City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, we'll have an update on the Northeast 85th Street Station Area Branding and Marketing Project. Second, we will have an update on the Urban Forest Management Plan. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7.30. City Manager. Okay.

Thank you. Council? This is a first. This is very unusual. All right, somebody go first. Why don't you tell us a little, so you're gonna come back to us with three names. We have a team that's working on those three names. Walk us a little bit through how that process is gonna work.

Thank you, that was very helpful. Because I was wondering if you would do some graphic design around potential names, how it would look on materials. So that's helpful. We finally have questions. Deputy Mayor.

I think, Madam Mayor, I did think of a question as we were talking. And it's probably for Greg. Well, maybe it's two questions. First, Jen, if you described the team here in Kirkland, maybe I missed it. So who is providing Greg and his team sort of the most local perspective? Because a lot of us live here, work here, some of us for quite a while, and we're gonna have opinions. I know I've met with Greg and the team, I'm sure a lot of my colleagues have, but other than us, can you describe that? And then I have one more question.

Well, when Greg and his team come back with 20 names, who is going to be calling through those 20 names with Greg and the team.

I do have another question, but I will say we're going to be all really disappointed if McDistrict, you know, McDistrict face or whatever is not one of the options. Noted. I guess maybe this one's more for Greg. So one of the things we heard from you, Jen, is that there is a very real first mover issue with the district. How does that, how to sort of make the leading candidates for taking that first move and what we know about them and maybe the type of projects they might have. I don't know how to think about this, but how do people who do this work think about this when they know that there

Well, it's interesting because I think I can appreciate that because I've lived here long enough to remember when going and get funding for a project in Totem Lake would have had a very different sort of initial reaction than 2026. So I think we can appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Also, thank you for the good work you're doing for the police department. I've been impressed by the marketing and branding that I have seen.

So I didn't realize it was the same firm, so that's great. And thank you for reducing your number of slides. I'm a big proponent of that. You actually answered one of my questions. One of my questions was, I think, addressing the comment letter that we got today from the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, which is, I think, the new name for NAOP, or... you know, they're related to NAOP somehow. And they raised similar concerns to what you just said about, you know, the branding and the name is less important than some of the regulations to promote development and investment in tha

Great. Yeah, thank you for this. I mean, I guess my own perspective on it is that I find the marketing branding, that's something that doesn't come easily to me personally. And I look to the experts to kind of take that on and provide the recommendations and the less that we can debate names and branding and marketing at the council level. To me, that's a good thing.

Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation. It's been fascinating. Just one question I had, which was around the qualities of a good name, and you describe various dimensions, like it being meaningful, distinctive, future-oriented, etc., So is there like a weighing mechanism, like you weigh certain aspects higher than others when you're coming up with a name, or is it kind of equivalent across the board when you're thinking of these various factors?

Got it. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you, everyone. Oh, Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. You know, I think you're right that the potential developers are not super focused on what the name is. And I am going to ask that staff provide you with a copy of the letter that we received from developers today, if you haven't received that. But my understanding is that we have $200,000 in order to promote the station area or catalyze the station area. And I'd like to see a significant amount of that money spent on the substantive concerns of the developers with regard to the inclusionary requirements and other pragmatic business requirements a

Oh, well, that's probably thank you, Madam Mayor. That's probably sufficient. I just if we're going to share out the letter we received today, it's also to people, to folks who don't have the full context. I mean, there are aspects of that communication that just misunderstand the work we've done in the station area. So. Doesn't appreciate that we have a pioneer provision for inclusionary zoning. It doesn't understand that we don't have a first floor retail requirement, that we have form-based code. So just making sure that the full picture is presented, not just the communication. Thanks.

Anyone else? All right, back to Watson Creative. Thank you for your presentation. The council is excited to see what comes next. So good luck to you. I know this is a fun, creative, messy process and enjoy. We look forward to it. So thanks so much.

All right, we are gonna move on to our next study session item, which is the urban forest management plan update briefing number two.

Do you mind if we interrupt? Yes, go ahead. Because this is one that I've been trying to formulate in my mind. Excuse me. Our replanting requirements are two-inch caliper. Yes. And the reason we do that is because they have a stronger opportunity to establish when they're younger. So at one point, and all trees grow at different rates, at what point does an average, does a two-inch caliper start showing up as canopy cover?

That's super helpful. Because obviously, as we develop, we have younger trees that we aren't registering on our... Right.

I think you should say canopy cover as fast and as frequently as possible. Canopy cover? Anybody?

So you're going to move into the vision statement and so forth. So I have a question back to biodiversity. Because you look in particular at the parks, and it's what, almost 50% are Doug firs. And we know that we are seeing a lot of failure with Doug firs because of climate change, bomb cyclones. What are your thoughts around that? I assume you're thinking ultimately we're going to have some sort of action around our large trees?

And then the cottonwoods are the ones that are failing. You know I love them.

Well, thank you. First off, I wanted to say I really appreciate both your depth of knowledge and your breadth of knowledge, including the breadth of knowledge of all the different things that are going on within the city, whether it's parks, planning, public works, and that was a really good presentation, so thank you. I do have a question that kind of gets into that, maybe that breadth. What I want to explore is just, At a really rough estimate level, what kind of replanting is happening right now in the city of Kirkland? If you could talk about, generally speaking, on the aggregate, when par

But if you asked either of them directly they would say we need more staff so that we can plant more trees and hands down Well, I can't second-guess the thoughtfulness that's going into that yeah, I can't I can't magically create the resources necessary to do it all but I do appreciate that The that there is generally a multiple when it comes to replanting And then I think the mayor's point earlier is well taken that, you know, we have to, we have to give it time. Um, and we're going to see the benefits of this and, you know, to the extent we're thinking like, what is the timetable? Um, you kn

Just to follow up on the Deputy Mayor's comments, if we are staff constrained on the ability to plant and maintain a tree to the point it's self-sufficient, when we have a fee-in-lieu program, are we setting the fees so that it's covering that three-year fee? planting and maintenance costs to get the tree established?

