City Council - Regular Meeting

It is 1 p.m. I will call this city council workshop of February 24, 2026 to order. Today's meeting will both be a physical and virtual meeting. The meeting may be viewed on YouTube and on Facebook following the meeting. Public comment is not normally taken at workshop meetings, although the council may allow or request public participation on action items. We have no action items on our workshop agenda today. Welcome all in attendance today. Council Member Wigenstein and Mayor Pro Tim are participating remotely. At this time, I will call upon council for their committee reports. If they have any that they would like to report out on, this is your time to do so. Council member Arms.

Uh if if we're lucky, next Monday we may be start starting on the repair for the breakwater there, the panels that fell down. So hopefully that'll be coming on Monday. Great. Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Stucky. So, everyone has signed the tourism local except for the county. They're the big players. We needed to get them to sign, but I think it's in their hands. And then, uh, yeah, the planning commission. We're just ramping up and looking forward to adding more people.

Thank you very much. All right, that is everybody. We will move on to the monthly departmental reports. And the first report up is the city administrator's report. And here to introduce that is our city administrator, Sabrina Combmes.

Thank you, mayor. I'm going to wait for Tim to put it up on the screen. Okay. Awesome. Thank you, Tim. Okay. So, the first item, you all have the report in your packets, but the first item, I'm just going to highlight a couple of things to call out for you. The first item we have is the school district community advisory roundt. They were having three of those sessions this year. This was the second of those sessions. It talked a lot about safety protocols at the schools and it was really helpful to understand that they have a system that is part of a national campaign. It came from a young woman who tragically lost her life in one of these school shootings. And the last text she sent to her parents was, "I love you guys." And that is the name of the program. and it talks about a strategic method in which schools use to identify potential threats and how they respond to those. So, we've gotten some of the information cards. They walked through it with the group and we even talked about the scenarios of what types of situations volunteers and staff deal with and we in small groups got to talk about how we would think that you adapt to those under this system. So, there's some really great educational videos online. Um, Chief Sloick was in attendance, Mayor Pro Tim Heisen was in attendance, and I know Council Member Marshall was there on behalf of the chamber, but it was a very helpful session, and I'm really appreciating the times. At the first session, we learned about budget. This was more about safety protocols. We also talked about ICE and how schools are addressing that and some of the informationational cards that they have. So, again, just a great time for community leaders and the school to come together and talk about that. The next item is a grant award that we have received for cyber security. Uh I am not going into too much detail because one of the first rules of cyber security is we don't talk too much about what we're doing for cyber security. Uh so what I can tell you is is that this includes a lot of enhancements to protect the city and our infrastructure and having our cyber security staff in place along with our IT consultants.

They're working on some things to improve that for the future and this grant will assist with that. So, mayor signed that this week. The next item is B and O. Uh, as you know, the business and occupation tax, the finance department and David Goldman, our deputy city administrator and finance director, worked with his team, thanks David, to do a lot of information that's out there. They went around and talked to some of the impacted businesses as well as updating the website with Maggie so that there's a lot of really great information, infographics, videos, and other tools to help people understand that process as we're going into the first run. And then, as many of you saw online, there was the big move of the plane for the museum from downtown to their new location. And so there were 96 hours from the police department that was addressed to that. We also had some other departments involved from our staff. And we just want to thank everybody for coming together to get that done. It did take a lot of effort. There were a lot of meetings in advance on this. Um they did try once and have to go back a second time, but overall it was accomplished and again that shows how great our community is when we come together to get something done. And then in the public works group there are is a list of top 10 priorities. Those are listed here on the screen, but the report goes into more details and that's to help you understand the things that public works is focused on. So, if you have any questions, let me know. Thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. All right. Yes, council member Stucky. I actually have a question for fire. Um, I was looking at the staffing changes and a lot of them revolve around fire. Mostly, it looks like promotions. Um, I know we had promotions recently. For example, Josh was made lieutenant. Otto was made captain. And I see there's other promotions in there, which no objections to it, but can someone just give me a little insight on the hierarchy and all I mean the flurry of promotions and whatnot?

The decision along with the within the contract when it came with the union that the lieutenants would be redesated to captains. the captains would be redesated to battalion chiefs. So those are some the promotions that you're speaking about, Mr. Stucky. Yeah. Okay. So it's not necessarily it's more of a reclassification of what the within the within the department. Okay. That's all I was looking for. Thanks. And another layer to that that might help is that there was a discussion as well as part of the contract negotiations around having more administrative work support because of the work that needs to be done for those lieutenants and they're helping out with that administrative level of work.

Anything else, questions, comments from council? All right, we will move on to development services. And here to talk about our 2025 comprehensive plan update, element updates, and the EIS process. And that will be done by our community services director, Stacy Pratchner, and principal planner, Rajes Kak Kamak, to present.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council. A pleasure to be able to speak with you today. So, uh, provided in advance of today's workshop were two memos and two presentations that summarize the topics that the community development department would like to address with council today. Uh, we'd like to update you first on the scoping and timeline for the environmental impact statement or EIS that the um city is going to be completing in support of its periodic update of the comprehensive plan. And we'd also like to check in with council on the latest iteration of proposed updates to various policies in the comprehensive plan. And again, this was provided to you in advance of today's workshop. And so today, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the introductions. I'm joined by the department's principal planner, Cat Kamak, and I am also joined by the city's periodic update consultant, Kimley Horn, and Mr. Clay White, who's right back here to workshop these items together. Uh, so, and I'll invite Clay up here in just a moment. So, in summary, today we plan to present a periodic update timeline that's going to take the city through the end of 2026 to complete the EIS and the comp plan. So within that timeline is planned uh continuous public engagement. We'll have hearings with the planning commission as well as with city council. Of course, we'll be planning towards 2027 when we will bring um additional municipal code updates to council to implement the updates and the updated goals and policies that we'll be working on this year. So that'll be the actions we'll be taking through the zoning code to actually make and come to life the the goals and policies we'll be establishing in the comprehensive plan. I also just wanted to do a quick plug for the city's website. You'll see that there's a number of updates to the city's comprehensive plan website. I just want to encourage you uh to visit now and visit often. you'll see updates. Uh we have been adding in public comment, an updated timeline that is going to become a library of sorts for the conference of plan update. So please please visit. So I would be happy to answer any

questions about our planned agenda or topics before we get started. Council Honey. All right. Thank you for your time. Thanks, CL. Should I Do you want me to grab the

Good afternoon, uh, Mayor, Council. Uh, for the record, my name is Clay White. Grateful for the opportunity to be in front of this body again. Uh, as Stacy discussed, we're going to just go through kind of the comprehensive plan. and we're going to do a little bit of a refresher just kind of make sure we're tracking on how all the components fit together. And as always, I'm here to answer any questions that you have. If I don't have the answer, I'll get you the answer and make sure to report it back through the team. Okay. So, um I know that you're going to get a second briefing after I'm done today uh from CAC, but this is the first of two workshops um that we're planning uh with the city council over the next couple of months. uh to get you know kind of focus on the comprehensive plan update. So um this is a little bit more focused on uh providing an update on the periodic update timeline, a project update, give you an overview of the environmental impact statement process referred to as an EIS. We use lots of acronyms uh and outline kind of project next steps. The second workshop is really going to focus on the environmental impact statement. So, we I really want to outline for you what what the EIS does kind of the range of options that you have and there's some critical kind of decision points that we have early on in the process to help inform future steps. So, we're really going to want to bring council along so that you're tracking on the land use and zoning changes that the city's considering and how that kind of impacts future decisions as we move this project forward. So, this will be step one and then we'll come back to council for step two. And again, those are kind of the objectives today. Um, you know, we had several briefings last year. This is just kind of regrouping. As Stacy said, we've refreshed the project schedule.

