 existing trees mature trees.

We'll get into some of what they're damaging here in a minute. And then the Plaza Of Champions is located center westerly of the parking lot, and that was a plaza that was built in 1988 that exists today. As far as buried infrastructure, we do have stormwater utilities within the site. About 900 feet of pipe, it ranges in size from four to 48 inches diameter. There are 16 catch basins that collect runoff from the parking lot that take it out to the lake.

One of the challenges of the site is that due to the proximity of the lake and the buried pipe, there is a backwater condition that exists where standing water does exist in some of the pipelines. So assessing and addressing that, it will be a challenge if we go forward with construction and addressing some of that infrastructure. As far as water and sewer utilities,

the

green is the sewer pipeline, and the water is the blue. And so the first item at the lower bottom of the screen at the southern location of the parking lot is the lift station. And then we have a 12 inches water main that runs along the east side of the parking lot, serves two fire hydrants. And then the sewer main itself ranges in size between eight and twenty one inches in diameter. And there is an eight inch force main that runs from the sewerless station out to the north.

So again, existing conditions. The pavement actually within the parking lot is in fair condition. There are locations around the catch basins where because of the water and ponding water at times that pavement is failing locally, but overall the parking lot itself is in fair condition. The tree root intrusion is a problem. As you can see from the picture on the screen, you can see the roots from a particular tree actually going into the paved area and causing problems with the pavement and ponding.

It's also causing some of the sidewalk area within the islands to buckle. So there are issues with route intrusion in select locations. Stormwater infrastructure, as I mentioned, is within the site. That particular pipe infrastructure needs further assessment. Again, one of the challenges is since there is a backwater condition, we haven't had an opportunity to go in and do video inspection on that pipe, but that's something that we'll be looking at doing in the future.

The water and sewer utilities within the site are in good condition. There is sewer laterals within the site that serve the adjacent properties. Primarily, sewer laterals on the east side of the parking lot have had some issues in the past regarding maintenance. And so this could be an opportunity if the project goes forward in the future to coordinate that work with the work we're doing at the parking lot itself. Puget Sound Energy has existing electric vaults that may need replacement.

They've as well have had issues with maintenance and could be an opportunity to replace one or more of those vaults with the project. Soil conditions. Due to the high groundwater, that is an issue, especially if we do a more comprehensive project where we're doing a lot of excavation. Given the high groundwater, we probably have to do some dewatering. That adds cost and duration to the project.

And there's also potential, as Brian mentioned in the Park Renovation Project, that there could be some contamination within the site. So that would be something we'd have to do if the project goes forward during the design phase to figure out what kind of contamination may exist within the site. So the three options, and these again are all three are outlined in your memo. So the first one is kind of where we started, which was pavement overlay and striping. It's the most simple project we could do at the site.

We could also do some targeted replacements. There's six trees that we know that are diseased and damning infrastructure out there today. We can do some spot repair of storm water infrastructure. Again, where there's ponding that exists, could go in and do select replacement, try to correct some of those problems. But the rest of the remaining infrastructure would stay in place.

The streetlights, the remaining trees, the vehicle circulation, all that would remain in place and that would not be improved with option one. So option two, a much more significant project. This would modernize the parking area. This particular option would focus on keeping basically the parking stalls and the uses as they exist today, but it would basically rebuild everything on the surface. So we'd replace any utilities that are in poor condition.

We'd go in and build new pavement, sidewalk, sidewalk within the islands that separate the parking stalls, trees, landscaping and amenities. So a much more substantial project and longer in duration. And then finally, option three, which is a comprehensive redesign. So this would be an option where we look at how we could redesign the entire area and potentially look at reallocation of uses, redesign the circulation and the parking within the site, redesigned the public community space for community events or the farmers' market. And so this would entail an alternative study where we could look at different options and have community input and business input into what that redesign would look like.

New infrastructure would exist at the end of the project similar to Option two, but obviously potentially in a different reallocated space in use. This table shows just a kind of side by side comparison of the three options. So the first row shows this is schedule and cost. Option one is the overlay option. We're estimating $2,000,000 with design starting in '7, with a construction start date of '9.

We're estimating two to three months. And again, this is conceptual. We haven't done any design work that could extend easily if we find contamination or we have to do a more extensive work with the utilities. Option two, the modernization approach, keeping the existing space allocation. That's $6,200,000 conceptual number, and has the same schedule as Option one.

The duration would be five to six months unless we find more during the design phase that would cause it to extend, again, contamination, more extensive utility replacement. Then Option three is the complete redesign. We can't provide an estimate because we don't know what that scope of work would look like. It does add a year to the schedule just to give an opportunity to do the alternative study, And the timeline would be dependent on the schedule. And so I guess the one thing I just wanted to know, there's nothing pressing at the parking lot today that requires immediate infrastructure fix or replacement.

So there's flexibility in the schedule as well. Outreach and engagement, obviously very important given the location, as mentioned earlier, related to the park. The parking is vital to the adjacent businesses in the community. So as if this project does go forward and starts to define scope of work, outreach engagement would be a really important key aspect of getting that input into how we set up the construction and the actual work at the site. But that's something that will be determined later as we move forward with the scoping work of project.

So at this point, like I said, this is just an introduction, first review. Looking for council feedback on the options. Obviously, there could be hybrids of depending on the options, but those three were kind of the initial ones we identified for you to consider. The next presentation, we'll take counsel feedback tonight. We still have some homework to do on our side with regards to utilities, but we'd come back and provide a more refined scope of work and potential options. Also identify funding sources that could be used to fund the project, and then address outreach and engagement as well. With that, I will turn it over

for questions. Who

wants to go first? Councilmember Arnold.

Thank you. I think the feedback that you're going to hear is similar to what you've heard regarding the marina improvements that not looking to disrupt the whole Moss Bay area. And so I'm in favor of option one in doing the targeted work to improve things. Just given all the complexity of the other options and what's underground and

the

unknown, it's not something I'm looking forward to given that we're already lining up some disruption in 'twenty seven where this would be something would happen years later. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Mayor Falcombe?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I can't tell you how many times I've been invited to walk the marina parking lot with folks to share some very valid concerns that I share that we probably all share with accessibility issues, with safety, tripping hazards, things of that nature. So I'm really happy to see this moving forward and us having a discussion about what we want, whether we want to move forward. But I'm happy to see this presentation tonight, so thank you. I mean, I do think short term, I would like to see a little bit more it sounds like there's some unknowns, right, with some stormwater infrastructure, some soil conditions.

And so like I'd to know a little bit more and get a little bit more understanding of what Option one would take just to fix some of those safety things with the you know, whether it's the tree roots that are causing tripping hazards to removing the trees and fixing the sidewalks short term. And then I really I think about, again, my comments earlier around Marina Park being such a gem in our city. It is a wonderful place for community building. It is wonderful for economic development. And then I also think about some of our great restaurants and shops that are right there.

A lot of them have outdoor seating. And in between the two, we have this big, ugly parking lot. Right? And it just doesn't fit. Right?

And I so I would like us to think through how we can maybe not short term but not long term, medium term, look at Option three. Perhaps it's part of like the 20 seventwenty eight work program that we look at the design. I want to understand some of what it would take, some of what it would cost and really look at designing something that really matches the same level that the rest of the area in Kirkland really is up to that standard. I mean, we're known for our waterfront parks. We're known for our beautiful downtown, and there's just so much potential of what we could do here.

And I think it's really important that we bring the community along. You talked about engagement, so bringing the community along, bringing the local businesses along with what they want to see here and what would help them, visitors as well as event organizers, right, and probably others that I'm not thinking of right now. But I this is, in my mind, a great opportunity to spark interest, more interest in our downtown, more economic development in our downtown and really just making it even more of a destination than it already is, an even more enjoyable experience. I think of sitting there, whether it be at, like, Vovino or The Slip or, you know, Moss Bay Hall and being able to have a beautiful site and not having to ignore kind of that in between in our view, but just really having I think that would do so much for placemaking and community building in our city. So I'd like to see us, I guess, an option a light option one with a midterm option three as well.

Thank you.

You. Councillor Prem.

I am for option one. And the reason and I would say that the option one should be based off of public feedback that we're getting, right? So I think there should be a direct correlation with what we're hearing from businesses, what we're hearing from the public, and then making those fixes accordingly. So, like, if that's trees, if that's sidewalks, great. But I think just prioritizing what those things are based off of public and community feedback.

I think option three, I mean, it's I think right at this point, it's kind of open canvas. I think getting some more information on what we could potentially do there is not a bad idea. So I agree with Councilmember Falcone that there is a lot of potential in that area. So I think getting some more information on what potential options could be, I think that would be great. I don't know what format that would come in, though. And maybe, Kurt, I don't know if there's any thoughts there, but definitely open to that.

I'd say we need to ponder that, but I'll check notes.

You. Councilor Pascal?

Thank you. I mean, think what you're hearing is there's no question that there's a need here to make some improvements. It's just a question of kind of the level of improvements and timing. And so, you know, I'm I'm in favor of option three. I'm also in favor of investing in a pool. I'm also in favor of the Kamaikan Jim. I'm in favor of Marcher Fields. I'm in favor of more park acquisition. I'm in favor of more pickleball courts. I'm in favor of a master plan for Mark Twain Park, and the list goes on.

So for me, I think we could go to any park and kind of identify the needs. But I think we need to see this all together as part of the capital improvement program, and really, that makes them priorities. That's that's the hard part. Like, this isn't hard. This isn't hard to say, like, hey. We need to do something. What is it that we need to do? The hard part is prioritizing all the other needs in the city. And so I would I'd love to have this discussion. I'd I'd like that you're that we're bringing this up.

I just wanna have it kinda more holistically so we can make some real choices because we can't do it all as much as we want to do it all. And I think if we are moving forward with this, if there's support from the majority of council move forward with option one or more, I really think we need to sit down with the business community and the property owners and really make sure hear them and kind of go from there and make sure we're right sizing this and addressing their concerns. Hey, I love it all, show me the money, I guess.

Deputy Mayor?

Well, you. And I don't need to repeat what's already been said. I probably put my weight behind those who've said a version of option one in the near term that really focus on the feedback that we've gotten, the negative feedback from the business community or community members who have limited mobility sort of and so I would sort of think like mobility, safety, and any specific comments from the neighboring businesses doing that as part of option one. Again, I need to I mean, like sorry, Member Pascal called you John. Like Council Member Pascal said, obviously, you need to understand I mean, we saw a $2,000,000 number.

You need to understand how that fits into the, funded CIP if we're talking about doing this in the horizon of the funded CIP project. Otherwise, I really, really want to do Option three eventually. I think about the we've sort of developed a little bit of look and feel, a little bit of quality of finish with the work that we did several years ago with Park Lane, the work we just recently completed with Scramble. This feels to me like an extension of that to create that kind of place in Downtown Kirkland. I think it's time to invest in that here.

But again, I guess I'll just echo what Customer Pascal said. We need to I'd like to see it on the CIP. It's probably going be on the unfunded CIP. And then we can talk about whether it actually belongs there and then whether where we can prioritize it. But yes, I mean, I would love to see a version of this. I think of it as sort of a as a potential for sort of a festival space, even though it's a parking lot, it's also a festival space with electric and sorry, with power and water and a look and feel that is the same quality of finish that we've done with the Park Lane and the Scramble. So, hopefully that's all the, that's enough direction. Is that enough? Okay, thanks.

Councilmember, Tim Chisholm, and I just want to we've got a time check here.

Option three, thank you.

Okay, thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I'll try to be synced also. So I am an option one, very light. Take the trees out, improve the sidewalk. But as you've heard already, this parking lot is a headache. It's a disaster, and we do hear about it all the time. I am very sensitive to the fact that when we open up this parking lot and get into those utilities, we have no idea what we're going to find. I like to believe that when that happens, there might be some winds in there. We might have some stormwater efficiencies.

We're always looking to put a vault somewhere, so we could do that. PSC would be interested in improving their infrastructure. So there's an upside beyond just the surface of the improvements that we can do. But I always think about the legacy that we were left by the leaders before us, which is our waterfront parks. And we're known for our waterfront parks.

And it's important to me that we continue that legacy in how we build maintain our infrastructure. So I'm Option one light moving to an Option three, recognizing, as everyone has already said, that it's not happening in the next two years, that it can go on the six year unfunded CIP, that we might want to look at our work program for 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight, and maybe that's a 50% design. What I think is super, super important is, before we get too far ahead, that we do a very robust community engagement plan, that we talk to the downtown businesses and the residents and propose it to them, what is your vision for this? What would you like to see? What is important to you?

