City Council - Regular Meeting

I was like, wow, she is, she is. No, I'll probably in between subjects, I'll go grab it. I'll be in charge of that. Because I do like to have the presentation open. Yeah. Well, I know you usually do. It helps me in case I miss something or I can look her back.

John's still logging in. Jay's logging in. I'm just waiting. She was here to make sure everything goes smoothly. All right, welcome back, everybody. Welcome to the City Council meeting of September 1, 2026. Before we call the roll, I'd like to thank everybody that worked hard on transforming our chambers. Yay for the new AV. And it's going to be great. We have monitors down below and new mics. So we might have to work on these mics a little bit. City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Our study session tonight is on two items. First, we'll have an overview of the domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy programs. Second, we will have a review of the preliminary, preliminary, 2027 2032 capital improvement program we expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7 30 city manager

Thank you, Kate, and thank you both of you for this program and the work that you're doing. And it's hard work, so it's challenging work. And we're so grateful for your presence in our community, and frankly, we're really proud of this program. So, thank you for the feedback. Council, any questions? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, this is impressive. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. You're making a difference. Everyone who's here tonight and others as well. I really appreciate the very clear partnership with the Kirkland Police Department. So thank you for that collaboration and that relationship and in referring folks over there to get the support that they need as they navigate these tough issues. It's not surprising that so many, did you say 85% of the referrals came from, came from Kirkland Police Department. I appreciate all the work that you've done as well to increase th

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for kind of the overview. When I think about this program, and I really like some of the words you use, the relationship building, the connections, the trust that you're building, I mean, those are kind of the things that are hard to quantify. But, you know, when it comes to sexual violence, sexual assault, those are really critical elements. You mentioned that this was a good model that Kirkland kind of took the lead in this. know my my questions are that you know is it a repeatable model um how can it grow from just kirkland um we're

Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation, for your incredibly important work you're doing for our community. One question I had was just the assessing the pilot and kind of looking at all the original goals that we have. One of the goals that I'm very interested in is the school engagement, just given the vulnerable population that you're going to be dealing with and what we learned. So you say that we had some initial relationships established and we look forward to obviously deepen those relationships. Can you just talk about what function within the schools were your primary contacts a

I also stay connected with law enforcement advocates in the area.

Thank you, Deputy Chief, Lieutenant and Shanice. How long have you been with the city then in this role?

Thank you. Your presentation is very sobering, and I'm very grateful for the work that you do. And Kate is back there nodding along with most of your presentation. I'm sure there's a lot of collaboration between all of you. So thank you. Thank you. Council, I know it's hard to shift gears, but any questions, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, yeah, thank you, Chief, Deputy Chief, Lieutenant Shanice. Also, thanks to Kate and Wah, the KSAR team, too. Two quick questions. curiosity more than anything else, especially on this first question. So I've done a ride along with our regional crisis response agency and our mental health professionals who work there. And one of our stops was victim advocacy and the type of meeting at a coffee shop that you actually described, along with a law enforcement officer from KPD. um can you talk a little bit about the coordination there and any what type of handoffs happened

No, and I love hearing how all of the different programs, initiatives, departments are working together to really braid together. the full range of services that we need to address these important issues. Another issue, really, again, more curiosity than anything, but I am curious how early in the process, and this is a question for the officers as well as you, Shanice, is how early in the process do we usually identify whether there are any particularly dangerous weapons in the home where domestic violence is happening? Is that one of the first questions? Happens later on in interviews. I'm c

Great. I appreciate that. I was just thinking, you know, just knowing about what we sort of know instinctively is the coercive impact that having dangerous weapons in the home has in a domestic violence situation, even if they're never used and never even explicitly threatened to be used. But knowing that there's weapons like that in the home. has a huge impact on the mindset of a victim in that situation. So I appreciate that we're working hard to identify that as a potential risk early in the process. Thank you.

