City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. I now call the July 14th, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. We'll start to take a moment to take a roll call of the council members by position number. Please stay here when the city clerk calls your name.

Thank you. First up on our agenda tonight is meeting agenda approval. And we're going to start with a city manager review of the agenda.

Thank you, City Manager. Next up is council approval of agenda. Are there any changes to tonight's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move on to public engagement opportunities. Council in the community. You can join some of your city council members tomorrow for our next Council in the Community event. Stop by to chat with us, ask questions, share feedback, and learn more about city services and priorities. That's Wednesday, July 15th, tomorrow, 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. at Centennial Park in the North End. Outstanding Artist Award nominations. Know an individual or organization that has made a meaningful im

I was going to say Quan, it's your opportunity. All right, we have the city manager report and presentations up next. City manager.

Thank you. Kyle, do you know when the application period closes for the pro-con committees?

Thanks. I just want to say thank you, Kyle. You worked really, really hard on this, and I know it wasn't easy. And there was no bare knuckle brawling, but it was here and there. So I appreciate all the work you did. Thank you.

All right, I think we're good on questions.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. couldn't tell you why this was my first question but for the proposed fee or fine to be added to the fee schedule is it going to be scalable in a way whether that's the amount of the overage or like a percentage of their typical bill or some kind of it's not one-size-fits-all so it might fit the situation as of now that is not what we are planning to do due to different

Thanks, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I have been bothering Kyle about what are we doing about water supply stuff since I started Council, so this is really good to hear and good to see all the work that's been put into the update of the plan here. Two things jumped out to me. One was If notifications come through the mail, it could be up to maybe three or five business days before a customer might know that they're out of compliance. And those three to five business days could put them in significant financial distress more so than they might need to be. And I'm thinking because

Thank you, Mason. Thank you, Mayor. I was thinking I had an interesting or a stupid question. Can we collect rainwater legally and store and use it for our gardens or whatnot? I was looking online. It looks like King County has a program called Rainwise Program. Can you tell me a little bit more about it? How many residents are using a bottle? Can we use it regularly?

Do we know, are we eligible as Bothell residents for that program?

I think if we can, I think we should incorporate and educate our residents. I think I might be the first one to see if I can. I know we have solar panels to store the sunlight. Why not the rainwater? Thank you.

Sort of building on what Council Member Aguilera said, I know that there's been really great rain barrel workshops for the collection of rainwater. Is there maybe the thought of having some more of those to kind of use it as a way to educate people on the drought situation and all the other stuff that we're doing? Not doing, but experiencing and then responding to.

I just wanted to say in public, Emily, thank you and your team because I was super excited that reusable plates and glasses were at the 4th of July parade and that it made me really happy when I saw it and I wasn't expecting it. So thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work you're doing with water restriction. I echo the comments of my colleagues and I think we're good.

There is one more item on the city manager report in the packet.

All right. Next up is council reports and conversations. Council members. Council member Anguillery.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I think during the retreat, Council Member Rami Al-Kabra mentioned that we wanted to start a youth committee. I would like to know if we have any status and next steps on the youth committee. I just wanted to know where we are at forming the youth committee.

That's great. One of the reasons I was mentioning, because of the summer, a lot of families are reaching out, hey, does the city of Bothell have any paid internships or internships, or how can we contribute to the city? So that is one of the reasons I was trying to bring it up, if there is any way, even along with the internships, I don't know, do we have any paid internships that we do during the summer?

Very few. Okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. So that's the reason I'm just wondering, people are reaching out, oh, how can my kids contribute to the city's work? So I wasn't sure. I thought the idea that you had, I mean, I thought that's great to see if you want to do anything about it. That's all.

Actually, it's council conversations. Right.

So I was going to just suggest to Council Member Angulary that there are a few youth seats on boards and commissions, and you could point people to the boards and commissions webpage. Those openings aren't generally until the spring. So not necessarily like in preparation for the new school year, but it is something that we can inform folks about and keep them, you know, looking forward to those opportunities that can come up.