It's like a potential task list. It is. Something for the task list within the urban forage management.

Council Member Falco? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I think this is really solid and I do have some thoughts as well. So I'm glad it's just in draft form. So thank you for bringing it to us to be able to provide this input. I really like that you talk about sustainability in here and resiliency to climate change. I think that's really crucial. Another aspect of that that we talk about a lot is really the intersection between housing and trees and sustainability and combatting climate change. And I think it's really important that, you know, I know we have a lot of different

Anyone else? I was listening to Council Member Falcone and agreeing with her, but I was like, please don't try to fit that all in. That was more later down. I know. So it's something about supporting our... Our housing goals. Our housing goals. Yeah. Okay. Something really simple. Any other thoughts? Okay. I loved it. So... Thank you. And you know, that's a big deal.

Thank you. My comments on the principles echo what Council Member Falcone had said about integrating with our housing goals. Totally support everything she said about that. When I was thinking about my feedback, it was more about how we do it and how we incorporate those into the principles. And there's a couple of things that I see missing from the principles or could be stated more explicitly. First, it's very important that this plan integrate with the comprehensive plan in our housing goals and not be a silo as Council Member Falcone has said. We have other language and things like the tra

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you to, sorry, I'm still saying that. Thank you, Council Member Arnold as well. I appreciate your comments. Yes, I agree with, like when I said trickling down into guiding principles and then into goals, et cetera, with the housing, so thank you for that. And then with his comments about the different types of land use throughout our city, I had two specific things about that that I was gonna wait till later, but I'll raise them now just since we're talking about that. The first is, I know I've said this before when we were talking about our Vision Zero plan

Your home's point is my green roofs. Yes. I just, anybody else have a comment? I just want to plus one what Council Member Arnold said. I think the neighborhood data is interesting, but I really appreciate him bringing up let's look at the intensity of the development and be more specific about the goals around that. So I thought that was well done. Thank you, Council Member Arnold. All right, go ahead. Oh, Council Member Paschal.

Just a couple things came up listening to my colleagues talk. One, and I think you're gonna get into the goals here, but I mean, one of my overarching principles is the health of our urban forests. That's the ultimate goal, is to promote the health of the forest, and I know you'll talk about that, but we tend to kind of focus on the 40% canopy a lot, but if the 40% canopy is made up of a portion of unhealthy type of forests, then how good is that goal, right? So I know that they're all interrelated. So that's something I'm looking for. And just to kind of tag on to my colleagues' comments abou

Thank you for that. Just a clarifying question related to that. I've heard from some Holmes Point residents that they don't have the same ability to remove two trees per year, to apply for a permit to remove two trees per year, that the response from city staff is that they're not allowed to do so since they live in the homes point overlay section. That's the specific issue that I hear most about, I would say. So are you saying that's not true? Are they able to have the same property rights to be able to remove two trees per year and get a permit for that?

Okay, perhaps we could talk more offline just about specific situations. Is that right?

Yeah, I think there may also be education of some of our contractors that work in the city, some of our arborists as well, because they also are having a typical time finding anyone even willing to submit a permit application because they may have outdated information, so thank you.

Thank you. I have Council Member Prim, then Council Member Arnold.

Yeah, I just had a general comment on all the goals at a high level. I actually really like goal number one because it's identifiable, measurable. And so I think for all the goals, I mean, I would love to see kind of a more specific measurable outcome tied to each goal so that we know, like, that is the plan um so i like for example for goal two you could include targets for increasing like tree canopies or tree survival rates like some numerical um objective that we could try to reach so i don't know if you had any thoughts on that um i don't know if that's um something that you were consider

So are those objectives something that also come back to us?

Thank you. Building on some of my previous comments, I do not support neighborhood level management goals. I think that's the wrong frame to be talking about this. It really needs to be based on land use types and say, like, goals based on development intensity, to be able to say what are we doing in each of those categories. So for that particular item of how we close the gap and some of the other language in here, I really would like to see something change as saying that different development intensities contribute and recognize that versus a neighborhood-specific discussion. You mentioned

Okay. You can head nods on that. All right.

Couple of nuances on this particular one. I think this is an opportunity really on your previous slide to say, how do we maximize the benefits? What are the areas we wanna focus in having that urban refuge? And what are the areas we wanna have more distributed around the street trees? I wanna be intentional around how we're looking at benefits, and that may be a different type. The other opportunity on benefits that I think we should look at is, if there are areas we want to be thematic. For example, we've gotten some previous ideas where someone said, what if we, I think it was the Chamber th

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a small note related to Council Member Arnold's previous comment about, you know, you've talked about like the age of trees and the impact on tree canopy. I would love for us to look at what the data that we do have in tree canopy and some of those different land areas throughout the city and like look into the future, right? On like which trees need to be planted now to have the eight, you know, so that they will grow. So when some of the other trees might be dying out that they're able to replace them and, you know, just thinking at looking at things holistically

When I read this goal, I see it really focused on what the Kirkland government can do to maintain and grow the urban forests, and I'm just wondering if it should be broader than just the government. You know, build programmatic capacity internally, but I think that's externally. So that's how I read it. I don't know if that's intentional, and maybe it can be more maybe it can be modified to make it more apparent that it's also, I mean, the expectation is we want our private landowners to maintain and grow the urban forest canopy, well, urban forest assets as well. Or do you think there's anoth

I'm just wondering if you could eliminate the first, like, four words there and just maintain and grow Kirkland's urban forestry assets. So it's not about the capacity of the government. It's about the need to maintain and grow the urban forest overall as a community, as a community.