Because, really, this should community driven. And then once we know what the vision is from the community, then we can start looking at how we can execute that and what that's going to cost. Thank you. Anything else?

No, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, guys. Alright, we've got a half an hour left.

Thank you very much. So we're gonna.

We're gonna do the 2027 comprehensive water system plan update, city manager.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. And the purpose tonight is really just to give you an overview of what's gonna be in the comprehensive plan and get council feedback. This is the first of several touch base touches that we're gonna do over the course of the year with the goal of adopting the plan in the 2027. So initial information and initial counsel feedback is the hope for today. And Tom, are you going be doing the presentation?

Utility operations manager will be making the presentation. Tom Creason.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager, Madam Mayor, members of the council. I am Tom Chris, I'm the utility operations manager and I'm here tonight to talk about the Water System Plan 2026 update. The primary purpose of the city of Kirkland's water system plan is to identify and schedule water system improvements to correct existing system deficiencies, provide adequate fire flow, and ensure a safe and reliable supply of water to current and future customers. The map identifies areas certified but served by the city of Kirkland Water System.

Our North End residents are served by North Shore Utility District and the Woodinville Water District. Here are some statistics about the water system. As you read these, you can see the six fifty zone pump station at the South Reservoir. The newly painted teal sections of pipe represent the five forty five pressure zone. The dark blue represent the six fifty pressure zone.

This comprehensive plan is regulated by the Department of Health with required updates every six to ten years. It is coordinated regionally with Cascade Water, Redmond and Bellevue's comprehensive plans. It will forecast supply demand and integrate climate change climate resilience. This water system plan, last adopted in 2015, serves as a comprehensive roadmap for the utility. It addresses system management, including operations and maintenance.

It establishes design criteria such as water pressure, fire flow and seismic resiliency and evaluates water supply to meet both current and future needs. The plan also assesses the physical capacity, hydraulic performance of the existing infrastructure and identifies infrastructure needs and replacement priorities based on factors such as age, condition, failure risk and capacity. In addition, it analyzes population trends and land use forecast future water demands based on growth projections. The plan outlines a capital improvement plan stability and guide the funding, scheduling and prioritization of system upgrades. Finally, it includes procedures for sampling, monitoring and testing to ensure compliance with water quality standards.

This plan is divided into 10 chapters and several appendices. Pictured here is our supply Station 2. So what's changed? The Northeast 85th Street project replacement, replacement of the bar wrapped concrete pipe along Northeast 85th Street, coordinated with the I-four 05 Northeast 85th Street project, is now substantially complete. The final remaining segment will be 114th Avenue Northeast Crossing, and it is scheduled to begin soon.

All these new segments are being constructed out of earthquake resistant ductile iron pipe. Five ten Zone Conversion. An upcoming council meeting will include a discussion and direction on the final alternate selection for permanent five ten Zone Conversion. No additional zone conversion recommendations are currently planned. South reservoir replacement project.

The design of the new 15,000,000 gallon prestressed concrete reservoir is progressing and is approaching 30% design completion. The Cascade Water Supply Change. An agreement between the Cascade Water Alliance, of which Kirkland is a member, and Tacoma Water, a division of Tacoma Public Utilities, to supplement supply to Cascade customers, was approved by the Tacoma City Council. An updated capital improvement plan. This chapter presents proposed improvements to the city of Kirkland's water system necessary to resolve existing system deficiencies.

Water system plan highlights some major policy areas, including level of service, zoning and growth, system improvements and financial planning. These areas will be further explored in future council briefings highlighted in the next slide. This slide is the sequence we are proposing for council updates leading to outside agency and CEPA review, then final adoption. As you can see, we're going to talk about level of service, fire flow growth and demand in May 2026, followed by system improvements in June, the capital improvement plan in fall. We'll have the draft plan in February with the outside agency review in spring and final adoption in June.

Note the outside agency is a variable. It's obviously outside of our control and it does have quite a bit of variables on that timeline. So we're here to ask you are we on track with this policy schedule in these policy areas? And are there any other areas you wish to explore?

Thank you, Tom. And thank you for the pictures because those are we don't get to see the pipes. And I'm really impressed how clean it is. So you run a very tight ship.

Thank you.

Well, the crew takes pride in their work.

Councilor Mayor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to share those slides with my boys. Just today, I was at a construction site walking past in Woodinville with one of my sons, he was fascinated looking underground at the different pipes and valves and things that were under there. So I think they'll appreciate that even more perhaps than we do here from the Dimes. Well, thank you for this. I think you've captured most of what I'd be looking for. Just a couple things to add that I'll be looking out for in future presentations. One is, as you mentioned, we only serve a portion of the city, right? There are the NUD and Woodinville Water District that also serve our residents. We don't need to get into a lot of detail of what's happening there, but I would like to see an update on each of those and their planning and how that's going.

I just want to make sure that we are looking out for all of our residents and making sure that they have a similar water quality standards, infrastructure management, seismic upgrades, things like that. Just want to make sure that's consistent. And if there are areas that we need to advocate, that we're aware of those and are able to plan and advocate for those with those other jurisdictions. And then I think it's already going to be included in some of the presentations, but something I'll be looking out for is just rates, water rates, utility rates as part of this as well, right, as part of our larger discussion and just keeping our pulse on that and just being aware and sensitive to the cost of living increases and anything we can do to be mindful of that throughout this and be very transparent with the public about that. Thank

you. You. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you and thank you for the good presentation and the good memo in the packet. I don't need to repeat anything that's already been said by Councilmember Falcone. One of the things that I wanted to look for is since the adoption of the 2015 plan, we have adopted the sustainability strategic plan. And I have not gone back and looked at the sustainability plan recently, but I'm guessing there are some goals and objectives there related to perhaps things like water conservation. So I would be curious, maybe it fits into the system improvements, maybe I'll let you I'll let the professionals be the judge as to where that fits in.

But I would like us to give some thought as to if there's anything new in our goals and objectives as a city through the sustainability plan that might make sense to thread into our water plan. Thank you.

Councilor Pascal.

Thank you. I'd just say that I have a newfound appreciation of water water after sitting through many meetings with the Cascade Water Alliance and just what a big topic this is. And you know, it's something that's often not seen until a problem arises, arises, like we experienced last couple years in Highlands. So some things that I'd be looking for in this are a couple items, a number of which have already been said, so thank you to my colleagues. So I won't repeat those.

But the adequacy of our system in our lower density neighborhoods, I think it's my perception that was did our system get designed in a way that anticipated the level of density that might occur now with changes that we're making in zoning and and statewide requirements. So I'd like to make sure that this water system plan looks at that. The other thing would be also hearing and have heard, and I still don't completely understand it all, but there are areas of our city that have low water flow, and that impacts the cost of development and housing. And so I'm just trying to understand kind of the magnitude of that and how the water system plan could address that over time. The other item would be that as we grow as a city and as Cascade Water undertakes the largest capital program that they've ever done and probably one one of the largest in the state for that matter.

Kirkland's going to have to play a role in that because Kelly and I can't do it all,

the mayor.

And so and and some of our staff support. I I I do feel like there's more resource that we might need to be considering to support that, but also to support the implementation of our water system plan. So I see it as kind of interrelated. And then everything else was spoken for, so thank you.

You. Councillor Marepreh? I agree with a lot

of what has already been said, so I won't repeat those things. But I think the only thing I would add is, as we grow and we decide to make changes to the water system plan, just making sure that we have an individual, consultant, whoever it may be, to really vet any downstream impacts of changes, someone that is really dedicated to looking around corners, just to make sure that, you know, things like what happened in Highlands doesn't happen again, just someone that's really dedicated, either that be someone in house or as part of our consultancy agreements very distinctly and specify that we want someone allocated to that function.

You. Councilmember Arnold.

Thank you. Thank you for being here, Tom. You mentioned in your presentation climate resiliency was one piece. Another piece that I'd be interested in is resiliency from an emergency management standpoint. You mentioned the earthquake resistant piping that we did as part of the eighty fifth project that I remember that being a council decision where we allocated additional funding for I'd be interested as we go through the processes, what are the opportunities for additional investments and upgrades to improve the resiliency of the overall system, even if we don't choose to do things it'd be interesting to understand everything from an unfunded CIP standpoint, so we can make some progress over time.

Secondly, Councilmember Falcone has mentioned the North Shore Utility District and Woodinville Water District. From our resident standpoints, they don't care about the jurisdiction lines. So I am interested in any differences in approaches that are happening between the three plans both in that are there opportunities for us as a city to provide some public comment to those other agencies to synchronize or for us to change on our end or if there are reasons for legitimate differences as a city council I'd want to understand those to be able to explain those to our residents because they shouldn't have to understand all the idiosyncrasies of the junior taxing districts. Thank you.

Thank you. I have no input. Everything notes I made have been covered. So anything else? Shortest study session ever, Tom. Nicely done.

That's right.

Well, I'll be back, though.

No promises. Right? Alright. That concludes our study session. We'll be back at 07:30.

Needs to be done to address transphobic violence, particularly at this time when transgender rights and existence are being challenged throughout our country and world. And whereas allies can show solidarity through silencing further harm with continued support beyond Pride Month through sustained year round efforts, normalizing pronoun usage, and promoting the significant contributions to the world made by 2S LGBTQIA plus individuals, and whereas the city welcomes and celebrates queer and transgender individuals, affirming their right to dignity, to live authentically, safely, and without fear of discrimination or harm. Now therefore, mayor Kelly Curtis, on behalf of the Kirkland City Council, proclaims 03/31/2026 as transgender day of visibility in the city of Kirkland and invites our community to celebrate the lives of transgender, non binary, and gender expansive people everywhere to foster a more equitable and inclusive community. Aaron would you like to say a few words?

Did not come prepared. Thank you Mayor Curtis and the rest of the council for inviting me and Erica for inviting me here to accept this proclamation. This is very amazing. I struggled a lot with trying to figure out what to say. I feel like this is a day that we should celebrate and a day that should be positive, but as we know, the reality is not very positive and not really something that we should celebrate.

And I'm known for just dumping reality onto people, but I think it's important for people to understand what's going on in this world and this country of what's going on. So, you know it's a very scary time for the trans community. Our humanity is actively being dismantled. They started with banning books about gender identity, banning and deleting the use of the word transgender from existence, and then they moved to sports and bathrooms. It was a test to see how far they can go with dehumanizing us and then see if there was outrage.

And when there was none, they continued to push for further. They started to take away our healthcare, take away our driver's licenses, and now they're trying to take away our right to vote. They are actively trying to delete me and the rest of the trans community from existence. Please stop me if this sounds very familiar from past history because it's showing similarities, which is very scary. I take the silence very personally because no one knows what a lot of us had to give up and what we lost and what we had to sacrifice just to live the life that we wanted to live and be our true selves.

I lost personally, I lost my family, friends, marriage and access to my daughter to just to live my true self. And I had to rebuild from ground zero. Over the last decade of advocacy, I've learned one thing: Knowledge is power. It's natural for people to fear what they don't understand, and I completely get that. The best way to fight against ignorance is through education.

Once people understand what it means to be transgender, they start to realize that there's nothing to be afraid of. This is why visibility is so important because without it, people are not going to know the atrocities that are happening and people aren't going to go seek out that knowledge to better understand who we are. So I would like to challenge everybody in this room, if you don't understand, ask questions. I'm here. I'm a person who does not get offended easily.

If you have that question that you're like, I don't know if I should ask this if it might not be appropriate, ask me. I can be that resource for you and I will tell you the answer and I'll also tell you, no, that's probably very offensive. Don't actually ask other people that question. But I'm always here to help educate because knowledge is power. And if you do understand who we are and what we're going through, don't ignore what's going on. Don't look away and don't stay silent. Stand with us, fight with us and be loud with us. Thank you.

All right. Next on our council's agenda is a proclamation for the Cesar Chavez Day on March 31. However, today, various news organizations are reporting on troubling allegations about Mr. Chavez. The United Farm Workers has indicated it will not participate in Cesar Chavez Day's activities this year and that it is working with the Cesar Chavez Foundation to invest the allegations and to support those who may have been harmed by Mr.

Chavez. In light of this new information and out of respect for those who may have been affected, I have pulled this proclamation from tonight's agenda, and we will not be issuing it at this time unless there is an objection from my fellow council members. Seeing none, the item will be removed from our agenda. Thank you, counsel. All right.