I have a quick just clarification question. As we know, domestic violence situations can be very messy and complicated. And I know in both the RACER and KPD-RI alongside John, there's been situations in which it's not clear who initiated or, you know, I know very... basic level was explained to me some of the state law that a lot of states have about what the police officers witness and who needs to be arrested. Sometimes it's not perfect because it's so messy. I think I heard you say, Shanice, that you help all parties involved. So if there's someone who's, there could even be a defendant who

Thank you. I'm sorry. I could ask 10 more questions, but we have to go on to CIP. So thank you very much for your time for being here tonight. And thank you, Kate, and also for being here.

Okay. Thank you, City Manager. We were all going to tell you that. So we are moving on to preliminary 2027-32 capital improvement program review. My question to you is should we test how quickly we can flip over the room and go a little past seven? How are you feeling about that?

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, my question, and I've asked, this isn't a new question for me, something I've asked in the past, but we've changed, we've fundamentally changed the structure of the CIP where we've gone from a project by project line item to program line item. Safe routes to school, after transportation improvements, safety improvements, so forth. And so the question, and this is a question I get from the community quite a bit, is how do we take that program funding and obligate it to specific projects because the CIP no longer includes those specific projects. They're contained in the p

Yeah, so I guess, I mean, my asks are when you come back, walk us through some of that. I would, or if I'm the only one that has this question, I'd like to maybe we can have a conversation. I'd love to see that. And then two, how can we kind of share that or daylight that with the community and say, hey, we have 750,000 funded for school walk route projects for next year. how can we then say, hey, we've gone through our list. These are the next two projects that we're going to build next year, where we're gonna take that money and we're gonna, how can, before we actually start the design on th

Yeah, and I'm not asking for a debate on all of that. I'm asking just more for that information to be shared. I don't, I mean, maybe others do, but it's not about debating the projects. It's about kind of, hey, this is how we got there. before we actually start, because if there was something that we saw that was questionable or whatever, you know, the public could weigh in on that. Thank you.

I have a follow-up before we move on. Steven, you just said the project score. Is that, I noticed in the packet, the SAP score, but there was no definition what the SAP score is? Is it the...

It said SAP score, the packet, for some of the transportation projects, and I wasn't familiar with that term.

But it had a score on it. Okay, I don't have the packet with me, so I'll look at it. Thank you. Anybody else have a question on transportation? Okay, go ahead, Jessica. No.

And, Veronica, we're going to move past transportation next. Is this it on transportation? No, there's more transportation. Okay, well, then let's continue, and I'll ask my question later.

This is the best point in which I can ask this question. So this was the question I was going to ask a moment ago. I see these two projects and I think a couple other projects that are intersection related projects. Appreciate seeing these moved up into the funded. I see 2031. I'm like, oh, God. And then I realized 2031 is actually five years from now. But... You know, on one of the previous slides, we don't need to go back, but on one of the previous slides, one of the criteria is sort of land use and growth. And one of the things we've talked a lot about is planning ahead for what we expect.

Thank you Madam Mayor. Well thank you for this. This is really helpful. I have a question but before that I just have a couple of comments. I agree with Council Member Paschal's earlier question about having just a little bit more of like walking us through the process of selection. Maybe there's an example like an example like subsection of one of the topics that we could kind of talk through you know how those selections were made that might be helpful just to talk through a practical example. Also just want to mention, I didn't want to interrupt at the time, but thank you for including, it

The item that's on here that's listed as the trail. I know there are various pieces. I just want folks to understand what we're applying for funding, grant funding specifically for this.

So that's to get, like, from the neighborhood and where there's already a trail up into Juanita Drive. Like, there's the stream there, but it doesn't include a crossing. Is that correct? I just want to make sure that how we're defining a trail, that the community understands what's meant by that.