I just want to say that I agree with Councillor Pascoe, and I was assuming that would go in goal four, which is build public engagement programs to educate and empower community. And I just went the next step, which is also to motivate people to build the forest. So it could fit in four, or we can modify five. What I do like about five is build programmatic capacity, because that's what we need to do. So I worry about losing those words. So did you have something?

Yeah, just that, yeah, I had a very similar thought, like looking at the green under, you know, draft for increasing variety of one-time tree events and other things that go beyond education to actually increasing the tree canopy on private property as well. So I could see it fitting either one.

All right, well, does anybody have any final comments they want to share? All right, thank you, Anna. Great presentation.

All right, that concludes our study session for the evening. We'll be back at 7.30 for our regular meeting. Station area branding and marketing project and an update on the urban forest management plan. Before we begin this evening, I'd like to read a brief statement. There has been considerable discussion in our community recently regarding the presence of members of Patriot Front in Kirkland. Let me be very clear. The city council and the city condemn hate, intimidation and political violence in any form. Those types of actions have no place in Kirkland and have no place in a healthy democra

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we postpone agenda item 9A, the Kirkland Youth Bill of Rights, until our next business meeting.

Second. Good move by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Prim, to postpone the Youth Bill of Rights to a later meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Yes, go ahead.

The motion was our next business meeting, is how I heard it. Was that? August 5th?

No, we're going to postpone it to a September meeting.

Oh, thank you for that clarification. I have a friendly, you know, accept a friendly amendment to a meeting in September.

Okay, the motion has been made to postpone the agenda item to a meeting in September. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. In addition, I know that we have an item that has been tabled. If someone would like to move to take the affordable housing and low density zones item off the table, we will do that during council reports. All right, my housekeeping items are out of the way. We will now move on to our regular agenda. We do not have proclamations this evening, so we are gonna jump right into items from the audience. Welcome, everyone. All right, items fr

All right, next we have Guillermo. Guillermo, are you there?

Thank you. I'm going to Ms. Cain. Kareen, sorry.

Thank you, Kareen. Our planning director is taking notes. Why don't you send us an email so we can follow up with you? Thank you. Next, we have Bart.

And I appreciate that you read all those documents and had all those citations. All right, next we have Jessica Rowe, and she's virtual?

Hello can you hear me katie sorry beatrice go ahead.

Thank you. Katie. Thank you for that. Come on up.

Thank you. City Clerk, is that everyone? Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We are now going to move on to our consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I'd like to ask Deputy Mayor to present the auditive account.

Thank you. It's epidemic. It's catching.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had payroll in the amount of $8,099,287.42 and bills in the amount of $3,739,885.85. I did want to make one quick note for those paying close attention among the public or my colleagues, payroll amount does show an increase over the last two reports, and that is a product of the fact that we hire between 200 and 300 seasonal employees every summer. So, helpful reminder of both the services provided by important people working in our parks and pools and beaches, but also helps explain the slight inflation of payroll during this period.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? Moved by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Black to approve the consent calendar. Is there any discussion?

Discussion. I'd like to ask the item on youth traffic court that that be put on an agenda for the criminal justice section or matter at a future meeting. I'm not asking to pull it. I'm just asking staff to note that subject on a criminal justice Council meeting.

Council Member Prim. Yes, I would like to request that item number H2 regarding the $8,000 membership fee for the Tourism Development Committee for the Seattle Sports Commission be moved to the normal business agenda item for later today.

Thank you. All right, Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to note the memo with the subject Kirkland Culture Arts Commission recommendation for art donation of the Big Smile sculpture and thank the artist Martha Spack for that donation. And I'm looking forward to finding out the recommended location by the Culture Arts Commission. It is a beautiful piece of artwork and a really fun and bright piece of artwork. So thank you again to artist Martha Spack for that donation.

Thank you. All right, item 8H2 is removed from consent and will be our last item on our business agenda. The question is on the motion to approve the remaining consent calendar. Moved by Council Member Farrell-Cohn, second by Council Member Black. 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. Yes, Council Member Paschall.

Before we move on to that, I just wanted to bring up another topic that you had mentioned earlier. You mentioned about, you know, untabling the affordable housing fee until the council reports, but I'm really fearful that we have a lot of important topics tonight and that that could, you know, be at the very end of the meeting and it's a really important topic and I just disagree with waiting until later and I'd like to take up that topic now.

Council Member... Second. Councillor Paschall, we do have guests here ready to do item one, but it has been second. So the question is on untabling.

4937 has been moved by Councillor Paschall, second by Councillor Jim Chisholm, to untable ordinance 4937 now.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a procedural question. So for untabling, does that need to be seconded and voted on to untable, or is it just untabled and then the discussion and vote happens?

All right. All those in favor of untabling Ordinance 4937, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Motion carries 6-1. The motion is now untabled. Councilmember Paschal.