And what's really important is that SEPHA, which is why we're doing the environmental impact statement, is integrated in with your comprehensive plan update. So basically, it's it's completing environmental review on the actions that you're considering to plan for the next 20 years of people, jobs, and housing. So as we enter this EIS, you'll hear us kind of talk talk to you about how that's part of the comprehensive plan update, and they and they move together. So ultimately you're you're adopting the comprehensive plan. So let's just go through the project schedule just a little bit. Um so we've done a bit of update. So we've integrated kind of the timeline to complete the environmental impact statement into the total project schedule and what we're aiming for is to have the project completed before by the end of the year. Uh so uh this winter and spring we've started the EIS scoping process. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Um we're also working with the planning commission to update some of the uh comprehensive plan elements. Uh and I know there's an ILA there's the annexation hearing. So that will kind of frame up a little bit of are we including those annexation areas as part of our environmental review. So the timing is actually really really good. As we move into the summer, we're going to be working on the draft dis. So, we're really going to be analyzing the impacts of different growth scenarios because you have a very aggressive growth target, planning for more people, jobs, and housing. So, what are the impacts of that type of growth on transportation and capital facilities and utilities and parks and and putting that all together? And then as we move into the fall, uh we'll be looking at picking a preferred alternative. So basically getting some direction from the city council of of all the different land use and zoning changes and kind of direction for the comprehensive plan. What's the preferred direction and then

that's going to enable us to finish your comprehensive plan. So that direction will help inform how we put together the transportation plan, the capital facilities plan and then ultimately the council will adopt. Yes sir. I understand that the I don't know that the because you mentioned the aggre the aggressive growth plan. I understand that those numbers are being reworked. Where exactly are we in that on the housing allocation numbers is isn't that I mean that's it was originally 5500 5600 and I think that's there's discussions of that changing. I'll defer to to CA on that.

Um thank you. The allocations for the Oak Harbor UG which invol which includes the city and its UG is being changed. However, the number that has been uh kind of agreed upon that the city will take on is I think confirmed uh the 3700. So the numbers outside are changing and the countywide planning policies are being amended to consider a newer number. But for the city, the numbers stay the same.

And and that's kind of, you know, the process as we've kind of gone through and we've kind of took that pause as the city is working with the county is because that how much growth we're planning for is everything, right? We need that to be able to inform policy. We need that to inform kind of the planning that's taking place or the impacts on on city services and how we how we plan for those. So that those are those are really important discussions. Now that we kind of have that, we can move forward and complete the update. So, just a little bit of just a refresher on our comprehensive plan update. And I'm going to try to keep this pretty high level, but the growth management act requires the city every 10 years to do a 20-year comprehensive plan. And so, you're looking out 20 years. And the way I like to think about it, if I was sitting at this at at the dis' be thinking about it's 20 years from now and I'm really happy because what happened in our community and if you could think about that you're sitting in the future and then you'd say okay well if we wanted our best outcomes they don't just happen right it would be a series of actions to get to your preferred you know your desired future. So that's really what a comprehensive plan does. And and really the hub of your comprehensive plan is you're planning for the next 20 years of growth. People, jobs, housing, and then of course if you're planning for people, jobs, and housing, there's all of the pieces that make it so it'll actually work well. I mean, you if you don't have the roads, you can't get people to their jobs. If you don't have the sewer and water, you can't build the housing. If you don't have the amenities, people won't want to move to the community. And of course you want to focus on economic development and all the things of protecting the environment. So all of those things surround really having a community. But but I encourage the council when you're thinking about it is you're really like thinking about that preferred future so that you can outline steps and goals and policies of how you're going to achieve that. So it's really like your work plan for the future. A comprehensive plan isn't the end. When you get it done, you don't go

I'm coming back in 10 years. It really should be the foundation for the future. it really kind of sets that course of action. Um there's the main kind of piece that you're going to focus on is you're going to focus on updates to policy. So any state law changes that have happened since the last update and just making sure that the plan's consistent with state law along with that that planning for uh new growth. The housing element has been a key focus. So that's part of what you know kind of working with the county on growth targets is there's been significant changes to our housing policies in the state of Washington since the last time the city updated its comprehensive plan. So in the past you just plan for jobs and you plan for population. Uh and now there's more requirements to not just plan for people but you have to plan for housing and you're really looking at planning for housing associated with what people can afford. So really looking at about the different affordability levels of housing and making sure that you have zoning so that you can kind of match what do people make what can they afford to buy or what can they afford to rent and then are you encouraging that type of housing that matches. So, as we were talking a little bit about that growth targets, the, you know, taking look at terms of housing units, the the city is looking at planning for about 3,700 new housing units, uh, and about 1,200 uh, new jobs, which is really significant. Um, so a lot of growth within the city plan for the next 20 years. And again, like that state law housing change also focuses more growth within cities versus unincorporated areas. So, it's really put that that pressure on cities. And of course, on the island, you've got one larger city, so you're even getting a a more concentrated uh percentage of that growth to be planning for. Now, we've gone through this before, but I think something that's really

important is one of the steps that we took early on in this process is, you know, when you're thinking about, okay, we're planning for all those new housing units and jobs. How are we going to do that? Do we have to reszone the entire city? Do we I mean how are we going to do this? But the first step that we looked at is you already have a capacity to accommodate uh people and jobs. So we did an analysis to kind of look at what's the difference between how many people you know live and work in the city and how much zoning capacity do you have to accommodate the amount of growth that you're that you're planning for. So really what we're planning for here, the changes they'd be looking at is the delta between how much capacity you have and you need to accommodate that growth target. But as the table indicates, you already have a significant amount of zoning. So there is capacity for people to move to the city for new housing and new jobs. So we're just planning for that delta. Uh and that's about uh a thousand new homes. So, it's it's not that full 3,700 because you have existing zoning which will allow for more people to move to the city. So, let's talk a little bit about the environmental impact statement. And again, we're going to come back at the next briefing and really dive into the details with maps and show you specifics so we can get some feedback and that way when we go and do work, we know we're doing good work for the city council. So, let's just make sure we're all on the same page about what an environmental impact statement is. It's really like anformational document on the environmental impacts of a set of alternatives. So, we're going to be looking at what happens if the city made no changes to its land use maps and its zoning and didn't change its development regulations. That would be like the no action alternative. And then we can look at a series of changes called alternatives, which would be changes to to our zoning maps, to densities, to building heights. will bring you those scenarios to be able to accommodate that

next wave of growth and analyze the impacts of that on the environment. You know, when you're planning for more people, how does that impact our transportation system or impact schools or impacts sewer and water so that we can analyze that and then when you do that that you can also mitigate those impacts. So understand what you know if you're going to have something that's going to occur, what would you do to solve the problem and then that gets worked into your environmental impact statement. Um, the EIS is also a way to engage the community. So, you know, if you're not doing an EIS, you're kind of presenting one way to be able to uh meet your your comprehensive plan requirements and then you get engagement. You talk to the community about that. This presents different options. So, they have different things to be able to comment on and provide feedback on, you know, impacts that they see uh and how we should mitigate those. So it's not just the community but also public agencies and tribes uh so that they can really be involved in the process. And of course an EIS is just one option under our state environmental policy act and I'm sure you've heard that referred to as SIBA. Okay. So, I want to make sure that we're I'll talk a little bit about the EIS process because we kind of think of it as a four-step process, but remember, uh, SEIPA is being done as part of the comprehensive plan update. So, it's a there's a there's a whole bunch more steps and they all work together and we have a master kind of schedule that shows how they all kind of work together. But scoping has kind of four major pieces to it. So, the first is the process that we're in right now. We're in called scoping. So, um, this is an opportunity for the community to provide public input and comments. Uh, we've presented them with information about the amount of growth the city is going to be planning for, and so we can receive comments, but it's not focused on whether they like things or they don't like things or what actions the

council should necessarily take. This comment period is really focused on environmental impacts that they want us to study as part of the of the EIS. So if someone has concerns about transportation or if they have concerns about uh the natural environment or on uh you know capital facilities that the the comments are really specified on those so it's pretty narrow. Now as part of the scoping process the city team has already identified a really broad list of things that we'll look at and review as part of that EIS process. But that's the main purpose of the scoping process. Um then based upon that we're going to come to the city council and confirm what are the range of alternatives that we'll study as part of the EIS process. I call them bookends because when you study bookends under SEPA that means the council has the ability to adopt anything within those bookends without having to reanalyze parts of the environment. So, we're going to give you some broad bookends that will allow us to uh begin our analysis. Uh, and so we want to make sure that you have lots of options as it comes back for the the city council to take legislative action. Um, we draft that draft environmental impact statement. It goes back out to the community. We'll do community engagement on that. There's a comment period. Uh, and then based upon comments that are received, then we'll issue what's called a final environmental impact statement. And that final environmental impact statement has to be completed before you adopt the comprehensive plan update and then changes to the development regulations as well. So we've got to get this step done before we can finish the comprehensive plan. And we're all well on our way to be able to do that. And again, just for anybody to be listening online, that scoping process, the scoping period where you can submit public comments is occurring right now.

