City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome. As it is 5.30, I will call this city council meeting of August 18th, 2026 to order. We recognize that this meeting is being held on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish people. We pay our respect to those past and present. Tonight's invocation will be led by Pastor Sam Giles from Living Faith Church. If everyone could please stand for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Right? All right. Tonight's meeting will both be a physical and a virtual meeting. It may be viewed on YouTube and following the meeting on Facebook. Is Mary Pro Tem online? Okay, so she was supposed to be joining us remotely. Otherwise, everyone else is present and accounted for. So... Are there any suggested changes to the regular agenda? I think she's gonna join. I think she's just, she's dialing in from a vote, so. Yeah. Any suggested changes to the regular agenda as presented? If not, I would request a motion to approve it as presented. So moved. Second. All right, we have a motion to app

Appreciate you bringing that forward. I was not aware of that. So I will definitely will have a follow-up conversation this afternoon So great. Thank you.

Thank you It will be yes councilmember arms to just uh, yeah Regarding that I thought we were looking into that before maybe last year

Yeah, because there was something about how it fitted in there with the water and the type of material. So there was something there, so we'll re-look at that. Thank you.

We're going to put, I'm going to put you in contact with that lady right there. She'll follow up with you. Yeah.

All right. And is there anybody else here with us this evening that would like to step forward and make public comment? All right. How about those comments that were submitted electronically? There they are. That's it. All right. Well, that concludes all public comments. We'll close public comment, and we move forward to consent agenda. Are there any objections or other changes to the consent agenda as presented? If none, I would entertain a motion to approve it. Yes, Council Member Romero.

Okay. We have a motion and seconded by Council Member Arms. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Hearing, seeing none. All in favor, raise your right hand. Passes unanimously, thank you very much. All right, we're gonna move on to Mayor's comments. First, I'd like to start my comments tonight by highlighting a few events around our community over the last several days. Here are a few pictures from the Navy League and Rotary meeting and tour at the Regional Public Safety Training Facility. The 50 plus member picnic at Windjammer Park and the Sound Edge marketing event at Gr

I'm honored to share an important event coming up on September 11th as we mark the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Our local first responders will be carrying a special 9-11 remembrance flag across Whidbey Island in honor of the people who lost their lives. The run will begin at Windjammer Park. following the community remembrance ceremony and continue across the island before concluding at South Whidbey Fire. I want to thank our police and fire chiefs and all of the first responders who have put their name, who have put their time and effort into making this event happen. 25 years later, it is impo

First off, love the newsletter. It's definitely important to get out there in all different kinds of medias and mediums, so I think that's great. And I just want to make sure with that public comment that we did follow up with the email one. Okay. Thanks.

got that okay anybody else reports on commissions anything yes councilmember peterson the arts commission met the other night and we had a presentation from someone who works with the juvenile division of the court and the kids have made a bench out of skateboard decks that they are very proud of. And we are looking for ways to be able to put in the skateboard park, which I think is a fabulous idea. And I'm looking really forward to it. I hope we can get that done this year. They really want to take ownership of it. And any time we can get the youth involved, let's do it.

That's great. Thank you. Anybody else for the good of the order? All right. We will close council comments and move on to our public hearings and meetings. First up is revenue sources and property taxes for the upcoming 2027-2028 biennial budget. And here to introduce this topic is our Deputy City Administrator and Finance Director, David Goldman.

Do you want to explain, though, where they are with the B&O taxes and how that's working out?

Thank you. So under the green indicators when it talks about current ratio? And that is the how many times a current asset can cover? What's our number? How many times?

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then I guess I don't understand, and you're so brilliant at it, where general fund, four indicators, and then all government, five indicators. I don't understand.

This is a big amount of information, and I only say I think because it's a lot to understand, and you're so good at it. So I appreciate that.

Any other questions? Council Member Wittgenstein has a question.

So with the general fund revenues kind of flattening out relatively, how does that look for us in the future?

Great. Thanks, David. So first, I will open the public hearing, confirm no public comments have been received. Sabrina?

Great, and is there anyone here with us this evening that would like to step forward and make public comment on this issue? Hearing, seeing none, I'm going to close public comment, or close the public hearing, I'm sorry, and then call upon council for their comments. Council Member Merrill.

Yes. Next, anybody else? Comments? I just want to remind everyone, too, that it's important to point out that we are setting those monies aside for replacement funds, too, for assets. That's something that we've never done as a city before. So we are setting ourself up for success going forward. So that's part of the reason that you have some of those orange numbers or lines. All right, with that then, that was just all the information. So we will do this again, I guess, next week and we'll be going into capital expenditures, right?

