City Council - Special Meeting

federal way a more walkable pedestrian friendly city so I appreciate all of that but the same question to you how would you go about including residents in into the planning process who otherwise may not be familiar with the planning process or public hearings

Thank you very much, Mike. We appreciate you being here. Now we have Kiko Raber.

Well, you're doing fine. Don't worry about it. You're doing great. Does anyone have any questions? Go ahead.

So welcome. Thank you very much for stepping up to the plate. So the same question to you. How would you go about including people who otherwise would not be involved in the planning or public hearing process?

Akiko, can you attend evening meetings? Huh? Can you attend meetings in the evening? You didn't check off a box, yes or no? I did what? So we have two boxes. If you could attend daytime meetings or evening meetings.

Okay. Thank you. All right, are there any other questions? All right, thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it. All righty, we have Vitaly. And Vitaly, can you pronounce your last name? Because I don't want to mess it up. See, I would have said it wrong. Thank you.

Welcome. I just want to ask you, what are your ideas about including more people in the planning process and making sure that we know of them? And how would you go about doing that?

Cats that report your hi Vitaly so You said that it took you two and a half years to build the house on the difficult lot Yes, so I'm assuming a lot of the problems had to do with a lot Maybe that yes elevation or the whatever did you find it difficult to work within the city permitting process or the Planning

So do you have any suggestions on how we can improve the process? In the process that you were involved in, for example, would you have any suggestions? I mean, did you have any trouble with getting your questions answered in a manner that was acceptable? Did you?

So we've been trying to reach out to different communities because we're very diverse. And how many people are here that are in the Slavic community? Can you take a guess?

I don't even know if they ask that in the census, to tell you the truth. Anyway, because, well, yeah, they sort of do, because we get Asian population and so on and so forth. But I don't know if they ask about a Slavic population. I think you'd probably be Caucasian. I don't know. They have these groupings. I don't know what they put everybody in. But that would be interesting. I certainly would like to know. We're getting a lot of different people from different countries. It would be interesting to see who we're dealing with because of language barriers and what their needs are. Thank you.

Thank you. Vitaly, have you served on a commission before? Okay, thank you. Great. Thank you very much for being here. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you.

It's okay. Vitaly, I've known you for a long time, and I appreciate your involvement in the community. I appreciate you showing up and playing a vital role in starting up our sister cities with revenue in Ukraine, and I appreciate your service on the South King Fire. as their chaplain. So I really appreciate your personality as well. And so I did find it a little bit interesting how you just said that the language might have been a barrier in working back and forth with the city. So I'm curious about that whole process and what that looked like, but I can ask you off. I'll ask that offline, bu

All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here. Mr. Bassey? I don't know how to pronounce your first name, if you could do that for us. I don't want to mispronounce it.

your sentiments about outreach. Do you have any other ideas on how you would include others who may not be familiar with the process?

Any other questions? No? Thank you so much. Vicky. Vicky Chenoweth. And she's currently on the commission and applied for reappointment.

No problem. Here I am. So go ahead. We have five minutes or so for each interview, and so you can talk about whatever you'd like to talk about, what you want to be on the commission, what you want to see the commission do, and then we'll ask you questions if we have any.

I see you everywhere, Vicky. Everywhere. And that's a good thing, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate how you approach everything. My impression is that you come across as fair, pragmatic, and I just appreciate that as well. I think what you and other candidates are saying about Communicating with the public I think is duly duly noted and I think it's Extremely valid night. I couldn't agree more the fact that Even when we do budget times only, you know, very few people come During the most pivotal months before we get to voting day And so I can't certainly understand that but I appreciate

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Vicki, for being here, and thank you for your outspokenness. I think that it's very valuable when people share what they want to share. And thank you also for... highlighting the local control issue that's very important and I agree with you that's very important that our constituents and our residents understand because a lot of what the Planning Commission does is they they work to implement what's been handed down from the states you're absolutely correct so my question for you is how would you work to educate the public even on just showing up

Well, I think you're right about how do you get people to watch the meetings. And you know what? You're right. We used to have the Cub Scouts, the Boy Scouts. We used to have school groups coming in. That's how you get people to get involved, and you get kids involved. And they come in, and they sing, or they do the flag salute. Maybe we need to talk about that again. But you've been in real estate for a long time, and I know you've been involved with planning of the arts. What do you think it is that brings people to Federal Way that want to come from other areas to live in Federal Way?

Do they come for the bigger house on the bigger lot, or are they more concerned about smaller house that they can afford? I mean, that helps us with our planning idea.

So then who's the real owner of the house? Are they joint owners?

That's interesting so so if we have smaller houses Do you think that will attract more people I I can imagine people are going to be very upset about parking having being a problem Well parking is is always going to be a problem. I believe but do you think townhomes are going to be the wave of the future or detached ad user

Joseph Santana? Hi. Thank you for being here. Does anybody need an extra minute to read the application? You're okay? All right, so you're okay? One minute? Okay, we're going to wait just a minute or two.