uh and it'll run until March 19th. Those comments are really focused on the kind of the environmental impacts of the actions the city must take and getting comments on those. Um and then we'll utilize those and summarize those and utilize that as we begin drafting the draft environmental impact statement. Uh the website certainly has lots of good information, opportunities to comment. So, any information about that, if you get constituent uh requests, the website is a great place where they can get informed, they can get involved, they can sign up to be able to receive future notifications. So, we really want to make sure that's a place people can go and get the information that they need. Okay. So, um, this is really going to be an important conversation, maybe the focus area that we're really going to dive into at the next meeting because I I really want the council to understand the importance of selecting alternatives to be studied as part of the environmental impact statement. So uh as part of scoping scoping can be very broad but when we when we you know put together alternatives or we put together those bookends from a no action is if nothing changed in our codes you're everything stayed the same to probably like a high growth alternative which would be planning for more growth than maybe you anticipated and then something in the middle. Um we're going to select those alternatives uh and that's going to be our range of things that we're going to study. So we'll have a no action and two action alternatives and the the council can you know end up adopting anything within that range and you won't have to modify SEPA but we do really want we're going to come to you probably with like a primary alternative which we think is probably close to the course of action that will get you where you need to go. uh and and we'll need some we'll we'll be looking for some head nods on that that we're just going in the right direction that we're

studying the right things because we don't want to come back and change a bunch of things and have to reopen SEPHA and and analyze things over again. So, um we'll be back next month. We've kind of talked about some of the land use and zoning changes that are possibility with council before. We'll be back to do that. We'll walk through the maps, what they mean, the capacity that be gained, locations. So, we're working on that with the city team right now. So we can really get down to specifics and we just want to make sure we're heading in the right direction. So when we come back you're like this is what we wanted to see and we can then gauge the community on that as well. Perfect. Okay. So just a reminder just some schedule and next steps. Um we've got that goal. We're going to be completed by the by the end of the year. That the selection of alternatives is really important. and it informs the drafting of the EIS and then once the draft is issued we're going to come back to council to select a preferred alter what's called a preferred alternative. So think of that as is as thinking about what is most likely is the council going to adopt as part of the comprehensive plan. And why that's really important is once you pick a select you select a preferred alternative. Then within the comprehensive plan that's what we're going to include for capital facility impacts, utility impacts, transportation impacts. So if we're looking at your transportation plan and your utility plan, we have to, you know, the projects that you select in the future, the impacts on growth have to be modeled off of something, right? So once you pick a preferred alternative, then we can get the comprehensive plan in shape and start taking that to the planning commission and back to you for adoption. So there'll be some critical important points. You don't have to remember all of them today because I know this is really complicated, but we're going to come back and make sure that we're doing a good job of providing information making sure there ample opportunities

for questions so that we get this right for you. So again, that scoping period for anyone that's listening online for sure is through uh you know mid-March. Um we're going to then uh summarize those scoping comments that come in on the kind of the environmental impacts that we should be looking at. and we're already kind of getting getting started on the EIS by framing up kind of what's called existing conditions there given we're going to do a no action alternative there's a lot of work that we can be get get going on so that we can make sure we hit our project schedule and then we'll work with CAC at a time that's convenient to you to come back for that workshop too where we'll really dive into the maps answer questions make sure we're heading into the right direction and then that way we'll have our alternatives and we'll keep the project moving If you have any questions, I know that's a lot of information, so just make sure you know any questions that you think of after this meeting. If they're filtered to the team, whatever we can do, we just we just want to make sure that uh we get you everything you need.

All right. You guys have any questions for Clay at this time? Yes, Council Member Stucky.

And this might be more for staff than yourself. Um, I just went on to our website to see about the the scoping information, you know, and and some of the stuff can be pretty complicated. When things are complicated, people tend to not comment. I mean, people like to comment on things that are real easy. That's why we get a lot of comments on things like art. You like it or you don't, right? This is this can be some pretty complicated stuff. I see we have a website. That's that's great. I I see that it sounds like it's going to be put in the news times. That's that's great. Are we doing other avenues? I mean, this is something I want I'd love to see social media. I'd love to see in the utility bills. Like, what exactly is the communication strategy? Cuz I have a feeling we're going to work our tail off and get a handful of comments. I I don't see hundreds. I wish we did. Yeah.

But what exactly is the communication strategy from getting this out besides just visit our website?

Yeah. So I think if it's and I'll certainly let them opine on this a bit, but if we break this up. So the scoping the scoping comment period is a requirement that's been in state law since 1970 and but it's pretty narrow like as part of our scoping notice. The city's already identified every element of the environment that we're going to be doing analysis on this. And so the amount of like, you know, what we're asking for the for the public is to comment on making sure we're covering certain elements of the environment that we talk about those. So So it's pretty limited in terms of what we're asking the public to comment on. Now, when we get the draft environmental impact statement and it has an a noa action and two action alternatives and it has different ways of accommodating growth and it's talking about, you know, where land use and zoning changes and development regulation changes may be considered, then that's going to be another 30-day comment period. We plan to have an open house. We opportunities for the people to come learn about it. So, really focusing on that piece. And then after that, once we get through that draft EIS, then we're going to have a lot of meetings and hearings with the planning commission and the city council walking through that process. So, we're really focusing on that meaningful engagement as part of that EIS process. And that's really where the public can can really weigh in on the things they want the city council to be considering.

Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. I remember when we did our waterfront redevelopment workshops, those were well attended. Yes. So I, you know, I just hate when we just get very little feedback and then take the the dozen comments is this is what everyone's thinking when no well that was a dozen comments, you know. So anything we can do to make it as simple and understandable as possible so we can get feedback from as many people as possible is greatly appreciated. Thank you, council member. Any other comments? Yes, council member Romero.

Thank you, mayor. uh Clay in project management there are the issues with regard to the steps where there are there is slack and there are those processes that can occur on a parallel basis and um you know internally as a council member I get exasperated when uh projects or programs are delayed because of single limiting factors that were built that should have been taken into consideration. And so just as a matter of uh request, not not necessarily official, but that we can expedite things to the degree that is legal and realistic and not get bound by limiting factors that uh could have otherwise been mitigated. Do you understand the general thrust of what I'm speaking? I see a nod here. You would comment on that.

You're speaking my language. So as part of our project plan really what we're looking at there's there's working on the environmental impact statement and we're working on the comprehensive plan at the same time that that selection that what's called the selection of the preferred alternative as part of the EIS is a pivoting point though because we're going to be looking for direction from council that point which will enable us to complete the comprehensive plan. So we have those marks on the calendar of like when we have critical decision points, but there's a lot of different pieces that are all going to be moving at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Very much agree that on the project management side. Thank you.

Anybody else? Nothing. All right. Well, Clay, thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right. We're going to move forward to our last topic on the workshop today, pedestrian safety and crosswalk update. And here to introduce this topic. Oh, I'm sorry, K. I'm sorry. I didn't know. We just We have We have more comp planned for you. Of course you do. Of course you do. I'm sorry. Sorry it wasn't dumb down from you. I didn't see that. Don't skip the good stuff.

I didn't know that. Thank you. Good afternoon. Kac, principal planner. Um, here to present another portion of the comp plan uh presentation information that we wanted to share with the city council. Uh, actually nice segue because as we're planning for the EIS, we're continuing to work with the comp plan. And this is an example of how we're starting the EIS process and we're working with the comp plan. So you'll see some some of these dual presentations as we go forward. Uh we'll try to separate as best as we can what we're talking about with relation to the EIS and what's in relation to the comp plan. And I want to reiterate and I and we'll as staff help the city council as best as possible to kind of um what Clay was mentioning about the preferred alternative. Uh I think that's a very key decisionmaking um uh step in the entire process that will help us continue to work with the comp plan and finalize it so that we can meet all our time uh requirements. So um but we'll help you try uh and identify that time when it's important to make some of these choices so that we can kind of more efficiently work on the tool layers and and get the project done hopefully by the end of this year. So with that um I'll jump a little into the comp plan update. So as part of uh our comprehensive plan update we have to update our policies. So this is kind of the review of our policies. Staff has taken a look at it. the consultants have taken a look at it. We've discussed it with the planning commission. We've discussed these policies with other uh departments and we've generally collected um their thoughts and comments

as a first iteration of what we'd like to see in terms of changes. Now, I want to just mention very briefly that all the changes that are suggested here doesn't mean that it'll automatically become changes. They'll still be go through public comment. There'll still be comments that we have to address from the public. There may be some policy changes that the public does not prefer and would like to have changed or revert and we're open to all of that. So, this is just like I said a draft way to start discussing what changes we want to consider. Um, we are already sharing this information with other agencies and we've already got comments back from state agencies in terms of some of the policy changes we're making. So comments are already starting to come in uh in order to uh to try and shape how we we work through all of these uh changes uh with the update. So with that um I'll jump into my presentation and what I'm hoping to do is basically um provide you with some basic uh summary of some of the changes. I'm not going to go into the detail, but if council has any questions on any policy changes, we can um discuss that. But uh I'll summarize just the major changes and then we'll just jump into a discussion and look for your guidance. So what we're hoping to do u is basically we'll give you just a little summary of all the changes like I mentioned. Um I have the housing element, the UG element and also some of the new goals and policies that were considered uh additions and then um we'll have the discussion at the very end. Do you have questions?