Thank you all. I know this is irregular, but I recognize that it was caused by myself being at the June 2nd meeting, and so you arrived at a 3-3 tie on this ordinance, and it required us to We couldn't untable it until all seven of us were together, and this has been the first time since the beginning of June. And so I'm not going to go into all the merits of the ordinance because we've had a lot of discussion on the affordable housing fee. I just wanted to be here to be able to vote on that fee tonight, and I'm going to be supporting raising it to $2,500.

Yeah, I would like to move to postpone this item for consideration until the first meeting in September, given that the August meeting is going to be virtual, just because I think I personally need some more information in order to make a decision. There was a lot of data that was provided during our last meeting regarding the number homes that have been constructed that were in the range of the 2000 square feet to 2500 but a lot of them were averages um so i i would really like to get a little more granular to understand you know what the overall need has been for um housing products that are

Thank you. It has been moved by Council Member Prim, seconded by Council Member Arnold to postpone consideration of Ordinance 4937 to our September 1st meeting. Any further discussion? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate, wow, we are spending a lot of time on this one vote. And I appreciate the thoughtfulness and I appreciate Council Member Prem's thoughts on wanting to make sure we have all of the data. You know, I shared last time that, you know, in my mind, the main two goals here are to encourage smaller housing types or, in other words, to disseminate disincentivize like huge McMansions, right? And to increase revenue for low income housing. And then the reason why we had a threshold is because we want to exempt missing middle housing, right? And so regardless of what

Thank you. Anyone else? The question is on the motion to postpone consideration of ordinance.

So my understanding is this topic was discussed in the mayor's agenda setting meeting with the mayor and deputy mayor. If either of you would like to share shed any light on that meeting, I wasn't there. Please do. But I'll be supporting 2500. I think we've had enough meetings on this particular topic. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor Arnold.

Thank you. I recognize we have talked about this, but part of the discussion is getting the interaction between all of us, and I'm really concerned about taking action on such an important item on a topic that has not been noticed, and so support pushing this to September so the public knows that we're taking action on a particular issue.

I'm not going to speak to the motion. And so the only thing that's in order right now is a conversation on the motion. But I am happy to briefly answer Council Member Tim Chisholm's question after we address the motion on the floor.

All right. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call the motion. The question is on the motion to postpone consideration of Ordinance 4937 to the September 1st meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I think we're going to need a roll call.

Yes. Motion carries 4-3. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to address the question that was raised by Councilmember Tim Chisholm. The topic, as I recall, did come up in the agenda meeting. We were advised by the city attorney as to what the rules of what the council rules are with respect to what occurs at the next meeting where all seven council members are present, and what the rule states is that the matter can be, there can be a motion to remove the matter from the table by any council member, and that's the extent of what we were advised. Other than further advised that then it would be in order to have a motion to either

All right. After that little interlude, let's move on to 9B. I think I mentioned that we postponed our first item, 9A, the Youth Bill of Rights. So we are now on 9B, City Manager.

Council Mayor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I just have a clarifying question for those who are listening to the meeting tonight around that last point that dogs must be leashed on some of our non-designated swim beaches. Does that same rule apply if a dog is swimming in the water at those parks? Must the dog be on a leash if they are to enter the water? Thank you. That's helpful for those listening. Thank you.

Well, I want to let Juliana finish dogs before I ask my question. So let me know when you're done with dogs, and I have a question for you.

I want to make a dog joke, but I don't have one.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Juliana. All right. Um, so, um, supportive of this overall framework, I am, uh, thinking about how we are, do we have a plan for, um, communicating this? It's a little bit nuanced. It's just only during certain times of the year. It's only at certain of our waterfront parks. And I wanted to be fair to our dog owners that we're communicating this clearly to them. And what I'm imagining, and help me understand what other plans may be in the works, but what I'm imagining is some fairly clear signage with like A-frame boards at the specific parks where dogs are p

Any questions, anyone? Councillor Falco.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to say thank you for being so responsive to both council and community input on this. I feel like you can clearly draw lines between the comments that were made and things that we've heard and the edits that were updated in this. So thank you very much for that. and also thank you to the community members we heard from, and I think a lot of us met with folks in the community who are regular users of the park, whether with their dogs, or I know I personally spoke with a lot of folks who are cyclists in our area as well to really understand the nuances of this

Yeah, thanks. I know that last time you came to present to us, I could get the sense that you were hoping that we would approve it at that time. And I don't know, that's how it came across. And I totally understand because these are important updates, I think. And you continually get feedback and complaints and stuff that you're unable to address fully without some of this increased authority or clarification. So thank you for your patience as we kind of walk through it, but I felt like my comments around bicycles and really focusing on the behavior of a cyclist rather than the device itself,

Second. Moved by Council Member Paschal, seconded by Council Member Prim to move forward 49-45. Before I call a vote, I just also want to echo my, you did a great job of cleaning this up and responding to our concerns, and I know mine was, As a dog owner, I was confused what was okay and what was not okay. And you can buy 30-foot leashes, just saying. All right. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Roll call, please. Roll call. Ordinance. Go ahead, Count.

Thank you. Ordinance carries 7-0. All right. We are moving on to proposed changes to parking enforcement and vehicle impound rules. City Manager. City Manager.

Thank you. Thank you both. Before we get started, I just have a technical question. Lieutenant, you refer to vehicles as abandoned. Is that a legal term? Because when my car's on the street, it's not considered abandoned, and then we're saying that an RV on the street is abandoned. So can you just walk me through that a little bit?

