City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, residents of Everett, Washington, and interested parties. I would like to call to order the Everett City Council meeting of September 9th, 2026. For information on council meetings and how to participate, please visit everettwa.gov slash city council. Please note that we do not allow comments of any kind on campaigning, whether for or against ballot measures or candidates running for office. We also do not accept comments focused on personal matters that are unrelated to city business. We also ask that the audience refrain from clapping, cheering, or booing, and no signage of any kind is allowed in the chambers. We ask that everyone take a seat, and please don't gather in the entryway area. For the record, I'll be facilitating this evening's meeting. Clerk, please take the roll.

Mayor Franklin. Here. Council Member Bader.

Here.

Vice President Ryan. Here. Council Member Bravano.

Here.

Council Member Toohey.

Excused.

Council Member Weir. Here. President Schwab.

Excused.

Council Member Starlingo.

Here. I'd like to ask Council Member Burbano to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Council Member Bader, will you please lead us, and will you please recite our land acknowledgment.

The City Council wishes to acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Stohosha people, and their successors, the Tulalip tribes. Since time immemorial, they have hunted fish, gathered on, and taken care of these lands and waters. We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water. We will strive to be honest about our past mistakes and bring about a future that includes their people, stories, and voices to form a more just and equitable society. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Franklin.

Good evening, Council Members Arlingo and Council and community. Just a couple of comments. First, a quick shout out to our parks and facilities team who work hard to keep all our public restrooms clean and available. We have restrooms in 14 of our parks, plus the two public restroom stations downtown. These facilities get a lot of use and we need everyone's help in keeping them ready for the next person. So please clean up after yourself. Throw away your trash. Treat these shared spaces with care. I encourage parents and guardians to please remind your kids and teens to do the same. Right now, we're working on some automated locking systems that will help us better manage and protect these facilities. And with colder weather ahead, there's some permanent restrooms will close for the season to prevent costly damage from frozen pipes. Currently, 13 of our park restrooms are open. Garfield Park's restroom is being worked on. So there's a temporary portable available. The Hoyt Avenue public restroom by Everett Park is currently closed, but the Wetmore restrooms by the EMB are still open. I also want to highlight some very positive attention Everett received recently from the Seattle Times about our housing market. In a region where home ownership has become out of reach for a lot of families, Everett continues to offer more opportunities for people to put down roots and own a home. The story that was featured mainly focuses on what homebuyers can get for their money here, but they also highlight the great quality of life that we enjoy here in Everett. People get more than a house. Our residents get great parks, a growing waterfront, arts and entertainment, jobs, welcoming community and connections throughout the region. So it made me very proud to live in Everett and serve Everett. With growth on the horizon, we're continuing to plan to make sure we are ready, making it easier to build here and encouraging more housing choices at every price point, especially home ownership opportunities. I know we all want Everett to be a place where people can find a home, build a life and be part of community. And it was really great to see Seattle Times featuring our beautiful city. So with that, no further comments this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. And on to old business to hear a motion for approval of our minutes.

Council member Ryan, some moves.

Second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Councilmember Bader? Yes. Vice President Ryan? Yes. Councilmember Burbano?

Yes.

Councilmember Weir? Yes. Councilmember Zarlinkov?

Yes. And now it's time for public comments. These include written comment acknowledgement. Under our rules, written comments are considered in the same manner as oral comments, with the person submitting comment providing their name and city of residence. Written comments require this to be made part of our official council record.

ayana um do we have written comments or did anyone sign up to speak this evening good evening council member bubano we did have a written comment i didn't get the name sorry but it was submitted to council legal and administration to be part of the record um moving on to public comments in here today we have dustin graves

that were going on stood before you misrepresenting things that they had done.

they were filling a gap in the skating community, which they have immediately removed all of our skating programs and replace them with theirs. So there wasn't a gap. It was just a complete takeover replacement. Um, the biggest concern with all of this is, uh, as we've been asking for this multiple people on the PFD board, not only have been involved with, uh, the rink, but also been involved with new arena project, Scott Patterson being one of them, uh, who's been before you several times asking for eminent domain and, uh, working on all these things to bring the arena there. Another email that we had received from our public records request was Scott Pattison leveraging that same position that he failed to provide proper oversight in, leveraging that position for investors for the arena facility saying, hey, we successfully have been managing this and the naming rights for Angel of the Winds and using that for instantiating more investors for the arena. All of these are deeply concerning considering that these are community programs we've been asking for support. And then we've had to go dig up this information and be very disappointed in the actions of both people from the city council or the mayor's office and the PFD. And so these are deeply concerning to us considering the city seems to struggle to handle the current arena they have, and now they want to put another arena in place. I do understand that the PFD structure is not what the city council is going for in that, but considering the same people are working on both projects, it's highly concerning. Thank you for your time.

Council Member Zarlingo, first, I want to respond to a couple of the comments you made, and then I'll ask City Attorney Lacey Offit to make a couple comments. But first and foremost, we did review all the public records requests, and I will be very clear, I directed Dan Templeman to reach out to the Oak View group because of the emails we received from you and the skating club. We wanted to make sure that the Oakview group came before council and spoke to the issues that you've been bringing forward. And so I directed Dan Templeman and not surprised by those emails because that was at my direction that he reached out and asked them to come before the council. and and he worked hard to get somebody from oakview group here and as you saw in the emails he also repeatedly requested somebody from the pfd board from pfd board leadership to come and then i'll just share from my perspective but i'll certainly ask the city attorney to weigh in The city has a representative on the PFD board, a staff member. That has been the case often in the past of the history of the city. We will have a staff member. Sometimes it's been a council member. There is not a conflict of interest. The two projects are completely separate. There is nothing related to each other. There are not shared oversight. And just as any board, if there were a conflict, a board member would have to recuse themselves from that work. So if there was a time... in the distant future, that would be necessary if it was involved in a project that was related to it. But that is not the case currently. So those concerns are in, in my humble opinion, unfounded, not that the concerns that you're bringing forward are, but I would ask the city attorney to respond as to the city's role in oversight of the public facilities district.