We are now going to move on to items from the audience. So this is a time in our meeting when we normally hear from the public on matters that are not quasi judicial or otherwise scheduled for a public hearing. This evening, we have both a public hearing and a quasi judicial item. The public hearing is on Item 6A on the proposed use of eminent domain to acquire the Overlake Oil property and the quasi judicial matter in Item 8A on the Emerson Campus master plan amendment. And I'm sure the Boy Scouts are taking notes, and we'll explain all of this to you later.

Or you can just listen. Comments on the public hearing items related to the proposed Overlake Oil condemnation I always mispronounce that word must wait until the public hearing. So I want to be really clear. If you want to talk about the Overlake Oil condemnation, wait until the public hearing, not during items for the audience. We cannot accept any public comments on the Emerson campus master plan amendment.

On all other matters, please limit your remarks to three minutes. We will provide up to a total of forty five minutes for our items for the audience, with no more than six speakers on a subject, regardless of their position on the subject. If you would like to address the Council during these items for the audience period, please sign up using the online public comment instruction link or the posted QR code in chambers. For those participating by phone, please dial 9 to be recognized to speak. Items from the audience is an important part of our business meeting, and we ask that everyone be treated with kindness and respect.

Please do not clap or applaud or otherwise openly express your agreement or disagreement with a speaker. When that happens, even when supporting a speaker, it can be disruptive of the meeting and discourage others from sharing a different viewpoint. We discourage people from using obscenities and making personal attacks against others, and we ask that you direct your comments to the Council, not to staff or other audience members. In addition, because they can be disruptive, sign and placards are not allowed in council chambers during our meetings, regardless of their content. Kirkland prides itself on being a welcoming, respectful community.

We want everyone to feel like they belong in council chambers, expressing their viewpoints. City Clerk, who do we have signed up to speak?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. At this point, we have six guests wishing to speak. We'll take the first three in this order, all of them on-site: Ingrid Salmon, Wolfe Adriatico and Alex Zimmerman.

Ingrid?

Hello, City Council. Thank you for entertaining my ideas again. I'm Ingrid Salmon, and I live in the WinitaFin Hill neighborhood, and I wanted to speak to walking across the road. I have been observing the fact that Lake Forest Park I guess we're getting I'm getting our competitive juices flowing here but Lake Forest Park and Shoreline both in those communities, they do have signage about crossing the road at any intersection, that all intersections are considered essentially four way stops for the cars and that the pedestrian has the right of way to cross. Now I'm, you know, not wanting to take my life in my hands, but it is a bit doing so crossing the street if there's not a lighted intersection or a stop sign there.

And so I just wanted to elevate this issue to the council and ask I have read that in state law that that is state law to allow a pedestrian to cross at any intersection that is unmarked. So my hope and recommendation and suggestion is maybe ask the 13 neighborhood associations if they could identify maybe one intersection. They really wanted someone to have a sign there to be aware of that they can cross that at that location and the cars are expected to stop. I'd remind the audience that's listening to me that actually public roads are a benefit for all of us, including people who walk, and they're not actually, you know, exclusive thoroughfares for people who drive cars. So thank you for listening to me and I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Ingrid. Next we have Wolf. Welcome.

Hello. As a non Kirkland resident, it's very refreshing to see government functioning not badly. That may sound like a low bar, but you know, sort of been dealing with for a while. I just wanted to talk about the importance of having safe third spaces for for youth, especially youth that doesn't have any alternative and that is most commonly, you know, LGBT youth and other alternative teens, and there's there wasn't a place for there there wasn't a place like that that I could find other than a place known as the Old Firehouse Teen Center, which Redmond closed down now, and its absence has been very impactful on me. So just wanted to,

Yeah. I have to run down there and give you a hug.

No, it's okay, it's okay. Just wanted to mention how important having third spaces are a place for kids to go after school that's not home. It's very important. Thank you.

Thank you, Wolf. Alex? Alex

Zimmerman followed by Murray McKinney, Aaron Hamilton and Liz Hunt.

Hi. My name Alex Zimmerman. I'm president of Stand Up of Stand Up America for a long time. And I can do that for 15 times for government who totally acting like a crook bandita in criminal. Yep. And pure fascist too. Yeah. I'm so sorry for my opinion. I always talking here for last few months only about problem, but it's fundamental. It's about housing, government housing.

What is supposed to be provide housing for low income, disabled, senior citizen. These kinds of people what is totally discriminate when you can use this word here. And I can talk in this because we have this representative from King Country Housing Authority, black commissioner. And I talked to him before, and I have three question to him. Yeah.

I don't see answer for more than months, but it's okay. I will repeat this here. Question number one, when you restore my section eight watcher, what is it take from me twenty year ago and I fighting for twenty year? Number one. Number two, to me you look like a criminal, like Bandita, and like a killer because and I investigate investigate this.

I told you before many time. I have evidence. We have thousand and thousand people who don't have right sue support from King Country House in authority. Is people who don't have document and people who have document what is not enough. And exactly after Trump talking about this executive order, so government supposed to be first give apartment to low American citizen, low income senior citizen disabled. I am almost 80 year old. The third question, what is I have to you? I give you this complaint from US Supreme Court decision. Yeah. Months more months ago.

But is you because you and your four friends friend, brother, commissioner, me six months trespass because I come few times, three times only. You're talking about saying what is I talking now. So to me, you look like a pure bandita. Sorry. Yes. So right now, I will ask you, answer me these three question. And I'm so sorry, I'm not psychologist, you know what this mean. But when you don't answer this for one month, yeah, I will speak again. Because psychology talk for idiot need 21 time repetition. It's not my opinion.

It's psychology opinion. I'm so sorry, counsel black commissioner. We were Trump. Were new American revolution. Stand up, slave, and happy cow. We need stop, and we need bring America back to citizen. Thank you very much.

All right. Murray.

Good evening. Murray McKinney, resident of Highlands since 'seventy six. Here tonight just to get an update on what's going on with the water pressure. We're still experiencing low water pressure up there, fluctuation in pressure. So I was hoping this evening to get some more information on how this temporary pump installation has come along as far as acquiring the pump, getting the contract set, and all that. So I did get an opportunity to talk to Tom Christ in between, and he indicated that they've, I guess, purchased a pump. We've gone out for bid for the vaults. They're getting some other contractors signed up. But as a neighborhood, we just like to find out where we're at. Are we going to make mid June like it was promised or not?

I mean, I don't want to get to mid June and dog ate my homework or something. So just like to get some update from somebody in the public works department or something that wants to be a small meeting with some representatives from the neighborhood that'd be fine. I guess there's five parts that they've broken it into. So just how this is all come together. Maybe they're still trying to figure that out, but until they start putting shovel in the ground too, also get surprises I know.

Another question too, and I'm getting inquiries from some of the residents there as far as the water mitigation program. There was some opportunity to get a $7,000 water mitigation rebate for you to do improvements on your residents. And some are being told that's closed. And I asked for some sort of documentation on that, if there's documentation where that was actually rescinded. But I haven't seen anything, so if somebody could provide that, I'd appreciate that too. And I guess finally, if you've got an opening for a proclamation today is St. Patty's Day, so why don't you guys throw that in there for today. So anyway, that's it.

All right. Aaron?

Hello again. More positive, but I also wanted to emphasize Wolf's comments. As someone who works a lot with trans kids, the loss of that firehouse was devastating for the community. These are kids that really need to have that space to feel welcomed and supportive because a lot of them don't live in healthy homes that accept them for who they are. And these places like the firehouse provided that option where they can go be who they want to be, wear what they want to wear, and not be judged or talked down to or anything like that.

So those spaces are really important and we've been desperate I've been desperately trying to find third places, especially on the East Side, to direct these kids. And right now I just don't really know where they can go. So just wanted to emphasize that a little bit more of the importance of this, especially from our community of having that supportive place where people can come ask questions and seek help from professionals that can kind of help guide them around. But also on a more positive note, well that was positive, but I'm very excited about Pride being held in Kirkland. I've been to Redmond Pride since it started over there.

So I'm very excited for new location, new environment, new law enforcement. With my brief conversation with the police chief, I'm feeling way better than I did when we spoke before, mayor, that I'm very excited for it to be here. I just hope that the Kirkland Police Department acts better and more professional at this event than in Redmond, something that I'm working on. So I'm really excited. It should be a fun event and a blast.

And thank you so much for everything that you do. Speaking with Erica and hearing all of the great things that this city is doing for minority groups and people or marginalized groups is very tremendous. And from what I've been hearing, I think is a really great blueprint to provide to other cities of this is how we should do things, or this is what we do, these and are the positive experiences that we're getting, because I think there's a lot of cities in the area, especially Redmond, that could use that kind of like blueprint so they can then take it and apply their own stuff on there. So I'm very excited to work with the city of Kirkland a little bit more and can't wait for pride. Thank you.

Thank you, Erin. I think our last speaker is Liz Hunt.

Good evening, council members and staff. My name is Liz Hunt. I'm a Kirkland resident, and I want to share a few comments with Item 9C on your agenda, which is the recruitment for boards and commissions, the process for recruitment for members of boards and commissions, and specifically about selecting council members to serve on the interview committee. I appreciate the diligence that staff put into creating a process for selecting Board Council members to serve on that committee to replace the drawing straws, which has its pros and cons. And you worked very hard to create a fair, transparent process that spreads the workload across the years and also prioritizes council members working with other council members.

That was mentioned in the packet. So it's a pretty complex algorithm. As a mathematician, I love it. Let's nerd out. However, there are three or four issues with the process that's defined.

First and foremost is that it requires the same seven council members to serve for seven years with no change in order to appropriately implement the algorithm. It's a round robin kind of select you know, it enables the selection of three councilmembers per year to serve on this interview committee, and it's trying to do it in a way that spreads everything around, which is great. But you do have to have the same seven council members there over the seven years for the process to be successful. And in seven years, there's three council elections, and people can retire and whatever. So there is some weakness there.

It's also a short term committee. It's less than three months. And focusing this arduous, crazy process to well, not crazy, but complex process to focus on making sure that councilmembers serve with other councilmembers as much as possible, you know, different councilmembers is a great goal, but it's a short committee, so I'm not sure that this committee requires this particular focus. The resulting description that's in the packet is actually not really balanced because, for example, it requires Councilmember Falcone to serve her three terms all in the first three years and then none for the next four years. So that's not very balanced.

So I would I know you need to choose members of this committee tonight. I would suggest that you use a much simpler process and say that people who council members who have not yet been on council for a year should be excluded, and then you can choose new members based on how long it's been since someone has served in that role. I'm out of time. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Liz. Okay. City Clerk, is there else? All right. Thank you, everyone. We now know you're going clear the room, which makes us very sad. But thank you for staying for items for the audience. We are now going to move to our public hearing, which is the proposed use of eminent domain to acquire the Overlake Oil property for Public Works Maintenance Center expansion project. I will now open the public hearing. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So before we hear from speakers, we provide you with an overview of the condomation itself and the background behind it. So here to give the council that update is our facility services manager, Leanne Skipton.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening. This item is part of the council work program. This was identified by council as a priority item. We want to recognize council support for the Public Works Maintenance Centre and the expansion of the maintenance centre to meet their operational needs.

The property acquisition process was initiated through a space study that was done for the Public Works Maintenance Center. During that exercise, we identified that the maintenance center was approximately two acres undersized for their current operational needs. Staff began pursuing opportunities to expand the maintenance center, and specific criteria and operational priorities were identified to help us evaluate areas where we may be able to expand. The expansion process involved adjacent properties and also properties throughout the city. These key properties that we were evaluating are kind of referenced in this map below, but we used the criteria and the operational priorities to select sites that best fit into the needs of the maintenance center to support their current operational needs.

The Overlake Oil property was identified as a location that met many of the needs of the Public Works Maintenance Center and was ideal due to its current adjacencies and the features of the existing property. We initiated a contact with the owners of the property starting in August 2024 and proceeded to continue to pursue the opportunity to acquire this property and have been in communication with the ownership since that time. This graphic shows the location of the proposed property, Overlake Oil, in its adjacency to the highlighted blue areas, which are the current Public Works Maintenance Center. And with that, I'm going to just talk about the current status. So we last communicated through a formal response letter of intent to the ownership in October 2025.

We have not received a formal communication back on that offer, but we are continuing to speak with the property owner, and we'll continue our efforts to reach a reasonable agreement. If the negotiations are successful, we will return to counsel with a draft of purchase and sale agreement for their consideration. We are committed and will continue to negotiate with the ownership and try to exhaust all options before pursuing condemnation in court. And with that, I'm going to pass it to the city attorney to speak more to the condemnation.

