City Council - Regular Meeting

0:16 – 0:48•DSDon Schwab

Well, good evening, residents of Everett, Washington. I'd like to call to order the Everett City Council meeting for October 21st, 2026. For information on council meetings and how to participate, please visit our website at everett.gov slash city council. Please note that we do not allow comments of any kind of 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. Clerk, will you please take the role?

0:58 – 1:14•DSDon Schwab

Excused. President Schwab. Here. This time, I'd like to ask Council Member Brabano to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. I'd like to ask Councilmember Weir to recite the land acknowledgement.

1:28 – 1:56•EWErica Weir

The City Council wishes to acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Stoogeship 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.

1:59•DSDon Schwab

Thank you, and big night tonight. Mayor, welcome.

2:05 – 36:01•CFCassie Franklin

Yeah, good evening, President Schwab, Council, and community. I'm honored to deliver the 2027 City of Everett budget address. So first, happy to be here sharing. This is my ninth budget address as Everett's mayor. I want to start off by thanking our Council for remaining committed to supporting core city services, fiscal responsibility, and smart budgeting. I also want to recognize our new finance director, Chris Godwin, and thank our fantastic finance team. Developing a city budget is a tremendous amount of work, and I'm really grateful for the care and careful work our team does every year.

36:01 – 36:23•DSDon Schwab

Thank you very much. I appreciate your preparation and your statements. Okay. That was a big mayor's comment. So we'll move to our next section. We go to old business. Do I hear a motion for the approval of the minutes for October 14th, 2026? Council Member Ryan, some moves. We have a motion and a second. Clerk, please take the roll.

36:31 – 38:34•DSDon Schwab

Yes. Now it's time for public comment, which includes written comment acknowledgement. Under our rules, written comments shall be considered in the same manner as oral comments. The person submitting comments must provide their name and city of residence to be made part of our official council record. Okay. So tonight, I do want to address, just have some clarification for the public. At times, we have what we call open public hearing, which is another opportunity to speak on a specific issue. We also give opportunities every council meeting to have a form of public hearing. We call it public

55:44 – 56:11•DSDon Schwab

6. okay thank you very much okay thank you everybody for their comments um our next section of our meeting it goes into council comments and we will begin with council vice president council member paula wright great thank you everybody thank you so much for your comments tonight um i just left but i i did want to share first that i uh appreciate everybody's comments uh this evening and i support enhanced protections for patients

56:12 – 58:05•PRPaula Rhyne

to access care at Planned Parenthood in the same peaceful and uneventful way any of us access health care at any medical provider. So if there's anything that would want to come forward, I think I'd be happy to support it. Last week, I attended the State of the Station address down at the port by Captain, gosh, Whittier. Thank you, Whittier. I knew there was a W in there. And she did a phenomenal job. And as a wife of a Navy veteran, I'm very proud of having Naval Station Everett here in Everett. and the good work that they do to help support not just those who are in active duty, but also the

58:07 – 59:47•EWErica Weir

Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And some of those animals, their big campaign speech or their statements were just outrageous. I was like, man, we need to take some notes from them. So a lot of fun and beautiful weather. So and seeing all the kids out planting bulbs and at the Arboretum and the families walking around. So if you haven't been to the Arboretum recently or ever, make sure you make a trip down there because it really is a jewel in our city. So that was a ton of fun. Last night I was at the Bayside neighborhood meeting down at Brooklyn Brothers. Had a good group of people down there.

59:50 – 1:01:54•BZBen Zarlingo

First of all, thank you for our public commenters. And last night I attended the Valley View neighborhood meeting. This is actually in Council Member, Council Vice President Ryan's district, but it happens in my district and I go there whenever I can. And just a quick note that there was a great presentation by the Snohomish County Public Utility District focused on their rebate programs. So certainly consider that if you heat your house or your water primarily by electricity, you may qualify. And some of that can be done whether you do it yourself or have it hired. But one thing I thought I'd

1:01:56 – 1:03:11•JTJudy Tuohy

Yeah, I was able to have an update meeting today with Chris Collier with the Housing Authority of Snohomish County. And it was really interesting. His organization, the Snohomish County Organization, has met with the Everett Housing Authority and has an agreement to allow the Housing Authority of Snohomish County to focus on the casino area, especially around the light rail development and south, even where we're looking at annexation areas. And their focus is to provide community stabilization during this growth time. So they have already purchased one apartment complex right on Casino. It's

1:03:12•LBLuis Burbano

Thank you. Council Member Brabantle. Other than I'm looking forward to hear about the great plans for District 4 for next year. I don't have any comments. Thank you.