So it's not a ban and it's just don't park there?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you both for that presentation. It was very clear and helpful. I like the visuals that took some of the heavier text in our memo to a nice visual presentation. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. I have a couple of points that I want to talk through. The first is I appreciate cleaning up, you know, a lot of the cleanup that's happening here. particularly around duplicative communication with the first class mail. That just seems to be a waste of resources, time and money for both the towing company and the Kirkland Police Department to be sending prett

cleaning up of code but this is a um a policy decision that really impacts our community that i want to hear from community and i want to have a more robust council discussion on thank you thank you councilman prim yeah i just had a just a couple of questions i think my first one was you spoke about um officers having kind of a discretion around you know, after they have conversations with the individuals that may have parked their vehicle in a prohibited area, they will kind of work to understand what their situation is, scenario is, and then work with them to, you know, like if it's, for an

So just one follow-up then. So you said that it's pretty consistent then across the department how certain scenarios are treated, right? So then is that based off of a written policy then? Or no, it's just like... You know, one group of officers had this experience and then they share it with another. Is that how it works? I just want to kind of understand that.

Anyone else? Thank you, Chief, for that. I have the same concerns that you're already hearing. I think that this ordinance works really well for abandoned vehicles, but are we talking truly stored or abandoned vehicles, or are we also talking about people who are living in their RVs? And I don't want to punish people that are on their RVs, and I don't want to impound their home and force them to be living on the street. And I recognize, and we all in this city have a very compassionate outreach to people that are unhoused to help provide them services, help provide them a safe place to park. B

Understand that but with this tool we can move them in four days Anyone else Councilmember Arnold I appreciate the discussion from my colleagues and want to do the right thing on this and we have successfully when we think about what happened near 132nd on responding to some RV parking and finding resources. I also recognize here that we are dealing with some code that is decades out of date and just wondering on the path here, because what I think I'm hearing is wanting, and I'm trying to understand which of this is policy and which of this is code that needs to be in the KMC. When I think ab

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for that, Council Member. I agree with having that discussion, but I don't want to get lost from the discussion as well, my comments about the size of the vehicle. Because I think if it's about size as well, I really want to make sure that we don't have unintended consequences for this policy and that we really think through and make sure that, you know, because you could... have an RV that doesn't have beds in it, right? That you're just using to transport a lot of people around, but is not intended for sleeping, right? And then you would think it's an

Yeah, that would be great, thank you, rather than replacing it, you know, striking the sleeping, you know, made for sleeping.

Yeah, thank you. Good discussion so far. You know, I came into this kind of looking at it from, you know, enabling our police department to have the tools to address very egregious and situations that might arise, you know, after exhausting all And that's kind of how I feel and what I hear that you all, that's how you do things. And I think we all would agree with that. You know, so I understand the concern about down the road that maybe those procedures get altered or changed or modified. And so it'd be good to have those in written format somehow as policy. So I totally support that or whate

Anyone else? Thank you both. These are complicated issues, so we appreciate your time.

All right, we're going to take a break, and we will be back at 9. All right, we are back from a brief break. We are up next on 9D, discussion of home business and neighborhood commercial allowances project. The city manager just got in his chair. Go ahead.

Yeah, just a question on the community engagement plan. You know, this is kind of following up on a comment we heard earlier, but the consulted stakeholders here that show up on this slide are kind of like everyone else, the general public. And I noticed in the plan at the end that under phase one that they're kind of, you're going to focus on kind of just digital outreach with those groups. I'm wondering if there's opportunities, or maybe you could talk about opportunities for in-person engagement with those groups as well, just because digital, you know, doesn't always work for everyone.

Okay, yeah, I think what I'm asking for, I think it'd be nice to just get a little bit more thought on is having an opportunity, whether that's an outreach event, you know, at one time for consultant stakeholders, where someone can actually have a dialogue with staff, you know, rather than just, you know, filling out a survey online. That's all, but I'm not suggesting that both the core and the consultant stakeholders have the same level. I'm just looking for making sure that it's more than just digital, that there's an opportunity for actually an in-person discussion. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Leandra, for the presentation, the memo, and the work on this. So I just want to kind of share, this is kind of our first time really going to talk about this substantively, which is actually related to one of my comments, the fact that this is the sort of first time. It's not truly the first time, it's, you know, we obviously adopted this as part of our comp plan, so that'll relate to my comments here as well, but right now we're actually undertaking this effort, and... What I'm, you know, sort of where I'm coming at is I think this is probably mor

Thank you. And just to be clear, you're asking for a more iterative process between us and the Planning Commission before the public hearing and consider pushing out the timeline.

If possible, only slightly more iterative. Just one more chance for us to understand the range of conversation, because I think that we owe it to the Planning Commission to give them our thoughts and ideas and scope. And I think in a topic this big and important, I think we owe it to them before they come up with a formal recommendation.

Thank you. I have Council Member Falcone, Council Member Tim Chisholm, and then Council Member Paschal.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I first want to say, great job on this memo. I've heard from so many folks, not just in our city, but from around the region, that this was the best exploration of this topic that they've seen among folks who have been following this topic in our region. So really well done, really impressive. And to Deputy Mayor Black's comments about how the state is looking at it as well, I know other cities have done it. But like our missing middle housing policy before, I'm hoping that this could be an example for the state and for other cities in the state in the work that we do.