Good

evening. Thank you. I'm just going to do a very brief overview for public hearings to sort of level set or to provide some foundation for the public. Condemnation is the taking of private property for public use authorized by state law and requires the payment of just compensation based on fair market value, which is done based on an appraisal. And then as you sort of proceed through condemnation process, it can be established by in court if that's where you end up.

Just to note that there are some benefits to eminent domain proceedings, another phrase for condemnation. An example that we put on the slide here was about REIT exemptions for property transfers under threat of condemnation, so that there are some other benefits as well in terms of the transfer. I wanted to note here, holding a public hearing is not required under state law for condemnation. We recommended and provided an opportunity to do so in this circumstance given unique nature and cost of this acquisition. Public work maintenance center, Leanne noted, there's a study we're looking at several properties.

It's not just this one because it is undersized by two acres or more, and this property is only one acre. So just wanted to give an opportunity, given the scope of the project and also proximity to the CKC, proximity to residences nearby. So just to explain why we decided to offer an opportunity for public hearing in this case, that isn't always what we do. We have come before counsel and asked for you to authorize condemnation before and don't often end up filing condemnation actions, just as a note. So that's hopefully what occurs in this circumstance, too, but it does help us sort of move the process forward to the next sort of give some space for the next steps.

And then just a note here, also on the slide, there's statutory notice required for taking final action, which we're asking counsel to do on the business agenda tonight, Item 9D, and that notice was given in this case at least fifteen days prior and published. So just to note that we did meet those statutory requirements for notice for counsel to take final action later. And then I have a very busy slide. You don't I'm not intended necessarily to take this all in right now, but I wanted to give a sort of space for at the top is what Leanna already talked about that has been done, right? Council identified Public Works Maintenance Center as a necessary facility, and they've done a lot staff's done a lot to reach out to the property owner and negotiate.

We've moved down into this lower half where we are asking counsel to authorize condemnation, and then we'll continue negotiating. At the same time, we have the opportunity, if needed, to file petition in superior court and then work through the condemnation process, which is a special process in court where the court determines public use and necessity, and then there's a trial and compensation, and then that payment is made and the city gets the property. And then questions for Leanne or I, and then the opportunity for you to hear from the public.

Thank you. Council, any questions for staff? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. One quick question, mainly for our listeners and folks in the audience, public. Maybe this is probably a question for Leanne. Can you quickly describe for the public who might be hearing about this property acquisition for the first time how the city's use of this property is going to differ from the current usage of the property by the current owner? Some may be thinking we're about to raise the buildings on the facility, and my understanding is that's not the case, so I think maybe really quickly.

Yes, you are correct. Our intentions of utilization of the property and one of the reason why we feel this property is a very strategic acquisition is because the current form and function of the property really meets our needs in its current state. We have no intentions of any significant development or redevelopment of the property in the near term. We believe that in its current form and function, we are able to meet the needs of the Public Works Maintenance Center, and its adjacency to our current operation will make it very efficient for us. As a part of our negotiation with the current property owner, we are also evaluating potential opportunities for the existing business to be able to utilize or continue to operate in some portion of the property as well.

So we're trying to be very creative and think outside of the box in how we're trying to negotiate in this situation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. That was very helpful. Anyone else? All right. Then I'm going to now call on members of the public who have signed up to address the council. Please, again, limit your remarks to three minutes. During this time, you will only be allowed to speak on the topic of this public hearing. City Clerk, is there anyone that signed up?

There are no guests wishing to provide testimony.

Is there anyone here that would like to address Council? All right. The public hearing is now closed. The counsel will consider all public comments received either now or those submitted in writing. So we are now going to move on to special presentations. Next on our agenda, we have a presentation from the Washington State Department of Transportation with an update on the I-four 05 Northeast 85th Street improvement project and a Kirkland update on the Sound Transit three project delivery. City manager.

All right. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this presentation is going to be made by a group, starting with Sarah Olson, who is our Deputy Public Works Director. And she's going to introduce our special guests from Washdot. We're going to provide you an update on this product as well as what's happening with Sound Transit and their discussions about potential cost savings. So with that, I'm going go ahead and turn it over to Sarah.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Members of Council. Happy to be here this evening. I am joined by the WashDOT project engineer, Steve Beetle, who is the main guy I work with at WashDOT on eighty fifth interchange project and has all the information of this presentation. And we are joined on Zoom, I hope, by Julie Moon, who is Communications Support at WashDOT as well. Hopefully, she's been brought into the meeting. And I will turn it over to Steve to introduce himself.

It's great to have an opportunity to come and update the council on the progress we've made out there on the eighty fifth interchange and give you some sneak peek at some of the things left to be done that we'll be hopefully wrapping up this year. Go on to the next slide. I just wanted to give a little context about the interchange. It's your city, you probably don't need a reminder about the changes that have taken place, but it's always good to take a look at what the areas looked like in the past. You can see it's changed quite a bit over the last sixty or so years.

And for the last sixty or so we've had the Cloverleaf Interchange connecting the interstate highway with Northeast 85th Street. Project history, just a quick update or reminder about how this project has come together. Sound Transit three ballot measure was passed in 2016. By about 2018, the four zero five program and the city had worked together to develop concepts and had settled on the preferred concept, which is roughly what we're implementing out there currently. By about 2020, the environmental clearance documents and process have been completed.

And then you'll recall 2021 and 2020 were complicated years, but still we were able to get the RFP assembled, the request for proposals assembled and published by the midpoint of 2022. That's about when I joined the project. Similarly in 2022, Sound Transit, state and city agreements were all signed and the dominoes were all set up for this project to proceed. Notice to proceed was issued to the contractor in February 2023. Next slide just give you a little bit of just a little context about what it is we're working towards out there.

So give you the nice rendering image. The main motivating element of the project was Sound Transit's BRT system. So primary goal of this project was to establish those Sound Transit BRT stations for the north south travel of the BRT fleet along the corridor. Other elements that this project improves is a big improvement in bike and pedestrian access across the freeway interchange before there were sidewalks but they were limited and had users very close to the roadway and a kind of pleasant environment. I think that this project will improve on that considerably.

We're also adding neighborhood connections. You can kind of see on the left side of that image is that connection to 87th Street, the pickup and drop off area and there's also connections to the neighborhood in the Southwest quadrant that are being installed and there's also provisions for neighborhood connections in both the Northeast and the Southeast Quadrant. The project already has replaced the existing four zero five bridges. Anytime we get an opportunity to replace freeway structures that were built in a earlier era when we weren't as focused on seismic concerns is always benefit. So that's out there, you're driving on those new bridges now.

It's also given us the opportunity to remove a fish barrier a little bit south of the interchange near 70th. Project also adds direct access to the express toll lanes in that same middle level figure 8 roundabout. You can see there in the middle of the image. So we'll be planting nearly, I did the math earlier this week, it's like nine sixty replacement trees. So that you'll start seeing that come online this summer and fall.

And then also there's a big increase in storm water detention, just bringing everything up to current code. So I'll walk you through just kind of the some of the work that's been done, give you a little bit of chunks of the progress and then kind of close with what's remaining for this year. So notice to proceed was issued in February 2023. 2023 was then kind of devoted to design work. This is a design build project, so we didn't have we had concepts, but not the complete design when we started.

So the 2023 was time of refining those designs and getting those designs completed. A lot of geotechnical exploration in early twenty twenty three as well. But by September 2023, we had our ground breaking for the project. We started site prep at work, started relocating the ITS and the comm lines, shoved all that stuff to the East side of the interchange to keep it out of the way throughout the bulk of the construction. And we started installing those temporary signals that have been out there for better part of two years now.

Just a note on the slides, I've tried to ghost in the blue as using the same roughly January overhead picture and trying to ghost in blue where the traffic was at any given time. Let's see. But yes, so you can see the old Cloverleaf and then lines will start moving around a little bit as we move traffic around. So early twenty twenty four, I think it was January, we implemented those temporary signals going to this more diamond interchange configuration by taking the traffic over to the new temporary signals. You can take traffic off of what were the collector and distributor bridges.

That's where the Xs are, is where those old not mainline bridges over 85th were. Early twenty twenty four, we also started work on replacing the old water main down the center of 85th. You can imagine as we dig out that 85th that water main wouldn't have been able to stay there. So that got relocated across the freeway in a casing and made connections with new vault system over in the corner of 87th. We demoed, I'm not sure exactly what the date was, but sometime in early twenty twenty four, we're able to demo those collector distributor bridges as well.

With traffic still on the so mid-twenty twenty four with traffic still on the old 405 Bridges, we were done with the waterline, had it cut over and we're finishing up some of the more minor waterline work on 87th, making those service connections and repaving the roadway. Also at that point with collector distributor bridges out of the way, we're able to start work on the new 405 mainline bridges, the approaches, the medium columns. You might remember there was a period where the traffic was still on 85th and really sandwiched between the bridge abutments for the old bridges and the work in the median to build those columns and shafts for the new bridges. Also at that point, we're starting to work on the I'm calling the middle level bridges, it's a three level interchange and so the bridges that you're currently driving on now as you go east and west on 85th. Okay, early twenty twenty five, I'm skipping over a lot of details here, but we've by this point set the mainline girders that was quite a production in and of itself, bringing those things in at night and then setting them over weekend closures of 85th.

But at this point in early twenty twenty five, we're completing the mainline bridges, doing the deck pours, getting the barrier installed, things like that. And work was going on in those middle level bridges. Not a whole lot change in this. I put in the notes about a lot of the other things that are going on throughout all of this. You've got drainage and ITS work.

Soil removal, I'm using pretty generically, but we've got significant amount of earth has been moved on this project. So that was kind of ongoing throughout all the phases of the project. But it's interesting at this point, we're working on six different bridges in this small area. So that was quite a moment of focus. You get to mid-twenty twenty five, and we finally had traffic or were able to switch traffic over to those mainline bridges.

It's a little hard for me to believe that, that was only a little over a year ago. But once we got traffic switched over to those mainline bridges, then we could demo out the old four zero five bridges, that's the X's in the middle there. And by getting rid of those old four zero five bridges, we're able to complete that middle level East West 85th temporary route. We'll be using those bridges in the final condition for transit and direct ETL access roadways, but for now they're just serving as eighty fifth. And then at this point you're able to really start excavating out the lowered eighty fifth area.

So last eight months or so there's been immense amount of work down in the hole, down in the lowered eighty fifth building support walls to support essentially the middle level direct access level transit level. Also set girders for the middle level bridges just a few months ago. We've had a couple of revisions to on and off ramps in that time. Back in August, we reprofiled the southbound on ramp and then just a few weeks ago we realigned the northbound on ramp. This weekend we'll be making some changes to the northbound off ramp.

So all that's kind of in an effort to get ready to in the pretty near future switch traffic down onto that lowered eighty fifth configuration. Also during this point we were able to work with PSE to get their gas line mostly relocated. It's currently not back up and running. They'll complete that on the East side when we do excavate those and eliminate those temporary traffic signals. And then yes, this phase we've been able to start work on those sound transit platforms kind of in the middle of the picture near the top, those are coming along swimmingly.

Yes. Okay. And then in competition for a busy slide of the night, we've got still a lot to do. Again, I've tried to ghost in the traffic. So here in a matter of weeks and certainly under within a couple of months, we'll be switching traffic down to that new lowered eighty fifth.

We've already got the north half paved. Most of the drainage is installed. The south half paving will be happening here within the next couple of weeks. We've been building those walls, installing the fascia on them, lighting, signing, ITS work, that's all coming together. So that's the next big transition on the project is to move that traffic down into that lower eighty fifth configuration along with the north and south southbound on and off ramps.

So here pencil in May in your mind, we'll have all that traffic off of that middle level and down into essentially its permanent configuration. We do have one big challenge this summer, which is to get the Fish Culvert across 405 down there closer to 70th, whilst we're using those closures to do the final paving. If have you been driving on north and south on 405, you know we've got a noticeable bump as you transition on the bridges, so that will take care of that. We've got some other barrier work and things like that to complete with those. We do have the roundabout at the 114th And Kirkland Way Intersection.

It's likely, but not a given that when we do that flip to the flip traffic down into the lower 85th that you'll come out to a temporary roundabout configuration at the 114th And Kirkland Way Intersection as well. I mentioned the gas line work is still to be completed. We've got detention ponds to build, three of those. The pickup and drop off area that I pointed to earlier was also one of the late breaking things to get completed. And then finishing the connections to the direct access connections to the express toll lanes.

And Sound Transit will be along after us to install their shelters and stations. We've got sidewalks to build on the middle level landscaping to go in. Oh and toll commissioning important part of the project as well. So think if there's anything I've left off but that's a general overview.