Thank you. And I know there's folks in the Fin Hill Neighborhood Alliance and in the neighborhood who are tracking this because at a recent Fin Hill Neighborhood Alliance morning meeting, it was presented that we may be looking at a lighted intersection there rather than an RRFB. So I just want to manage expectations for the public, right? That that's still being considered. It's currently slotted as an RRFB, but that may or may not be the best.

thank you madam mayor um so can you go back to the slide on the highlands thank you so when it comes to financial mitigation program previously authorized by uh council is there funding remaining now now that this this the fix is in i'm sorry now that the fix is in place um Is there funding remaining from that financial mitigation program that wasn't used for its original intended purpose, which was, for example, booster pumps at individuals' homes? And how is that being reallocated?

okay all right i'll follow up with my question separately but what i'm curious about is if there's any opportunities out there for reprogramming that funding for anyone who's been sort of uniquely and made affected by the the installation of the fix so if staff can be can talk to me about that offline i'd appreciate it thank you all right

Continuing. I think everybody wants to finish. Keep going. OK. Did closed captions just suddenly appear?

Veronica, before you move on. Oh, yes. Councillor Falcom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Veronica.

My question is related to the Lee-Johnson Field upgrade. There is also a lot of community discussion around various things related to Peter Kirk Park, including things about Lee-Johnson Field. And can you just clarify what we're talking about here with the Lee-Johnson Field upgrades, for those listening at home?

Veronica, I hate to interrupt you, but I think you skipped a park slide. Did I?

Thank you. I just want to make sure no one's got questions.

Go ahead, we'll just, we'll make our way. Okay, sorry about that. All right, so you were on public safety. And moving on to facility, we had a question of public safety before you move on.

Thank you very much. This is great. I appreciate highlighting and being, you know, fiscally conservative about making sure we have sinking funds for these two first response departments. A couple of comments and questions around this. I'd like us to think about public safety can mean a lot of things, right? It can mean our first response departments that the community also often thinks of, you know, active transportation, intersection, you know, traffic, transportation improvements. We think of public health, emergency preparedness, kind of all under public safety. So I would like for us to co

Thank you, Veronica. Council, any final comments, questions? Council Member Prim?

Thank you so much for this presentation. It's pretty complex. So really impressive to get this all under an hour. One question I had, I wanted to double click on the prioritization criteria for the TSP. I totally agree that it'd be helpful to understand just the grading mechanism and the weight also that's put onto each of these factors that are considered. But in addition to that, also for all the other categories like surface, water, sewer, what is the prioritization criteria? Is it how it's labeled within the plan itself and then that's brought here? Or is there some other mechanism that we

All right, thank you. We will see you soon. All right, that concludes our study session this evening. We'll be back at 7.30 for our regular meeting.

Hello, everyone. We are back in session following an overview of domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy programs, a review of the preliminary 2027-2032 capital improvement program. We will start tonight's meeting with honors and proclamations. Deputy Mayor Black will read the proclamations. Some of you may notice that there's changes in chambers. We have new audio visual, beautiful screens. Ooh, that's scary. And we have slid our podium over, and so you will now be speaking next to Deputy City Manager Jim Lopez. So, City Manager, I hand it over to you.

Hopefully this is now working. I'm now going to read a proclamation of the city of Kirkland, welcoming week, September 10th through 19th, 2026. Whereas Welcoming America is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that leads a movement out of inclusive communities, becoming more prosperous by ensuring everyone belongs. whereas since 2016, the cities of Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond, and Sammamish have celebrated Welcoming Week in solidarity on the east side as an opportunity to honor the history, achievements, experiences, and struggles of immigrant and refugee people. And whereas in 2025

All right. We are now moving on to items for the audience, from the audience. This is a time in our meeting when we normally hear from the public on matters that are not quasi-judicial or otherwise scheduled for a public hearing. This evening, we have both a public hearing and a quasi-judicial matter. The public hearing is item 6A on the Civil Detention Center Code amendments, and the quasi-judicial matter is item 9B on the International Community School Development Plan amendment. Comments on the public hearing item related to the Civil Detention Center Code amendments must wait until the pub

Thank you. Next, we have Britt, who's virtual.

Thank you, Britt. And just so you know, we were able to turn you up a little bit. So thank you.

We don't traditionally respond to public comment, but we have received your email.

Thank you, Sierra. And it would be helpful if you sent us an email. Thank you. Are our technical problems figured out? I don't need to recess. All right. Alex?