yes thank you mayor um and thank you council members and the public um uh ramsey ramerman the city attorney did um brief me on this issue and um i was able to do a little bit of research on my own um and we've all come to the conclusion that the pfd as a separate government entity created by city ordinance is designed not to provide any oversight authority by the city. The ordinance does authorize the city to appoint PFD board members for fixed terms. And because board members are appointed for fixed terms, the city must have a for-cause reason to remove a board member. And disagreement over management decisions is simply not a for-cause reason. So that's been the review by the city attorney's office.

And can you speak to any conflict of interest presented by having a staff member on the PFD board?

Yes, absolutely. That's been reviewed from the outset, as I understand it, of the PFD on a continuing basis. And no true conflict of interest has been identified between city staff and the PFD. None of the actions that Mr. Graves has identified have been improper identified. And city staff are directed and expected to consult with city legal should the specter of a conflict arise, certainly if an actual conflict arises and recuse themselves from decisions that affect the PFD board. Of course.

Up next, we have Gina, please. Please come to the podium, state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes to speak. Gina?

um,

You get my short version because it's three minutes. My name is Gina Moore and my granddaughter was born with acute myeloid leukemia. We're from Spokane. And she received the treatments that she needed and she found a match for a bone marrow transplant and she celebrated her 19th year this year. So I walk in order to encourage others to join our national registry, which is called NMDP, National Marrow Donor Program. And so I'm making a request. I happen to come to your town, to Everett, on the very day of your council meeting. And I'd like, I have a sample proclamation for a bone marrow awareness day, which I can share with the appropriate person. And then I'd like you later to take a vote on helping to spread the importance of folks joining our national registry and saving lives. It's pretty simple.

Can you share your proclamation with Jennifer Gregerson so we can bring it to our team for consideration? Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Dan. Dan, if you could please come to the podium, state your full name and city of residence with three minutes. Thank you much.

I try to get through. I've got a little issue here. My name is Dan Anderson. I live in Everett, District 3. Good evening, Mayor and Everett City Council members. I would like to talk about the merger between the Everett Transit and the Community Transit. I do not work for Everett Transit or Community Transit. I am a longtime resident here in the Everett, Washington, sorry, I had a procedure done, sorry. Come on. Long time residents here in Everett, Washington. I would like to ask you to vote no on the merger between this merger. You have already heard from many citizens why you should vote no on this merger. I don't want to stand up here and repeat what you already heard because my voice is going. Everett Transit has proven for many years they are proficient in what they do. I grew up with Everett Transit being here. I grew up here in the city of Everett and Many of the city council members have too and know Everett Transit. We are very blessed to have a bus service like Everett Transit. They are more than a bus driver. They have a strong relationship with the citizens of Everett. Couple days ago, I was driving down the road and I was just thinking about this issue. I saw, I was lucky, I guess, I saw a paratransit driver come to pick up somebody down the street where I live. I thought, well, I just pull over and just check this out. Is it true that they give it a service that they have for many, many, many years? Is it true? I pulled over and looked in the rearview mirror and watched this driver pull up to the house. Probably he's done that many times. He gets out. runs around. The person comes out of the house. This driver has a smile on his face and helps this person onto the bus. That person feels secure. As I looked in the mirror, I watched the expression on both of their faces, actually, too. They kind of knew each other, probably by name. I think we are blessed to have that system, and I know it has touched many others. I know it has touched a senior citizen lady that has cancer and depends on our Everett Transit to get to the doctors. I know we have a single mother with kids who depends on this service. So I want to ask you tonight, I know there's four of you on the city council that know this very much. I'm sorry, I apologize, I don't know the new ones. But I know four of you. I'm gonna ask four of you, you know who you are, dig deep in your heart, dig deep and look at the situation. Don't give something up that we are so blessed to have. Thank you, I think I'm out of time.

Just so you know, you're very welcome and encouraged to email your comments, too, to ensure that I know three minutes is short. And so please email the council for sure.

Next, Annie Lyman, if you would please come to the podium, state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes. Thank you.

Good evening, Annie Lyman. I live in Everett, the third district. I'm sorry to see Dawn's not here tonight. So it's an information tangle that's going on in the city of Everett right now. The stadium project is what I'm hitting on mostly. I've been trying to get background on it and what's happening. So I got some interest raised when I heard about the amount of money going from $80 million to $120 million. and not much explanation about why and how that all came about. So I tried to investigate a little bit and couldn't find anything, and then decided to write the city council, like the mayor suggested, via the email. The group sent it on the form. It says to send to all the city council members. So I sent, and I'm not sure which lady took care of it. But I asked three simple questions, and... did not hear back from any one of you. And so either you didn't get the email or you're not allowed to answer or why all the mystery? And they were pretty simple questions but pretty direct about the success of this project. I'm a taxpayer, a property owner, taxpayer, and I greatly fear about the borrowing from ourselves to pay for this project and then the idea that the, from what I can read, the city will get paid back from the income from the sports teams The two sports teams that are supposed to be coming, but what I can find about that is we don't really have contracts for two sport teams. We have amendments or some new name, some new term I'm not familiar with. It's sort of not a contract, but a sort of a yes, I pledge to once you get the money. So I guess that's what I'm asking. How are you going to get the money? And to go for eminent domain before you get the money, I think we got the horse backwards a little bit here. I think we need to get the money first and get it all cleared up. get the input from the citizens. I never had a poll sent out or a survey or did I want this thing? I guess a couple years ago, three or four years ago, there was a Citizens Committee that briefly participated, but then I can't find anywhere that that Citizens Committee has entered back into the process. Anyway, I just feel like the citizens of Everett have been left out of this as a taxpayer, as a homeowner, property owner, I just worry about getting hold. And the ground hasn't even broken on this project yet. And we're already at 120 million with just preliminaries. So I'm real nervous. And I guess I'm done. Thank you.