Great, thank you. That's a good one. And I think I have a different question for the city manager and the staff. Last time when we were discussing on the budget, I think yesterday you also mentioned, Kyle, that I think August will be in the races, so I think we talked about are there ways we can save the money from the city budget. I know we have a little bit of a tough time going forward while our Our budget is, I think, when it comes to the revenue, especially from the sales tax, I think we are seeing a little uphill battle. So just wondering, I know we have August we are not meeting, and ca

I went to Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Council last week. They're in the process of doing their own comprehensive plan, and while they are focusing most of their outreach efforts to cities through Sound Cities Association, of which we are not a member, they are doing redundant feedback through MSWAC as well, the committee that I'm sitting on, so we should be Hopefully well represented. If you have questions about it, let me know. Also, they were advertising some tours that are coming up this summer. I already went on a tour of the dump. It was really cool. Actually, there's like... eagles ev

I'll also share about a letter that staff received from NUSA not too long ago about the risks and dangers of kratom, which is a herbal supplement used that has been linked to addiction. And so there is an effort by the resilient communities committee at NUSA to raise awareness of that to North King County cities. I believe that came through collaboration with other coalitions in Snohomish County, which is how that came to NUSA's attention. And so that may be something that comes to council at some point or that staff might update us on. And maybe Councilmember Dodd knows more.

I did pass the letter on to the city manager's office. I do think given our positioning, how we're surrounded by unincorporated areas, that the hope is that we can push for state law, too, as we craft our legislative agenda soon. But I'm staring at Kyle and Claire saying, please correct me if I'm misremembering.

All right, we'll move on to projected agenda discussion. You faked me out. All right, and if there's nothing, I would love to accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Council Member Dodd?

I move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd and a second from Council Member Alderks to approve the consent agenda. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thank you very much. We will move on to our first ordinance of the day. It's Agenda Bill 26129. It's Electric Vehicle Charging Policy. City Manager? Yes.

Hello, thank you. This is a lovely presentation. I learned a lot about EV charging and I don't have an EV car. I'm just curious, how many people in Bothell know that this is a service that we provide?

And then I know we're talking about cost recovery and the pricing, and that's fine, but are we expecting to really make money on this?

I'll just say I'm on those apps. I have an EV. Everybody in Bothell knows that we have EV chargers here. You can sort by free on those apps, and I promise everybody knows, yes. Okay.

It's very public, very free information. Yeah. I am an EV user and also a user of the chargers. So I am glad to see this coming to us. One of the questions that I had from... from your presentation is, did you consider setting a time limit on how long charging could be happening in a day? For example, my employer, also a local municipality, has a four-hour limit. And so if folks come in, you know, if employees are charging, they do need to move their car after four hours. And I'm wondering if that is something that you had considered for these chargers as well.

Yeah, I was seeing in the presentation that the average charging is three hours and 37 minutes with about an hour of idle, which pushes it over the four. And so I'm wondering if maybe just putting a limit on it might cover that. like exactly what we're already seeing. There may be people who are there for longer and charging, you know, I've seen, you know, charging overnight and things as well. But that does also, because there's only six chargers available to the public and employees, that might help with turnover and reduce the fees that can be associated with being there and idle, you know,

Maybe. And I, and I realized like, this is not a study session. And so you are not necessarily bringing it to us for, you know, for like shaping it. And, um, and so really my question is more of like, did you consider, um, not to say that like this shouldn't pass or that this should be edited. Um, but like there, that might be something to look at. Like I. in a, in a way is this sort of considered like a pilot, like you're trying, trying to policy and like be able to make changes over time. Um, and so if that's the case, then that might be something to consider in the future. Um, we also don't

Got it. Okay. That makes sense because it's all managed through the app. Um, and then the other thing that, um, I, um, as, as an employee of a, of an employee, my employer doesn't charge for the first four hours of charging, um, that I'm wondering if. there is a kind of a pathway forward for maybe, like right now, employees would be paying for their charging through the app, but might that change in the future where employees might not be paying for charging?