Thank you, Alicia. City Clerk, is that it?

Thank you, everyone. We are now going to move on to our public hearing, which is on the Civil Detention Center Code Amendments. I will now open the public hearing. City Manager.

Alex, don't interrupt, but let's... There's a disruption in the audience.

Thank you, David. Council, any comments for staff or questions for staff? All right. Good job. Thank you for doing that extra outreach to the community and the translations too. City Clerk, do we have anyone signed up to testify?

Thank you. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that you must limit your remarks to three minutes. And during that time, you are limited to speaking only on the topic of the public hearing, which is the Civil Detention Center Code Amendment. So let's go ahead and transfer Guillermo. There you are. Welcome.

Thank you, Guillermo, and thank you for helping facilitate those meetings, too. We appreciate it.

All right, Alex. Thank you. And I will remind you, you need to speak to the public hearing, which is on the Civil Detention Center Code amendments.

I'm going to give you a few more seconds to speak about the code of conduct.

Alex, you're trying my patience. You are not speaking to the code amendments.

Alex, you are not speaking to the code amendments.

Thank you. All right. City Clerk, anyone else?

All right. The public hearing is now closed. The council will consider all public comments on the issue, including those submitted in writing. We are now going to move on to consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I'd like to ask Deputy Mayor Black to, oh, thank you, David. We'll see you again. I would like to ask Deputy Mayor Black to present the auditive accounts and to highlight the proclamations we have on consent.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had payroll August 7th in the amount of $8,635,240.77 and payroll August 24th in the amount of $9,553,344.95 and bills in the amount of $13,511,645.01. As part of tonight's consent calendar, the Mayor, on behalf of the Council, will be proclaiming three proclamations. The first is proclaiming September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. This observance raises awareness, promotes hope, and encourages compassionate conversations about mental health and suicide prevention. This proclamation recognizes those affected by suicide and those working to connect people wit

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

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Member Falcone to approve the consent calendar. Are there any questions, comments, or corrections to the consent calendar? All right. Seeing none, the questions on the motion to approve the consent calendar. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Consent calendar is approved 7-0. All right. We are moving on to our first business item. In our regular business agenda, our first item of business is on the potential. Welcome back, David. You should have stayed here. Our first item of our business is on the potential adoption o

Thank you, Council. Any comments? Questions? Deputy Mayor?

Madam Mayor, will you entertain a motion?

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, seconded by Council Mayor Falcone to move Ordinance 4947. Is there any further discussion, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to briefly speak in support of the motion. What I really like about what the City of Kirkland is doing is that we are doing in a matter of just a few weeks what other cities are putting off for over a year. I really appreciate the work the staff has done to quickly expeditiously both do the research that has gone into this ordinance and also the community outreach that has gone into this and we've done it in a reasonable time frame and what we're doing is we're taking permanent action where for good or bad a lot of our peer cities and neighboring cities are

As Deputy Mayor Black said, we recognize that this was a lot of work in a short period of time and a pivot, you know, based on council feedback at the last meeting. So thank you so much for acting so quickly. And also a huge thank you to all the community members who advocated for this, who didn't give up, who kept reaching out to us until we have this meeting tonight. So thank you to them. I want them to know that they're making a difference by advocating for their communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Questions on the motion to approve Ordinance 4947? City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Yes. Ordinance 4947 is approved 7-0. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, David.

all right we are now moving on to our second business item 9b which is on the international community school development plan amendment and i am going to call on our city attorney to make opening remarks thank you mayor curtis

Thank you Madam Mayor. Well thank you City Attorney for that. I would like to explicitly respond no to this question but also provide some information for full transparency. One of my children attends the Community Elementary School or CES which is co-located on the same campus as the International Community School or ICS. Notably, CES and ICS have separate parking lots and respective drop-off pickup areas. And students from CES do not have an increased likelihood of attending ICS than students from any other schools. As indicated in my earlier silence in response to your questions, I have not

Thank you, City Attorney, and thank you, Councilmember Falcone. We are ready to proceed.