Next, we have William Parent. William, if you would come to the podium, state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes. Thank you.

William Parent, Silver Lake. Hewitt and Futon, I've seen the new striping, the green paint for the bike lanes. Really made me check my surroundings. I really appreciate that. You know, I just wanted to thank you guys. I mean, if I could see some more of that green paint in the directional signage, I'd take the bike lanes. And I wanted to say I noticed the FAA lighting on the Nubis building. You know, I might have opened up a giant can of worms, but, you know, I did notice... And I wanted to encourage them to thank them for the FAA lighting. That's all I have today.

Thank you. Next, we have Holly James. Holly, if you would come to the podium, state your full name and city of residence.

I'm Holly James, 1220 Colby Avenue, Northwest Neighborhood. I did read that article on Sunday, and I did notice that they mentioned neighborhoods, not districts, in the article. So I want to push for neighborhoods. I'm here today to also ask questions about the stadium. my first question is there a plan b and does anybody have the job of hitting the stop pedal is i mean i've started several businesses and they always say go in with an exit strategy And I'm wondering if that's on anybody's plate. I did ask at one of our neighborhood meetings two years ago now if what could go wrong, and Scott said nothing. And I thought that was dismissive and immature and not very responsible for So now we're seeing things go wrong. So what is the plan right now to address the cost overruns that are in our face and coming? So that's my one big question. The other one is the opportunity costs. How is it affecting the budget for 2027? I don't know if that doesn't come out till October or but how will the dip in the general funds affect the 2027 budget? I'm still suffering without rec services, without park rangers, without a pool, without street improvements, without an official office of neighborhoods. So again, wondering how the 2027 budget, why haven't we heard about that during this borrowing money from ourselves adventure? And also the P&Ls and running the stadium, I believe most, it's pretty common knowledge that the revenue is optimistic. Again, plan B, is there other choices for getting revenue out of this thing? As far as I can tell, the public isn't able to use it for themselves. There's no public, you know, your office isn't going to be there. There's no rec room. There's no there's a sidewalk with trees on both sides. That's the park. But I'm correct that there's not an aspect of it that is for the public. So, again, historic precedence is that these things don't deliver what they're promised. And so just wondering what would be the plan B as you move ahead, especially with maintaining the costs. We've seen this with the ice arena and having the cost of maintaining it and improving it and keeping it up for the length of the bond isn't an issue. Is anybody addressing that or is it in one of the... hidden things that we just haven't had the opportunity to see yet. And again, no vote, no poll, no money means, you know, trouble. And I mean, I've been bankrupt twice because. So it's worth asking, what are the escape plans? Thanks.

All right. And next we have Steve. Oh, Steve, if you would come to the podium, state your full name, city of residence. Three minutes, thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. My name is Steve Ose. I live in Everett. I'm pretty sure most of you know me by now. I wanted to bring up a little bit of history that a lot of you probably aren't aware of. Back when Frank Anderson was the mayor, Everett Transit was in financial problems. I asked Ken Housden, who was our director at Transit at the time, I said, well, why don't we raise our sales tax? It's only at 3 tenths of a percent. He goes, that's not a proper political thing for the council to ask of the citizens. They're not going to like it. It's not the season to do it. Have to do it some other time. Well, I'm a citizen of the city. I can write an initiative. I can do that. And I did. And he helped me. He supported me. Gave me information that I needed to get it done. And after I got it done, I went out and started collecting signatures. And I got called up to the mayor's office. Steve, I appreciate what you're doing, but this really isn't the time to get this done. After the election, we'll put it on the ballot and let the citizens decide if we should raise the sales tax three-tenths of a percent or not. Because that's what my initiative was doing. And well, Mayor Anderson didn't get reelected. Stephenson did. He got elected. And so I went up to the mayor's office and I said, why don't we, why don't you take it on as a proposition? And then I don't have to go out and get more signatures or I will. I'll go out and get more if I need to. And so he brought it to the council and the council said, you know, we were elected to be here and to lead. We'll do that. Okay, good. I was also in that process after I turned it over for them to put it on as a proposition. I was told, there's a few legal issues the way it's written. So if you don't mind, we'll just change a few of those legal issues and get it all cleaned up. When it went on the ballot, it went on, you know, there's two ways that something could go on a ballot. It can go verbatim, if it's a proposition, or it can go in concept, and it was put on in concept. After it was passed, 57% to 43%, I started hearing that we were going to be giving community transit some of our revenues. And I knew that was different than what I had written because I had written it very specifically that it went only to Everett Transit, did not get shared with anybody. Paul Kaftanski, who told me that he had written it, That kind of upset me because he didn't know that I had written the original one.

Steve, please, please wrap up.

Okay. I didn't know. I'm sorry.

That's all right.

So anyway, integrity, it was originally written one way. It got changed. I would appreciate you guys. None of you were involved in that, but The integrity would say vote no on a sales tax increase of 6 tenths of a percent. The citizens don't have a chance to vote on. Thank you.

That's our last general comment.

Thank you. And now we're on to. Oh, sorry. Did you have another one more?