Thank you. I'm glad that those conversations are happening and being considered, which leads me to my last question. I will try to keep it to be my last. When we're just talking about the eight charging ports that are here at City Hall, but as we have sought feedback from the community around where to place other charging ports, is it being considered that other off-site, not City Hall, other Bothell buildings will also get charging ports? That's, I see nodding.

Great. Thank you. I'm glad that you've put so much thought and effort into this and brought this forward to us.

Thanks. Just a quick question. It's a New Yorker in me. So there's always somebody that's going to try to get over. So let's just say I, thank you for laughing. It's like I know Mason is charging and he's like, yo, I'm done, come over. So I drive my car over and then I'm there. And we just kind of repeat the cycle. I don't know if that's actually a use case, but how do you factor abuse in our charging policy?

Sure. And people here are much more honest than they are in my hometown. So thank you.

I was just thinking, that doesn't sound like abuse. That sounds like good planning.

Great presentation. A couple of questions. First, a quick question. So 34 cents per kilowatt, what is the standard average rate that usually other private organizations charge? Do we know?

Okay, and then as per, I think we have a climate action plan and we have a map. How many are we expanding from city of Bothell? How many stations? Do we have enough grants to expand? What is the expansion plan? How many are we adding as per CAP or whatever? Okay.

Is it only for our city, not for the residents?

Yeah, that's what I meant to we have a lot of parks and everything. How about we expand it? Great. Thank you

Thank you. Thanks for the policy. I think it's pretty important, especially looking at the cost that we are incurring. I support it as is. I do want to add, I think if we get to where we are subsidizing the cost of operating a vehicle for an employee's personal use, I'm not sold on someone bought an electric car so now we help pay for their commute because there will be employees that don't have electric cars. It's not not a trigger of like are they driving the car for work or is there some reason where that becomes the city's job I'm also cautious about charging spots at parks we don't have a

Thank you. This is irrelevant and I'm sorry. But I'm just remembering all of the time I spent at parks with my kids and how much charging we could have been doing during that time. And then the next thing that came into my mind was imagine if we could just like bottle kids energy and use that to charge the cars.

I think about the laughter from Monsters, Inc. That would have been very convenient. But I also think about being a disabled person where I don't always want to use a placard, right? But sometimes I might want to park close. And then that's electric charging at a lot of places now. And so thinking about all my, well, now I have no small children. But if you run around with small children, they have a lot of accessories. And I just don't want to use up too much of a limited resource for that.

Absolutely. Yeah. I hear your concern and also think that there might be plenty of parents who are happy to charge their car while their kids are releasing their energy too.

I move to approve resolution adopting the EV charging policy and establishing fees for use at city-owned EV charging stations with an effective date of September 1st, 2026. Second. Council Member Curd.

I didn't get a chance to speak, but we now have a motion on the table and a second. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? You would. I would. Council Member Kirkwood, would you mind withdrawing this motion so I can speak and then make the motion? Sure. Okay, thank you. I have a couple of things that I've been waiting to say. Rather than exempting fleet vehicles from EIDL fees, did we look at, because obviously they stay overnight, but sometimes the public and staff also stays overnight. Ask me how I know. And, you know, if your car finishes charging at 4 a.m., like, are you going to get h

Okay. Like it just seemed like if somebody's charging overnight and it like, I don't want to charge them 20 bucks cause they didn't get up at four in the morning to get their car. Like, I don't know if, and I know we have city hall hours, like maybe we could exempt the hours that the city hall parking garages closed from those idle fees. Um, as we go further in this. And question, I saw that the, at one point in the slide, we used 25 cents per kilowatt hours, our cost for electricity. I saw in the packet that we're planning on like future increases. But don't we pay like a whole lot less than

I mean the cost per kilowatt hour. Is 25 cents is what we pay?

Residential customers get a deal. The Oh, I just wanted to say, Councilmember Dodd, you mentioned not subsidizing employees for their private driving. And I think that Director Linhart mentioned that when she talked about addressing it in the climate action plan, because the goal there isn't necessarily like equitable treatment of employees. It's how to incentivize behavior that is beneficial to the climate. So I'm looking forward to that work happening too. And if somebody gets free fuel by driving an EV if they work here, then that is an incentive for them to drive an EV, which is good for c

And it works. Totally. I will tell you it works.