Council, any questions? All right. This is Council Member Paschal.

Yeah, thanks for the detail summary of the proposal. You know, a number of the comments that were received were related to traffic impacts in the neighborhood. And it sounds like those are existing today with the current enrollment. And so the proposal looks like it it modifies like on-site um circulation and parking and stuff to address those off-site impacts so i just wanted to be clear does is it staff's uh feeling that those that on-site mitigation would prevent that off-site uh those off-site impacts from occurring in the future

to minimize the impacts but if there continues to be any issues um that we do have some different mechanisms to kind of help yeah so the improvements um accommodate the increased enrollment but also address the existing issues that they're seeing today yeah correct thank you thank you anyone else

Oh, what? I do. Thank you. The matter's now closed. The attorney's giving me a look. Thank you. All right. Council Mayor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move to suspend Council Rule 3.23 so that council may vote tonight on this process to be application.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Falcone, seconded by Deputy Mayor to suspend Council Rule 3.23 so that we may vote this evening. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. You want to continue?

I would love to. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we adopt Resolution R5744, a resolution of the City of Kirkland approving an amendment to the International Community School, ICS, slash Community Elementary School, CES, Campus Master Plan as applied for in the Planning and Building Department file number, it's there, and setting forth conditions to which such permit shall be subject.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Falcone, seconded by Deputy Mayor Black to approve Resolution 5744. Is there any discussion?

Council Mayor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. May I comment on a thought on the resolution? Sure. That's appropriate. Okay. I just want to say I know that in our school district in general, Lake Washington School District, there are long wait lists for choice schools. And there are students who, you know, brains work differently and they learn differently. And so these choice schools are really great for students who need something a little bit different than the traditional classroom. And because of that, I support this because there'd be more opportunity for more students to get to experien

Thank you. Questions on the motion to approve Resolution 5744? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Tony. Council, I expect the next business item to take a minute. So I'm going to call a very short break. We are going to come back at 8.50.

We are back from a very short break. And we are moving on to 9C, which is potential adoption of zoning amendments regarding affordable housing requirements in low density zones. City manager.

Councilmember Prim and Falcone, do you want to talk about your amendment now or do you want to wait until it's on the table?

Either way. I can do now. Okay. Go ahead. Now? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for this information and thanks for all of the data that you provided. Extremely helpful. I know it's a lot of work, so I really appreciate it. I have two primary goals with supporting the 2500 square foot threshold, but increasing the per square footage fee from $15 to $20 per square foot. Number one, I do not wanna hinder the development of middle housing in low density zones, which includes homes that are under 2,500 square feet. And number two, I wanna ensure that we have adequate contributions towards affordab

total that's it so i don't think we're asking for for much by by doing this um and i hope that the council will support passing this amendment thank you um you spoke to the general motion and i was hoping that you were just going to speak to this particular amendment we're fine but any further comments let's uh keep them to the current amendment so council member falcone did i see you raise your hand yes thank you madam mayor

I guess I first have just a kind of procedural question about, um, so we tabled this, do we need to untable? So do we need to make another motion for the ordinance or is that already on the table?

Okay. but you're just looking for comments on the amendment right now.

Thank you. So speak to this amendment and then we'll go to the other amendment and then we'll take it back up.

Thank you. I will try to, it's, I'll do my best. It's hard because they're so intertwined. I will do my best, but I think there is some overlap in that. I will come back to you. I want to start by saying, just generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of taxing housing to help us address the housing crisis. I just want to say that. It seems a little counterintuitive, but I also want to acknowledge that we have very limited tools, right? And this is the situation we're in. So just want to acknowledge that because then there's all kinds of opinions on this. And I think that I just want to make that

