City Council - Regular Meeting

0:19 – 1:02•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:15 – 1:42•BZBen Zarlingo

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.

1:45 – 2:15•SBScott Bader

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.

2:16 – 4:16•CFCassie 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

4:17•BZBen Zarlingo

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

4:32 – 4:48•BZBen Zarlingo

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.

8:20 – 10:22•CFCassie Franklin

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 direc

11:04•CFCassie Franklin

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

13:18•CFCassie Franklin

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

17:59•CFCassie Franklin

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.

30:18•BZBen Zarlingo

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

31:32•BZBen Zarlingo

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

31:35 – 32:13•SBScott 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

32:14 – 34:57•PRPaula Rhyne

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'

34:59•BZBen Zarlingo

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

35:04 – 36:33•EWErica 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 ther

36:33 – 36:48•BZBen Zarlingo

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?

37:54•BZBen Zarlingo

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

38:04•BZBen Zarlingo

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.

38:15•BZBen Zarlingo

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

38:23 – 39:16•BZBen 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

39:33 – 39:54•CFCassie Franklin

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

40:03•CFCassie Franklin

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

40:28•BZBen Zarlingo

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

45:58 – 46:29•CFCassie Franklin

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.

46:30 – 46:42•BZBen Zarlingo

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?

46:55•BZBen Zarlingo

That is what I remember us hearing, yeah.

48:20 – 48:34•EWErica Weir

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?

48:39 – 49:08•EWErica Weir

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.

49:34 – 50:19•BZBen Zarlingo

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. 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?

53:47•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:00:31 – 1:00:44•BZBen Zarlingo

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.

1:01:42•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:02:07 – 1:02:24•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:02:31•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:02:43•SBScott Bader

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.

1:04:17 – 1:05:29•EWErica 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

1:05:43•EWErica Weir

Thank you for putting that more succinctly.

1:07:06 – 1:09:11•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:09:13•SBScott Bader

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

1:09:21 – 1:09:49•EWErica 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?

1:11:24•BZBen Zarlingo

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.

1:11:40 – 1:12:22•BZBen Zarlingo

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. 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.

1:12:29 – 1:12:50•BZBen Zarlingo

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?

1:12:52•SBScott Bader

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

1:12:55•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:13:00•SBScott Bader

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

1:13:08•PRPaula Rhyne

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

1:13:19•BZBen Zarlingo

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

1:13:32•BZBen Zarlingo

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