I think that's all I got. Council Member Curd.

Second. I have a motion from Council Member Curd and a second from the Deputy Mayor. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thank you, and thank you guys. All right, next up we have the PROS plan, agenda bill 26-130. Say what? Oh, city manager.

Thank you. Thanks for being here tonight, Nick, and for being all the people on your slide. I really appreciate the work that you've done, that your team has done, that the Parks and Rec Board has done on this. I think it is probably not very fun to get excited about all these future parks every seven years and rebuild a plan for what's possible, and then hope and hope and hope and you know sometimes there's global pandemics and things which is what really affected the last one that i got to participate in um but i just want to call out that that sort of like constant optimism is really apprec

I totally believe it. Thanks for all the work you do.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thanks, Nick. I know you have worked really hard, you and your team, and I just love your enthusiasm. And you have taught me a lot in my first few months here. And again, I just love what you do. So keep on.

Thank you, Nick. And both residents love it. So whatever we have been doing. So thank you very much for everything that you are doing. And the team.

Thank you. I'm excited that we have come to the end of this process and that now we can take all of these big ideas and start making those efforts become a reality. I was really hoping to hear just how many community members participated in the development of this plan, and 3,000 is an excellent number. That's very exciting. And so I really do appreciate that you started out by thanking the community because it really was a group effort and many, many voices were involved. And it speaks to the community engagement efforts that your team does and also the enthusiasm of our community. Our parks

I want to echo everything that my colleagues said. I don't think I had much to say for the last time. I just want to say this time, it makes me really happy to know that your staff has the space to have personal things come up and not be here tonight on a night when you wanted them here and they wanted them here. That makes me feel really good about the organization that you run over there. And we see that in the great work that comes out of everything that you guys do. So we appreciate you and thank you for that. And with that, Council Member Dodd?

I'm ready to make a motion if you're ready to have a motion. Okay. I move the recommended action. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd and a second from the Deputy Mayor to approve a resolution adopting the 2026 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan, the BROS plan. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thanks, Nick. All right. Next up on our agenda is appointments to the Landmark Preservation Board and the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. City Manager.

I will just echo the thanks and the good news is they didn't even have to interview to get on, but the bad news is we didn't get to meet them and interview them. So I hope they, I hope if you're watching this, feel welcome. Congratulations. We appreciate you. And I think we're ready for a vote. If somebody wants to make a motion, Deputy Mayor.

I motion to approve the appointments of, do I need to read the whole thing? Okay. Of Mark French, position number two, and Andrew Schell, position number six, to the Landmark Preservation Board, and Mark Lee, position number six, to the Lodging Tax Advisory Board.

I have a motion from Deputy Mayor Alderix and a second from Council Member Dodd. Would anybody, or to move the recommended action, would anybody like to speak to the motion? City Clerk?

All right. With that, it is 7-21. We are going to take a quick break before our study session tonight. We will come back at 7-35. All right, it is 7.35. Welcome back. It is time for the study session for the downtown sub area update. City Manager.

I was really excited to see how much market rate housing we've gotten and see how that market rate housing has attracted folks with lower incomes that can't afford to live in the rest of Bothell, but they can afford to live here. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. And it's cool to see it happening. And I think we should keep our foot on the gas so that we can make room for folks that can't afford to live in the rest of Bothell. So big picture, I would like to see this plan be really aggressive in terms of getting more housing built through redevelopment. I'll pause for you all to be s

I had a quick question, Mason. So in your mind, what does this town square look like and how is it different from Bothell Landing? I know what a town square is and I'm thinking about the Redmond Town Center. And when that came online in the early 2000s, I was a Redmond resident. And that just brought folks to that area. But I'm just thinking, kind of in your mind, what would that be? Are we trying to just bring folks, obviously downtown, but are we trying to do events or are we trying to organically create...