So we are, for those in the audience, we had a miscommunication and we just got Joseph's application a couple of minutes ago. So we're taking time to read it. Are we ready? We're all ready? Okay. So I'll let you go ahead and start, and you can tell us a little bit about yourself, and we will ask you some questions.

Thank you. Questions? So I have a question for you. You said you were on the Walla Walla Community Truancy Board. So I was back in the early 2000s on the Federal Way Community Truancy Board. And the school district eventually did away with it. But it was a fascinating board to serve on. We had a year's worth of training. And it was very, very interesting. So, I've never met anyone else who has .

Our goal was to get kids to stay in school and graduate.

Councilmember Safford-Dawson. Actually, I don't have a question, but I was on the Highline Transition Board. Wasn't it interesting? When I worked at CTAC. But you went to Columbia, and did you go to Federal Way High by any chance?

Councilmember Sessoms. Well, welcome. Reading your application, I can tell that you have vast experience working with the communities, not just locally, but all over the world. How would you go about working with the community, bringing them in, maybe for people who may not have participated in the process previously?

Thank you very much. We appreciate your thoughts. All right. So what we're going to do now is have a discussion. And then we'll have a discussion at the 6.30 general council meeting is when we actually make the appointments. So you can go ahead and sit down if you want. And thank you so much for being here. I'm glad you're here. So let's start with the senior commission. I would highly suggest a party both Ian and Larry to the voting positions We just have to decide who wants what so I Would suggest Larry position five and in position seven that works it is

You guys all good with that? So these are just suggestions because we are not voting right now. We're just making suggestions.

So do they start in September, next month?

So position five would be upon appointment. But we actually don't have another meeting until September. We just had our August meeting last week. Yeah, last week.

Yeah, I think that's fine. Do we need a third position, position seven?

No, so the alternate position is still open. Is that what you're asking?

Well, oh, I see. Did you say, I'm sorry, did Lydia say in for seven? Correct, yeah. Okay, so then the alternate is then open.

Great. All right. And moving on to the Logitech's advisory committee.

Go ahead. Harrington Griffin for position five.

Does that give you a balanced committee?

Yes, that's what we were missing. So, yeah, that gives us the balance that we need.

Any concerns? Okay. So to the planning commission, Council Member Coachmarcy, you're light on it. Do you want to make a nomination?

I certainly would like to see Anna and Vicki. We didn't hear from Tom Meadors, but I'm assuming Tom is reapplying. Is that correct?

Well, we've heard him many times over the years. I'm not sure what everyone else thinks. We certainly can reappoint Ann and Vicki if we're all agreed to that one. And Tom, I think I've heard from him so many times, but I'd like to hear from somebody else.

I'll go down the line, so go ahead, Jack.

Yeah, I'd say that normally, I mean, I like people being here for the interviews. However, Tom has served so faithfully on the Planning Commission for many, many, many years, and I think he's a critical part of it. So I'd be willing to make an exception this time and go ahead and reappoint him without an interview.

council member Hamilton thank you madam chair I normally like to hear from applicants as well I think being out of the country is sort of a special circumstance so I would nominate Tom Anna and Vicki to be put back on the Commission since they're currently serving and then are we moving on to also to our nominations for the oh yes do you mind if he goes sure go ahead actually yes never mind I I misread something so yes okay are we moving on to alternate positions all right okay so I first of all I thank you to everyone who came it's always a tough decision when we have more applicants than ope

Thank you. Council president. Um, yeah, this is, um, these decisions are hard and it's difficult because everybody did bring, um, something to the table. Um, and there's a lot of thoughts are going through my head. Um, and right now, um, for me, um, Well, first let me ask this question to the council president and or staff. What's our rule of thumb policy, I don't know what to call it, of whether or not people are here or not to be accepted to a position?

It is up to the council as to how they want to proceed.

So that's how it's written in our council rules and everything?

I don't believe. We'll ask our legal opinion.

So it's up to you. Okay. I just want to make sure.

preference but he's not here now so do whatever you want yeah i mean the reason why i asked that as some of you some of you guys know is i just want to be consistent and fair all across the board um and so if that person's not here then i want to be consistent um i i will note that that um well i know tom at hearst i know counselor assessment doesn't know tom at hearst um and so uh and tom has served with um he brings a wealth of experience so i i i um you know i think for me what i'm where i'm having a hard time with it is that um having experience in the commission is really important having

I do agree with a lot of things you said. And I believe Tom has been on the commission for the longest. But that said, yeah, what I would like to see happen is Mike alternate three and Joseph alternate two and leave the rest as is.

All right. Council Member Sessoms, you're up.

Yeah. Okay. Everyone interviewed extremely, extremely well. And I concur, I agree with Council Member Moore. I would appreciate it, or appreciate nominating Mike Bollick, Ziegler, for alternate number two, position two. Dr. Michelle Banks, position number seven. Ms. Vicki Chenoweth, position number six. And Anna Patrick, position number two.