Okay. Thank you. So, that is an option in the future. I just want to mention to folks out there, I know I've had a lot of conversations over the past couple months with stakeholders about that option. And this feels like a compromise between the two, right? One step to try to at least get back to where we were in revenue generation last year in the ordinance that we passed. I do hope though, as was mentioned, that this is not, like in the grand scheme of things, this is not the biggest issue and the biggest impact on housing affordability it is something it's a piece of the puzzle we need lots

thank you all right i'm going to open this up to general comments because they're happening anyway um i'm going to call on councilman arnold but councilman prim you had a clarification madam mayor point of order should you i think you should probably bring the matter back on or or note that the matter is back on the table feel free no i don't think it's for me i think it's for the residing officer to note that the motion is on i will note that we are responding to ordinance 4937 which was taken off the table

THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. WE ARE NOW ADDRESSING THE MOTION. I'M GOING TO GO TO COUNCILMEMBER ARNOLD, AND THEN I'LL CALL ON YOU.

MAY I ASK A PROCEDURAL QUESTION? SURE. HAS THIS AMENDMENT BEEN MOVED?

Sorry, has this amendment been moved forward? No.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for the recognition on how these issues are intertwined. As we're looking at this, I start with a general preference that said, I don't think we need to take action, but I respect what I am hearing from my fellow council members on wanting to make some changes. I've come to a different conclusion looking at the data, and I appreciate the chance as we've looked at this for some more information that staff has provided. That said, I also really do appreciate Councilmember Pram and Councilmember Falcone coming forward with this to say, not only are they moving the

Thank you. So procedurally, this amendment came to us this morning and we got feedback from the master builders on Monday. I would have appreciated if we had more advanced notice with this amendment because I think our stakeholders that have been working with us on this since June would have appreciated having an opportunity to give feedback on this. From a substantive perspective, I don't support this amendment because I don't think that trying to surgically increase the taxes on this type of housing won't affect a lot of other typologies. And so I won't be supporting this amendment. Thank yo

Thank you. So I think I've been clear from the beginning that I don't support more fees on housing. That's why I wasn't able to support this fee when we passed it in 2025. As I said then, a building at home already costs $75,000 in fees. that doesn't include the carrying and the financing costs that builders incur. So, um, you know, increasing the fee additionally, isn't something that I'm, um, wanting to do. Uh, I do, I do also, um, share the concerns of council member Tim Chisholm, uh, When we are considering putting permanent fees on housing or increasing permanent fees on housing and that'

Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Arnold, and then I'll go to Council Member Falcone.

Yes. Thank you. To the concerns about transparency, I would note page 708 of our packet does introduce this as a possibility. The packet was released on Friday, and the master builders did have adequate opportunity to comment on that alternative scenario that was presented, but did not in what we received. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? All right. Before we move forward, I think we're going to, I'm going to take a motion on this amendment and then we'll go from there. Deputy Mayor, did you have?

No, I was just going to say I do have comments, but I want, I think it makes sense for the amendment to be on the table. Okay. I will note that staff had talked about getting

at least presenting the other amendment because we've got two amendments but we're gonna we're gonna deal one minimum at a time yes i'm perfectly fine with that i'll thank you yes i decided i didn't like adam's suggestion so uh councilman uh both council member falcone and i moved to amend ordinance 0493 at e page 715 line 107 by deleting the phrase 15 per square foot and inserting in its place the phrase 20 per square foot second

This has been moved by Councilmember Prem, seconded by Councilmember Falcone, to move forward the amendment that changes the $15 per square foot to $20 per square foot. Is there any further comments? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think I have to make my comments now. It seems most germane. And given how I think some of the vote on this amendment may go, I think my comments are even more important. So I want to say I appreciate Kirkland's thoughtful approach to this affordable housing fee. None of our neighboring peer cities have taken more time to weigh this issue, have taken more testimony or listened more carefully to our housing production partners, including our affordable housing providers. have collected more information or more current information, created a more meaningful exception in

No, please don't. Let's wait till the next amendment. Okay, go ahead.