A physical space where people can gather, that is designed where people can linger, where people can show up with their friends and family. They can show up with a lunch and hang out. And it's a pleasant place to hang out where we can have events and it's set up for that. And there's electricity plug-ins and there's a place for a stage and there's ingress and egress. And all of it's been planned around both the casual day-to-day as well as the events that we would like to see more of. So a space that's really designed for being present at, for arriving at.

Got it. Which I think is something that would be cool and that we would do. It just goes back to where it almost feels like we're trying to create this where in some ways it could be organic. I don't know what the right answer is, but... I would love to have these cool spaces, but I feel like we're in a place where we're trying to create the cool and we're trying to make fetch happen. I think if we create the infrastructure, maybe it happens, but I think it's the people have to lead and drive. Just a thought.

A hundred percent, but the people also need a place to go. The people can't lead and create a third space out of a highway. Like there needs to be a physical space that people can do that. And because I'm not just a mayor, I'm a cool mayor. Like I want to, hey, she did it first. We're gonna go.

I think if you call yourself cool, you automatically disqualify yourself. Point of information.

He's dead, mayor. We're referencing a movie.

We are better than the United States Congress right now.

Seriously. And so, yeah, and, you know, when we look at the growth projections and we look at, I don't know, we've added thousands of new housing units, and each one of those housing units probably averages More than one people more than one person and we're gonna have thousands more people in 20 years living down here living within a short walk of down here and I think you're right and that like We can't create a public space without the people without the vibrancy like that absolutely has to be here but that's what we're planning for and if we're planning for the people like we should plan f

Totally agree. Totally agree. And I think it goes back to your statement about retail. And that was on the walking tour. That was one of my big things. It's like, we need more retail because there's no reason for me to come here because there's nothing that I'm attracted to. I mean, I love the pop-up shops, but that's not what I'm coming for. I'm coming for somewhat of that Woodinville retail.

Right? And we have an opportunity, but are people making money with the retail that's there, and is that why some of the builders are just like, eh, I don't know if I really want to have retail on the ground floor. I agree. I think it should be there. As a New Yorker, that's what I would expect. I want that bodega. I want that experience. And that's still a new experience here for a West Coaster, so that's something they have to get used to. But I just come back to the bottom line. Are people actually making any money in downtown? And do we know that, and can we find that out?

I mean, what I would say is that whenever there's a restaurant that doesn't make it, another restaurant goes in. And there's clearly businesses that are sticking around a while, and they're making enough to keep it going. And I don't think we have access to their books. But again, every new apartment building that goes in is going to have 300, 400 new people in it. Then those people are going to want to walk downstairs and go to dinner. I don't get in my car to drive places if I don't have to. And if they can walk across the street and go to whatever business that is, I think we should give pe

Agreed. And I think we need to open up and have the conversation of small business is great. That's where we would hopefully index. But I think we're going to have to open it up to bigger box. You know, a Starbucks, dare I say it, you know, daily grinds don't come after me. But having something like that, that's another magnet for people. Right. In some way, I don't.

I think we should focus on creating the retail space for places, and whoever wants to fill it's going to fill it. It's not really our job on land that we don't own to say, here's who you need to lease to. It's more just like, we want a certain amount of retail in these buildings that are going up.

Sure, understood, but I think we could help make it friendly for folks. But I interrupted your flow, had those questions.

That's okay. We've talked about, like, study sessions being more engaging, and, like, I'm chatty, and I'm more than happy to have a conversation, and I like you, so, like, this works just fine. There you go. I don't consider it an interruption. It's conversation. The... I... The other thing I've brought up in the past is all the different downtown zones we have, and I don't need to probably tell you about this, but the new developments going in on the corner of Main Street, that lot is on two different downtown zones for one lot, and that's just wild to me. So I would like to, as much as possi

Similarly to the last thing the mayor said, the cool mayor, I'm sorry, is I would love to see a minimum density downtown. And broadly, I think we have too many zones. I caught the note that, I'm gonna probably get the terminology wrong, but I think the downtown transition zone now has a lower height limit than lower Maywood. I understand the logic of how that happened, but that's very silly. And then I did wanna, dig at a few things to understand them. So, Cameron, you mentioned more processes and procedures for public art. So I know we have the 1% on public buildings. I guess, because I don't

So it's not just like a bunch of people shopping at the store that's inside the building? Exactly. Okay. That could be kind of fun, but I also think it would be weird. That makes sense. And then the other thing is the stark contrast between Main Street and nearby. I mean, the further our current time gets from when Main Street was built, I think that'll keep going. But what was the specific sort of like harm that was noticed with that?