1:03:22 – 1:04:32•DSDon Schwab

Thank you. For my comments, I attended the Everett Library Board meeting. And of course, budget's always difficult. They're performing miracles with the dollars that are allocated. There was an amazing presentation by the Everett Care Team, and they talked about the buffer zones, and they're also working on a behavioral policy for customers of the library. They're working very hard to create an atmosphere to fit all types of users, customers of our system. So I think they made some very positive statements, especially for our care team. Very excited about that. Also, I attended the... reinvigo

1:05:03•DSDon Schwab

OK, thank you. How about our city attorney, Ramsey Ramerman?

1:05:24•DSDon Schwab

OK, thank you very much. OK, so we'll move to our consent items. We have five consent items. Do I hear a motion in a second?

1:05:37•DSDon Schwab

Council Member, we're second. All right, thank you. Motion and second's been made. Clerk, please take the roll.

1:05:50 – 1:06:33•DSDon Schwab

Yes. Okay. Next on our proposed action item, and I'll read into the record, and then we'll have a staff presentation, and then we'll take comments from the public and then council comments. item number six council bill to 610 dash five to first reading adopt ordinance approving and authorizing the execution of interlocal agreement for annexation between the city of everett and Community transit there'll be a public hearing October 28 of this of this month, the third and final reading will be November 4 2026 so I believe we have a staff presentation so welcome.

1:09:55 – 1:10:24•DSDon Schwab

For many years, Everett... I have a question. So I would like to kind of hang out here on the budget for a little bit, if that's okay. So... Dave Kuntz, One of the things that had come up in every transits like outlook there wasn't a deep dive in the in the budget. Dave Kuntz, But they had some reserves, could you address could someone here address some of their rare reserves my understanding that they're not designated for the operating costs, but for other grants and other things.

1:10:27 – 1:10:41•DSDon Schwab

Dave Kuntz, yeah so here's the question how, why do we need to change when we have all these reserves, so if you can answer that question why don't we need to go to a different system when we're flush with money that's saying that's true, but I would like that question addressed.

1:11:34•DSDon Schwab

And so my understanding is those reserve accounts aren't used for general operating expenses.

1:12:05•DSDon Schwab

So what about this $100 million new repair facility and infrastructure needs?

1:12:28•DSDon Schwab

So we're still talking more revenue needed other than the operating expenses. To keep up with the capital improvement.

1:13:03 – 1:13:23•JTJudy Tuohy

So my question on on potential increases, obviously a tax increase would fall into this category. And how much would that be? And is it reflected in this chart here that there was a tax increase, a sales tax increase, or what does that look like?

1:13:32 – 1:13:56•CFCassie Franklin

So we can go up to nine tenths of a cent or, you know, we can go up three cents or what is it? Point three. We can go up point three cents. The chart is shows where we are currently. So this would look different if we went up, but it still. You know, doesn't keep pace with the growth that community transit can provide because community transit collects more.

1:14:11•JTJudy Tuohy

So that wouldn't begin to cut into to make it balance prior to that.

1:14:20•CFCassie Franklin

No, balancing it prior to that is going into the reserves of the transit.

1:14:24•JTJudy Tuohy

Or raising the taxes earlier than 2032. Or raising earlier. That is correct.

1:14:28 – 1:14:40•DSDon Schwab

And that does not address the $100 million infrastructure needs, correct? If I remember right, the .3 did not address the need to build a new bus facility.

1:15:32 – 1:15:43•JTJudy Tuohy

So just to clarify, so we, the Everett Transit is capped at what they can raise sales tax at a different rate than community transit. Okay, good.

1:15:44•DSDon Schwab

Councilman Ryan, Vice President Ryan had a question for Senator Bono.

1:15:47 – 1:16:23•PRPaula Rhyne

Thank you. I guess when we approved the Move Ahead Washington, or I guess we didn't approve it, but we accepted the money from Move Ahead Washington when we Prefers for Youth accepted that. I guess I had a misunderstanding at that time because I thought the money that we would be getting from Move Ahead Washington would sustain Everett Transit for longer than it has. So it sounds like... I'm hoping for a little bit more clarity on what we received after we adopted free fare for youth. And if that just made the deficit pushed it out that much further in the future instead of having more media.