Yeah I'll just add a few more details after wash. Gets to substantial completion sound transit still has to come in and build the BRT station so that will come at the end And then just for scheduling and sequencing, all these dates are tentative, but that main traffic shift from the middle level down to the lower level could happen as early as mid April, April 17 weekend. And the fish passage work will require directional freeway closures. So one weekend will be a southbound freeway closure. The next weekend will be a northbound freeway closure.

Those could occur as early as early May. Of course, when these dates are solidified, there's a lot of communications that we will be doing locally here in Kirkland. That northbound freeway closure is the trickiest for us as far as local congestion that happens on the detour routes. And then Steve mentioned that the roundabout construction that is going to occur at 114th And Kirkland Way, we are in the process of reviewing all the phasing plans and traffic control plans with the design builder, Graham. It is a complex intersection to construct with live traffic, 40,000 daily trips that go through there.

So there's a lot of work being put into finding the most efficient and safest and least painful, and you can't have all those things in a plan. It will require some combination of night closures, maybe weekend closures, maybe several weeks closures of like the northbound lane into 114th or the southbound lane into Kirkland Way. So when we have all those phases worked out, we will be doing advanced noticing to the community impacts as well. And you may remember we still have a shared use path project that's happening on the South Side Of Northeast 85th, and these two projects have to work together as well. So there's an awful lot of work that's going to happen this year.

And the Washtenaw And Graham Team are going to get it done, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I

also wanted to mention that the team does a quarterly update for the community. It's a webinar, and the next one is coming up on Thursday, March 26, at noon, and the registration is open for that on the project website now.

Thank you both. Are you ready for questions? Awesome. I appreciate that. And I have to tell you, a community member said every time they look in the hole, they think of the dwarves of Middle Earth. So any questions, counsel? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. Sarah and Steve, thank you for your presentation. Great job. I could probably ask a lot of questions, but I'm just going to limit it to one question. I know that there were some sound barriers that were correct me if I'm wrong were removed with the plan to replace them. One thing you didn't talk about was just sort of where we're at with our residential neighbors and the replacement of sound barriers. Could you talk to that real quick?

Sure. Yeah. I don't think we have specific dates just yet, but Graham has been working to get those panels procured. I know that they are mobilizing to get some of that surveyed and get the area prepped for installing the shafts that those noise wells will sit on. So it is imminent. I don't have a specific date to point out though.

What I will add is that we've been working with contractor to work on issuing a right of way permit so that they can do some of the work for that noise wall installation on Kirkland right of way. And if we issue them permit, that will allow them to do daytime work for drilling those shafts. And we're trying to minimize the night work that they will need for that.

Thank you.

Councilman Arnold.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Steve, for being here. I appreciate the history. As we're talking about Sound Transit, I went into my files to look at the twenty sixteen ballot measure and came up with this study that was the design charrette that first came up with the three level design. It's great to see that finally coming together and it's very impressive given all the complexity that you walked through that we're able to keep an interstate running almost all the time with some occasional closures and the same for our major arterial through our city. As you're looking at the closure schedule, I was briefed on some World Cup things where some I5 work washed out of suspending during the World Cup.

Are you looking at are you considering the World Cup as you're looking at scheduling? Yes, we're

optimistic that we'll have most of these major efforts done before June. We might have occasional nighttime lane closures and things like that that we're allowed to do continue at night during that period. But it is hopefully mostly a first half of the year story and then we're largely out of people's hair, still working for many months getting everything buttoned up, but we're really optimistic that most of this is done by June.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you for joining us this evening, it's super helpful to see

this. We

have a part two, but it's pretty quick. A continuation of a theme. We're going to give you a sound transit update. Specifically a Sound Transit three update. Thank you.

Okay, well the big, big news is Line two is finally opening across the lake. The grand opening is going to be on Saturday, March 28 at Judkins Park, nine a. M. Ribbon cutting. First train will depart at ten.

If you'd like to attend that event, we highly recommend you do the shuttle at the South Bellevue Park And Ride or join the celebration at one of many stops Bellevue Downtown, Spring District, Redmond Technology, and Mary Moore Village are just some of the celebration stations that weekend. So this is a major component of the Sound Transit three package in our nearby neighboring location. Specific to Kirkland, if it clicks, it's not clicking. Oops, sorry. We've been talking about the interchange project, which is making way for bus rapid transit known as STRIDE.

The Sound Transit three package includes the S2 line from Lynnwood to Downtown Bellevue, which will make stops at Northeast 85th and Northeast 128th Street. And the service for that is estimated to open in 2029. You may recall that there's a whole other washout project happening, the Brickyard To 527 project, that has to deliver ETL lanes and stations as well. Sound Transit does know that there's an interest in utilizing the station at 85th once it's available, so they are exploring how they might be able to adjust their express service with a stop at Northeast 85th in advance of the, you know, replacing express service with BRT service. So right now they're working on their fall service changes.

This will be evaluated as part of their spring or fall service changes for 2027.

Light

Rail Line four is a second component of the ST3 package that involves Kirkland, which is a South Kirkland to Issaquah Line or the purple Line four. It has an estimated cost of $9,800,000,000 which is has been escalating since they did their last cost estimating, and it has currently opening of 2044. And then the third element related to Kirkland in the ST3 package was inclusion of performing a high capacity transit study from Bellevue to Bothell using the Cross Kirkland corridor as thinking about what are the service options that could be accommodated on the CKC for a high capacity transit. So why are we talking about this right now when we've got BRT coming in 2029 and Line four still a ways off? Well, it's because Sound Transit overall in their Sound Transit three package has a $35,000,000,000 funding gap today that they need to close in order to deliver the ST3 package.

So they have the Sound Transit Board has started a process called the enterprise initiative that is going to look at various ways that they can close that funding gap through either project delivery delay, phasing, scope changes, and working with all their regional partners to do that. So right now they're in the phase of this initiative where they're looking at the ways they can do that. They are not currently looking at any specific lines or projects or how they're gonna phase projects. They're just looking at how they might evaluate closing this funding gap. So there's a Sound Transit Board retreat tomorrow.

There's no public comment available at this meeting but we will be represented in the audience by council member Arnold and by one of our transportation planning staff. And then there's going to be some key committee meetings that we will definitely be tracking, and this will be discussed at the May 28 board meeting, and then they will make a final decision on the enterprise initiative in June. And so the enterprise initiative has these kind of four levels of cost saving strategies, and they're hoping to close their $35,000,000,000 gap with a combination through these four different levels. As examples, level one at the project level is maybe making changes to the passenger experience, such as station layout or design, changing the shape of the platform and location. Level two are potential changes to operations, coordination or project designs that optimize the operational costs within the agency.

So this is internal to sound transit. It might be removal of tail track storage and looking at the needs for the locations of those. These were all meant to say lever actually, so sorry for the typos. Lever three are changes to service such as removal of stations on future planned lines or changes to the track alignment that minimizes cost and impact that may not be the preference of the cities. And lever four could be changes to project scope and schedule, such as delaying half of a service by several years.

That's one of the ideas that might be being considered for Linwood to Everett is get the Linwood to the Everett Industrial Center by 2037 and then the Everett to Downtown Station by 2041 as an example of how they might phase and delay. There currently is no conversation on the table about the three components of the ST3 package that involve Kirkland, but certainly there will be in the future phases of this conversation. So last slide. What do we know right now as the city of Kirkland? There's nothing been proposed.

There's no proposal to respond to. So our messaging through letters that you've previously approved and through public comments are that Kirkland understands there's a budget deficit that needs to be addressed. We believe that the approach should be collaborative and focused on region wide solutions. We're open and ready to be part of the discussion, and we're letting all our partners know that Kirkland City Council and staff are actively watching and engaged in this conversation. So as staff track these conversations and meetings and come back to you at some point when there may be something to discuss.

We'd like to know if there's anything in particular you want us to be paying attention to or look into to come back and brief you on.

Thank you, Sarah. This has heated up very fast, and staff has been super responsive in advocating for Kirkland's interests. Last Friday, I participated in a meeting that was hosted by Mayor Bernie, Councilmember Balducci, and Council President Ed Prince were in attendance there on the Sound Transit Board. 10 Eastside mayors drove in the snow to be there. So that shows clearly that the Eastside mayors are interested in having a conversation and collaborating regionally.

So counsel, what would you like to share with Sarah? Councilmember Arnold?

Thank you. In the realm of updates, the Eastside Transportation partnership at their April meeting will be considering a letter to write for ETP to the Sound Transit Board. This is something that Issaquah Council Member Kelly Zhang is organizing. I am meeting with her this week on this. Despite what Issaquah has done up to this point, this letter will be talking about preserving the floor line from Issaquah to Kirkland.

And so, first, I'd like to get support from the council since we may not have to look, are we meeting before that next ETP meeting? We are not given our first meeting is April 7 to say like do Councilmember Black and I have the authorization to support a letter that would preserve the four line coming from ETP?

Council, any objections? I'm seeing none.

Okay. And then secondly, on the in the category of things that council would want staff to look at and come back with, there are two things interested in. One is, given that there is the budget deficit that the Soundtreasure Board is dealing with, is if there are any cost savings within the ST projects in Kirkland that we would be supportive of. One of the things you did not mention, Sarah, was that there's some parking projects at the Kingsgate Park And Ride that may be something that is a lower priority for the council, but I'd like to understand those options and have that discussion. Secondly, for the HCT study that you talked about where it talked about future connection in Kirkland from the South Kirkland Park And Ride to Totem Lake and beyond.

I would like to look at options of rescoping that study. I think it is more important or maybe easier and save cost to connect not from South Kirkland North but from the Redmond line that exists and connect to Totem Lake that way and want to make sure that that could be a scope of the study. So, I'd like to see staff come back with some options of something that we can talk about as a council of looking at that particular study and maybe rescoping in a way that saves some effort and maybe something that will be less controversial than the discussion we had ten years ago in talking about how we could do light rail, bus rapid transit, streetcars or other things along the cost cutting corridor. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone have some additional thoughts or want to respond to Councilmember Arnold's comments? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. Just real quick, I'd just say yes to everything that Councilmember Arnold just said. And also, just highlighting for staff as far as checking in, making sure we're in close communication with any sound transit discussions happening at the regional transit committee, which I sit on. So just making sure that I'm fully briefed on the latest each time that topic comes up at RTC. Thank

you. Anyone else? I just want to support what Deputy Mayer said, in particular, looking at that environmental study on the CKC. It would be very advantageous for Kirkland to run the line from Redmond up to the Totem Lake Growth Center. That's where we really need the service at this point. So I would like to explore that. Again, thank you for your support because it's been a lot. Thank you. Thank you both. All right. We are going to move on to the consent calendar. Before I have a motion, I'd like to ask Deputy Mayor Black to present the audit of accounts.

Thank you, Mayor. We have payroll in the amount of $7,281,941.09 You guys are leaving, and this is the most exciting part. And we had bills in the amount of $6,516,376.3

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second? Second.

Nope. It's been moved by Council Member O'Brien, second by Deputy Mayor Black. Is there any discussion? Any questions, comments?

Discussion.

Councilmember Tim Chisel.

Thank you. On the consent calendar is the police dashboard. There's a lot of good information there. Crime across Kirkland is down. We have had a lot of community members in our residents, especially in the Houghton neighborhood, inquire about the Yarra Bay Business District and the Shelestanton Place.

And I would ask that the City Manager or staff bring forward options to give us an update on how a Sheila Stanton Place check-in, and I don't know whether that is what mechanism is best that I would ask for. I believe there are several in several places, we have a requirement to check-in there, so I'm just asking for options on how to do that.

City Manager, do you want to respond?

So yes, we can do that. Want to say to the City Manager apart, but that's a good suggestion. We'll find some ways to make sure.

Yeah, and I know that when we originally passed the resolution on, we were expecting council reports. So thank you.

What we'll

say later.

Anyone else have comments? All right. The question is on the motion to approve the consent calendar. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, seven-zero. How are we doing? We're doing good. All right. We are on to our business agenda. The first item will be the Emerson Campus Master Plan Amendment Development. City Manager.

All

right. So thank you, Madam Mayor. Because this is quasi judicial, I'm actually gonna turn this over to our city attorney, Darcy Eilers, who's gonna give you an opening statement before you get a presentation from Tony Levitt, our senior planner.

Thank you, city manager. The and, thank you, mayor Curtis. This item for council consideration of the Emerson campus master plan amendment is a closed record quasi judicial matter based on the recommendation of the hearing examiner and the factual record developed before the hearing examiner, which was all in the packet this evening. This means the council will not be receiving testimony or evidence this evening. Here's the format the Council has established for this type of matter.