I'd probably need examples to buy in on more facade articulation. I think pedestrian cut-throughs make a lot of sense. I don't love big, giant buildings, but I also want a lot of housing. I think it's really great that we see that this part of the city is more accessible to a broader range of households. That's really cool. Um, which the cool mayor also already said, so I'm going to try not to repeat it.

Look, I only know so many quotes from mean girls.

I'm just going to say cool mayor every time forever. Now it's totally fine. Um, and then, yeah, I, I would be personally more excited to, to make sure the minimum density makes sense. I'm not given that we require that, um, when you put a building in you, have you make upgrades to utilities to make sure it happens safely. I'm not worried about maximum density so much. So I wouldn't want to limit if we can get especially affordable housing. So creativity there would be great. I think. Yeah, I think this is all really exciting. Do we set like comprehensive planning? We have a statute from the st

I would love to hear when you come back to us with more, just more options. I think public open space is great. I think a lot of the ways we see it, it's not serving a great public need. The cool mayor made a point on our walking tour. Sorry. Every time I made a walking point or a talking point on our walking tour, like how many apartments could fit in this open space, which is interesting. Like in one or two here, isn't a big thing, but, do we lose anything requiring it, and could we require something different or more useful instead? So just some very easy questions to address. Thank you.

I just had one quick thing. I am so sorry I invoked mean girls there. I am not even a millennial. I'm very proud of you as a millennial. Oh, God, no.

I'm not a millennial either. I'm just a dad, so cringe is my lifeblood right now.

I'll just jump in and say that I've been looking forward to this conversation since around the time that I moved here when the last downtown plan was new. I remember kind of looking at what I knew that lots of changes were occurring, um, and was like, was curious about, okay, so where is this all headed? Like, what are we trying to accomplish here with the, with all of these, you know, Mount Bothell and all that. Um, and, and I remember there's a couple of features that like didn't get accomplished from the 2009 plan, specifically the gateway at the crossroads of 522 and 527. because soil reme

I just want to jump in and co-sign everything that the deputy mayor just said, because that was all really fantastic, especially like the smaller, more granular retail requirement. And like, there's kind of a theme with like the height tapering downtown, um, the facade modulation that, um, they just mentioned, um, can we get rid of upper story setbacks? And like, there's all these vestiges of our code that like apologize for building more housing that prevent us from building more housing. And can like, we just go through our code and look at those things and make them go away because we celeb

And also I would love to know our options for encouraging like property managers to lease commercial space, living by what I still call the new Safeway, right at the county line. It's only 10 years old. But anyway, it's not so bad now, but there's always been a lot of vacancy there. And I've heard a lot of reasons why. I would love to understand if there's some way we can put code in that is like, it's vacant and you could be leasing it it's worth your while to lease it because when it's vacant some bad thing happens I don't want to say random ideas because I don't know if they're legal but I

I'm putting on a slightly contrarian hat, which is something I don't readily like to do. I believe in vertical development. I am a New Yorker. That is where I come from. Things go up. They don't go out. But just on the walking tour, we talked about how, you know, the look and feel of downtown is changing. And, you know, folks have to kind of get used to it because, you know, we're moving forward in the 21st century. But how do we balance, and I'm not an architect, don't understand how that works, but I appreciate the beauty. How do we balance that? Like keeping it, you know, some of that small