All right. June, if you would please come to the podium, state your full name and city residents.

Good evening, City Council. My name is June Schober. I'm a resident of District 3. I am a regular transit rider. I frequently ride the 7 and the Swift. In fact, the Swift is primarily the reason why transit is usable for where I live, and I appreciate the partnership that City Council and the City Administration has done to make sure this runs smoothly. I would like to thank City Council and administration for standing your ground to ensure that paratransit remains as is for Everett under consolidation. As it will be in interlocal agreement, this means that our quality operators will continue to serve Everett residents in-house with minimal operational changes. Thank you.

Thank you.

And now we're on to Council comments. Council Member Bader.

Thanks, Council Member Zarlingo. No reports to share. I did want to thank our Deputy City Attorney Lacey for sharing that. Obviously, the question in my mind was the... Was there anything that was improper in terms of what had been done in terms of email or communication? So appreciate your comments on that. And just I rarely comment on constituent comments, but I don't believe I saw an email from you, Ms. Lyman. So maybe you could resend it. So I don't know if my fellow or my colleagues did, but I don't recall seeing it. So maybe if it could be resend, that'd be good. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you.

Council Member Ryan.

Great. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Earlier tonight, we had the Parks and Built Environment Committee meeting. The team from the Somerset County PUD joined to share about the transmission line that they're going to be installing from near kind of the Everett Station area all the way up Broadway towards the very tippy top of Everett there. The power poles are going to be about 85 feet tall, but then they're going to jet out about 18 feet from there over Broadway, so they won't impede on any development going along up Broadway. They plan to start construction sometime next year, and they're still working on doing outreach and engagement. Um, but I would recommend, uh, if you're interested or want to sign up for their newsletter, you can, uh, it's not an easy link, so I won't be able to spatter it off, but just do a Google search for snow pod, uh, for their transmission line Everett to Delta, and you can sign up for their newsletter for more information. Thank you to all of our commenters this evening for sharing concerns and input. I've been kind of catching a few different threads that I see weaving through all of the comments. Particularly, I thank you, Dustin, for what you had shared as well. I do think it's important that Moving forward with the outdoor event center, I think there are a lot of concerns from the community about how that's going to be, what the oversight model is going to look like, how it's going to be funded, and a lot of FAQs. And I know council is going to be receiving that full information and the public as well in the coming weeks. So I want the public to know that that is coming. But as a request, as a council member, I would love to see a more formally outlined um set of parameters for what the oversight structure will look like for the new outdoor event center facility i know it won't be a pfd specifically but i do think that there are some lessons learned moving forward i did also want to while i'm on this thread i wanted to also put in that i would also love to see a community benefit agreement because i do think that community members are curious about you know whether they are baseball or soccer fans themselves or not what is the benefit to the city of everett residents uh if we do move forward with a new outdoor event center and i also wanted to reiterate that my suggestion that i had a few months ago about the addition of an independent city on on ombudsman who can provide independent evaluations for complex constituent concerns like we were hearing tonight And I would also like to share a reminder that it is open application season for vacancies on our boards and commissions, including a vacancy on the public facilities district. Thank you.

Council Member Bravano. No comments this week. Thank you. Council Member Weir.

Hi. Thank you, yes, to our speakers tonight. We appreciate you coming in and sharing. So last night was a back-to-back meetings. I was at the Cultural Arts Commission the first time back after the summer break. And unfortunately, they were missing a few of their members, so they didn't have a quorum. But it made for a really great opportunity just to have conversation about some of the past topics and projects that had been discussed. and just some fun brainstorming. They also have two board positions that are open in the application process. So if anybody's interested in getting involved there, there's an opportunity. Then went from there to the Riverside neighborhood with Council Member Bader. The care team did a really great presentation and shared some of the work that they're doing in the community and the numbers, which I don't have in front of me, but the number of... Just individuals that they have been able to interact with, bring services to the different service providers that they're working with and how referrals happen. So that was really interesting to hear. And also the neighborhood association themselves shared some of the projects they've been working on and their activities through the summer. And they wanted to give a shout out to our parks and city departments for really working hard to make it possible for Garfield Park to get open in time for the national night out. And just really stated how much the families in the community are enjoying it and taking advantage of that park. So, yeah, that's it for me.

Thank you. And I will just also second the request for people to get involved in boards and commissions. It's a great way to connect with the city and to get connected with other people here and see how you might serve the rest of us. Now on to administration. Jennifer?

I don't have anything specific, but I just thought I would share, as I talked to one of the public commenters in the hallway, she said, I'm walking, but she didn't elaborate on that. And Gina is actually in the midst of walking to Vancouver to raise awareness about bone marrow. There's a treatment facility there to highlight the international connection into Canada. And then she'll walk to Victoria, and then she'll get on a ferry and go to Port Angeles, and then she'll walk to Olympia. And she has done this many times across the country, in fact. So she's like a little bit of a superstar in our city tonight. So I just thought I would share that since she, you know, you go up to the podium and you guys are a little intimidating and sometimes folks don't get out their whole story. So that was an important part of her story. So. Um, Seattle, like at children's hospital. So, so she's only on day three of the 45 day walk that she's doing. So, yeah. So that'll, that's my admin update tonight.

Thank you. Here for the office of city attorney is Lacey Offit.

Nothing so impressive as that. No update from the city attorney's office and no executive session requested tonight.

Right. Thank you. We'll move on to our consent items. We have eight consent items. Do I have a motion to pass these items? I'll second.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Bader. Yes. Vice President Ryan. Yes. Council Member Bravano. Yes. Council Member Weir. Yes. Council Member Zarlingo.