Senior planner Tony Leavitt will make a staff presentation and is available to answer questions from the Council. Thereafter, Council may take this matter under advisement before taking action and voting on the process to be permit application for the amended master plan amendment, either tonight or at a subsequent Council meeting. If the Council wishes to vote on the resolution this evening, Council will need to suspend its rules to allow for that. When Council acts on the application and the recommendation of the hearing examiner, it may do one of three things: grant the application, modify and grant the application, or deny the application. If Council were to conclude that it cannot make a decision because the record compiled before the hearing examiner is incomplete or inadequate with respect to the permit application, it can remand the matter to the hearing examiner for supplementary findings and conclusions on identified issues.

It's the counsel's intention that this matter be fair, both in appearance and in fact, and that it be conducted impartially. With those intentions in mind, I have a few questions to ask counsel in order to provide a clear record. Before I ask those questions this evening, I want to note for the record on behalf of all council members that on March 10, they received an email general invitation to from the proponent of this project, Lake Washington School District, to a groundbreaking event for the Emerson campus project. The invitation was not personalized to anyone or any council member and did not include any advocacy related to the council's decision on this matter or direct communication with any council member. A copy of the email will be included in the record.

So moving to my questions. First, would like to ask the council whether any council member has had any third party or ex parte communication with proponents or opponents of this application. Seeing none, I'll move to my next question. Next, I would like to ask whether any council member received or exchanged any written correspondence with community members who are not the proponents or opponents of the application? Seeing none, we'll move to the last question. I'd like to ask whether any council member believes they have prejudged this matter, cannot remain impartial, or has an interest whereby they stand to gain or lose by a decision either way. Thank you, Mayor Curtis. Those are all my remarks.

Thank you, City Attorney. We are now ready to proceed. City Manager?

Okay. I'd like to turn this over to our Senior Planner, Tony Levant, who will provide you with an overview of the project and the Hearing Examiner decision.

Great. Thank you. I just have a brief 10 slide presentation here to go over the proposal and then the Hearing Examiner recommendation. So just a little bit of history on the site. Actually, Washington School District has occupied the site since the early 80s.

Prior to 1997, the site was used for administrative office for the school district before they moved those offices to Redmond. The existing campus contains the Emerson School, which has been located on the site since 1997, a gymnasium that was constructed in 2000, and finally North Star Middle School, which relocated from Lake Washington High School to the site in, 2012. Enrollment for the campus, is limited to two sixty eight students, per the most recent master plan. So now we'll get into what the applicant is proposing now. The school district has submitted a request for approval of a master plan amendment for the campus.

The proposed amendment will allow for the demolition of the existing Emerson school building and construction of a new two story approximately 51,500 square feet education building that will house the Emerson schools. The existing gymnasium and North Star Middle School remain in their current locations. Site improvements include a new play playfield, new vehicle pedestrian circulation from one hundred and eighth, parking and associated utility and landscape improvements. Campus enrollment would increase to a total of four thirty five students on the site. This site shows the proposed north entry of the building as is approached from the north parking lot.

That's the top picture there. And the bottom picture is a bird's eye view from the northwest corner of the site located at the corner of 53rd And 108th. The review of the application and prior to the hearing, a total of five public comment letters were received. I'm going to do a brief summary of the issues raised in the letters and staff responses to those issues. The first issue was concerning traffic from access from 108th and the drop off area and traffic impacts associated with that.

To address that, staff has the following comments. The drop off area has been designed to comply with city requirements, including providing vehicle queuing and park driveway locations. Additionally, the city is requiring that the parking and circulation management plan be implemented to address a vehicle obstructing traffic flow on 108th And Northeast 53rd. So that will be something that will be acquired prior to us issuing a building permit for the project. The second issue was ensuring adequate on-site parking for the project and minimizing impacts on the neighborhood.

During the project review, parking demand was determined to be 101 parking stalls for the campus. The applicant is proposing 115 stalls, they are providing adequate parking on-site. Another comment was regarding existing vegetation blocking site distance at the 108th And 48th Intersection to the south of the site. This is an existing condition so staff did forward this on to the public works department to look into an address if needed. We received a letter from the Duwamish tribe that requested the applicant put in place an inadvertent discovery plan if excavation cuts occur below fill and if any arc alleged if there's any archaeological work or monitoring is performed that they'd be notified.

The applicant agreed to this and also provided a cultural resource assessment for the site. An additional comment raised concerns about lighting fixture impacts. Staff response is the project will be required to comply with lighting requirements that are established in zoning code section 115.85. There was also a concern about the removal of the existing stormwater pond and replacing it with a vault. The applicant actually addressed this following hearing via a letter.

The issue they said the issue was addressed by stating that the proposed detention vault meets all state and local requirements and will be maintained in a way that is comparable to the existing pond. Finally, we received some comments regarding the preservation of on-site trees and the use of native vegetation. I want to talk a little bit about the tree retention plan for the site and how we came to that. So the site contains a total of two seventy four regulated trees, with 64 of them being designated as landmark trees. To remind you, landmark trees are a tree that's a regulated tree with a minimum 26 inches diameter.

The applicant's arborist, early in the process, met with the city's development review arborist, and as part of their design process, wanted to try to maximize tree retention on the site. So we actually had a couple of meetings with them, I think we actually went on-site with them, to kind of discuss trees and look at the retention of the site. We came to the proposed location. Obviously, it was kind of an open field area on the sites, and it made sense from a building impact perspective. But during the review, it was determined that nine landmark trees located in the southwest corner of the site would be impacted by the proposed parking lot, the passenger loading area and stormwater vault, and that the removal of these trees would be required.

So per the code, the applicant is required to install 27 on-site landmark mitigation trees, In all, the applicant actually is installing or planting a total of 76 new trees on the site and also installing additional native vegetation. I will do a brief summary of some of the key development regulations that apply to the proposal. So the maximum building height for the campus is normally 25 feet. The height for the site can be increased to 35 feet if the south and east setbacks are increased to 60 feet, which the applicant proposed. Additionally, roof forms up to five feet can be used to screen mechanical equipment.

So based on this, the applicant is requesting to increase the maximum allowed height for the building from 25 feet to 36.75 feet. Staff and the hearing examiner concluded that the proposed height increase complies with the applicable zoning criteria. The Southwest as far as parking lot buffers and setbacks, the Southwest parking area complies with the 20 foot setback for parking areas. The existing West and North parking areas will not meet the setback requirements after right of way dedications, Instead of requiring the relocation that would impact additional high retention value trees, including some additional landmark trees, the hearing examiner and staff recommended these parking areas be allowed to remain in their current location. The proposed landscape buffer plans for the Southwest and North parking lots show compliance with the code requirements.

The existing West parking lots will be impacted by utility work and right of way improvements. The applicant will be required to plant shrubs and trees in the buffer to screen the existing lots. Another thing that the applicant was proposing was they were installing a new playfield, and as part of that, they were going to put netting on top of the six foot high fence. This is required to have a what we call a fence modification. So staff and the hearing examiner recommended that that be approved to basically the netting will keep balls from leaving the playfield and entering onto 108.

This is an example of what they're proposing with that. The existing vegetation along the south and east property lines provide a significant land use buffer that screens the existing school in use and propose building from the neighboring residential uses. One thing is in the Southwest corner where there's an existing detention pond that is being removed, the applicant will be required to install supplemental landscaping to meet the buffering requirements in that area. So, on February 18, the public I'm sorry. The hearing examiner held a public hearing for the applicant's application.

City staff testified at the hearing and provided a response to the public comments they received that I went over. The applicant also provided testimonies. No members of public testified at the hearing. Again, following the hearing, the applicant submitted a letter additionally addressing some of the the comments that were submitted. On February 24, the hearing examiner issued a recommendation for approval of the application with the conditions outlined in her report.

No challenges of the recommendation were submitted. Some of the conditions, again, deal with parking sequencing, the landscaping requirements, lighting requirements and parking stuff that I went over. So tonight, we have the council considerations. Staff recommends that the council consider the hearing examiner recommendation for the application and take one of the following decision, actions. You can either grant the application as recommended by the hearing examiner, modify and grant the application, deny the application.

Additionally, the council could direct that the application be considered at a again, at a reopening of the hearing before the hearing examiner, but you would need to specify the specific issues to be considered at the hearing. In lieu of the above options, the council can suspend the rule to vote on the matter at the next meeting and instead of vote on the application during tonight's meeting. Staff is recommending that the council grant the application as recommended by the hearing examiner by adopting the proposed resolution during tonight's meeting. Again, resolution reflecting the recommendation of the hearing in the examiner has been included as part of your packet.

Thank you, Tony.

Thank you.

The attorney, can Tony take questions?

Tony, take questions.

Sorry about that. Yeah. Tony can take questions that are information in the record.

Thank you. Yeah. Counsel, any questions? Alright. Deputy Mayor?

Well, if there are no questions I don't have any questions or comments, or I would have raised my hand earlier. Mayor, will you entertain a motion to suspend rules so that we can consider the process 2B application tonight?

Happily.

And I move to suspend Council Rule 3.23 so that the council may vote tonight on this process 2B application. Second.

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Councilor Falcon to suspend council rules so we can vote on this tonight. Is there any discussion? Questions on the motion to suspend council rule 3.23 in order to move forward this process 2B application? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, seven-zero. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Would you like me to keep the I move momentum to approve Resolution R57.24, which would approve the issuance of the process to be permit.

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Councilmember Falcon to approve resolution five thousand seven twenty four. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries, seven-zero. Thank you. Thank you

for

your work on this. All right. We are going to take a quick break, so we will be back at 09:15, and we will move on to Item B. Thank you. Alright, everyone.

Thank you. We're moving on to our next item of business, which is the Kraken Ice Plex and Community Center 2026 professional services expenses and approval of related fiscal note. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, madam mayor. So our hope tonight is to get approval of this. This is to help us continue to have oversight of the Kraken facilities that's developed so that it meets the specifications we requested both for the, community center itself as well as restaurant and everything else that the crack have committed to. Our deputy city manager of external affairs, Jim Lopez, is gonna walk you through it, and we're here to answer questions, and we're looking for action tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager, and, good evening, madam mayor, deputy mayor and council. It's my pleasure to be in front of you tonight talking about the Seattle Kraken Iceplex and Community Center. This is a request for expenses and a fiscal note. I'll move through expeditiously. This is the timeline we've been using throughout and I'm pleased to say we are on track if you focus in on late spring twenty twenty six for the anticipated construction to begin and with a target date of 2027 to open.

I know that's an aggressive timeline. Part of why we're here tonight is to make sure we stay on that timeline. So the anticipated services in this request are outlined here. Forgive me with the line cutting through the numbers. I'll have slides coming up that goes in a little bit more detail. Essentially this is construction phase advisory services. It represents the city's interest in monitoring the construction process. We put that internally. We're doing that in house and it's been very helpful to do it that way. We meet periodically with an internal group.

We have an advisor on design, material quality, performance, commissioning and durability and it is limited in scope. The facility meets and we go over all the legal requirements and the vision and the benefit of the community as a team and I think you'll see one of the bigger expenses is that position and it's been very, very helpful and meaningful to us. So this is kind of the map of the full territory of professional services. We've created an expense type next to them. Let me break it down in terms of expenditures external and internal.

So this is the external expenditures by contract. We have some administrative support, relatively small money for advanced building commissioning. Outside legal counsel, we had legal counsel outside periodically throughout this entire process and some graphics and way finding. So this is kind of the universe of outside expenditures. Moving to in house or internal expenditures you'll see two larger items.

The project management item does relate to that in house staff person that facilitates or is working as our eyes and ears on the project engineering. We do expect that number to come down. I think as a general rule everything all of the figures that we put up here are the most robust scenario. I want to say worst case scenario, we're fully funding them so that we can make sure we hit the timelines, but we do expect that these are very conservative and we'll do better. Actually you see the CIP inspector and outreach not super significant but the north parking lot repairs and repaving the estimated cost of that design work is reasonably significant.

We do expect to bring that number down but we want to make sure we fully budgeted so that just in case we wouldn't miss the timelines needed to meet the construction deadlines. And then there's some public relations miscellaneous fees and we do have a healthy contingency. So that's the total funding request highlighting those two items. The total funding request is $733,389 and we're ready for questions.

Thank you.

Under 10 slides.

Council, any questions for Deputy City Manager? None. All right. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. I don't have perfect recall when it comes to some of the we've had a lot of conversations about the Kraken, and I don't have perfect recall about every expense, but there was conversation about some expenses related to land surface modifications prior to construction. Is that can you tell us where that fits into any of this or if it fits into it at all?