I think the ground floor retail can help because it's not just a big building you didn't ask for. It's a big building you didn't ask for with things you want to do on the bottom of it. For you, a Starbucks, as you mentioned. Not for me, just for you. Or whatever it is. I think that That's part of it. I think it's hard to feel connected to a space. You don't go in, maybe you don't know anybody who lives there, and there's no reason for you to be there, right? But that's one thing. I think if we refined the way that we require a public open space, if we continue to do that, if it adds a space th

True. And I mean, I've been a resident of the greater east side since 1995. Windows 95, that's why I moved here, for Microsoft. And it has changed, and I didn't have a car for a very, very long time. So it's gone from what I would call, you know, ex-burbs, suburbs, to where we are now. The fact that downtown Redmond has an elevated light rail, which makes it look like a mini Chicago, blows my mind. Because I never thought I would see that, and I don't even recognize downtown Redmond anymore. And I lived there for years, for years. And I think... And as the population ages, the older Gen Xers l

It was a stretch, but I'm already there tonight.

I, for one, love your contrarianness because I think it's We're having a better conversation because of it. We're getting to explain some of the things that we think about this. And I know that there will be people that watch this that hear themselves in what you say. So I don't think you're being contrarian as much as I think you're just helping drive a little bit different discussion than we normally have during this. And I really like it. So don't apologize for it. To your question, though, what are we doing for those folks that really liked it here 30 years ago and they see it changing a l

I agree. People do like the chairs out. Reddit was confused, a new person, but everybody's like, bro, are you new here? This is what we do. This is what we do. And I love that. And I think it is cute and kitschy and slightly corny, but you know what? That's the stuff that stays. That's what people stick to. People love that pancake breakfast. Reddit was just like, that hit. That hit. And that's the stuff that we should be known for. And I think that's the stuff that's important.

over an eight-story building. Great inputs from fellow council members. Great conversations too. So I'll try to just take maybe five minutes. Is it too much? Okay, we'll take one minute, but we'll talk 10 minutes. So I will start with a conversation that I had with a senior citizen. She's a multi-generational resident. She came to me while we were talking about DEI. Prasad, do you think city of Botel have a diversity visible in our Botel downtown? She was asking me, she doesn't feel, I mean, I started thinking that struck me quite a bit. I started thinking, OK, of course, I've been only living

That's right. He doesn't make the rules. I think what you said was great. It just reminds me of New York, where you would see these different things, where the MTA might do something, or the city might do something, where you would see dragons, or you would see certain emblems or something, which is the tapestry of these cultures. And I'll be really honest. I don't know if you know this. I am a black woman living in Bothell. There are not a lot of us. I will honestly stop my car. You might see a red car. and I will be black people in Bothell to my daughter and I will point. And she's like, yes

Thank you for saying that, because I think there's not always an environment where you might be comfortable saying that. Well, you probably are. I think it's a matter of visibly being diverse, but also ensuring that the way that we grow includes a lot of people. I don't mean to harp on the fact that downtown has a lower than city average population. median income but the more we can develop and add spaces that work for more kinds of people whether they're fully accessible units right so that there's more opportunities for people who use mobility aids to rent spaces right like apartments becaus

No, I think our role here is plug and play. We help with the infrastructure and let other people who are, I quote, quote unquote, are the professionals or the ones that know how to do it, let them do it. And we're just here to support. And I think that's the flag that we fly is that we're here to catch you and hold you because you are a part of the community. So we're here to support you.

The other thing that I would point out is the second year of Summer Nights in Bothell, we outsourced some of our community events to folks from different cultures that would run their events like right on Main Street on our public street in our pedestrianized areas. And that was amazing. And we don't have that anymore. And like, I think that's a big loss and I would love to find a way to get that back.