Yes. And then moving on to our proposed action item. This has been read into the record. This is Council Bill 2608-47, the second reading. Adopt an ordinance creating a special improvement project entitled 41st Street to Rucker Avenue Corridor Phase 2. Does the council have any questions or comments? All right, the final reading, the third and final reading is expected on September 16th, the week from tonight. Now on to our briefing and proposed action item. First, I'll read this into the record. This is Council Bill 2608-49. Adopt an ordinance approving the appropriations of the 2026 revised City of Everett budget and amending ordinance number 4173-26. Third and final reading is expected on September 23rd, 2026. And we have our finance director here, Chris Godwin.

Thank you. Members are lingo for the record. Chris Godwin, finance director for the city of Everett. I just need one second to bring up my presentation.

And just I'll take this moment. Chris has been here how many weeks now? I don't know.

I think my 90 day is next week.

Yes. And it feels like he's been here forever in such a good way. I don't know what we did before we had him. He's a joy to work with. And I think you guys are going to really enjoy working with him this budget season. So really grateful to have him on the team.

Thank you, Mayor. Can you scratch Jess?

Well, he has a nice tie and I like the music.

This is the second budget amendment of the year. This is, I know, part of your presentation anyways. And this is the first reading. So you'll have two more after this. If you have questions, you can share them tonight. You always have next week as well. Who's joining? So that's a good sign.

And I think we usually have three budget amendments in a typical year.

That's right. Three or four sometimes, yeah. Your final one's usually right after you pass the, in this case, the 2027 budget. You'll have that in the month of December. And I would say that generally the items that are in tonight's budget amendment reflect things that you've taken action on over the last eight months of the year. There'll be things that you might remember as you see them on the screen.

Yeah. There it goes. Didn't show it the first time.

And we are almost ready. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Thank you. Teamwork, everybody. There you go. Okay. And we're in it.

And full screen.

So as Jennifer mentioned, this is the second budget of the year. You did have the first budget amendment back in April. Unlike the first amendment, as you see in the second, third, and fourth amendments, you will have fewer conversations around things like reappropriation, where you're appropriating money again that you had in the budget last year, largely related to grant expenditures. There are some of that in this, but this... supplemental amendment will be, I would say, maybe a little bit more boring than the last one just because there's not quite as many things in it. Just a general sentiment about amendments. They are typical and standard. Most cities do this three or four times a year just to make sure that we have the budget for unforeseen situations that were not anticipated in the budget. They usually increase expenditures. They can decrease expenditures, but they usually increase it. And they may or may not have revenues backing them at the time. This is a table that has been included in previous amendments, and so I'm sort of using the same format just to make sure I'm not changing too much at one time. In the amendment tonight, too, you're going to see both general government and non-general government increases in expenditures. There's also revenue increases. As you can see from the table, we've got the increases and then the revenue as well. But that last column is the net impact of fund balance and just taking a couple seconds to talk about that one. That is what we are anticipating will happen to our 26 fund balance in isolation of just these proposed amendments. In the general government, you can see that we're actually growing the fund balance and you'll see why in just a moment. In the non-general government, you'll see that we are pulling out of our existing fund balance to support some of the increases in expenditures. Okay, so starting with the general government proposed amendments and putting up front the grant related items first. Grants generally come with revenues with them. In this case, we have three different proposals. One, the first is from the Everett Police Department requesting to reappropriate some grant revenue that we, or grants that we got in 2025 for some gym equipment through a CJTC wellness grant. Um, public engineering, uh, public works engineering was awarded a safe streets for all safe streets and roads for all SS4A, uh, grant. This is a planning grant that goes along with some of the, just the planning that they're doing right now around, um, uh, SMP, um, uh, street management, I think. Sorry about that. And then in the municipal arts department, we have an increase in expenditures, some of which is backed by grants, revenues that they are getting. And then there's 30,000 in there to reappropriate grants that they had awarded for the Garfield playground structure, grants for the artists in the structure. Good Lord. There was a delay in working with the artists. Feel free to jump in with any questions on any of these items as they come up. In the non-grant side of general government, we do have the big item that is increasing our revenues, which is that earlier this year, the city council approved an increase to the water and sewer and utility tax of 6%. That was not included entirely in our budget. And so now we are reflecting that revenue coming into the general fund. You'll see a companion piece to this in the non-general government section next because the utility has to recognize the revenue and that they have to transfer the tax to us in there as well. So you'll see the sort of the same item in two different sections on here. We do have two additional items for increasing expenditures. This is for maintenance and operations in public works and engineering and in public works and street. These are semi-perennial, or this is a semi-perennial issue coming up that the M&O budget in engineering and streets is largely out, is not, the expenditures are outpacing the budget somewhat consistently. In many years, we do rely on vacancy savings in the department to bring down the size of the increase. We don't have that in these specific proposals, but in BA III in a couple of months, we will be coming back and proposing to reduce budgets and move budgets around to capture all of the vacancies in the city sort of globally at the same time. So we're not just doing public works now. We're going to do the whole city in the next budget amendment.

But can I just add, you know, you all know from our history of dealing with the structural deficit, we've kind of frozen M&O in most departments or we've limited it to like, even when there's been growth, it's just been like a 2% growth. The cost of all the goods and services and everything we have to do has gone up exponentially as we all experience in our households. And so this is right-sizing the public works department just a tad, right? to keep up with a little bit of that growth that we're seeing in the cost of delivering these services.

So I guess is that consistent with what we've heard from before in terms of the kind of general price increases are significantly higher in the public works and utilities area than they are for the consumer price index kinds of numbers?

I don't know if you've heard it historically, but that is a very valid argument, especially because in many cases we're reliant on third-party contractors, and skilled labor costs usually grow much faster than your conventional CPI.