Yeah, so that Sorry,

Deputy. That's okay. Go

ahead if you want to.

No, go ahead. It's not currently in this. We're still in the process of negotiating with the Kraken and what that project will be, and we hope to have that in the next few months.

Okay. So when we look at, for example, we should not confuse the $365,000 as being the same as that?

That's correct. Separate

items. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyone

else? Anybody would like to make a motion to approve the fiscal note?

Second.

It's been moved by Councilmember Falcone, second by Councilmember Arnold to move forward to approve the 2026 project implementation expenses for the Kraken Ice Plex and Community Center fiscal note. Is there any discussion? All those in favor of moving forward with the fiscal note, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries seven zero.

Thank you ma'am. Jim we've got a couple questions about potential press conferences and media can you maybe speak a little bit to that because you just had a conversation today?

Yes, I did speak with the Kraken representative today and we're targeting the end of this month for media press conference and a robust communication from the team. That's what we talked about this morning. It's still a little bit of a moving target, but the March, worst case April, but that's the latest in our discussions.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm at least one of the council members who had questions on this earlier today, so thank you, city manager and deputy city manager, for that information. When you say there's going to be, like, robust communications, I mean, was mention in the memo of, like, a press conference. I was anticipating a little bit more of a press tour. Perhaps there would be, you know, getting folks in the community excited about it, answering questions, sharing a little bit more information with the community directly from the Kraken again to build that excitement. Things like I can imagine them going to some of our local schools and doing a little hockey demo or whatever that may be. Has there been discussion around those types of activities or any more information on how they envision that to play out more than just a press conference?

Yes, think most of the discussions have been around the actual energy around the conference bringing members from the team, getting a lot of energy, inviting folks to the press conference as well, and then working closely with them. I think the next round of conversations about doing those outreach endeavors that you just talked about, I think they're very positive about that.

Great, thank you. Jim,

I know that I'm scheduling three months out. And all of us are going to want to be involved in whatever happens. So putting dates on the calendar would be super helpful for these council members who have very full schedules. I know it's not you, but if you could communicate that, that would be helpful.

Yes, we will make that a top priority.

You.

Thank you.

All right, we are going to move to 9C, which is the selection of the twenty twenty six interview selection committee members for the twenty twenty six boards and commission recruitment. City manager, we have a special presenter.

Yes. So this presentation is going be made by our city clerk, Anastasia Warhol. I hope council members didn't see the email that I sent. I know there was quite a bit of discussion in my one on ones about methodologies, both what we had proposed to staff, some of the suggestions you got from Liz Hunt and other ideas that council members had. So I have asked the city clerk to actually propose the council to actually draw by lot today and have that be potentially the year one of whatever methodology you speak to. She's going to speak to that. There's a couple other questions we have about the form itself that she's also going to walk you through. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our city clerk. Welcome.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. This is a nice vantage point. I'm enjoying the view.

I'd love to see our council members, and I get to see my teammate up there as well, Jamie Lynn, who's our public records disclosure extraordinaire. So starting off in a pleasant mood, we're talking boards and commissions tonight, and we will continue to talk about this for at least the next three months. Historically, our boards and commissions cycle opens in January every year, but this year, you've elected to do something different to buy yourself time to discuss the process and the goals around this recruitment, and you elected to do that at your February retreat. In order to facilitate that process, you've also extended the current terms for our public servants who are serving on a Board or Commission, and their terms are set to expire at the June. Now part of your retreat was focused on procedural changes.

Part of the retreat was also tailored to discussing the form itself. And based on some of that feedback, we have provided for you a timeline that's reflective of what you talked about. And according to this timeline, you will have at least four touches, four separate occasions, at which point we will need to come before the Council, and the Council will need to act in some form or fashion pertaining to the process at hand. In addition to that, you've also requested that we make amendments to the form itself, and we have an updated form provided as part of your packet. And finally, you did provide a series of recommendations for updates to be presented to you, updates to your council policies and procedures.

In council, you should know that the staff is diligently working on those updates, and we plan to bring them to you in April. One of those critical updates actually refers to the ISC selection. You requested specifically that we provide a methodology or a cycle that allows council members to fairly rotate through participation on that board. And I thought I submitted something that I still believe is a strong contender. But and let's say this together there's more than one way to skin a cat.

So in light of that, we are not proposing that you discuss the process at all this evening, but in fact buy yourself even more time to look at my option and potential alternatives to that rotation cycle. May the best mathematical structure win. So this evening, we are still looking for some action. In the future, you'll see the myriad of recommendations and updates to the Council rules and procedures, but today we are suggesting that you select your ISC members by lot, and we need to do this to stay within a strict timeline to allow that team to mobilize and begin the evaluation of the incumbents and their applications so that that can be done in advance of the official recruitment opening on April 8. And if there are no objections, I would like to ask if that is something the council is willing to participate in.

Counsel, are you all right if we draw by lot?

Could city staff design its own software and fund maybe a research okay.

Yeah, all right.

We agree to draw by lot.

I agree.

And you've been very diplomatic. Oh, wonderful.

Well, we will do that now. We will see who is selected as tribute, and may the odds be ever in your favor. Okay, the first victim I mean participant. Okay, Council Member Prem. Oh my goodness, I swear to you, if this is in line with my recommendation, that means destiny is on our side because the second person I just drew is Deputy Mayor Black.

This is fun. This is a fun evening. I should come before you more often. Okay, last but not least, Council Member Falcone.

No I'm not joking.

I'm not joking. It was destiny all along. We have our committee. Wow, I just need to soak that in. I feel very lucky. I should play the lottery. You should. Okay, well, in that case, now that I have selected Councilmember Falcone, Deputy Mayor Black, and Councilmember Prem, I invite you to entertain a motion to appoint those three members to the ISC.

I will entertain a motion. Somebody.

So moved.

Thank you. It has been moved by Councilmember Arnold, seconded by Councilmember Falcon to approve the Interview Selection Committee as drawn. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, seven-zero.

Marvelous. Okay, we will move on. The other piece of action we're hoping to see tonight is to have the council consider the updates made to our Boards and Commissions application. And if you are in favor, we'd like to see that form be updated I mean, accepted and approved so that we can begin the process of having our incumbents fill out the new application form.

Thank you. Any comments on the application form? I have one. We ask for preferred pronouns. We can strike the word preferred. It is just pronouns. Anyone else? Alright, I'll take a motion to move forward the application as changed. Please don't make me amend it. Okay. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm simply moving for acceptance of the form as proposed by the city clerk. That's my motion.

As amended by mayor Curtis.

As amended by that's what I was looking to the city attorney for. As amended by mayor Curtis.

You. Second. Thank you. It's been moved to approve the application by Deputy Mayor, second by Council Member Prem. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries, seven zero.

Marvelous. And just to close

out the

evening on this subject, the one thing that's not noted in this timeline because it's a little bit more of an eagle view and not on the mouse zoom in of the Boards and Commission's timeline is that in April, we do plan to bring forward the update to the Council rules and procedures. But we are quickly looking to mobilize the ISC. So for those members who were selected, keep in mind that the week of March 23 is what we're going to look at first, but of course, we have a little bit more wiggle room on either end so long as we can mobilize and make some thoughtful recommendations to bring before the council by the seventh.

Right. Any questions?

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, City Clerk. All All right. We are going to move on to 9D, which is the authorization to use eminent domain to acquire the Overlake Oil property for the Public Works Maintenance Center expansion project. City manager.

All right. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this is the action item that related to the public hearing that you held. Here to walk you through a very brief presentation. Once again, is our facilities services manager, Lance Gibson.

Thank you once again, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members for the opportunity to present to you ordinance number 4,930 to authorize the use of eminent domain in the acquisition of the Overlake Oil property for the expansion of the Public Works Maintenance Center. I will try to avoid repeating everything that I already said in the prior presentation. The Overlake Oil property is well suited for the needs of the Public Works Maintenance Centre. This is a 1.03 acre parcel. It is zoned as light industrial, which aligns properly with the Public Works Maintenance Center operation.

This has a single building, and it has two portions of the building. One portion is 1,400 square feet of office space, and then the second portion is 6,748 square feet of warehouse space. There's also a covered fuel station and an existing standby generator that are all part of the existing parcel. This parcel has many features that directly meet the immediate needs of the Public Works Maintenance Centre operations. And with that, I'm going to pass it to the City Attorney.

I get all the fun slides, you guys. I just wanted to put up

a quick slide because this

is a condemnation ordinance. Just a quick slide summarizing the ordinance. First section of the ordinance will declare that we need this property to expand the Public Works Maintenance Center. The next section declares that it's necessary to do this. Those are just two items of the condemnation requirements.

And then Section three authorizes condemnation and acquisition of the property with payment of just compensation. Section four identifies that that budget can come from facilities fund, general fund, or other sources that are identified. And then Section five grants the city attorney authority to initiate and manage legal proceedings needed to acquire the property in the event that those negotiate that further negotiations fail. And so Leanne already gave staff recommendation to approve the ordinance. Here I put up our reminder note that we've tried to emphasize all this evening and in the memo that approving this ordinance does not require judicial condemnation proceedings. It doesn't require that my office go start those. It just enables us to do that if we come to impasse.

Thank you. Council, any questions? I will entertain a motion. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mayor. I move for adoption of ordinance o 4,930, authorizing and providing for the acquisition of interest in land I shouldn't have started down this path. Authorizing the acquisition and providing for condemnation. Second.

Moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Councilor Mayor Pascal to move forward at ordinance four thousand nine thirty. Any questions? Any discussion? Oh, city clerk, will you please call the roll?

On the motion to adopt ordinance O49.30, Councilmember Tim Chisholm? Aye. Councilmember Arnold? Aye. Councilmember Prem? Aye. Councilmember Falcone? Aye. Councilmember Pascal?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Black. Yes. Mayor Curtis.

Yes. Ordinance 4,930 is approved seven zero.

Thank you counsel and I will confirm that there was a bowl with everyone's name in here just in case anyone was suspicious.

No special folding, no weighted.

That was suspicious.

Alright. Okay, our next item of business is on the school zone signing project update and approval of the related fiscal note. City Manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So we're looking for action tonight, particularly on approval of a fiscal note, but we also have some decisions made from the council on how to finish off this project. Here to give this presentation as our Transportation Engineering Supervisor, Jennifer Palmer, and our Transportation Engineer, Edward Wang.

All right. As we're getting set up here, good evening, madam mayor, deputy mayor, and council members. I'm Jennifer Palmer, the transportation engineering supervisor here at the city. And with me this evening is Ed Wang, who is a transportation engineer focused on this project. So tonight, we're here to give you an update on the school zone signing project, help answer questions that we heard in the last council meeting on this topic in January and get council feedback on the draft implementation plan and hopefully get approval for fiscal note to extend our temporary transportation engineer position through the end of the year to further focus on this work.

So this work advances the city's vision for a safe, connected and multimodal transportation network. It aligns with our Vision Zero goal of zero transportation related deaths or serious injuries and a reduction in all crashes by two thousand and thirty five. And we get there by using a safe system approach, which is a multilayered approach to transportation safety that acknowledges that humans make mistakes and we need to reduce the risk of injury within our transportation systems when those mistakes do occur. So now I'll ask Ed to give us an update on the school zone signing project and to start with the background.

Thank you. We're currently making progress on phase one signing improvements. Phase one includes our work to make our school zone signing more consistent across the city, and this includes all the changes that we can make that are not impacted by the additional enhancements that we are currently discussing. As a reminder, in the January 6 council meeting, we discussed seven additional school zone enhancements, and all seven were approved. So currently, we're working on an implementation plan for when and how we will implement these improvements, and construction of these could begin as early as this summer pending council direction.

So this map is included as attachment two in your packet. It shows where we are proposing flashing school zone beacon and static school zones. So the different line types show where we are proposing school zones controlled by a flashing beacon, would be in fact two hours a day, one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. And then we have different types of static school zones. Some will apply all day on school days, whereas others would apply all the time all year long.

We did hear some concerns about removing existing flashing beacons. We're not taking any immediate action to remove any beacons, and we'll plan to return at a future council meeting to discuss further. Based on previous council feedback, we did look further into private schools. Currently, we have included three private schools. Holy Family School already has a signed school zone on the street in front.

We're proposing to incorporate Kirkland Seventh Day Adventist into the adjacent Emerson school zone. And additionally, Eastside preparatory school based on the size of the school and the amount of walking, rolling, and bicycling we observe outside the school that these are the criteria that we've been looking at. We're proposing to also include a static school zone for Eastside Prep.