I think the town square conversation is, is part of that. Um, because when we, you know, we, we heard this from, from parks and as we've been, you know, kind of going around about, uh, what, you know, what makes an effective downtown event and it was the missing infrastructure from main street, like bathrooms and water hookups and that kind of stuff. Um, a town square could, could be built with the end goal in mind of hosting events and having the space that works for that. And I absolutely, like, you know, I recall a Diwali event on Main Street that was really lovely. Having Chai Holi at the

I like a lot of what's been said already. A couple things that when I was reviewing haven't come up yet. The strategies and actions go hard at downtown Transition zones, which is rightly so they don't need to exist but one of the zones downtown that has been underperforming my expectations since 2009 is the 522 zone I think that the types of development that have been coming through have been sort of hampered by some of the development regulations, and I realize that it's early because development regulations will come afterwards, but as long as we're rethinking which zoning categories are nec

Dave Kuntz, redevelopment of vacant parcels in our downtown sub area wouldn't be subject to these. Dave Kuntz, architectural suggestion heavy suggestions, but that could be a way or expanding that area could be a way. to get at some of the ideas that have been kind of thrown around. So it's worth a look. And then the final thing, I am happy to hear about the sort of transportation nexus with the downtown plan and encouraging better connections to bus stops and for walkability. That's so important and kind of a defining character of downtown is that it is walkable one of the only areas in our t

I'm going to jump in and add on to that because I love that. And the other thing that I would love to see is shelter at a bus stop. You know, buses don't always come on time. You generally like to give yourself a few minutes of like wait time just so you've got some buffer and you don't miss the bus. And having to stand in the rain, even if you've got an umbrella, really sucks. So like if there was lighting and some sort of structure where people could at least be out of the rain and maybe put a bench under there while we're at it, especially in the areas where we are going to be building a lo

I think a lot of that is coming with stride improvements to because most of our bus stops downtown will be frequent. So that'll be helpful that some transit and community transit take care of that. But where there's access improvements for people walking to their house from or their home. Totally. Yeah.

But there's still a bunch of bus stops around here that serve Metro and only Metro routes. And those are going to continue and people take them. A lot of people take them.

So if we, if we have these areas where we are trying to build a lot more housing, like, like, I mean, I'm just trying to imagine if somebody was on their commute to work in a car and we made them stop and get out and stand in the rain for a little while, how they would react to that. And I don't think we should have different standards for people that take different types of means to get to work. A couple other things that have come up is people have said really good ideas. I really like also what Council Member Kurtz said about looking at the 522 corridor. I would like to take a look at Beard

I agree with you. Growing up in New York, nothing stays forever. Everything changes. There was always this thing that used to be there, like the bars and restaurants that I used to go to in the 80s, 90s, and the early 2000s. They're gone, right? Because things change. And it's okay, and it's all right for cities to be living... breathing entities because they are. Because new people come, other people go, people live, people die. So I think just because we're not like a major city, we're a small suburb or a mid-sized suburb, I should say, things can change. Things can grow because we have diff

Just to add to the bus shelter thing, and I've brought this up, like I've annoyed Steve over there quite a bit with this, I think. But buses... buses was not the word I was going to say, benches. So, and I don't just mean at bus shelters. I think accessibility has kind of good for a lot of people framework, but like I'm one of those lucky people where my disability, I can walk, but if I have to stop, sometimes I have to sit or I will sit wherever I am. And so having benches for people to take breaks adds the accessibility of a walkable area for people who can't, whether it's walk at long stret

I do want to add one thought that came up in the conversation around 522 improvements. I believe that this is like this happened a long time ago, but I'd love to see an opportunity for restaurants to exist along the waterfront so that people could, you know, be sitting on a deck overlooking the river. And I don't know what kind of like development regulations need to change to make that happen or what kind of like rules need to be in place so that we're protecting the waterway and make that possible. But I think that there's got to be a future, like a way to make that possible so that, so that

And so I think that's something that we can definitely look to strengthen as part of the plane Can our DA committee I think we have almost 15 members in the DA committee Can they also assist what they can research other cities doing? I just don't know. I mean, I'm just say thinking can they assist anything and if possible.

I was going to ask a similar question. I know they're not a commission, but would it be possible to for the DEI advisory board to see this presentation and be able to weigh in kind of like the planning commission gets a chance to do. I think there would be some really valuable insights that we might get from that crew.

This has been a really good study session. I've really enjoyed the conversation we've had. I've really enjoyed the back and forth. Thank you all. And I think with that, we're adjourned.