City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor Becker here and Mayor Rosenbomb here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. City clerk, please note the count that deputy mayor Becker has joined via Zoom. Next, we'll have the pledge of allegiance. Council, if you join us in council chambers, please stand and face the flag. If you join us via Zoom, please mute and turn off your video to ensure the US flag is visible. I would please join us in saying the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We now move to the approval of today's agenda. If there are no questions, may I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. There's a motion by council member Andrew and second by council member Weinberg. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Reynolds, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, I. Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Council member Sheay, I. Council member Andraw, I. And council member Weinberg, I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Motion passes and the agenda is approved. Our first item of special business is AB6853, Sound Transit Link Line Update. For that, we will turn first to city manager Jessie Bond.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We're um in tight quarters here, so from the back of the room, I'm going to toss the baton forward uh to Ariel. Thank you on everybody. I'm actually going to turn this over first to our CEO, Dao Constantine, to give us some opening remarks before we get into today's presentation.

Well, thank you, Ariel. Uh, Mayor Rosenbomb, members of the council, thank you for the opportunity to meet this evening. Uh, I'm looking forward to sharing some of the latest updates from our agency and more importantly welcoming Mercer Island into the fold of communities directly served by our regional light rail network. Uh I'll spend a couple of minutes um setting the table and then I'm going to turn it over to our able staff who will present. Now we are less than eight weeks away from a truly historic day for our region and for Mercer Island in particular. On March 28th, we will open the Cross Lake Connection and we will instantly transform the two-line from a 10mi intra east side line into a more than 30 mile light rail line running all the way from downtown Redmond to downtown Lynwood. It will also connect to the one line which uh takes you then south to SeaTac airport and beyond all the way to Federal Way. Mercer Island residents and workers will benefit from trains running every 8 to 10 minutes. All day, every day, with direct connections to Belleview and Redmond, to Seattle, the University of Washington, 22 trafficfree minutes to the front door of Husky Stadium, to Northgate, and north into Snowomish County. And fun fact, Mercer Island will be the only community that will have direct light rail access within 10 minutes to downtown Seattle and to downtown Belleview. Uh it is uh going to be uh a remarkable change for folks who have been used to being stuck in traffic. Now, from voter approval in 2008 to our groundbreaking in 2016 to next month's ribbon cutting,

we have faced the challenges that accompany a firstofits-kind project. And we have overcome them. We're now on the doorstep of a genuine triumph, something that will truly transform our region. Now, this evening, we'd like to talk about opening day celebrations and the ongoing plan for two-line operations. serving Mercer Island. Uh we'd also like to discuss key areas we're emphasizing reliability, safety, security, and cleanliness. On each of these, we've made real measurable progress and we have encouraging data to share with you. So, we'll present that data to ground the discussion tonight and then we'll invite your questions. Now, until quite recently, Sound Transit was primarily a capital agency, primarily a construction agency, but as we've put more and more service on the roads and on the rails, as we've opened up to Lynwood and down to Federal Way and out to Redmond and soon across Lake Washington, connecting downtown Seattle to downtown Mercer Island and Belleview and Redmond. Um, we are becoming one of the nation's leading operating agencies. We are now in the middle of what we call the enterprise initiative. And this is our first comprehensive agencywide look at our long-term finance and capital and operating plans taken together. We'll continue that process through the remainder of this year with board members taking up important decisions at key milestones. The ultimate aim of the enterprise initiative is to develop solutions that will affordably deliver the benefits of

sound transit three and set the agency on a sustainable financial trajectory. Throughout this process and beyond, we are committed to carrying out safe and reliable operations, to continuous improvement and good governance, and to responsibly stewarding taxpayer dollars. We know that's what the people expect. With me are three longerving sound transit leaders, each of whom has a lot of history with this project in particular. They've also had collaborative relationships with past and current Mercer Island council members, city staff, and community members. So before I hand it back to Ariel to begin the staff presentation, I want to share a brief video highlighting the ingenuity and the plain hard work that's gone into achieving this milestone.

This is the first light rail on a floating bridge anywhere in the world. We were trying something for the first time and we needed to make it work. It took a lot of grit and there's a lot of trial and error as you go through a project like this. When we face these challenges, there's always the temptation to say, "Hey, oh, we can't do it like that." Well, maybe we can. The Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge stretches more than a mile across Lake Washington, connecting thousands of people every day between Seattle and East Side communities. Adding light rail on the floating bridge. Now, that's a game changer.

I think of each light rail extension as a jewel because once it opens, the community responds so quickly and so well. My name is Ron Lewis and from 2012 to 2018, I was executive project director of the East Link project. One thing that was missing was the gem of those jewels, the cross lake connection. And that's what this project provides, a highcapacity transit link and connection to the east side. But long before light rail construction began on the bridge, engineering experts spent years designing innovative solutions for several unique challenges.