Oh, sorry. Should I pause for a second? Oh, okay. Somebody's car. Okay. It's not mine. I know. Okay. We

All right. Um All right. So, basically, as I mentioned, we're seeking council's um thoughts and comments on the draft plan. Um, just to give you an update of what we've done so far um September of 2025, we discussed with the planning commission and the city council other elements of the comprehensive plan uh such as urban design, transportation, utilities, environment, and capital facilities. in September, parks and recreation, economic development, government services, and climate resiliency in October. And basically the land use, housing and urban growth area we're discussing right now. Uh some of our planning commission meetings were cancelled in the month of December and January. So that discussion is delayed till to February. So um you've already heard our discussion on the EIS. So, I won't uh jump into that. As I've said, you know, we'll try and help you get to that preferred alternative. Uh we're working uh internally on all that bookend options. We're excited about that next meeting, which we think will be on April 28th, uh April 28th workshop. What we're really hoping is to have a joint uh workshop between the planning commission and the city council so that we can share all of these different alternatives, the reasonzonings um and uh so on uh all the other tools that we're hoping to consider as part of this EIS. And so that will be uh a good discussion and I think we should reserve a good enough time so that the planning commission and city council can start to look at the real nuts and bolts of the changes that we're considering uh as part of our land use map and our reasonzoning map and development regulations. So that will be an

important meeting to determine the breadth of changes and then coming down narrowed down to what is it that we actually prefer so that we can pick the course uh for the comp plan. So with that um this is just a a a slide just to indicate the format of how the policy policies were presented to you in that table. Um most of the changes that uh were addressed are you know basically trying to address equity. We as you know we have some uh we got a grant and we're required to include uh climate resiliency in our comp plan and so when we include those we get new policies and it impacts how some uh some of our existing processes work. So uh we've considered climate resilience, environmental justice, compliance with state law. So many uh house bills have been passed over the last few years that we have to catch up to. Uh we want to promote sustainable development and we generally want to increase the community well-being. So these are kind of the umbrella um points under which the changes were suggested. So with that I'll just jump into and categorize um or summarize what we did in each of the element. Like I said this is not detail uh policy for policy but this is just the overall kind of concepts. So neighborhood character, this is a this is a terminology that we we used in our policies that over the last decade or two, the planning world has determined that this neighborhood character is a nice word, but it actually uh is uh doesn't clearly define what it is and how to look at it. And there have been cases uh that have struggled with trying to define what community character is. And it is different for different neighborhoods. So unless you have a very definitive term in terms of what you want to

achieve, in the planning world, we're trying to get away from all these nice words. They seem nice, but they actually um don't seem to provide for actual clarity when it comes to decision-m. So we're amending some of the policies to kind of clarify that. um open space again um uh the climate resilience element uh uh asks the plan to ask the community to look at uh open space and consider policies to consider open space. So uh policies have been included or amended to include that. Uh we've broadened uh we've included um at least from staff perspective some language suggestion on including some additional tools uh such as the overlay zones. Uh this is something that you'll see a lot when we get to the alternatives uh in terms of how to provide incentives and options for uh property owners is usually sometimes through overlay zones and we have some ideas on how to consider that. So we're just uh allowing the comp plan policies to accommodate for a wider range of zoning tools to be considered with this update. Um, again, climate resilience, that's part of the House bill. Uh, and we've, um, added support and and policies to support that, climate resilience and open space preservation. We also, um, added policies to, um, improve the alternate modes of transportation, walking, biking. This is something that our transportation planners and engineers have taken into account. Every time we redesign, repave the street, we're looking at trying to include bike lanes and sidewalks and so on. And so we're trying to uh uh include more policies that will keep us uh in that mode and enhance that uh alternate mode of transportation. And then road connectivity. Um again uh we want to try and provide as much connections within

the city as pos possible so that there's alternate ways of getting around and that you're not stuck with one way to get to one place or the other. So these are some of the kind of changes that the land use element um changes captures um um also the the land use element is a is a workhorse for the comprehensive plan. So a lot of changes there. So native vegetation was al also addressed. This is also um somewhat um from climate resiliency um and um um environmental policies that uh um give us direction to consider more uh emphasis on that. U we also have expanded the policies to including uh to include using native vegetation when we do land clearing or or try to do uh land for development. Waterfront development. This is always something that uh is addressed in almost every update. We try and keep our minds focused on trying to enhance waterfront development, try to provide opportunity there. So there's more policies added there to give flexibilities, more definitions, more opportunities to create sub area plans etc. and um flexible zoning to add uh added specificity to encourage development and redevelopment along Midway Boulevard with overlay zone. So there was more language in the in to support redevelopment opportunities along Midway housing. So another large workhorse uh in the comprehensive plan. Um, again, a lot of policies or um changes in the housing section just because of how we're addressing our current comp plan and all the housing we're trying to accommodate.

So, um, we're extremely low housing. We added policies to accommodate those u including shelters, emergency, transitional, and permanent support housing. This is a like a this is an equity issue federal and state level. these u facilities are considered housing and they are supposed to be incorporated into the residential neighborhoods and so that's how uh and there are code cases for that and um so that's missing in our code and we're trying to make sure that our policies uh take into account that accessory dwelling units uh improving language to make them as an alternative uh form of housing to improve affordability um policies to assess barriers for affordable housing. So, we want to continually assess all our tools to make sure that we are open and providing opportunities for affordable housing and uh again climate resiliency policies to make sure that affordable housing is not located in areas that are uh that can be impacted by climate change or you know just again this is an equity issue trying to not subject your uh you know like your lands that are compromised by regulations. are compromised by other impacts such as noise to be the target for all your low-income housing. So, it's just you want to make sure that it's equitable and it's distributed all throughout the city. Urban growth area. So, we learned a lot about our urban urban growth area uh through this update. So, we've made some minor modifications to make sure that we view or we have the right perspective based on the countywide planning policies. So, we made some minor amendments to update the language to align up with the countywide planning policies. Uh, added language in to ensure annexations are logical

extensions of the city. Again, we want to avoid those uh islands in unincorporated islands as best as we can. We already have some. We know the challenges that we face dealing with them. We don't want to create more. So, we want to try and make sure that our policies accommodate that. And then there's uh there was a lot of language related to green belts. Green belts was an outdated concept in in planning back from the ' 70s60s and um it didn't quite work. Um but um we wanted to reward this. uh we we are getting some push back on this removing some of this language from u um uh DOE or fish and wildlife um because they feel that this the removal of these this language kind of prevents uh wildlife corridors etc. So we're trying to make sure that we it's it's not our intent to not have wildlife corridors and such. It's this hard green belt seems like a very dedicated space that you protect for some reason and we don't have very strong reasons to have these large green belts in our around our city which is where in the UG that this policy suggests. I think we should still encourage wildlife corridors and and provide for those opportunities. We can provide it in different ways. So we'll have to just amend languages to that. But anyway, that's some suggested language on the green belts as well. uh some of the new goals and policies that were added, affordable housing, we introduced some goals and policies to increase affordable housing opportunities, preserve the stock, and also address barriers as I talked about. Uh environmental justice, um added goals for housing equity and environmental justice. I mentioned a few of those. And then displacement prevention, proposed measures and economic growth strategies to reduce displacement of existing communities. And I think that's

something that the state is focusing on as well. So these are some of the new goals and policies that have been added to this draft. So with that, I know uh it's kind of dry, boring uh summary, but with that, I'll open it up for any interesting questions that you guys may have. Yes, Council Member Marshall. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, CAC, for that presentation. You mentioned overlay zones a couple of times. What exactly is an overlay zone?

Um, so if you can imagine a city block that has commercial zoning on one corner, uh, multifamily on another side and let's say some um, offices and and so on and another. So you have a block that has four different kinds of zoning. So each of these uh zoning classifications have their own density requirements and height requirements and use requirements. What you could do is you could put an overlay zone over it. You can just draw a square on it, call it overlay A, and in your zoning ordinance or your land use, you can say for this overlay, you can have reduced setbacks. you can have reduced parking. So it doesn't apply to all commercial, it just applies to that block. So the it's an overlay zone is a way to provide additional incentives to targeted areas of the city where you want to see redevelopment.