All right. Next up is ordinances and resolutions. Proposed ordinance number 2047, adopting a new Oak Harbor Municipal Code section 1.04.050 relating to student representatives. And here to introduce this topic is our city administrator, Sabrina Combs.

All right. So before I turn it over to council, I'm going to first confirm that we've received no public comment on this issue.

OK. And is there anyone here with us this evening that would like to step forward and make public comments on this issue? All right. Hearing, seeing none, I'm going to close public comment and call upon council for their comments at this time. Yes, Council Member Stuckey.

A couple questions. In doing a little research on this, there are indeed other Washington cities that have a student representative, but most are a lot smaller than us. In general, in your opinion, what do you attribute that to? I mean, I don't see many... I mean, they're mostly cities of, like, Sultan and, like, a couple thousand people. Not that we're huge, but...

I was just going to say I'll piggyback on that by saying that through Wasele, I've already forwarded all of our information to five other cities who want to follow in the suit. So it's just a matter of I think that they haven't done it and they were looking for some help or like a push. So... but more people are looking at it, yes. And they're bigger than us even, so.

I don't see, and again, this would be pretty extreme, pretty controversial. I don't see a mechanism for removing a council representative.

Okay, yeah, the only reason I may, I mean, I don't think that we would necessarily get a student that would come in here and be disruptive, but what I would hate is someone say, yes, I'll do it, be all jazzed about it, show up for the first meeting, and then just go AWOL, and we have then no mechanism to remove them and replace them with a different one.

And then... As far as this one change, I would like, but it's just a one-sentence change, is the administration will provide a list of student applicants which will be reviewed by the mayor and a panel of one or two members of the council prior to appointment. Can we just change it to two council members, not one or two? I mean, considering that we're not gonna get an opinion, we're not confirming them, which I understand, can it just be two as opposed to one or two?

Yeah, I would strongly prefer it to just say two. And between seven of us, I think that we can get two people to do so. I would just like it to be changed.

I would agree. You would think we could do that, but sometimes it's impossible.

Well, if it's Council, we need to step up and make sure two people, because I'm pretty strong on there being two individuals, considering this is a Council meeting. Considering they're going to be up here with us, considering this is a Council meeting, I think we need to have as much participation as possible. And I don't like the ambiguity of one or two. I just, two. That's my thoughts.

Council Member Wiggins, time. Do we have a procedure in place for our advisory boards and commissions for removing somebody?

It's better to be prepared for what might come versus to wait for it to get here and then respond, correct? So I'm kind of with Councilmember Stuckey on that piece of just having something in place and we already do have something in place that we could just line up with this and it shouldn't be challenging at all. But if it's not in place, then what are we doing, right? I would hate for us to get up against the wall before it and not be prepared to climb over it. So I'd like to see something in there for that.

My turn. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Marshall.

Thank you, mayor. Um, I don't know what time all the advisory committees meet, but do they all meet after school as well? I mean, I understand that we are not requiring them to be here at workshops because they can't because they have school. But I know like the parks and rec commission, for example, they meet at 10 AM and we have a student advisory and that's, that's something that's been kind of a point of contention for me is that we, we're not, we're not, um, accommodating to that person, you know, that could be a student representative. And so is that something that we look at for our adv

Okay, so I know that we have a mechanism for trying to find this student position coming from the school board or from the school administration. Is there any way that they could help also to advise for people to fill these other vacancies that we have?

Maggie has also, obviously, they're on vacation right now. But we have a message into the civics teacher, is that her title? I don't know. Yeah, she works with the students. But anyway, so we are working with her too as soon as they're back. I think they're back next week.

Okay. Yeah. And then my last thought was I agree with Council Member Stuckey. I would like to see the wording to say to council members just to have that. Just so we have a little bit more of a say in who's going to be sitting up here with us. And I think that's reasonable. Typically, when we do the advisory commission interviews, we have three or four people that sit on those advisory board commission interviews. So that's it. Thank you.

Anybody else? Sandy, did you have a question?

At one point I was going to just comment that when I originally heard this, I wasn't as in love with it as I am now. I originally thought it would be better to do a council of students as opposed to just picking one. I talked to some of my younger students. family members and they're like, oh, you don't want to do that, mom. You're better off doing one person as opposed to a council because you'll never get them all together. I'm like, okay, well, never mind that. But I am more happy about this whole idea. One of the things that they talked about in that 13 Ways to Kill Your City book that we

I was going to do that. Okay. Sorry. No, that's okay. That's perfect. You take it. Go. Yeah.