So there is one amendment being proposed tonight that I will support because I do want to see it codified in this policy. Regardless of our votes on square footage or the amount of the fee amount, which are the amendment that's before us, that amendment's the deletion of the language revisiting the policy all over again in 2028. We do ourselves and our businesses no favors with that kind of language. As I've said many times before, it sends mixed signals and it creates uncertainty. So uncertainty is not good for business, and it doesn't help housing producers make sound, informed decisions. To

All right. Thank you. All right. The questions on the motion to amend Ordinance 4937 to increase the square footage fee to $20. City Clerk, I suspect we're going to need to do a voice vote on this.

Yes. Amendment carries 4-3. Adam, back to you.

Thank you, Council Member Prem. move to uh i move to remove the section d as shown on the screen thank you it's been moved by councilman prem second by councilman falcone to delete section d of ordinance 4937 um any discussion councilman

Yeah, just a quick comment on why I moved to do this. As Deputy Mayor Black mentioned, I think we've been discussing this for over two years, and I think it's time to put the issue to rest and provide the building community some certainty on where we are. Staff, as Adam mentioned, staff will be providing quarterly development services, reports to council. So this will be tracked regularly. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right questions on the motion to amend ordinance 40 or 49 37 to delete section D City clerk, let's do a voice vote again Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

Yes. Thank you. Motion carries 7-0. All right. The question is on the amended Ordinance 4937. Is there any further discussion?

Motion fails 3-4. All right. Thank you, everyone. We voted on the amended motion. So it failed. So now we go back to the original motion, which was made in June 2025, which is 2,000 square feet at $15 a square foot. So to wrap up, this was two years of effort with the community and with our planning department and our planning commission. So I want to thank everybody for all the work that they put into it. Sometimes things are complicated and hard, and it takes us time. So thank you.

Okay, we are going to move on to 9D, which is Revised Parking Enforcement Code Amendments. City Manager.

Council, questions for the Lieutenant and Ryan?

Any comments? Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for being here tonight and bringing back. I really appreciate the revisions based on council feedback from the last meeting, so thank you for taking the time to do that. Thank you also to Chief St. Jean and City Attorney and City Manager for being willing to discuss a little bit more detail with me, some of the nuances of these proposed edits, just so I understood it a little bit more. I'm still struggling with with this ordinance and specifically the section that I'm struggling with is the addition of the prohibition of RVs on our streets Go

As I look at the definition under two, where it's the combination of recreational vehicle and exceeds seven feet in width, I look at that and say that is focused on the safety aspects of it versus anybody in a camper van or a conversion van. I do agree we need to have further community conversation about people living in their vehicles on the street and how we respond to that. That discussion is anticipated in the homelessness action plan. I think this particular set of work that we're doing tonight is about just clarifying RVs that are larger in width and how we deal with those. There is some

If there was a case where a faith-based organization or community organization was aware of somebody that was in that situation, how would you recommend they deal with it to not have this or to be able to get the flexibility versus this being enforced?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the additional work on this. And, you know, I think kind of taking to heart some of the comments you heard last meeting. You know, I came into this really kind of reflecting that I thought the language added language kind of strike that right balance between addressing some legitimate concerns about abandoned and stored vehicles in the public right away, but really also emphasizing Kirkland's outreach first approach and The way that I read the code was that impoundment was a last resort. That's how you tried to write it without actually saying those couple words

Thank you. You know, I think a lot of this comes down to officer discretion and discretion used by the heart team. And I think we've built about the most compassionate police force, the most compassionate heart team, and the most compassionate city government we can. we've done i i really appreciate miss o'malley's comments um and concern about the ordinance i will be supporting the ordinance but that's because i think our police department and our heart team is one of the most ethical and compassionate org organizations i've i've worked with and i've seen and i think that i just ultimately ha

Thank you, Madam Mayor. obviously this is a really challenging issue. Um, and I appreciate the, the thoughtfulness that we've all, um, both staff and my colleagues on the council have spent on this issue. And, um, ultimately I will be supporting the ordinance and, you know, partly for some of the well-taken, um, reasons, uh, suggested or mentioned by some of my colleagues. I, it really does remind me or does, yeah, it reminds me, um, Just how proud I am of what we've built in the city of Kirkland along the lines of what Councilmember Tim Chisholm was saying, our heart program, our homelessness

Yeah, I will also be supporting this ordinance. I do think generally that the proposed ordinance has addressed a lot of the comments that we had last time, but I do want to definitely follow up on Ms. O'Malley's comments that she made and would appreciate like a response specifically addressing those things. and to ensure that if there are things that we need to fix, that we do that quickly. But thank you.