Before you go on, Councilor Scott Long?

Thank you. And I have a question about that. Thank you for that. I appreciate that follow-up on adding those private schools. The where the Emerson campus is and this other private school that's next to it. The Emerson campus, as we know, has, I believe, three different schools on it plus the private school. So that's four different schools, right there in that same school zone. Have we thought through the timing of it? It feels very much like the 84th Avenue up in Fin Hill, where we have, you know, three different school campuses and multiple school start and end times. And I know that's likely true here of these four different schools that are in really close proximity to.

So just wondering, as part of this, I'm hoping that we're thinking through just ease from the drivers' perspective to make sure that it's easy to know what to expect and when to expect the school zones are, similarly to the conversation we had kind of comprehensively up on Fin Hill for the multiple schools within a school zone. So just wanted to mention that because I know this is a complicated school zone area there with those four schools.

Yeah, so we did look into the schedules of each school. They generally match up in the morning and the afternoon there is some mismatch like Seventh day Adventist has early released on Fridays whereas it's Wednesday for the public schools. So overall I think we'd be looking at about fifty minutes additional flashing time per day on average varies by day.

Yeah and it's worth mentioning as well that the physical like school zone already encompasses the area that we would want to target for that anyway so really we would work with city attorney to see what would need to happen for the flash times along that school zone.

Thank you.

Anyone else? I have a follow-up question. I want to thank Councilor Mary Falcone for suggesting this. It was the right thing to do. So my understanding is we're not required to sign private schools. Can they request signage? Can they reach out to the city and say, hey, we'd love to have school zone signage?

I know that there's any reason that they couldn't request it, but we would just want to think carefully about where we would want to institute a school zone. The schools that we at were primarily in the K to 12 range for example we didn't look at like preschools that's not usually what's done for school zones for multitude of reasons but yes we would we have some criteria that we look at and we're always open to you know community member requests.

Okay. It's an interesting gap that I hadn't really thought of before. Then my next question I see you my next question will be which we do not answer this tonight because it's a longer discussion, but what our interaction is with private schools around school to walk routes and how we collaborate with them. So Councilmember Pascal?

I wanted to follow-up on you were talking about earlier about the flashing beacons, and there was a suggestion here about maybe removing some in some locations based upon the criteria that was developed. In some situations maybe if you go back a a slide there, yes, perfect. In some situations, I think we're we've been talking about or we've given policy guidance to change the local roadways to 20 miles an hour. And so signs that are flashing along 20 mile per hour roadways wouldn't make sense because they're 20 miles an hour, 20 fourseven now. But there are certain situations where there's collector roadways that will continue to be signed at 25 miles an hour that we're recommending removing some flashing beacons.

And the one that like really sticks out to me the most is the one there in the center of the map along 112 Northeast 112th Street, right next to Alexander Graham Bell, that stretch of roadway. It's shown there in blue, and it has two flashing beacons on there today. And under our criteria, those would be proposed to be removed. And that quarter has had a lot of issues with speeding vehicles and things like that. That's why it has a lot of speed humps and things as well.

I would I'd ask that when you come back, maybe I was if you could think about whether or not there should be other criteria attached to that, such as is there a speeding issue? Does there continue to be a speeding issue rather than just a volume threshold right now? It's based upon a volume threshold and whether it's a collector. Perhaps we should think about whether it's a speeding issue. So just something to think about. Helpful because I think it'd be hard to explain to the school community, like in that situation, for example, why it would be necessary to remove the flashing beacons. Thanks.

Councilor Mayor Falcone?

To follow-up on that, I would like for us to look at not only in areas where we're thinking of removing the flashing beacons but perhaps might want to consider keeping them because folks are speeding. I would be curious to know what that investment would be compared to some infrastructure engineering investments along the roadway that might also help reduce speeds as part of this conversation. So not just signage, but if there are alternatives that would be a similar level of investment that might help slow folks down. I'd like that to part of that conversation as well. Thank you.

So

with regards to signing changes, we're looking at about 300 new signs that includes all of the enhancements, the static school zones, crosswalk signs, etcetera. We're proposing that this work be done continue to be done by our sign shop around their existing workload commitments and with existing staffing. We would prioritize the highest impact signing changes, the speed limit revisions and the in street crosswalk signs, while the gated crosswalk sign zone stubs we propose to follow in a subsequent phase. With Flashing Beacon implementation, since the prior meeting, we've been working to sharpen our pencils and refine the estimated costs. So some of these include like equipment specifications, the size of battery and solar panel that we need to support the added load.

We've upgraded to a larger foundation and pull to support the added weight of the equipment. And we've spoken to contractors to get a good idea of what costs are today. So all of these factors have contributed to the estimate being quite a lot higher than in the previous meeting. An additional factor is the prior estimate did not include replacement of existing flashing beacons. We had previously assumed that it would be done in house as sort of like an ongoing maintenance task.

But given our new understanding of the scope of work to replace foundations and poles, we felt it made more sense to include alongside the installation of new beacons. So that's another factor that has contributed to the increase in costs. So for phasing options, we present a few options for phasing over two years or four years, but it can be over any time horizon of your choosing. With a shorter phasing, say, two years in option one, we'd look to implement about half the beacons this year and the other half next year. With the shorter phasing, the cost impact per year would be greater.

However, because construction costs generally escalate over time, we'd expect the total cost to be lower. In Option two, we present a four year phasing, again, reducing the immediate cost impact, but we'd expect a slightly higher overall cost.

Okay. Before you move on, Ed, does anybody have Mareprehm?

Is there a benefit like, if we were to go with the Option two four year phasing, is there a benefit to lowering kind of that initial hit with Option one versus like spreading it out? Like is there funding that we have to remove from a certain place and we have to put it in here if we do Option one? And is there any information on that?

I can answer that. So the relatively good news is that this funding is in the fines that are paid for by the schools on safety cameras. And so the money is there for basically either option. So if you spread it out, you just reserve that in case something else came up. But we'd be looking at the same funding source either way.

Got it. Thank you.

Councillor Rut Falcombe.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Do we need flashing beacons in order to have a school zone camera enforcement? Like if there's already 20 miles an hour, like we were talking about removing some of the flashing beacons, do we need the flashing lights?

That's a wonderful question Councilmember Falcone. I'm looking at city attorney because I cannot remember if the legal wording specifically says. I think it just requires adequate signing. It's our practice and many other agencies' practices to provide the flashing beacons. I don't know, Darcy, if you have anything to add. Can I

ask a related question, too, because it might be part of the same answer, can we also enforce, like, 20 fourseven of the 20 miles per hour, or would it have to only be during school zone times?

Okay, the flashing beacons I don't believe are required to have the school zone. So we have school zones that don't have flashing beacons. They're required if for those signage, you've seen some examples where we say school zone when signs are flashing, you'd have to have signs that are flashing. But we don't have to have those flashing beacons. They're not required if they if that's not what's establishing the school zone.

So if the school zone is established for a set number of hours, you don't need them. The practice has been to include them. We do have to have them for the automated safety cameras, which is a sort of subset of the school zones. The question about whether we for the period of time for the school zone that we could have, we do believe that we can have the longer the permanent school zone area time. The statute requires that the school zone only be for an area active student use, but it doesn't say the times only of active student use.

Okay. So I make sure we're understanding, in order to have the automated enforcement of school zones, we have to have flashing beacons in order to

do that? I do believe those would be required for the camera traffic Okay. School zones, yes. Thank you.

If I may, there are other agencies in our area, such as Kenmore, for example, on Juanita Drive that do run their automated enforcement cameras 20 fourseven, and it enforces the regulatory speed limit at the time. So it's either the school zone when it's flashing or it is the regulatory speed limit of 30 miles an hour on one meter drive all other times.

Okay. So no theoretical habit, if it's just 20 miles per hour all the time, and it's not a special school zone, fine. It's just a speeding.

I'll make a clarification on the school zone time for the automated enforcement cameras. There's a little different school zone requirement for that part being established. There probably are some hour restrictions on that. But I'm not sure about the

We can confirm, but I will say that the conversation started with council want to make sure that people knew as much as possible with multiple signs of flashing because they were coming into a camera zone. So we haven't been looking at whether you could take those away because we've been sort of doing the opposite, right, but adding things.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, was thinking more along the lines, sometimes you see like flashing lights on a stop sign that's new or something like that, that we could do other things to alert people like a new 20 miles per hour zone all the time and still enforce. But anyway, we can have that conversation when we have another time. Thank you.

Councilor Mayor Arnold and then Councilor Pascal?

Two questions. One is that as we're looking at the idea that Councilmember Falcone is bringing up about general neighborhood traffic enforcement versus school zone traffic enforcement. I may be confusing things with the next item, but I do remember some differences in the legislation around school zone cameras and regular traffic enforcement cameras in the revenue that comes to the city. So as we're looking at this, we should understand those implications as well. Second question for us looking at these options, is this a decision we have to make tonight because we are punting the discussion around removal of existing beacons?

And I agree with Councilmember Pascal about there may be some we want to bring back, and I want to understand how that impacts the cost as well.

We do not need a definitive decision tonight. We were looking for general direction tonight, and then we'll bring back whatever it is council chooses to move forward. We do need to have the discussion around beacon removal as well. And I assume we would do that at a future meeting with the City Manager.

We do have it in the fiscal note approved that just to clarify that.

Yes.

Thank you. Councilor Mpascal?

I was just going to say that the questions that Councilmember Falcone had, you should come to see my presentation in a couple of weeks at the Walk by Grow Conference because I'll be talking all about the different automated enforcement cameras, what other cities are doing, all the places that you can install them.

I was waiting for you to lay in. He knows the answer.

I can share the slides, yes.

Thank you. Thank you. So before we move on, I struggled with this packet because we had a robust conversation on January 6, and then I would have benefited from a summary of this is what you decided on January 6. So I just want to be clear, if my understanding is that the estimate we received in January 6 was $519,000 and so it's effectively doubled since we had that conversation. Am I reading this wrong?

Yeah. The conversation that we had, we had a summary table on the January 26 at the end of that. And it is the short answer is yes, it has effectively doubled. And it's a combination of we dialed in the unit prices with more specific information about now they have the dual flashing heads and they have the remote connectivity, kind of all the bells and whistles built into one assembly, and we have more robust costs from contractors to install them and for the city to order the equipment. So we've sharpened our pencils on what that number is.

And also there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 ish beacons that are at the end of their service life that would be replaced additionally. We can remove those if we would like to, but that's also rolled into the number in the table as well, the beacons that are now just very old and at the end of beyond their service life.

I think in this discussion on January 6, I missed that those were very rough numbers. And I think some of the decisions that we made were based on what we thought were numbers. And so as we move forward with this, it would be really good to see the comparison of this is what you thought it was going to cost, and this is what it's actually going to cost.

Understood. My apologies for the confusion. Councilor Pascal.

And I guess I don't think this has been mentioned, so forgive me if I repeat someone. The life cycle costs of these because they're more expensive equipment, more sophisticated because we did choose all the bells and whistles last time. If they have to be replaced every ten, fifteen, whatever years, that's a cost that we're going to have to continue to occur going down the road. So if you could bring that kind of information back, think that's important to consider because I don't know that we'll have camera fines available to pay for that replacement cost, for example.

Alright, go ahead.

Finally, we recognize that it's important to communicate these changes to the public. While these changes do not impact how we're doing automated enforcement, Generally in school zones, speeding fines are doubled. So we definitely want to get the word out. So currently we're planning to proceed through newspaper, email newsletters, social media, and continuing to correspond directly with schools as we have been for the signing project. Where we wanted your feedback is an option to send direct mailers to residents since this has more of like a cost impact.

So option one, we could rely solely on the other forms of communication, the newspaper, newsletters, etcetera. Option two would be to send a targeted mailer to areas that are closest to the impacted school zones. And we've provided a third option, which is to really open up the net and send mailers to a much broader radius of one mile radius around schools.

Councilor Mayor Falcom.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. On the communication changes, I really appreciate the comprehensive approach. I mean, we really want to get we really want to make sure that everyone who's going to be as many people as possible who drive past the school zones or through the school zones will be aware of the changes, right? In previous presentations we've had on and memos we've had on the school zone enforcement, we've seen that a lot of the tickets are for people who don't live in Kirkland, which makes me think that those that need the message most are not going to be those that live within a quarter mile of And so I'm in support of option one because I feel like the other communication is going to give us the most bang for our buck, and I don't know that we're going to get much out of people who live in close proximity who will probably see the signs going up and will be aware of it already just by living in close proximity to the school. Thank you.