Okay. Thank you. Um one of the policies was managing short-term rentals. Is that a large issue within the city of Oak Harbor? I mean, do we have a quite a inventory of short-term rentals? um from the most recent I won't say when we did an official kind of search on short-term rentals but um recent searches have indicated that we don't do not have a large supply of short-term rentals and it's not um a big challenge in our community. However, at the state level, I think there are some state laws that that are trying to be um uh put in place to kind of address it because the short-term rentals create a sense of lack of community in some residential neighborhoods and I think there's some challenges with that. Um so whether you regulate them, whether you permit them, whether there's, you know, there's um processes that you can bring to manage them if they are an issue. But in Old Carver, I don't think uh

Are you speaking about city limits or countywide? Pardon me. Are you speaking specifically to city limits or countywide? City limits. I don't have any My question was specific to city limits. Yeah. Just making sure because Okay. Yes. I speak only about city limits. Uh and then one of the goals was assess barriers to affordable housing. What are some examples of barriers? And then when we assess these barriers, are there going to be suggested alternatives or, you know, ways that we can mitigate some of those?

Um, I hope so. I think the the policy is to try and track them or identify them. And so, um, barriers could be requiring permits, requiring processes in place. Um, removing processes usually helps things move move. So when we look at it, we can look at can we make it more efficient. Um can we can we do uh sub like uh plan action developments and and do environmental review before things you know so can you do various steps to make it easier for an applicant or a developer to go through the steps to get the project. I think once you once you get into uh these higher development ratios, I think we'll have to analyze those as we go. So, will evaluating like our connection fees be part of that that assessment. I mean, cuz I I understand making it easier, you know, obviously is is helpful, but there are actual specific costs that go into development, right? And you know, I know that we are looking at a study right now to on some of our fees and we raised connection fees not that long ago. I mean, are those at some point do those become barriers to affordable housing? It it can be and if it's identified as a barrier, the council has choices in terms of what they want to do with when the fee is waved or when it should be reduced. You also have, which council hasn't talked about, we have these MFTTE programs. It's a different way of funding affordable housing um and subsidizing affordable housing of sorts. So there are things that you can actively do to reduce fee or you can provide an environment where it's more economical to provide for those housing. So different ways to approach it.

All right. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Arms. What do you mean by short-term rentals? How long are we talking about? I I think the short-term rental was referred to like as Airbnbs or VRBOs where you have

Yeah. In my neighborhood, it's kind of a musical chairs. I mean, we have one house. I don't know how many different people cuz it's an HOA. I mean, I can't keep track of who the new neighbors are. I mean, it's in and out, in and out. So, I think it's there. we just maybe don't see it because in my neighborhood in this certain section there is a lot of movement in and out in and out. So I don't know how we keep track of that. Um I mean I don't know what we're talking about. Is it a year 6 months? Um I've just noticed it. Um because it's HOAs and so it's I don't see it in the regular housing. I see it in the HOAs. Just a reminder that they are happening.

Yeah. Abs. Yeah. I think they are happening in town. I don't think we have any regulations against them. We don't have any requirements for them to you know get permits or get you know so there are no regulations in place. I think you know I think we want to just have some policy in place maybe to just consider if they become an issue what is it that we need to do if it's an issue. something to look for. Yes. And just for the record, a short-term rental is 30 days or less. Council member Stucky,

so I know like when it sounds like you guys are wanting to quantify it, which I can actually do for you. So when I got on with the Island County Tourism, I asked that question just honestly like how many short-term rent I actually have the short-term rental report um that gives me the exact number. Uh I could tell you how many there are for the as of 25. I can tell you how many there is for the county, how many there is for the city. If we're talking about city is about 40 to help quantify it. I mean, I'm looking at the map right now as of 25 that shows the short-term rental reports. Um, now you take all of Island County, it's a whole lot more than that, but city-wise, it's it's about 40 short-term rentals that we have. So, just based on sales tax collections in general for August of last year, short-term rental vacation rental companies amounted to about 8% of our lodging tax collections.

Yeah. And of those, as of 25, there was this email is correct, I think a 30 or not 30, like a 53% occupancy rate depending upon the time of the year on those. So, um I do have a question though and obviously the comp plan pretty much touches everything and this might be a question more for our public works and city engineer when we talk about active transportation active transportation plan. Change can be very hard for people and I would say one of the things as I'm out and about and people bring up that probably gotten the most push back on is the bike lanes on Swantown. And even I can admit if you take it by itself, it does seem a little out of place. It's not very long. It takes up a lot of real estate. Um, not to say there are no bikers on there. I hear a lot of times there's never a bike on here. Well, I'm sorry. I run that road every day and there are. I'm not going to say there's hundreds, but there are. What in a perfect world, what's what's the plan with that? I mean, I know we can I can read the transportation plan, but I'm trying to make it easy. I mean, are we trying to do that throughout the city with the curb and everything like that? Are we just talking about wider shoulders? If you don't mind, council member, our next presentation will be about pedestrian safety. And so we've got a slide that gets to that issue. Could we postpone that question till our next

discussion item? I I'm either jumping ahead or teeing you up. One of the two. So we'll break that up and just stay tuned everybody. Council member Peterson.

Thank you. Would you please explain the broader definition for climate resilience? Because in the land use element, the fourth point says climate resilience added to support for climate resilience and policies related to open space preservation. And then under housing, the fourth bullet point is added policies to ensure affordable housing is not located in areas vulnerable to climate change impacts. Does that mean nonaffordable housing can go there? And why are we talking about climate resilience in both of those? So uh climate resilience so to to have practical um may maybe a practical example uh would be helpful. So if we what what are the climate um um elements that can impact oar is what you know there the climate resiliency tool identified um our um sea level rise um extreme precipitation and flooding and I think the community recognized wildfires and so on as potential you know threats that we should be planning for. So your climate resiliency is to try and recognize that these elements can impact your housing and your building stock and so on in the long term. Some of them are years in the coming. Nothing is happening right now. So how can you slowly start preparing um for something like that? So for example, let's take downtown. So in downtown you have commercial zoning and you're allowed to have residential in the upper floors. So by maintaining that

policy you have some climate resiliency at least for your housing that are going to be on the upper floors, right? I mean that's kind of like a policy to say we're not going to allow residential on the ground floor in these areas. So that would be taking into account some climate resiliency policy to try and prevent housing in certain locations or in certain areas of certain zoning. So in the same way and you don't want to say okay here this doesn't seem like a market rate place. So let's let's put MFTTE program here and let's load it up with MF with affordable housing. You also don't want to kind of do that just because other housing choices uh you don't want to have the the uh affordable the people who can afford housing to live in these areas. So you want to kind of make sure that you're um you're saving lives but at the same time you're not subjecting the community to u all the lands that are regulated or you know which are maybe of less value to accommodate all the low-income housing.

I appreciate that. For me, part of that is an affordability question and part of that is climate question. And I'm not quite sure why they're the same thing. It

it's challenging and I think we write it in general because in different areas they apply differently. So if you apply an MFTTE zone in in let's say up close to the noise zones, let's say so our noise zones are are lower in close to the water and they get higher up there. So what our policies are saying is don't try and locate all your R4 and R3 zoning up in the high noise area where the you know larger population will be subjected to those noise implications. So don't don't segregate them because the value of the land there is different than the value of the land that's here. So by placing your MFTTE zone somewhere close to here, you're giving the developer an opportunity to develop multif family and regular market rate, but also consider affordable housing in that same in that same market as opposed to dividing it all up and making sure that we as a city are not trying to put some population in a more disadvantageous position just by our zoning regulations. Good.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. My wife. Oh, it's okay. All right. Any more questions, comments for CAC? Hearing none, seeing none. All right. Thank you, CAC. Are you guys all done now? Yes. All right. So, now we will call upon

our public works director, Steve Scheler, and our city engineer, Alex Warner, to present pedestrian safety and crosswalk updates. Good afternoon, Mayor Wright and council members. Um, we're going to be talking about pedestrian safety, what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what you can expect moving forward. This is not a sudden initiative. It flows directly from policy direction that council has already adopted. Uh the most recent council policy that you adopted was uh last May on May 20th. Uh you adopted the comprehensive safety action plan uh that is committed to the goal to reduce the number of traffic deaths and serious injuries to zero by the year 2045. And this is part of a international, national, state, and local government initiative. Uh city staff will monitor and periodically report the progress of that goal. And so here we are this afternoon to do that. Um one thing that is the the statistics really glare out is over the last 10 years or so, we've grown by about 7%. But our pedestrian fatalities and severe accidents have grown by 48% or more depending on what gear you use. So although our vehicles now have better airbags and better seat belts, we as pedestrians still have the same old human skin and our bones crack just the same even with all the traffic that we're experiencing. uh the different larger vehicles that are out there uh and and just the more uh cities as people are moving more into cities uh over the years. So this is a real issue. I would tell you this bypasses politics. This is on a national level again state level and local level that this is