Just a tough one. I do sincerely appreciate the improvements that were made. You took our comments to heart, and this is a better product. I'm still struggling a little bit with, are we talking about abandoned vehicles or exclusive of vehicles where people are living in them? Um, but I don't have an elegant solution for that. And it's, it's really what you've heard from the comments, particularly from council member Tim Chisholm and deputy mayor black, that this is, this is not a black and white issue. There's a lot of gray area in here and that we have put in processes and procedures and peop

You can call me. I'll move Ordinance 4946. Second.

It's been moved by Council Member Paschal, second by Deputy Mayor Black to move forward Ordinance 4946. Any further discussion? City Clerk.

Ordinance passes 6-1. Thank you, everyone. All right. We are moving on to council reports. And I will start with the deputy mayor.

I'm just going to highlight one really fun upcoming event, and that is the Pride Across the Bridge annual Pride event happening this Saturday at Marina Park. You'll have two of your leaders in the room will be in the dunk tank. Deputy City Manager Jim Lopez will be there 2.30, I think. And I will be there, I forget, 4, 4.30, something like that as well. So it'll be a lot of fun. And for any community members who, you know, want to dunk one of their elected officials, go at it because it raises money for a good cause. Thank you.

Council Member Prim. Nothing to report. Council Member Arnold.

I have three things to report. I had the opportunity to meet with our federal lobbyists this month where we discussed the current federal budget. Some of our previous advocacy where we had sent a letter in on federal budget process changes. And they noted that both those changes were on hold and they anticipated this week, which happened I think yesterday or today, a continuing resolution on the budget which freezes the federal budget in its current process. They also discussed the possibility of potential future advocacy around an earmarks process next year, especially if Congress changes han

I know it's been time-consuming over our recess, but it's important councilmember Tim Chisholm I would echo councilmember Falcone's Announcement about the pride across the bridge celebration the TDC funded that Event with I forget how much money you volunteering for the dunk tank. I I Have not I have not But I think the public likes and respects me and probably would never want to do that. But I haven't been asked. Maybe I will go to the dunk tank. I don't know. But I'll certainly be at that event. It sounds like a fun time.

But our TDC did significantly assist that event this year. And we all vote yeah. That's all.

Thank you. I have nothing to report. So city manager.

uh we are in the process of putting those in place and we hope to have those done by probably late october early november i think the last slide is just the timeline and i'm happy to answer any questions that council has so councilman falco thank you madam mayor well thank you um city manager i really appreciate the collaboration with watchdot and thank you to watchdot for doing what i think is the right thing you know to to pay for this and to work with us on the design as well so thank you for leading on that i really appreciate that My question is looking at the picture that you just showed

Okay, I would like us to look at that again, like pretty closely, because I hear about it enough that even if we've already talked about it, it may be worth. Yeah, coming off the highway and entering the roundabout. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thanks for this. And thanks to staff and WSDOT. I just hope that we continue to monitor and kind of see if we see like really favorable results. This is pretty unique. I can't think of an interchange where there's speed humps in Washington. So this is kind of like almost like a first thing, really. And it's quite remarkable. So it'd be cool to show that it's working.

We continue to lead. Absolutely. Watch it carefully.

Councillor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to share with my colleagues and staff that I will be joining our next meeting virtually. I will be in Vancouver, BC on a housing innovations tour with the Housing Development Consortium. So I will be, my understanding is that the agenda allows us, they also accommodated this last year, that there's just a social event at night so I can still fully do my duties working on the tour as well as join the meeting probably for my hotel room that evening. So I just want to give you a heads up.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Paschal.

Yeah, and that reminded me that I will be missing the next meeting. So hopefully there won't be any tie votes.