Thank you. Great work. Um, I look forward to the planning commission's thoughts on this. I don't want to micromanage the planning commission to the extent that we're making a recommendation to the planning commission of what they should be recommending to us. They have the time to do a deep dive into this and that is the purpose of a planning commission and we don't have the time to do that deep of a dive into this. I hope we take a relaxed approach towards some of the regulations here. I don't want to have such tight regulations on the sale of alcohol that it prohibits a wine bar from popping

Yeah, thank you. I'm not going to repeat what we heard already, but I just want to first say that I support the goal here that we're trying to achieve in seeing more neighborhood commercial businesses. And then, you know, I thought I thought Leander you had a really good slide that showed kind of the project assumptions I totally agree with. You know I think you've really thought through some of those issues and things that are going to need to be discussed, so I don't know that I have anything more there so other than i'm just curious to see where that goes. The one thing that i'd asked for o

I mean, I don't want to see like, you know, a spreadsheet of a thousand comments, but I mean, just more kind of like, what are kind of the main things that we hear from the community?

Okay. Yeah, well, thanks for that. Let me see. Look at my list. Oh, my list is short. Yep, that's all I had. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, first, this is one of the reasons why we have a planning commission. I look forward to them drilling in on this. I agree with council member Tim Chisholm that we should just let them do the work and do not support the, um, ask for another check in. Um, As far as some of the questions you have here, there was a question in the memo about the tiered approach, and I actually support flipping what was in the memo. We allow some home occupation businesses citywide today, and I want to continue that citywide standard and look for ways to relax Requirements that we have today, but I al

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what my colleagues have said, and to answer some of your questions, I would definitely favor starting with the tiered approach, and I think it largely also depends on how significant the changes could potentially be in a given neighborhood. But I think beginning with locations such as like corner lots or properties along arterials will allow us to kind of evaluate these businesses before we consider like a broader expansion. So I would be very supportive of even starting like a smaller pilot to evaluate how things go and then of course council can meet and then revi

Leandra, you do such an awesome job with these big, complicated, meaty projects. So I'm so happy that this is in your hands. And I agree with Council Member Falcone. This was an excellent memo. So thank you so much. So, I don't want to repeat what's already been said, but I do support doing, Council Member Prem just said it, sort of thinking of it as tiered and the first iteration as a pilot project, and then we learn more as we go along. I think we can expand it in phases. I wanna echo, I'm afraid you're gonna walk away from here with a lot of mixed direction and I can't really help you with

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. We are now moving on to Item 9E, update on Resolution 5729 regarding the city's response to federal immigration enforcement. We have some guests in the back that are here for the moratorium. And I think I told you maybe 8.30. I lied. Sorry. 10.30 is what I meant.

Well, thank you for that Tracy. I have another suggestion that wasn't discussed already tonight and that is Adding a racer representative to the fit team you know when I see I think about the situations that we're talking about. There's so many where I can imagine behavioral health crises could be a part of it and be emerging, just like in a lot of the other situations that we have to deal with. So I think that's very appropriate to have them both at the table for these discussions, but also to bring back what they learned from the discussions to the rest of the RACER team. I know that it's un

All right, thank you so much. I know, but I don't want to call on you first because... Anyone else want to go before Council Member Falcone? Council Member Arnold. Nothing personal.

Just briefly, thank you for all the work on this and information. I look forward to the future discussions. Looks like we have a lot coming in the fourth quarter and some meaty, meaty topics. As you're looking at this, I would just encourage the team to... avoid a failure of imagination. We've given some particular area of topics and just want to make sure you're thinking broadly of possibilities both in what could happen that we need to respond to and then just being creative and how we can respond. You'll hear some of this during the detention center discussion, but even in areas where We ma

Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I agree with Councilman Arnold's comments, so thank you for that. The only thing I would add to that is that, you know, the impetus to bring this before us, right? There were a lot of reasons for it, but we were having a lot of conversations over the last year and a half, right? About really, I know some of us were really asking for a lot of information, particularly around 1B and 4C. 1B is the internal policies and procedures, and 4C is the police response plans for potential unlawful action by federal law enforcement agencies. So I would

Anyone else? Okay. Council Member Tim Chisholm?

I agree with the comments of Deputy Mayor Arnold and Council Member Falcone. I think there's value in moving forward with this. I am also curious about some of the policies surrounding our Kirkland Jail and how we respond to phone calls from federal authorities to our Kirkland Jail and if they call up and request the immigration status or other information about an inmate. what our level of cooperation is. Thank you.

Thank you. Who are the civil detainers from?

Anyone else? This is going to sound really critical, and I apologize in advance. I was really dissatisfied with the memo because I wanted so much more. I wanted a deeper dive. I mean, what I'm seeing is yep, we did that, we checked that box. But as a policymaker, I have no window in what the decisions were made. And so, and we are the first people that people come to and go, what are you doing about this? And I have this, this felt like a very closed box that I needed to pry open. I want to know what policy decisions we've made. We've spent We spent months on our body worn camera policy, and t

For example, I told the city manager, it was, okay, we've reviewed our KPD policies. Here's the link to them. An executive summary of the changes that we made in response to potential federal immigration issues. actions would have been really helpful. So that kind of thing is what I'm looking for. What have we reviewed? What are the changes that we recognize and what are the changes that we need to make and why? Council Mayor Falcone wants to jump in here.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with what the mayor's saying, and I think perhaps based on her response of that's it and what she's saying now, I think I may have been too soft and not clear enough maybe on what I was looking for. I was looking for the same thing, a lot more detail on all of this, right, and before quarter four, like in a recent, you know, a sooner meeting than that, whenever we can fit that in. And 1B and 4C were just my top priority for those. Because those are the ones that sparked the desire to have this LRM and to have this resolution, is really looking for answers to tho

Yes, which is why 1B and 4C are my top priority. For sure. But this is important, you know, and like I said, I have been waiting over a year and a half for these answers to these, so I think we've had time for that. And I also, you know, unlike the criminal justice, which is also very timely, it's very real and impacting people's lives every day, this is something that's even more time sensitive to that, right? That we cannot wait to continue to have answers to these questions, because there may be things that we need to be preparing for, that we would identify in a discussion with the communi

Tracy, my suggestion is maybe you interview each of us and gauge how deep we want to go, and based on that information, make a decision from there. All right, anyone else? Thank you. Are you staying for the next item? No. Okay. All right. All right. We are moving on to 9F. And I know our audience is so happy. Our last item, no it's not our last, our second to last item of business is the detention center discussion. City Manager.