So can you go through that again for me? So who for alternate number two?

So who did you have for alternate number three?

alternate okay so i see that we have some work to do here so can i ask point of information uh thank you council president um could we so i know here it says there's seven voting members and three alternates can i ask legal if we can add an alternate position you can ask legal anything you want okay what's your favorite flavor of ice cream You said anything? Thank you. Actually, I assume we can add an alternate position. Okay, thank you. I don't think so. We cannot? It's a state statute. It's part of the reason why.

This is the one commission we're required by the state to have. Keith, do you have any? so the voting positions are in code are the alternate positions in code okay up to three so we have well we already have one alternate already so up to i'm sorry ryan can you say that again and we already have one

well this certainly is getting a little confusing I'm trying to track what everybody is saying so here's my thought what we let me let's talk about the Tom Medhurst position what we have said in the past is if that somebody was unable to attend we would keep that position until that person was able to attend to apply it there was no reason that it needed to be filled immediately that was just in the last couple years that we did say that yes right and so if they're making an issue about the fact that they don't know who Tom Meadors is they haven't met him or whatever don't know anything about

I'm not sure if I actually said which positions and so I want to make that clear I'm nominating Tom for position seven Vicki for position six Anna for position two Vitaly Pikotin for alternate number three and Mr. Basi for alternate number two And like I mentioned before, I feel like every single person brought something valuable to the commission. And it makes me sad that we can't appoint them all. But sometimes we have to make hard choices. And so this is one of those decisions. And that's my nomination. Go ahead, Council Member.

Council Member Kosmar, I think you're talking about my comment and I did not say.

No, I'm not talking about anybody. I'm just making a statement.

It just seems like you're commenting towards me, which is.

Why don't you go ahead and say what you'd like to say.

Thank you, Council President. I do believe a change, but I also added Tom in there. And I think the rest of the commissioners that are currently serving, like tim o'neill and others have a lot of institutional knowledge as well that's on the commission and i think getting new perspectives is not a bad thing that's my why i mean joseph brings public health mike brings community parents a perspective that's in on the ground doing the work already And I think all that is really vital. And change is okay. Change is okay. But I am in agreement, let's see, I would be supportive of uh council preside

but I really do like Joseph I can't so are you saying that Vitaly for alternate two Mike for alternate three Anna and Vicki for their current positions in holding off on position seven is that what you said I'm so sorry council president I'm just really processing this

You know what, if I may, I'm going to change. For number three, no, for number three, it would be Mike. Number two, I'm going to put Joseph in there.

Yeah, so number two would be Joseph. Number three, it would be Mike. And then two and six would be Anna and Vicky.

All right, so we don't actually vote. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I didn't see your light. Has it been on for a while?

It's been on for a while. I am so sorry. It's been on for a while.

You should have just done something. Okay, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. You know, with the reappointments, position number two, Anna, position number six, Vicki, position number seven, Tom, I'm fine either appointing him now or waiting until he returns and interviewing him later. I'm fine either way with that. But I think that he's a vital person there. So it really comes down to the alternates. You know, I'd like to see Itali as an alternate, whether it's alternate number two or alternate number three. Either one is fine with me. And then with the others, Ghermanji, did I say that right? Close to right? Anyway. And Mr. Bassey. also mr. Santana I I would

okay and it sounds like the only thing that well we're going to talk a little bit more about matters but the only two we're talking about is the two alternates if i'm hearing that right and then um as i said i'm open on one uh one of the alternates and the other one i think if i'm sounding that maybe there sounds like their agreement on vertali But so maybe, I don't know if we need to go over those two positions.

Let me ask legal, because we have to get into executive session. So if we, since we mostly have an agreement on position number two and position number six, position number seven, do we want to interview Mr. Medhurst? Yes. Okay, so we'll hold off on that on position seven. So the alternates, should we leave them empty and have a discussion at the council meeting so we can get into executive session?

All right. Is that all? Yeah. Okay, because we do need to get into executive session. Yeah.

All right. Can I make a comment? Yes. I don't know if it matters whether it's position one or two, so can we see who the top two are first, at least, based on what you got?

So I have Vitaly, and I have Mr. Bossy from my notes. From my notes.

But we do need to get into executive session. So we can have the, because it's going to be a longer discussion. All right, thank you for attending. I appreciate it. And we are now going to move into executive session to discuss. Property acquisition pursuant to RCW 42.30.110-1-B. And we will resume the regular council meeting at 6.30.

And, Chairman, I just say that, you know, we will interview, it sounds, Medhurst. But that position, you know, that's still a possibility to be open. Also, all of you who have applied... don't go away because you can apply for other positions, you can apply again. You are all wonderful. So thank you all for being here.

Thank you. So we are adjourning to executive session. Thanks for being here.