1:16:23 – 1:17:38•CFCassie Franklin

We do get ongoing support from Move Ahead that helps make up for the lost revenue from youth fares. We can get back to you with exactly how much that is each year. But it certainly doesn't give us enough for the ongoing operations of the entire system or the capital needs of the entire system. But it does give us that lost revenue from free youth fairs, which is outstanding. And that has actually dramatically helped transit. Transit has been helped pretty substantially by that revenue source that comes in annually for the made-up youth fairs, as well as the COVID dollars and influx of money fr

1:17:38•DSDon Schwab

Thank you. Councilman Rubano, do you have a question?

1:17:41 – 1:17:53•LBLuis Burbano

I'm just wondering if we raise the tax by the 0.3% that we can, can Everett Transit provide the same amount of service that Community Transit is offering if we approve the merge?

1:18:36 – 1:18:50•DSDon Schwab

All right, thank you. And then I had one more question about the blue line. Did this chart here include the cost of the blue line? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much to kind of pause there. No problem. Okay.

1:27:09 – 1:27:29•JTJudy Tuohy

I have a question for you. And this question kind of came up in one of the comments tonight about oversight. I didn't notice anything in the document that talked about oversight to ensure the service level as well as employees, what's been promised all happens.

1:28:23•DSDon Schwab

And how about if I just go down the line here, we'll go to Burbano and we'll just go around the circle.

1:28:29 – 1:28:52•LBLuis Burbano

So on the ILA employee protections slide, there is this bullet point that says city will bargain future contract provisions in good faith following effective date. This is the regular union contract, right? There's nothing special about it. It's just the period comes and it's time to negotiate it. Well, it is what it is.

1:29:06 – 1:29:18•LBLuis Burbano

The other question I have is, given that the population in Everett is expected to double in the next 10 years, if we don't think about transit today, is there a possibility for our main roads to collapse due to large amounts of congestion?

1:29:33 – 1:29:44•LBLuis Burbano

Right. In other words, if we don't make a good call this time, we are facing the possibility of saying that Everett is one hour away from Everett pretty much.

1:29:48•PRPaula Rhyne

Great. Thank you. What is the long-term plan for paratransit? Maybe I'll just give a shout out to Rick to come on up.

1:36:15 – 1:36:43•PRPaula Rhyne

Great, thank you. You answered my two other questions. I have a third, but I'm going to hold on to it until maybe after public comment. But thank you, Rick. You reminded me that Council Member Bader had a question quite a while ago about examples from other cities that have integrated their transit systems and how it's worked or not worked or just like case studies or whatnot. And so it'd be great to, definitely not right now, obviously, but maybe at the next meeting, if there's some other questions

1:36:44 – 1:37:38•EWErica Weir

case studies out there um to just help daylight what we're getting might be getting ourselves into i think that'd be really helpful thanks counselor aware okay rick you want to come back up um yeah thank you no that was thank you for for all of that i think one of the the areas of concern that people have is that um they want to know that there are specific commitments. So like specifically around paratransit, that if they don't have to make a transfer on paratransit now within Everett city limits, that, okay, that's going to maintain the same for 12 months, but is there a commitment that that

1:39:49 – 1:40:31•EWErica Weir

No, because it is challenging. I think for folks that are requiring paratransit services, the idea of having to then get off that bus and get onto another and just the extra time it takes for those transfers and transactions, you know, because those are some of the biggest concerns I know I'm hearing. And I think my fellow council members and mayor are also hearing that, you know, and that they, you know, people are needing to get to their appointment. They've got a doctor's appointment they need to get to, and they've had poor experiences with DART because their call has been bumped. And so t

1:40:37 – 1:41:11•EWErica Weir

across DART as well is what you're saying. Yeah. And then In so the dart system is different from the everett paratransit at this point, where the. For dart I believe they what is it's within a three three quarters of a mile of a stop there's no requirement for dart to be picked up for dart to do a pickup is that. And so that's the other concern that we've heard from people is that they will not be able to get that door to door service that they've had in the city limits right going forward.

1:42:07•CFCassie Franklin

I just want to reiterate that it's paratransit.