There were definitely a lot of challenges. My name is John Slavven. I'm a civil engineer and I worked on this project for over a decade. The first challenge was weight limitations on the I90 floating bridge. Too much weight could cause water intrusion. We're adding a whole bunch of weight to this bridge. Not only the trains, but we're adding the rails that go onto it, the concrete plints, the overhead catenary system. We had to figure out how to mitigate that. We also had to reimagine the way we typically install rail on this bridge. We couldn't drill into those because it had all these cables and if we snap some of those cables then you hurt the structural integrity of the bridge.

Plus running electric trains means the potential for stray current on the bridge. We need to make sure that that electrical current stayed between the rails and the overhead wire because if it leaks out it can cause corrosion. And then there's movement. The rails needed a certain amount of flexion while also being connected to a fixed point on land. So really these three different motions means there were six different angles of inflection that those rails would have to accommodate.

After years of research and testing, here's what our engineers designed. Instead of using standard rail, lighter rail saves weight on the bridge. These rails were then set on about 9,000 concrete blocks, which were designed to be lighter and smaller. As well, the concrete plints that we built, we use what's called lightweight aggregate. tried to keep those plints, those concrete blocks as short as possible. And instead of drilling holes into the bridge surface, we attach the blocks with an extremely strong adhesive. We used a material called DEX G, which really glues it on really well. Then a plastic drip cap on top of each block further protects the bridge from stray current.

So any water that came down and hit that block would then have to drip. So there wouldn't be a continuous flow of water that would come from the rail onto the bridge deck. In total, engineers incorporated more than 10 different design elements to protect the bridge from any potential stray current. And of course, there was the monumental challenge of taking a train from solid land onto a floating bridge.

Trains are on a fixed rail. If they're all bent at just one point, they would snap. So, we had to take that point displacement and spread it over a longer distance. Think of a uncooked spaghetti. If you bend it at one point, it'll snap. If you take that whole spaghetti and kind of bend it back and forth, it can do a lot of flexing. And the steel rails are a lot like that. Spread that over a larger distance. And we did that by a system called a track bridge.

There are eight track bridges using existing technology to solve a completely new challenge. The track bridges rely on design components used in retrofitting buildings for earthquakes. Before construction, we put the designs to the test with full scale models in PBLO, Colorado. We had 10,000 sensors on the trains and on the tracks and at the end of that it's like wow it worked. It's really wonderful. The team is really everything and this has been an extraordinary group of people. It's kind of like a relay race. You do your part and then you're passing it on to the next group so that they can do their part.

Collaboration is key to any large complex project, but when you're doing a first in the world type of a project, it's absolutely essential. Sometimes in construction, you know, the designer and the contract and the owner can kind of be in our own own corners, but it really shows how when we come together, we can do great things. It is achievable, but the strength of that partnership is is so much greater when we work together, having these great relationships, being transparent, getting to that platform of trust so we can solve these big complex issues. And I think this this project is a great example of how we did that. Once construction is completed, the final stage before opening is meticulous testing.

We're testing everything uh with increasing levels of complexity to make sure that ultimately we can transport our passengers across the lake uh on a brand new light rail train. Our team makes sure that the intent is met, making sure that from the different disciplines, the traction power, the train control, the communications, the structures, everything is working individually as it should. and that every individual component and system works together as a whole. After hundreds of hours of testing, the Cross Lake Connection will open in 2026, transforming how we move around the region for generations to come.

My favorite part of the job is seeing at the end of it the people riding the train, the difference that we make into people's lives. I'm probably luckier than I am smart and just to have been in the right place at the right time to work with some incredible people. We said never been done before. Let's do it. How can we use existing infrastructure to continue to expand transit? That's really the key here. And floating bridge is just one piece of that.

I'm very proud, but I'm also humbled by what the art of the possible is when people get together and work together. And when your job is to connect people, we're really creating community and then connecting communities. And to me, that's priceless. Testing. Testing. Okay, great. Um, thank you all for uh having us here today. My name is Ariel Taylor. I am the director of government and community relations here in East King County. So, that's everything basically east of Lake Washington, including uh Mercer Island. So, we're very excited to be here today. I'm going to go ahead and take a little bit of time at the beginning of the presentation today just to kind of level set uh where we are with Sound Trans where we are with Sound Transit. Uh what our um latest agency updates are as far as our expansion plans and then of course we'll go into talking specifically about the Cross Lake connection including the new station here on Mercer Island. And then I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues Luke Lemon and Brian Deplace who will cover um everything to do with opening day events, two-line operations, access, and of course security and safety. So just a little update, um Sound Transit, uh for those of you who may not be familiar with us, we are the regional transportation and transit district in the Puget Sound region. So here you can see what areas we serve. We serve three different counties, Snowomish, King, and