something that people are focused on because again the data is really clear that we are failing in our uh our goal our cure to keep our citizens safe. Now, there's many additional benefits. The the the clear one is obviously to keep a child who's walking to school from dying on our city streets and to have all of that on our conscience. But there's legal and financial risk reduction. There's economic vitality and local business support. There's protection for children, seniors, and people with disabilities. There's equity. We We don't want to just do this in our neighborhoods that have the most expensive homes. We want to be able to do this citywide. There's public health benefits. Uh there's traffic efficiency and fewer crashes. Uh there's climate and infrastructure resiliency. And there's alignment with very long-term city goals in this area. And just from a you know pictures worth a thousand words, we want to help children be able to walk to school. We want to help couples be able to walk to their local park. We want to be able to allow handicapped folks and people with other uh impairments to be able to get around our city in different ways. And sometimes having a vehicle is not something that's available to everybody. We know that our one of the largest areas of growth is in our senior population. And like my 100-year-old mother-in-law, at some point you have to give up driving, right? And then h so there you need other options. Here's it said kind of in a quick sentence. A city where people can safely walk is a city that is healthier, more prosperous, and more resilient for everyone. All right, we're going to kind of deal with the elephant in the room. One of the clearest signs of a safe city is when families feel comfortable letting

children walk to school. This topic isn't really about paint, signs, or even crosswalks. Let's spend a moment talking about the real tension in this topic. It's about two reasonable expectations for how a street should work. For drivers, a street is a corridor, a way to travel efficiently. For a parent, especially a child, that same street can feel like a barrier. City neighborhoods tend to move in one of two directions. When crossings feel difficult or uncertain, fewer people walk. As pedestrians become more less common, drivers don't expect them. and walking feels even less comfortable. But the opposite can happen. When crossings are clear, visible, and easy to use, people begin to trust them. Kids walk with friends. Residents walk to parks and nearby businesses. Drivers see pedestrians regularly and naturally slow look and yield. And that's the important point point. More walking helps create safer streets. and safer streets encourage more walking. The council's adopted objective in coordination with many of our community partners is to help our city move forward in that positive direction. And so, uh, now we're going to have our wonderful city engineer, Mr. Alex Warner, get into the specifics of the improvements that have happened over the last several years.

Thanks, Steve. Hello, Mayor Council. Yes, I am Alex Warner, your city engineer. Uh, so something that we all adhere to is known as the manual of uniform traffic control devices. It's a mouthful, but basically what it tells you is that the signage and striping across our state, across our country, is going to be consistent. It's to uh set that clear expectation for drivers. Um, a couple years ago we were here and uh, this effort was led by our principal planner, Cat Kamak, over here. I assisted on the effort as well, the city's first active transportation plan. So, this included some policies such as reducing vehicle speeds, zoning for walkability. There's some other ones listed there. Uh, but really it's to get people moving throughout the city outside of their vehicles. We had extensive community engagement that year that was followed by this last year continued community engagement for the city's first comprehensive safety action plan. Uh again, it had some policies to reduce speed limits. Um make some pedestrian improvements specifically at intersections and look at Highway 20 as a way to move people and try to get away from it being viewed as a barrier. Uh that did allow us to apply for a $5 million federal grant uh this last year. Uh comparatively we have about $100,000 each year for local funds. So it's significant increase in funding. Uh we were not successful. It's very competitive. Over 85% of the grant applications to that pro program were not awarded. Just shows you how competitive it is. We are going to keep our eye out for this next year. Um it's the last year of the funding

program, the safe streets for all as currently uh approved at the federal level. Um so specifically, you know, getting down to some of the the improvements we've been making around the city. So since 2019, uh we've installed 15 sets of these rectangular rapid flashing beacons, the RRFBs. These are the push button activated uh light up crosswalks and six of those have been uh in our school areas. It's a standard that was adopted at that time and we're sticking with it. Uh we've also been doing uh bike lanes which you know we're having to adapt. Transportation engineering doesn't adapt that that quickly, but I've seen some new terminology referring to these as microobility lanes. We don't want to exclusively reserve them for uh pedal humanpowered bicycles. Other things you've seen across the city, I'm sure got your e scooters, one wheels, your ebikes, uh all sorts of those um alternative modes of traffic. And an additional benefit I've seen personally is we get out there, we pave a road, we set the shoulders wider than they were before, so you're walking down the sidewalk and it's more pleasant to be walking down the road because you don't have those vehicles traveling 35 miles per hour right on your shoulder. So a nice little uh added benefit to those lanes. Uh so these are your more intensive treatment applications. They're more costly by lineal foot, but we do deem them appropriate on certain roadway segments. These are our shared use paths. Uh we've installed over 2500 ft. On the left there's Northeast 7th. On the right is Swantown Avenue, which

will segue into a response uh for a council member. Uh some of our community partners we always want to keep in mind are up there. you know, our schools, the county, Navy, and the state. Our efforts continue. Uh we do have the reality that there are limits to our funding and our staff uh resources. We continue to gather public feedback. Please, if you're out there, you have concerns. We have a great portal online uh to fill out your concern. We accept that. We track it. Um and that is one more worthy data point for us to use in our analysis where we should be putting these funds. Uh I have been looking you know over the last five six years for all of our capital projects to to uh to leverage those uh you know if they might be a water man replacement or whatever it might be. Can we get in some active transportation some pedestrian improvements uh those sorts of things? We've been pretty successful in that. Again, we'll keep our out for grant funding opportunities uh with uh in mind that uh our public works trust fund is being threatened often. Uh so we have competing needs for those limited funds at the state level. So that concludes my presentation. Take any questions. So, Alec, to piggyback on what Council Member Stucky was um alluding to with respect to the the bike lanes, are we looking at continuity as far as these go as we continue to make improvements throughout the city going forward?

Absolutely.

Yeah. And these are uh you know conversations that really started earlier iterations of the transportation comp plan. Our active transportation plan really fleshed out some of these things. Uh we even had concepts on Highway 20 showing separated bike paths uh that caught Wash Dot's eye. So we we have those in our plan, but you know these are guidelines that we uh try to aspire to. Um it's definitely part of a larger bicycle network that can be found in those plans as well. So yes, there there are intentions when time and funding allows to extend these trails, you know, up and down Swantown, 7th, wherever wherever those uh funds and opportunities present themselves.

Yes. So then I do have one more question. What are we doing about ensuring that we're seeing continuity of sidewalks to and between construction areas? Because right now, specifically on the corner of Northwest Crosby and Heler, we have that new development going up of town homes. Mhm. And they did a really great job of putting up sidewalks there, but stopped right at the end of their development. And then there's a new development about 1,000 ft down the road where they put in sidewalks, but in between those two, there's nothing. And there are between 20 and 30 children that walk that path every day to school. Yes. Absolutely. uh we're well aware of those and

uh the development side of things, you know, private developments have been driving those sidewalk. But what do we do when what I'm saying is in this case where there are already now developments like now these these areas have now been filled in with additional new developments, but now there were just not existing sidewalks there. So what are we going to do to bridge this gap? So, we can either utilize those local funds to prioritize those segments of sidewalk, construct them ourselves. Okay. Uh there's that or the the redevelopment of those parcels that don't yet have a sidewalk. Okay.

Just a question. Um I know that's not the only area. There's plenty more, but I mean that's also a conversation that I had with Commissioner Joel Johnson as well. So,

yeah. No, very good question. Uh so one thing that we're going to go through and we're going to bring back to council as you know we talked to you in the fall that we are uh looking at consultants to redo our transportation comp plan. So one thing that is very effective when you have a good transportation comp plan is we would have been able to work with that developer and it's it's their discretion but we make it you know very uh affordable for them where we say look with your private dollars would you go ahead and we'll work with the adjoining property owner but will you extend those improvements and do that as part of your frontage improvements. So, you're going to go beyond your normal frontage, but if you'll do that with private dollars, we will reimburse you some of our traffic impact fees.

We don't really have that ability now based on this old transportation, but that's our goal. Uh because that's really effective and it's really nice cuz then they get to do it and it all happens at once and it seems very natural. Yeah. So that that's part of the process is to come back to you and we'll be doing that in the next month coming and and showing you the uh consulting firm that we've selected and moving forward with our transportation comprehensive plan.

And then just also so you're aware every time we do a project especially a grant-f funed project you know those grants tell you to go from here to here. And so every time we hear about it, people always come to us and say, "Why didn't you go wherever the end of that project was from here to here?" So it's always hilarious. We hear it every time. And that's because we have funding for that phase of the project. But yes, we'll and this transportation comp plan, I think, will help us work together so we can all visualize and know what that plan is and know that that's just one phase of maybe nine phases, right? And that these things take time to move forward. So yeah, very good question.