I think that they're unanimous that they want the two. So that's definitely, we want to edit that to include two. But then I think that they're not all in sync with putting a mechanism on there. So I'll leave that up to them.

Well, you're the two who wanted the mechanism. Is it you two? So since we already have that in an ordinance, do we need to add it to this one? I just don't know the way we would do that since it's already there somewhere. So Sabrina, can you?

Do the same rules on the commissions apply to the students that they do to the commission members?

So then we have the same issue on the commissions, too. I mean.

Again, I wasn't trying to say we're setting to take people off. I'm trying to protect the city by making sure we have something in place when we go out the gate with it, not when we wait until something happens or, no, evaluate it next year and see if we actually need it. We have it in place for a reason. Yeah, people volunteer. We want to do everything we can to keep them here. But we also need to make sure we have the procedures in place to fill the seat again if somebody does stop coming. So if they stop coming, and all of a sudden we have an open seat six months down the road, and another

So Hillary, do we just use the same language that's on the commissions? But I guess my question was, the students aren't really being held to that standard anyway. So I'm confused.

So I just wanted to clarify, we can't do all of the changes right now, which hints why government moves so slow. So...

No, I don't want to do that. I think the suggestion, we want to just adopt what's already in place for our other. That's what you guys are looking for. You want it to be the same as what's in the commissions? Yes, Council Member Marshall.

Thank you. For me personally, it's not that big a deal. I mean, I think that, you know, Hillary kind of talks about it is if somebody is not showing up, then then we can have a conversation with that person and say, you know, are you going to resign? Is there a reason why you're not showing up? And then if we see that this becomes a problem, then we can in a year we can reevaluate this. But. But for me, I think that the caliber of students that we're looking to get to do something like this, they're going to make a commitment to show up. And if they don't, then that's a conversation that we ha

Well, that's up to you guys. This is, yeah, so one second. I'll call back on you, Council Member Stuckey. So if that's the case, then we just need the motion with the amendment to change that to two council members, which I think you are all in agreement on. So, yeah, Council Member Stuckey.

Yeah, I was going to say the two council members is the only thing I'm firm on. The other one, on the one hand, again, I agree with Council Member Marshall. We're probably going to get high caliber students. They're pretty highly vetted. I'm not really too worried about one coming up here and not acting appropriately or something like that. You know, the attendance could be an issue. I mean, on the one hand, I agree it's probably no biggie. And a call from the mayor of like, hey, you haven't been here for a little while would probably be sufficient to fix the issue. On the other hand, if it's

So I think the only person we haven't heard from is Council Member Arms. Do you want to weigh in on this, or are you good?

I'm good. Whatever you guys decide. I think it would be a great idea. We might as well put it into practice today instead of waiting again. Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry. Mayor Pro Tem, did you want to weigh in on this? I excluded you because I don't have you sitting next to me. I'm sorry.

All right. So if you guys are in agreement and you want to move this forward tonight, the motion with the friendly amendment needs to be made, and then we can move forward or we can table it. It's up to you. Yes, Council Member Marshall.

I move to adopt ordinance number 2047 with the amendment of two council members sitting on the approval committee adopting a new Okraburn Municipal Code section 1.04.050 relating to student representatives providing for severability and establishing an effective date.

Technically we don't have to amend a motion that has never been made.

Amending the ordinance, as it's written. Oh, the ordinance. Yes.

All right. So we have a motion to approve ordinance number 2047 with the amendment of two council members. So we'll make sure that that's included. And then that was seconded by Council Member Romero. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Hearing, seeing none, all in favor, raise your right hand or left hand. All right. That passes unanimously. Thank you very much. That was fun. All right, next up is contracts and agreements. We have a facility use agreement with Mariner's Haven, and here to introduce that is our harbor master, Elise Henry.

All right. I will first confirm that we receive no public comments on this issue. Sabrina.

All right. Is there anybody here with us this evening that would like to step forward and make public comments on this issue? All right, hearing, seeing none, I will close public comment and call upon council for their comments. Questions? Oh, Elise, yes. Council Member Stuckey.

Who else is paying this fee currently? Like, I don't need specifics, but can you give me examples?

And with this, if I'm understanding correctly, most of this is coming down to liability. I mean, $163 is making very little impact on the city budget. That is correct. I guess my only concern, because again, this is such a low amount that it's not really worth debating for hours on end. This locks them in that cost for some time, correct? Correct.

Because I just want to make sure that if for some reason it gets raised on everybody else, it also got raised on them. I didn't want them being locked in to that cost, even though we're talking about not much. I just want to make sure it's fair more than anything else.