Thank you. So the current zoning code prohibits a detention center by omission. Is that correct? If it is not a specifically itemized use, then it is prohibited by omission. And does it put the city in a stronger position if we amend this to specifically prohibit detention centers? in a stronger legal position.

From a planning perspective, I understand and agree. I guess I'm asking from a litigation perspective as well.

Okay, thank you, Adam, and thank you, Darcy.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. First, I want to thank everyone who was involved in the research and the memorandum. I appreciate the amount of thought that went into it. I appreciate how carefully it was researched, and I also appreciate, I think, what I would say the transparency that Kirkland using in this case and that may not be the same with some of our fellow jurisdictions so I just want to say thank you first and then the next thing I wanted to mention I actually want to ask you a question David because staff has concluded that a moratorium in Kirkland's not warranted because of the way

I, you know, our... One of our important directions as part of this Resolution 5729 was to engage actively with affected communities and organizations that represent affected communities. And one thing that I think we've heard, we've done a lot of that work, maybe not perfectly, or at least reported out on it maybe perfectly, but we have done that work, and then those of us on the council have also had lots of conversations of representatives of the affected communities. And one thing that's, we've heard this pretty clear, is the affected community would really like Kirkland to do something to

Thank you. Um, thank you, David, for the, um, and and team for the analysis here. Um. While the analysis states that regulations would likely be effective. Ineffective and preventing citing, um. We need to consider the same strategy and practices that the administration is, which has been even given some plain language interpretation. They are testing every court, testing every assumption in court, and we should do the same because there's value in delay. So while a moratorium is not... Warranted moratoriums used to freeze things while you have time to evaluate. We're not. Vulnerable given wha

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I have to say, when I heard about the results of your work, I was proud that we already had this on the books, right? Like many other things, we're ahead of the game on some things. So that's good news to hear, and I am really proud of that. Essentially, I'm in favor still of doing a moratorium. I agree with Councilmember Arnold of doing a moratorium and also potentially looking at additional targeted code amendments that would help. If we can have extra layers of protection here, we should. And also want to be really clear on where we stand as

I'll keep it super short. I do generally agree that we want to make Kirkland's position pretty clear and do support considering code language amendments. I do agree with Council Member Arnold that we do want to be careful though on how we're defining detention centers and just ensure that we're thinking about any sort of creativity that may be imposed to think of other facilities as detention centers. So just want to make sure we have a broad enough definition, but really do appreciate Deputy Mayor's proposal, and I think that is the right direction overall to take. Thank you. Thank you. Anyon

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to clarify, because we've talked about both targeted code amendments as well as a moratorium. My comments on time sensitivity was on the moratorium, which would give us time to do the targeted code amendment. So I just wanted to see if that's what we were discussing, since that wasn't part of your comments.

I think that's directed to you, City Mayor.

Well, that's a good segue to my question. I was going to ask that question. What does the professional staff think we get by doing targeted code amendments expeditiously? and at the same time a moratorium, what's the advantage to doing those both in parallel? Parallel may be the wrong word, but basically initiate them both at the same time.

Because the purpose of a moratorium is to figure out what your code amendments are. So there's no benefit to doing a moratorium if we can just expedite the code amendments.

Okay, and that's certainly, that was certainly my intent in creating this, and I also just note that although the definition is immigration detention facility, I think the actual, and it may need to be improved, but the actual definition of an immigration detention facility is broad enough in what I propose to include an office that is intended to be used for confinement or detention. So I don't think we need wholesale changes, so. Just highlight that.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Because I feel so strongly about the community input that we've heard specifically from the immigrant community, I am still, just so that it's on the record, going to make a motion for us to ask staff to bring back a moratorium on immigration detention centers and offices in the city of Kirkland.

Okay. I'm tired. Bear with me. All right. Council member Falcone has moved that we bring back a moratorium or anything else I should add to that on immigration detention centers and office and immigration offices in the city of Kirkland has been moved by council member Tim Chisholm. Uh, second, I'm getting tired. Any discussion? Council Member Arnold.

I will be voting against this motion, not because I don't support doing something, but I think this is an additional step that slows us down to the final solution.

Essentially plus one to what Council Member Arnold just said. We're doing more than a moratorium. We're doing more than our peer cities. I think we're responding to the affected community because if me or one of my colleagues doesn't move for targeted code amendments, I will. So my plan is to take that approach and do what is truly a prohibition in the city of Kirkland and not just a wait and see and make plans for how to allow a facility under certain conditions a year from now. Thanks.

I too will be voting no. I'm much more in favor of a permanent solution rather than temporary. That's what a moratorium is. It's temporary. We have a permanent proposal here. Let's move forward with it.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor O'Brien?

Yeah, I agree. I'd rather have your resources being spent on a permanent solution.

I agree with that. Well, okay, discussion. Yeah, go ahead. Are you proposing a motion, Deputy Mayor Black?

Right, no, I'm not. I was explaining what I plan to do so my colleagues understood. And my opposition to this motion will ultimately be conditioned on the fact that I intend or hopefully one of my colleagues will make a motion for the targeted code amendments.