1:43:07 – 1:43:34•EWErica Weir

One more thing to kind of tag onto that. So how do you see the microtransit fitting in with this? Because that seems like an exciting opportunity because I'm sure, you know, that some of the folks that are using paratransit need those additional resources that the paratransit vans offer. But others, it may be mobility challenges or things that they could get into a van. Is that something that might take the place of some of those or...

1:45:00 – 1:45:13•EWErica Weir

Is the pricing the same for that as a traditional ride on the bus or paratransit? It's the same fare as the bus fare. Okay, so it's not like a true ride share fare then?

1:45:19•DSDon Schwab

Good. Thank you. Ben, would you like to ask a couple questions?

1:45:23 – 1:45:46•BZBen Zarlingo

I'll start with a couple. And I guess, well, one thing I would say is it sounds like there's going to be a, there has to be some sort of inherent limit to that because the actual cost to provide such an Uber-like service is probably similar to what it costs Uber to do that, which is far above a dollar or two or 250 or something like that. And I guess that's kind of an inherent limit of what we can do that way or with paratransit as I understand it.

1:46:30 – 1:46:42•BZBen Zarlingo

What would, since we're talking about 30-minute or longer intervals between buses in some cases, what would stop everybody in that zone then from calling for a 15-minute microtransit trip?

1:47:42 – 1:48:03•BZBen Zarlingo

A couple of other questions about the diversion, but thank you for that. uh director godwin had uh talked about uh the bus service as a public good which i think is an important thing to keep in mind because i know the bulk of the um costs for these systems actually this is a question more forever transit but uh what portion of the budget is funded by this the sales taxes

1:48:35 – 1:49:08•BZBen Zarlingo

Rick, I had asked you this question before. I'm interested partly because I'm interested in the situation where that might be significantly different in one agency for another in terms of the practicality of a merger. And one other question for now, then I'll defer my other ones probably until next week. But the representation, it currently would be one board member on a board of 10, if I understand it correctly. What's the process for the future of that to see that that representation continues proportional?

1:51:23•BZBen Zarlingo

All right. Thank you. Those are governance questions. I wanted to make sure I understood those.

1:51:29 – 1:52:02•DSDon Schwab

I'll go and then we'll, how about if I go and then we'll do public comment and we'll do another round robin. Okay, how's that? So kind of some big picture questions for you. Beginning with the employee protections. My understanding is that if you integrate the bargaining units, they have certain rights to determine what that some of that integration is, I guess, from a management point of view. Would you be in favor of a full integration of seniority?

1:52:06•DSDon Schwab

Would you obviously you don't have that complete power, which you from your point of view, is that would you support that?

1:52:15•DSDon Schwab

Yeah, I know, knowledge that I'm asking what management team.

1:53:39 – 1:54:15•DSDon Schwab

Okay, thank you. Thank you for allowing me to put you on the spot there. You can put me on the spot too. This is kind of a big picture from your point of view. We obviously have two services that have similar activities, the DART program and the paratransit. Three or four years from now, we're going to have some sort of system similar to it. What do you see? Do you see community transit leaning towards maybe the program that Paratransit is providing or towards what DART and continue what DART's doing? What's your vision for that?

1:55:43 – 1:56:02•DSDon Schwab

All right. Thank you for that. I'll have some two easier ones and then we'll go to public comment. I know that the plan here is to do 50% more transit by 2031. When do you, when do you, you could take a guess if you wanted, but when do you predict the frequency of routes just within the city limits of average, it would increase?

1:57:20 – 1:57:41•DSDon Schwab

And then the last question I have. One of the challenges I hear a lot is trying to get to the east side of King County from Everett. And when do you predict that that will get easier? Is that the east side of King County? When is that going to be simpler or easier?

1:59:11 – 1:59:27•DSDon Schwab

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for letting me put you on the spot. All right. Thank you. So at this time, we'll open it up. I think we'll do public comment, but I think it'd be best if we'd take a five minute break. So I have 830, 829. So why don't we do start at 835. Thanks. Thanks.

2:06:43 – 2:06:56•DSDon Schwab

All right. Thanks. Thanks, everyone for the quick break. And certainly had a lot to say out there in the audience. It got pretty, pretty ruckus out there. Alright, so we'll begin with public comment. Oh, Angie.

2:14:06•DSDon Schwab

That's my question. If you could finish up, thank you. And I just remind speakers that you're addressing the council and not anyone in the audience. Thank you.