That is what I remember us hearing, yeah.

Yeah.

Moving on to the non-general government proposed amendments. We do at the top, we have one to support a PSA for that was approved by the city council in December of 2025. And this was to provide additional security and community outreach services in the downtown operational area. Now we are just reflecting the additional budget needed to pay for that agreement that was approved in December. It wasn't included in the 26 budget at that time because the agreement was approved after the budget. And so this is the first chance we've had to bring it into the budget. So that item, I would say, is really just reflecting the intent that the council had already approved in December. As I mentioned before, there is an increase in both revenues and expenditures to the water and sewer utility. It's the same $5.4 million, recognizing that there's an additional tax that comes with that now. They are bringing in that revenue, and they're immediately transferring that to the general fund. And then the last item is rebalancing cash reserves between the HMA legacy PPO and the HMA CDHP medical plan. This is also a sort of a perennial item in our budget amendment where we're just managing the reserves in our healthcare plans. And this is really to help us smooth the growth of the costs over the years.

Yeah. So the PSA for the security and community outreach, is that what's ongoing now, or is this something for, that we have not, it's services we've already been receiving?

Services we've already been receiving. Okay.

And then on that, sorry, flip back here. Just because I was at the Cultural Arts last night and we were talking about the Garfield story poll. And yeah, so those that may not know the history of that, but there was a delay with the artist actually signing the contract or the agreement in time for it to hit the budget when it had been approved. And so then this is where we're now trying to... get that project completed.

Yes. So it was originally appropriated in 2025. We weren't able to get the money out the door. And so then this is us bringing in that expense back into the budget because in those operating budgets, they die at the end of the fiscal year. So any costs that were intended that we were already entering into contract or entering into a purchase where we hadn't received the service, we have to ask for the reappropriation again in the following year. Okay.

Thank you.

Chris, did you have more? any questions or comments. All right. Well, I think that's it then. The third and final reading of this is expected on September 23rd.

Thank you, counsel.

Thank you. Now we're on to a public hearing and proposed action item. This has been read into the record. The quick summary, this is Council Bill 2608-48, the second reading, adopt the attached ordinance, adopting amendments to land division procedures and development standards. And I won't call out all the chapters to be amended. I now open the public hearing. Ayanna, are there members of the public wishing to speak on the item?

We have two with us online. Dave, I'm going to have you speak first. I'm promoting you to a panelist. Please click Accept. And then once you're in, turn on your camera and your microphone, please.

Am I coming in OK?

We can hear you. Please just turn on your video camera if it works.

Seeing me is overrated. First, I'd like to thank the mayor, the council, client director York, and staff for all the work that they've done over the last couple years implementing the land use laws that the state has pushed down. I think you've done an amazing job. I think it's a big task, and Everett leads the way in the Stonemish County, at least, area. What's before you today is a very comprehensive approach to land use. A little background, I've been in land use on the consumer side. I've dated myself since the late 80s. So I'm very intimate with the City of Everett's code as it's evolved over time. Most of the work I've done was in the city or in the county. I grew up in Everett, not currently a resident of Everett, but I do work in Everett. I work for Chicago Title, so dealing with homeownership is a big, big part of what we do every day. And some of these land use changes are instrumental to increasing more homeownership in what's going on in Everett. One of the proposals, and it's kind of hidden in all of the big topic, is a unit lot subdivision. And I sent in a fairly lengthy email earlier, and I'm not sure if it got pushed off to council or not, but one of the biggest takeaways to understand is homeownership in the way of how we're creating some of these daddos in the middle housing. The easiest way for an investor in Everett to create a unit that's sellable is through the condominium process. The problem with that process is it eliminates or hinders FHA buyers and eliminates VA buyers. So our veterans, especially those sailors that are here and those that retire here, are unable to purchase that product based on the condominiums and the way that the loan process works. Whereas if we can concrete this unit lot subdivision as a very simple overlay, it allows those to be now lots, not condo units. It's a syntax, it's a vocabulary thing. But when it comes to financing for first-time buyers, and if you think about our daddos in that lower price point, it's the perfect product for someone to get on the first rung of the ladder of homeownership. And so in order to streamline, clean up and make that process available, um, that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk tonight was to make it on the, on the top of everybody's mind and how we make a very simple process that the city can implement so that a developer will choose that process versus the condominium process.

Right. Thank you, David, David. I'm sure we got your last name.

Gardner.

Thank you.

Next, we have Russell. Russell, I am promoting you to panelist. Once you are in, please turn on your microphone and your camera if it works.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council, Russell Joe, Master Builders. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. I want to speak to the lot splitting portion of this agenda bill. I want to thank Director Wadja Stevens. Excuse me for shepherding this through. I was looking back at my emails and we started this process back in June of 2024 to try to get lot splitting done in the city of Everett. And I'm very excited that we're finally to this point where we can get it approved in October. The portion that we're concerned with at Master Builders is to be able to do the initial lot split and then do a second lot split or unit lot subdivision or other process so that we can get additional housing increased densities in Everett. The way the statute is written, you do allow for the second land division after the first initial lot split. It does make fee simple housing possible. And as Dave Gardner touched upon, it's better for the financing with the FHA and the VA loans. Council has consistently stressed the need for fee-simple ownership, and this will give an opportunity for people to get in on that first rung of the ladder, so to speak. So basically, we have a large piece of land that might be owned by an older couple. They want to slice off the back of that property, make it a separate lot, and sell it off to a allow some additional housing this process is a simple administrative process it should lead to more infill more densities in your community that is home ownership fee simple ownership products so we really appreciate the work that's been done there we also appreciate that the improvements that are typically required in terms of you know Recreation facilities or improvements for the frontage are deferred until the building permit is applied for. We think that's a good step so that these can be divided and then taken care of along the way. uh we fully support the agenda bill as it's written again i appreciate the planning department's great work on this uh the planning commission was fantastic in terms of their conversations as well and i hope that we can see this adopted in october thank you very much thank you next we have gordy gordy if you would come to the podium state your full name city of residence you have three minutes thank you

Would you hit the button? Perfect. Thank you.