Okay, anybody else have questions? Yes, Council Member Romero.

Thank you, mayor. With regard to bike lanes or multimodal lanes, I praise the 7th Avenue project and I would like to say the same about the Swantown project from the sound of the comments made here that not all the citizens are happy with the Swantown project. So, what I would just point out is that I've also seen of course painted bike lanes and that really does give a sense of false security to those who use them because really all it takes is a vehicle to drift and take and I I'm personally aware of three college students that were killed by somebody who just drifted off a little drowsy and uh took out three college students on a a lane that was really not u it didn't have rumble strips. didn't have any kind of barrier or anything of that nature. So, um I would encourage engineering and public works and all the planners to be considering a uniform standard wouldn't all possible, but also to take in advance a recognition that uh what maybe works in one place doesn't really it might be adaptable to another place but not necessarily. And I would also comment too that I think that because sidewalks are so expensive, there surely is an alternative with regard to using asphalt for some um you know some type of sidewalk that's graded down to the and then potentially with a curb of some kind. But there has to be some sort of physical barrier because vehicles just drift and um the number of bicyclists and motorcyclists and others that have been killed because of a driver not seeing them or just drifting off is is too high to be acceptable. Thank you. So, I will just just add to it that with respect to Swantown, there has been a lot of comments on social media as well as in the public about um they're

unhappy with the ability potentially for the fire trucks to be able to pull out of the fire station. And um I was touring the fire station yesterday with Chief Anderson to just check on progress as well as to see where we were. And we made a video for just like public information and we're um I believe Maggie put that out um this morning on social media. So, and if not this morning, it's going out today or tomorrow. So, um that addresses those specific concerns. There are no concerns as far as the fire department goes. There's plenty of room there. And when you're actually there in person and you can walk that space, it's huge. There's plenty of room there. So, um just just to put that out there though for the public. So, anything else? Yes, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you. So this is a new this says this is a kind of new for us to be doing this. Are we required to do the width that we're doing? Are we what is driving the width of the multimmobile area and that sort of thing? Uh is are you specifically referring to the the shared use paths or just roadway design guidelines in general? Oh, roadway design has to be so has to be such a a width. But the the new things that we're doing because for me,

I drive 7th and I drive Swantown pretty much exclusively and I don't like either one of those. I think they took too much um width off the road for the bike or multimmobile lane leaving the drivers feeling very scrunched. And so I'm just curious where we came up with the width.

Sure. Uh and again that's good feedback to have. Um so that's uh new thinking in transportation engineering. Again it's a it's a field of change right now. Self- enforcing streets. What they're finding is you put up a 25 mph sign and you have a 15t lane or 15t wide lane, people aren't going to drive 25 miles hour. you narrow that lane up, you make it 10 feet wide, people are going to drive a little bit slower because it makes you physically uncomfortable to be driving over the speeds. So, we have the speed set. We set the lane widths accordingly to promote that uh driver behavior to align with the speed limits. That's intentional.

I have a word for that, but I won't say it. remember how this all started. At some point, we're going to take your license away anyway. So, um, yes, Council Member Merrell, to counter Council Member Peterson, I think it's a great idea, Alex. Thank you. Council member Arms. Yeah, I have a question about Riada. Are we going to be doing any more work there? Are we going to put another um uh you know sidewalk or anything like that? But with the new school coming, are we going to do anything else down there? Thank you.

So, we've worked with the school district for both Olympic View and the um what is it? Forest. It's got a new name. Yeah. Um the new school north of that.

Um so, the improvements aren't complete. Um, I know we're in still in conversation with the the head of the facilities with the school district for other things we can consider down at Olympic View to help them with their parent pickup drop off times. Um, and then for the improvements on the new school, um, I know they're not complete with that project. They did add that consistent continuous sidewalk on the east side of the road and there are intentions to make crossing to that side of the the road easier and safer. Okay. Thank you, C. Council member Wigenstein.

Uh thank you, Mayor, uh council. Uh Alex, thank you. I just wanted to thank you for all the tireless work you keep putting into our making our city safer on these roads. And uh um I tend to agree with uh council member Maro. I think the more we can make our roads that are over wide and too wide anyways so we fly down them narrower to slow traffic and safer for pedestrians and cyclists all the way around and and ebikes and and scooters that don't do 50 on roads that you know are 50 so that we can provide these safe ways for transportation. Um I like to drive. I do a lot of it. Um and and sometimes it's an inconvenience for me because there's something new that I have to navigate. I don't like change. Um I don't think many people do. Um but Alex, thank you. Thank you for continuing to do the work. And I know it does not come with a lot of praise and a lot of gratitude. Um cuz the people that speak out the loudest are the ones that complain the most. And so I just wanted to say thanks and I appreciate all you're doing for us and keep keep up the good work and let's see if we can find you some more money to get some of these other sidewalks in place.

Yeah, I'd love that. Thank you,

Council Member Saki. I had the same concerns as council Peterson, but Steve Schuler shared a wonderful article that talked about the intentionalness of the smaller. And it's interesting when we first did 7th Avenue, there was a lot of people who had a lot of issues. Maybe they still do, but I don't hear a whole lot of people. Maybe folks have just gotten used to it. Um, couple of thoughts. One, the Island County Coroner, they post their statistics. They're a little behind. Um, but they post their statistics. I like numbers. Um 23 and this is all of Island County, there were four motor vehicle deaths. You go a year prior it was six and a year prior that was seven. Kind of hard to say it's necessarily going down. And I don't want to say that it's a low number, but it's kind of hard to tell when it's single digits what the direct impact is. But I'll be interested to see if that number does go down and gets to zero as we make these improvements. Um, crosswalks. We do have some, and I I failed to think of exactly where at off top of my head, that could go for a repainting that maybe are a little bit faded. Do we monitor those? What What's the threshold when we say, gosh, this has gotten pretty bad. I think we need to go over this again.

Yeah, it's a great question. A little bit more on the operational side. Hand it to Steve.

Yeah, that's uh something we're talking about. Yes, because of the the state and the lack of gas tax, we are working great work with Sabrina and uh David on the and the mayor on the finance side. And so there's been a lot of money that is part of your new budget that you've given us to help catch up with those. So we in that department, we've got a fairly new crew. And so one thing that council approved is we went from four people to five. And so we hired a new person last year and we're getting them trained up. Um, and so that doesn't sound like a lot, but that's a big difference. So, we have a lot of uh equipment and we've got this new manpower to come in and catch up with those crosswalks and get those repainted. So, I don't Could you help quantify that a little bit? As someone who's not an expert in that, I think, oh, repainting a crosswalk, that's that's $100 a paint in 2 hours. what what goes into redoing a c I assume it's more costly and more labor intensive than I believe.

Yeah. So, uh I'll start big picture and drop down really quick. Big picture nationwide, right? The feds have not adopted a new gas tax since 1994. So, the feds have been out of the transportation business for a long time. Then they did a big trillion dollar package, drove up construction cost tremendously, which created issues, right? So instead of doing something every year, it was all a sudden wait for 30 years and do it. So that's been difficult on the state side. Our wonderful state legislators, yes, but they've struggled. We've known for 20 years that the gas tax in real terms is just going down less and less. And that's what funds our transportation side. So what I'm trying to say is our transportation system has been broken and has been breaking. We know for at least 20 years, for most of my career, we've been looking for solutions. One of those is the transportation benefit district which the voters here did approve in 2019. So that's awesome and that's an additional sales tax, but that's something fairly new. That was after decades of really falling behind like many other cities. So we are starting to catch up. We are starting to do better. So that's the good news. And the legislature is starting again with these transportation benefits districts starting to find new ways to fund this. So, one thing that uh our good crew is doing uh so that's Chris Price is in a new position just last year as our operations manager and then uh Jeremy Frier is our new streets um uh foreman who we just promoted last year also. Uh and so that's been the big thing is working under Mayor Wright and with Sabrina Kums. We've made again like we talked uh at a retreat twothirds of our staff are new or in new positions just in the last few years. So the last thing is that when it when we do painting like just regular paint that only lasts like a year or so and then it rubs off. So we want to be able to use this