And then also, is there anything that brought this up particularly?

In that case, we wouldn't have had much in the way of recourse because we didn't have this agreement.

I appreciate you looking out. Thank you.

council member Peterson I I'm a little confused I thought I just heard you say that there's no time limit on this there's but it's but and I also thought I heard you say that there would be a change when we have the new 2027 So that's a master fee schedule change that's coming. So why is this agreement linked to August of 2030? I'm confused by that.

So somebody help me understand. Sorry. I guess we're saying the same thing.

So Sandy, it's what we're going to pay the facility to use that, right?

But then what we charge people will change.

Yes. Oh, okay. The confusing part to me was it says agreement length August 18, 2026 to August 30, 2030. So that's the part that confused me.

Still confuses me, so. You're okay. Calendaring, I usually get. No worries.

Thank you. And at least I appreciate you bringing this up and looking out for the city's liability. I am fully in support of having the agreement in place. I am not in support of the fee as it's currently at. I, I agree with 163 a month as opposed to a year. You said that they, they use it approximately a hundred times.

So even if we were to do the $163.50 per month, you're talking $19 per haul out, $19.62. I don't think that's an unreasonable fee for the usage. And so I personally fully support having the agreement, not the price as it's presented. So thank you.

I move to authorize the mayor to sign the Facility Use Agreement with Mariners Haven LLC.

Seconded by Council Member Arms. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Yes, Council Member Marshall.

So just to be clear, this is the agreement. And so you will negotiate the fee with them then at this point?

But if we enter into this agreement now, they're getting that $163.50 for an entire year.

Not if they're under contract for a year.

Hold on. Are you done? I don't want to call on him. I know you're done. He's thinking.

I'm certainly not going to approve the motion personally at 163.50 for the entire year. I think this is... This is the whole Yacht Club thing all over again, in my opinion. And we need to generate revenue for the marina. This money goes into the marina fund, correct? Yes, it does. Yeah, we cannot continue to keep doing. If we want to make the improvements that the MAC committee is looking at doing and that you're looking at doing, we have to have a funding mechanism. And continuing to offer really low rates for things is not going to get us to where we need to be. And so I love the idea that w

You know, and I do understand, Councilor Marshall, but the problem is we have to have something now. It's unfortunate. It's a very unfortunate thing. We have no agreement. We are lucky we weren't into an issue. We are into still a busy season. If something happens, we're on the hook. Yes, we're going to lose money temporarily. We've already lost money probably temporarily. But if we have an event, we are stuck. And so this is an unpleasant thing. But once we get the master fee, we get it the next year, which we're almost up to anyway or whatever, we need to get it done because if something hap

I think that too little money is still more than zero money.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Council Member Romero.

So does Mariner's Haven... charge the boats they haul out? Yes, ma'am. How much do they charge them?

Per haul out. And so they haul out about how many a month?

Thank you, I do appreciate that. So here's my question again. Under the terms and termination, it says this agreement begins on mutual extension or execution and end on August 1st, 2030 unless earlier terminated. I agree with Council Member Marshall about how little we charge for the things that are in our marina. I don't like $163 a year at all, and I can't vote yes for that. I'm wondering if we couldn't change the term on this agreement to August of 2027. And that will be in time to go through everything else. It gives us what we need in terms of protection. It allows these guys to do someth

So to that point, have they already then paid for 2026? They've paid the 16, so they've not paid for 2026.

No, I think what she's proposing is that this would only go through August 18th through December 31st. And then this would come back before the council again to determine what they're going to set in the master fee schedule. And then we would negotiate a new contract with that rate.

They would still have to pay the annual fee either for one full year or for the remainder of this year.

Okay, so I don't even know what you're going to do about that.

You have a motion and it was seconded. So we have to vote on it. Yeah, so does everyone have their say? They're good? We can take a vote. All right, all in favor, raise your right hand or left hand or any hand. One, one, four, and then all against or opposed. One, two, are you, what are you doing? Are you raising your hand? One, two, three. Okay, so we have one, four, and six against, so it does not pass. Yeah.

So I'm moved to authorize the mayor to sign a facility use agreement with Mariners Haven LLC through the end of 2026 with a prorated annual fee.

Okay, so we have a new motion to authorize the mayor to sign an agreement with Mariners Haven LLC through December 31, 2026 at a prorated rate, seconded by Councilmember Peterson. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? All right, all in favor, raise your hand. We pass unanimously, thank you very much. All right, good job, Elise.

All right, there being no further business, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. All right, all in favor? We are adjourned at 7.09.