Gordy Lindstrom, City of Everett resident. Come here with many hats in addition to my Super Mario hat from the Mariners game. We won. I'm a citizen of the City of Everett for 30 years. I've been a land owner for 30 years with my personal residence. I have an investment property that's in the easement or the... We'll soon be in the city of Everett, but I'm also a real estate professional. I'm the managing broker. I'm a branch manager for Snowmichigan County, my branch with about 80 to 100 agents. A member of the master builders. I support both comments earlier. And I'm also looking for business opportunities. This city has been amazing for business opportunities. I was just to the master builders breakfast and some amazing things are happening in the city. It's a development director talked about. We have an opportunity here to even, I think, do more amazing things for wealth in our community besides just business owners. I looked at the proposal a second time this morning or the presentation. It talked about project goals on one of the first slides. And I think there's a project goal missing. The state pushed this down to us. Planning's pushed it down to us. But there's different perceptives that really you as the city council have. So my comments are basically as a citizen, how do I maximize the value of my property because it's going to be one of the biggest investments come retirement years. I deal with that multiple times a week. Sellers, how do you get value? Buyers, how do you get value? And if the process is not simple and administrative, that doesn't happen. I believe the project goals need to add something like increased realized property value for citizens. Then I heard the director say, um, The proposed statements of intent are important because they are the guidelines. The land used to division uses for interpretation in need to do it. I think the City Council has the eyes of looking at the citizens. We're also a model for the state. How do we increase value? It's simple, it's easy, it's administrative, and don't have time to talk about all that stuff. But what's really key is a second land division. Being administrative, and I believe being put in the code, not just in a Q&A or frequently asked question, for two reasons. One is the citizens need it to be easy. They can just cut off their backyard on an alley and sell that. They don't have to figure out what it looks like, how it's going to be cut, all the things developers or I do professionally. They can just create value. That if they do that, now when they go to list their property, they have more value. They've got an entitlement. It's simple, easy, that usually only professionals like me see. I also think it needs to be in the code because it needs to be grandfathered. And it needs to be in the code where they see it. So my time's running out. I'd be open to talk to any of you privately. Thank you very much.

That's the end of our public comments. Do we have comments or questions from council? Do we need to close the public hearing first? Yes, actually, we should have a motion to close the public hearing before we have the council comments.

Or would it stay open for another week?

You might remember that we are among the first in the state to proceed with the lot split lot division ordinance and so Department of Commerce asked to take their full amount of time or up to their full amount of time to review so. Your action is pushed to October 14th. Technically, you could close the public hearing tonight. You can always take comments when it comes back to you once they finish their review. I guess the staff recommendation is that since we noticed the hearing for this evening on this proposal that you've close the hearing. If commerce comes back and our proposal changes in some way, I think we would always discuss whether a second public hearing would be necessary when it comes to you for final action. Although we think that we did a great job and that the proposal will go through commerce. They just want to take an extra detailed look.

So in addition to our regular acceptance of public comments, if we wanted to have an official additional public comment, we would need to notice additional public hearing, we would need to notice that and then

I mean, I think if there was any substantive change, because this action requires a public hearing, usually that means you're doing something big that's different. The state says it has some substantive feedback, then we would do that. Otherwise, this meets the requirement tonight.

Okay. So probably from the standpoint of avoiding a situation where we fail to officially close the public hearing, it's probably better to close it now and then reopen if needed. So I make that motion. Close vote on here.

Council Member Ryan, seconds.

Okay, we have a motion and second to close the public hearing. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Bader. Yes. Vice President Ryan. Yes. Council Member Barbano. Yes. Council Member Weir. Yes. Council Member Zarlengo.

Yes. All right. Now, any questions or comments from the council? Council Member Bader. Thanks, Council Member Zarlengo.

If you could make any comments in response to the last commenter's points, which I think were well covered and would be grateful for your thoughts. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. York Stevens watch the planning director. We've got Kelsey Hyde land use planning manager with me today. I think the the substance of the last commenters request was to be more explicit about whether a second land division is permissible immediately after the first or within a short timeframe of the first. Our interpretation of the ordinances written is that it does allow for a subsequent short plat after what would be a first short plat to split off the backyard of a potential. of a example homeowner could split off their backyard and then somebody comes in afterwards and makes a decision on how to develop or potentially further subdivide that lot if it should fit with the dimensions. So our read of that is that with the short plat, you can revise or do a second short plat immediately after the first one, as long as the total number of lots remains below the short plat threshold of nine lots. We can take a look at whether some more specific language would help clear up any potential confusion in the future. And we could bring that as an amendment if it seems appropriate. But our read is that it does what we're looking for. And I think the commenter was just looking for some certainty or clarity. And that's what we'll look into.

Council Member Weir.

You could stay there. So I think that this seems like a great idea because it is a way for, as the commenter stated, to have residents be able to feel some value from their properties in that investment. The question I have is what... How are the decisions made on what kind of structures can be built on those? Is there any kind of... And this probably goes into all the historic overlay stuff and... It came up last night actually at one of the meetings I was at because there was a resident that was talking about they live in a historic neighborhood and that larger property had been sold off and had been split up this way. And there was a lot of disappointment in the neighborhood of that the structures built were so different and kind of stood out from the rest of the area. I don't know if that plays into this particular proposal that we're talking about or this ordinance, but just I'm curious what, you know, what those look like.