Okay. A question to the city manager. Do you want to weigh in here on whether a moratorium or targeted code amendments is something that you, what would you prefer?

I second this, but I'll be voting no, but in favor of the city manager's recommendation.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to be clear that I support both, and I think I was clear on that. So my motion is not in opposition or as an alternative to Tardio Code amendments. It's addressing and responding to the community request, as well as I don't, I think it's optimistic to think this is going to be quick, but that would be great if it was. I think that this is something that is going to require some community engagement and some other work, which is another reason why I support the moratorium in addition to the Targeted Code Amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll be voting no on this moratorium because we could just skip the moratorium and go straight to the targeted code amendments. But I will say that if we approve the motion for targeted code amendment, that can go to our communities to get feedback for them. So we're not cutting them out of the process. I'm going to withdraw this motion.

Questions on the motion? Moved by Council Mayor Phil Cohn, seconded by Council Mayor Tim Chisholm to move forward with the moratorium. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion fails, 1-6. Deputy Mayor. That's a new one for me.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll go ahead and... get the motion for the target code amendments. Before I actually make the formal motion, I did intend to make it clear that I do hope that the time we spend evaluating these target code amendments is also time spent communicating with the affected communities and the groups so that they have all their questions answered about what we're doing, which is a prohibition versus what peer cities are doing, which is a one year moratorium. So, and, and certainly we're listening and getting feedback. And if that's, if somehow us doing basically all a city ca

Second. It's been moved by Deputy Mayor, seconded by Council Mayor Prim to advise staff to come back with targeted code amendments. Any discussion, Council Mayor Arnold?

Deputy Mayor, was your intention that those targeted code amendments have the council holding the public hearing?

Absolutely, they did. That was part of the plan for simplicity and expeditiousness.

Um, also have a question. Is your intent that it includes immigration detention centers and immigration offices or just immigration detention centers or options for both?

My intent is reflected in the draft language I provided, which is any building structure premises, including any portion thereof used or intended to be used for the confinement or detention of one or more persons for the purpose of enforcing or administering civil immigration laws.

I have a question then, probably for city attorney related to that. If a situation does arise, like what happened in Tukwila where there is an immigration office and they are detaining people that are sleeping there, how would we know that and how would we enforce? Would we just shut them down immediately? With these targeted code amendments, it's saying we're not going to allow it if it's used that way, but we won't know that it's used that way until it's actually already cited, permitted, built, and then they're using it that way. And then what do we do? Can we shut them down immediately? Ho

Anyone else? All right, questions on the motion to ask staff to come back with targeted code amendments, including council holding the public hearing. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you all. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to our last business item, which is... Item 8H2 on the Tourism Development Committee recommendation for Seattle Sports Commission membership and fiscal note, which was pulled from consent. City Manager.

Yeah, this is a much lighter topic. So I understand that the staff is recommending that we spend this $8,000 a year on this membership to the Seattle Sports Commission. And I understand that a lot of the surrounding cities are a member of this organization and that they will provide us with kind of a seat at the table to be able to bring in sports events into the city. But I think, I don't fully understand whether the cities that have actually signed up for this have actually received a benefit. I think getting some more information on the tangible benefits we will actually get I think $8,000

Okay. As long as you're not cutting Jen off. No, no. We chatted about it briefly at break. So I'm happy to take our first stab at answering that as TDC chair. I just want to clarify, you had mentioned that it's a staff recommendation. This is actually a recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee. And so it was a unanimous vote for us to recommend this. And just a little bit of context around that. The primary purpose of the Tourism Development Committee is to put more, what we call put more heads in beds, right? Like it's to help promote tourism and events so that we can have more fol

Thank you. This recommendation comes from the TDC, and the TDC is a board that is a little bit unique. It's not a normal board or commission. It's made up of the heads of every hotel in town, basically. The Heathman, the Woodmark, and the Doubletree. And the managers of those, general managers of those hotels sit on the TDC board. Those TDC members run the businesses that pay these taxes, and so we traditionally defer to their expertise in how to spend this money. And that's why, so that's where the recommendation's coming from. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the additional information. I think I feel comfortable now, which is why I wanted to bring this up and have the discussion publicly. So I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm glad you did. Thanks for asking the question.

We get to brag about the TDC. All right. Council Member Falcone, why don't you make the motion, and then Council Member Tim Chisholm can second it.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee to spend $8,000 of TDC funds on membership for the Seattle Sports Commission.

Thank you. It's been moved by Council Member Falcone, seconded by Council Member Tim Chisholm to adopt the TDC recommendation and join the Seattle Sports Commission. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. All right, we are on to council reports. Deputy Mayor?

Point of order. I believe after 10.30 we don't do council reports. Is that true?

Oh my gosh, I think you're right. And I was actually, he was going to say let's not do council reports. We've got an executive.

Yeah, thank you for that. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's 11.15. We have 11 professionals here, and we still have an executive session. Anything I want to provide you, I'll do it by email.

All right. We will forego council reports, and I'll hand it over to city manager.

Thank you. Anybody want to make a motion? So moved that.

Did you just make that motion? I did. You had him read it? Yeah. Okay. I don't know what was happening there. All right. It's been moved by Council Member Falcone, seconded by Council Member Prim to move forward with the negotiate modification of the Houghton Village easement. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0.

All right. We are now going to go into executive session to discuss litigation as authorized by RCW 4230-1101I. We expect to re-convene our regular meeting at approximately 1150, only for the purposes of adjournment.