2:21:07•DSDon Schwab

It will close us for sure. Thank you very much.

2:25:53 – 2:26:04•DSDon Schwab

OK. Thank you for all the comments. And we'll go back to council questions. And I'd like to start off with Judy Tuohy. Council Member Judy Tuohy.

2:26:04 – 2:26:39•JTJudy Tuohy

Thank you. So I have a question. I think it's for both our staff and CTs also. I know you've been working a lot on the employees. And you know they're very important to us. And they're very passionate about this. I assume you probably haven't finished everything up, but there must be something that planning that you're doing for the transition, potential transition of employees to move into the new position with CT if that were to happen. And just curious what that looks like.

2:30:01 – 2:30:30•JTJudy Tuohy

Yeah, I would think you would really need to retain as many as possible so that our service level continues right after that transition. But I still think there's some beyond the contracts. There are things that our employees are going to need if this does happen to help guide them through the process because I'm sure, as you can tell, they're very emotional and ways to help them handle

2:30:58 – 2:31:45•CFCassie Franklin

Rick and I were talking earlier today, and he has articulated quite successfully often the depth of compassion and understanding and empathy he has for the team that is facing a significant change. and that community transit's approach is really to demonstrate that compassion and understanding as they welcome Everett Transit team members to their team. And Andy and Bob have also been working with our union leadership and team members to see what else we can do to support them through the transition, and we continue to negotiate that.

2:33:14•DSDon Schwab

Thank you. Any other questions? No. Okay. How about from other... We're going to do a round. Council Member Robano, do you have anything?

2:33:24 – 2:34:01•LBLuis Burbano

Rick... Going back to a little bit of that conversation about having to do multiple transfers to reach to certain locations. I live in District 4, which is South Everett, and to get to the light rail station, to the Lingwood light rail station, I need to take two buses or I need to take an Uber or, you know, there is no direct connection to the to the light rail. So if the marriage is approved, how long before the folks in District 4 can have a direct connection to the Lingwood light rail station?

2:35:17•DSDon Schwab

All right. Thank you. Councilor Weir. No, we're going around Rob on your first.

2:35:25 – 2:35:49•EWErica Weir

I just wanted to ask questions responding to a couple of the residents that spoke up here. One I see has left, but I believe I know the answer to this because it was something I had asked also as to why the tax increase would have to go into effect upon the merger or the consolidation as opposed to when the services actually changed and Can you?

2:37:35 – 2:37:51•EWErica Weir

Thank you. Okay. That's great. Yeah, I know that it's something that we had talked about. And I was. wanting to make sure I remembered correctly on that. The other was referring to Broadway. And so it seems these are

2:37:52 – 2:38:38•CFCassie Franklin

two different project comp you know so one this consolidation is not going to impact any kind of um road access or parking yeah and no the merger doesn't do that and so i think the resident business owners is referencing another project that is related to ct but i will uh have my team follow up with uh gordon and understand the impacts and also see what solutions we can potentially work through around that. I know there's always parking concerns and with any change, there's always parking concerns. So I want to keep that separate from this because it really isn't about the murder. It's about a

2:38:38 – 2:39:02•EWErica Weir

So yeah, I just, I'll follow up with the court brought it up too, because I had attended a couple of those gold line converse, you know, info sessions and it, it looked like. having one system running down Broadway is actually beneficial in that respect because it takes fewer lanes than having dedicated for one and also accommodating the other system. So there could be benefits.

2:39:11•DSDon Schwab

Okay, thank you. Council Member Zerlingo.

2:39:14 – 2:39:32•BZBen Zarlingo

Well, it just brings up one clarification. I want to see if I understand this correctly. The whole idea of the center running buses is to have a dedicated bus lane, which gives buses some of the things, the benefits you get with light rail, which is it isn't competing with the traffic and the timing is predictable. So that's the reason to make such a big change.

2:39:37 – 2:46:08•DSDon Schwab

okay seeing okay good we're good for thank you appreciate the presentation thank you council's good for tonight so and thank you for all that spoken tonight we appreciate it we're going to move into an executive session um it's um it's i i have 909 so we'll um We're going to be excused for executive session, and then we're going to return at 9.16 with a potential action to follow. Okay, we've returned from executive session, and I will turn the mic over to our city attorney, Ramsey Ramerman.

2:46:24•DSDon Schwab

Motion seconded. Clerk, please take the roll.