Yeah. Kelsey Landy's planning manager. She manages the team that actually does the permit review. And I think the question is the relationship between land divisions and this ordinance and the structures that could eventually be built on a parcel.

Thank you for putting that more succinctly.

So the proposed changes themselves are strictly to divide the land. So whatever development regulations already exist for the property, regardless of the land division is proposed or not, or what type of land division is proposed or not, would not change as part of this process. This is just to create and divide the piece of property that development would sit on.

So you can take a piece of property and build three homes on it right now. It would most likely be rental or condominium if it was to be individual ownership, assuming it was not a very large piece of property. This ordinance is about making it possible for each of those residences to be on their own fee simple lot primarily.

So this ordinance is like the 2D version, like a piece of paper with lines on it. That's the action that you take. But the decisions about how far apart homes are, how tall they are, all of that is governed in the land use code. And those are things that that council adopts and exist already. Lots of updates were made to those when we did the comprehensive plan and development standards, but that's where all that lives. And then of course, we also have some historic districts in the cities that have kind of an extra literal overlay on top of that with other requirements. And yeah.

yeah i figured that there was some definite uh division in the division here but i wanted to just clarify a little bit thank you right other council questions comments i guess i'll supply one or two i attended the fusion week event last week and one of the discussions there was about moving technology and essentially reiterating that this city is good for creating jobs but something we've had a hard time doing is creating ownership housing. We've certainly created more multifamily housing, but Everett is also a place in some areas with some pretty darn large lots, some of which have been split in the past. So I think what we are trying to achieve is sort of a balance of preserving the integrity and the nature of the neighborhoods, but also accommodating the density and trying to match some ownership housing with the number of often well-paying jobs that we can create and keeping that here. So I guess that's what I'm trying to do. I think there will be some rocks in the road with respect to that and some questions about compatibility, and it won't be completely comfortable on either side, I suppose, the way we move forward. I think that was all I had on that. Again, this was the Department of Commerce review. We're expecting a final vote on this on October 14th. So a little over a month from now. Right. I think that's it then for that. We've closed the public hearing. On now to our action items. Let's see. This is Council Bill 2608-44, the third and final reading. Adopt an ordinance taking final action to authorize and provide for acquisition, including through the exercise of eminent domain, certain land and real property rights for the purpose of constructing the everett outdoor events center project that authorizing the mayor to initiate eminent domain proceedings and to enter into agreements related to acquisition of the land and real property rights uh so do we have questions or comments from the council i'll start off by actually moving uh i did that first yes thanks with a motion and a second now uh questions and comments from the council

Just make sure there is no public comment on this item. All right, Councilmember Weir.

Just because we need to get Scott Pattison up there to make him work for it. So how are things looking in this realm? I know that there's been a lot of discussion about whether there's going to be a need to pursue eminent domain. I mean, are you feeling like we're Is this more of a back pocket precaution or is this something that you feel like might actually need to be enforced?

Well, with regard to this property specifically, if you recall, during the initial site analysis, we didn't know that we needed this property. And then as the project moved forward in design, we realized that this property known as 26 to us is actually in the footprint of the building. So when it was originally brought, the domain was brought forward for all the other properties, this one had been left out. So this one is basically just being added to those that had already been approved prior as a result of the design. With regards to your question, with this property, definitely it's a back pocket because this one is just really become, we've just started negotiations with them. As you may recall, the process for eminent domain can take a significant amount of time and it just seemed prudent to get that process started because if it runs its course, it could take up to 14, 15 months. So now that we've gone through the design, we know we need this property. It made sense to add it. With regards to negotiations on other property, probably not a good forum to discuss contract negotiations. I'd be happy to come back for an executive session if need be. But things are going well.

All right. Thank you. Any further council comments and questions? All right. With a motion and a second and no further comments or questions, clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Bader? Yes. Vice President Ryan? Yes. Council Member Perpano?

Yes.

Council Member Weir? Yes. Council Member Zarlinko?

Yes. And now on to Council Bill 2608-45, number 13 on our agenda. This is the third and final reading. Adopt an ordinance creating a special improvement project entitled PGSF, that is Port Gardner Storage Facility, Bond Street Combined Sewer Improvements Fund 336, Program 033, and repealing ordinance number 3913-22. Do I have a motion? Council Member Bader-Somos.

Council Member Ryan seconds.

All right. With a motion and a second, do we have questions or comments from the council? All right. With a motion and a second and no questions, further questions or comments, clerk, please take the role.

Council Member Bader. Yes. Vice President Ryan. Yes. Council Member Brabant. Yes. Council Member Weir. Yes. Council Member Zarlinko.

Yes. And last item on our agenda, number 14, Council Bill 2608-46. This is the third and final reading. Adopt an ordinance assuming jurisdiction over a portion of the Mukilteo Water and Wastewater District's responsibilities, property, facilities, and equipment in areas previously annexed to the City of Everett. Do I have a motion to approve?

Council Member Bader-Somos. What about a second? Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any council comments or questions on this motion?

I just wanted to defer to my fellow council members since most of this isn't his district. That's true.

I just want to shout out to Council Member Liz Vogel for being folded into our system.

It's been a long time. All right. Then with no further questions or comments, click please pick the roll.

Council Member Bader. Yes. Vice President Ryan. Yes. Council Member Brabano. Yes. Council Member Weir. Yes. Council Member Zarlinko.

Yes. And with no further agenda items, this meeting is adjourned.