thermoplastic which is expensive but it makes a big visual difference visual impact. You can see it better when you're driving around and it's dark and it's in the rain. It's got that metallic kind of little flints in it that you can see that come off your headlights. Um, so we're going to generally for crosswalks and stop bars go with this thermoplastic product. And so that requires us to go buy some specialized equipment which we're in the process of researching. So that's what you should see. I talked to our crews and said, "Hey, I think we should let's talk about, you know, hiring a contractor to come up and catch up." But they're gungho. Uh they're more gun- ho than I am. So they're like, "We think we can do this in-house and save money, and we just we want to be given the chance as a new group to go out and do it." So I'm like, "Okay." So that's the direction we're going right now is to do most of that in-house. Okay. My last thing is a comment. One of my It's going to sound odd. One of my favorite things on the website is the resident action form. And I I refer people to this all the time, so my apologies to staff. And it's it's this wonderful form that you select what the issue is you're seeing. Be it pothole, sidewalk, crosswalk, you can check it. You can do a comment. I believe it goes directly to the department that can help you with your your issue. And I have seen on numerous occasions where dozens of people are going on about something normally on social media or in conversations I have. I've referred to them to that. They've filled that out communicating with the most efficient way with with staff. And I've seen potholes filled within days. Not we're not promising that, but I've seen it be very effective. So for anyone who sees an issue, I would greatly encourage them to fill that out. I do have a request if we can make that form a little easier to get. I mean, right now you have to go to how do I then forms public works then resident action form. it it's kind of hidden and and I

understand maybe having it maybe one click away, you know, but having that form, which I think is a wonderful form, a little easier for people to find on our website would probably be a good thing. But I love it. So, so council member, we are working on a revamp of that form and just making some more improvements to it. And as part of that, we will make the form more available. We just want to do a couple of edits to make it a little bit better. Wonderful. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Council member Peterson.

Thank you. Um I have I have a couple of questions and Alex, I'm not mad at you. I just I just think that um I I was wondering how we came up with that whip and I just think we're giving a little bit too much room to one part of the population and potentially not enough to another. I know how wide bikes are. I know how wide cars are. That's my That's my thing. And I also think that people who are going to go 80 down that road are going to go 80 down that road and they don't care how wide it is. Um I we were talking early on about the incidents of pedestrians uh the more incidents of pedestrians being hurt. And this might be something for uh Deputy Chief Burton. Do we know what how many people or what the specific area of most of our incidents are? I don't we don't have a a huge issue with pedestrian collisions and things like that in the city and not one concentrated area. Okay.

But I can get you the uh data for how many we do have annually if you'd like. I'm just I'm just curious. Is it nearer the schools? Is it more downtown? Is it Do you guys know? Yeah, I can touch on that a bit. And it not specific to pedestrian only, but including vehicular collisions, right? Uh that comprehensive safety action plan. and it came up with heat maps essentially and the vast majority are on Highway 20 within the city from about Whidby Avenue down to Eerie. That whole stretch of Highway 20 there was, you know, lighting up with, you know, the majority of our collisions and incidents. Do we have some idea why that might be?

I I think it has to do with the amount of traffic. You know, we have two to three times as much traffic on that highway as we do on most city streets. Uh speeds, the number of lanes, driveways. I mean, there's just a lot of activity combined with high speeds and the number of vehicles. That's just, you know, all of the ingredients for creating these potential collisions, right? And what are we doing specifically there to mitigate that?

Uh, sure. the um safe streets for all grant for $5 million that we went after last year that was highlighted along Highway 20 um getting up closer to that North Whidby Intermediate School, Whidby Avenue. Um we are constantly talking with Wash Dot um about other improvements we can make. You know, there there's some push and pull there because we don't own it. The facility is the state. It's more of requests. Uh recently the ordinance passed to reduce speed limits through this area on the highway. So that's a a small step in in that direction of making things safer, but it's continuous conversation.

I I had one other thing to say, but I don't remember what it is now. But

it looks like C, you wanted to add something? Yeah, I just um wanted to add that the uh the state highway is not our facility. We have to work with washd to do that. And so uh the way we do that is through our adopted plans. And so if we want reduced speeds, if we want uh our cross-sections to look different, uh the way that wash says that the local how to identify what the local community wants. that's what they are trying to identify and then they'll take that and they'll merge it with their policies and their uh highway goals and systems and see where it matches. So even though we adopt plans, we may not get exactly what we asked for, but washed out is supposed to take our community input and desires and work it into their plans when they come to do all the modifications, which 27 is supposedly a design year for some state funding for Highway 20. So we have potential for some improvements coming over the next four or five years on Highway 20. When they look at the design, they look at our active transportation plan. They look at our transportation plan, then they look at their goals on what they want to achieve with 20 and they'll kind of find a a design that's intermediate that works. And that's how we can see.

And just and just so you're aware, I there's the island regional transportation plan. I don't know what the O stands for. Organization meeting that I sit on monthly. I'm actually the vice chair of that committee with the three county commissioners. I advocate for Oak Harbor monthly. um as well as Commissioner Johnson for Oak Harbor. Um and that's where we are advocating with WASHDOT and other organizations to make sure that we're um addressing all of our um State Route 20 needs is how they interface with all of our other um arterials. Um and then just to address your point, if you know people that are driving 80 mph on Swantown, that's a conversation that we should be having separately. Um because that's a conversation we should be having with deputy chief and chief. Um, there's no excuse for people driving that fast on city streets. So, um, all right. So, any other questions for Alex? Yes. Yes. Thank you, mayor. Uh, I did want to mention that the cost factor with regard to timed red, white, uh, walk walk don't walk lights is enormous compared to flashing amber strobes. Is that true? Is that correct? Uh the the crosswalks that you just push the button and it flashes amber.

Oh. And you put rumble strips or dots on the road. Yeah. The R RFBs we refer to them. You're asking about cost.

Well, with regard to cost, I mean u crosswalks and the signaling for them are enormously expensive compared to I think the punching of just a flashing amber. But I think the the flashing ambers, the strobes, I mean, it's very effective, especially if there's some bumps in the road as well to slow people down. Um, and so I would just state, you know, if we can't afford to and it's not wise to do signaling, if we can have those ambers, flashing ambers more prevalent and it's cost effective, then I I would say that that's a great great idea because it'll obviously get your attention. I mean, the the flashing will direct your attention to anybody in the walk. uh in the crosswalk and also with regard to crosswalks on roundabouts. Could you speak to that matter because I've heard that a number of times that that's a delicate issue or I mean it's a it's a complex issue or something to to that effect.

Yeah. Mayor, do we have another 20 minutes? Yeah, you got all the time you need. Go for it. Yeah. Oh. Uh five minutes.

Roundabouts and pedestrians. It's it's a little bit of a challenge. Yes. Uh so traditionally what you see as you approach a roundabout you have a marked crossing. There are some benefits to a roundabout in that you have that central splitter island that creates pedestrian refuge. So the pedestrians only have to worry about one direction of travel each lane that they're crossing. They have that intermediary they can stop. Um, but then you have the vehicles approaching that they are I think drivers are learning now that we're getting more and more roundabouts in this area. You can keep your speeds up pretty high if you're, you know, approaching that, keeping your eye on who might be entering the roundabout. So they really need to be designed effectively to again force you to slow down to first get your attention for the crosswalk and potential pedestrians and then worry about the cars in the roundabout. So this is again something that we're going to work closely with wash for doing roundabouts on the highway. Uh they have they being washed out have done added safety features on certain roundabouts. Sharp's Corner has a re Yes. Sharp's Corner uh regional uh trail on the the south leg of that. You know, it's a two-lane roundabout up there going towards Anacortis. They have flashing beacons on that pedestrian crossing. Uh it's not often they do that. So I don't think that is any sort of standard for them, but they they do certain enhancements where they deem it necessary or appropriate. Thank you. And just a quick follow-up, but not exactly a question for law enforcement. Let it be known that we had

the second most deadly road in the state of Texas south of College Station going into Houston because people would just drive 90 miles an hour and there were fatalities. It was it was disaster. But we started doing traffic enforcement vigorously there and it the rate of deaths dropped a lot. So I wanted to praise our law enforcement especially with regard I guess you got the new motorcycles so you should be able to perhaps have some more traffic enforcement. That's all I have. So Alex, I do have one more question. The intersection of Whidby Avenue and Oak Harbor, the one um signal that had the flashing light, there was some kind of issue with it. Did we get that resolved? Last time I drove by, it was resolved.

I just haven't been by there, so I didn't know. I've gotten a lot of Okay, it is fixed. Okay, great. That's all I wanted to know. I just didn't know. I knew I'd gotten a lot of questions about it. So, all right. So, any other questions for Alex or Steve? Yes, David. Yeah, I have a comment. Um, Steve is for Steve. Your 102-year-old mother's on the phone and she heard your comment about driving and she'd like to have a word with you. Uhoh. I I uh I'll have to ask the mayor if I could leave early.