Pierce County. Um those areas you can see highlighted here on this map. We service about 3 million people. That's a lot of people uh that we need to move and of course that's about 40% of the overall state's population. We have three ballot measures that have been approved by the public. Those go back to 1996, the original Sound Move plan, which brought the first link light rail trains to the Puget Sound region. It also funded Sounder Commuter Rail as well as Sound Transit Express bus service. Um, you might be familiar with the Sound Transit Express route 550 that has been in place for a very long time going all the way back to the voter approval in the 90s. You'll also see there Sound Transit 2 passed in 2008. That is actually where this Crosslate Connection was funded. So people have been waiting a very long time for this light rail extension. And then most recently in 2016, Sound Transit 3 passed. And this is where we're extending light rail all the way to Ballard, West Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, as well as bus rapid transit on I405 and State Route 522. and of course new sounder access and stations to come with it. Here's actually a visual of what I just described. So all of these lines on this map are what we are voter approved uh through S or Sound Move ST2 and ST3. It's a very colorful map of uh colorful spaghetti, but I think it kind of gets the uh the point across. Um, at the end of the day, we will have uh excess or not excess, we'll have more light rail extensions going, like I said, to Ballard, West Seattle, Everett, Tacoma. We will also have stride bus rapid transit as well as more Sounder capacity.

All right, a little bit um some exciting news here. And apologies, my mic keeps going in and out. So, uh, a few years ago in 2024, thank you for those who joined us, we opened the first eight stations of the two line, uh, here in East King County between South Belleview and the Redmond Technology Station. You can think of the Redmond Technology Station as the Microsoft campus. It's a pretty good, uh, descriptor of where that station is. Uh, that day we had 35,000 people join us for opening day celebrations. It was the first time we had opened light rail in East King County and the excitement in the community was very palpable. Um, people came from all around to uh enjoy the new eight stations. We had community celebrations at each of those brand new stations and it was quite the event. Uh later that year we opened the Lynwood Link extension which opened four new light rail lines to Snomish County. The following spring, we uh had two more light rail openings on the east side. We had Marymore Village Station and Redmond Downtown Station. Uh so you can see there, the picture on this screen is that uh ribbon cutting celebration from the Redmond Link extension last May. And of course, most recently, we just opened three new light rail stations to the down south to Federal Way, which extended light rail of the one line further south into South King County. And now a little bit more specifically about the Cross Lake connection. So, as I mentioned earlier, we've actually had the two-line open in three distinct phases. The first phase was those eight initial segment stations uh between South Belleview and the Redmond Technology Station. Then we opened the

downtown Redmond station in 2025. And now we are ready to open the final segment, the Cross Lake Connection with a station here on Mercer Island as well as Judkins Park. This light rail line will of course connect into the one line at the international district Chinatown station and continue further north just like our CEO Constantine just mentioned. Um, thank you for those council members who joined us for the date unveil a couple weeks ago of this very exciting March 28th passenger service for the Cross Lake Connection. Uh, it was a very exciting day. We got beautiful weather like in January. That's unheard of. It was pretty amazing. Um we are very excited to say that testing is going extremely well and that we are on track for a March 28th opening. And now I'm going to turn it over to Luke Lemon to take tell us a little bit more about opening day itself.

Great. Thanks Ariel. Uh Mayor Rosenbomb, council members, uh thank you very much for having us here. Um, as you have heard from all of my colleagues, we, uh, are extremely excited, um, about the March 28th opening. Um, uh, I am the executive director of communications at the agency and my team, um, among other duties, uh, leads up this, um, really exciting work. Next slide, please. So, um, more than anything else, we want our opening celebrations to be community centric. Our facilities are meant to integrate seamlessly into the communities of the region. And we want the community to see themselves and share in the success of a new regional connection when it comes online. We have a model that we've used quite successfully uh since the uh April 2024 opening over between Belleview and Redmond. Uh it's called the community event fund. In that model, what we do is partner with a local organization to plan and execute a hyperlocal celebration that aligns with our broader goals um around the opening day. Um this organization, it's required to be a 501c3, four or six, acts essentially as a prime contractor. Um and that organization then partners with smaller organizations, businesses, community groups, restaurants, musicians um to then activate a station area uh on opening day. Um for this opening, while a lot of the details are still coming together as we did just um get to the point where we were ready to announce opening day, uh I'm very pleased to say that we are partnering with the Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce for this opening. Um and we'll also be engaging regularly with the city of Mercer Island as planning commences. Um, in fact, I believe um my team, my events lead uh has a meeting with um the city's parks department lead uh tomorrow morning to talk more about this. Next slide. So, um here we have some images from uh

past openings. When we open, we want everyone to feel welcome. Uh we have literal welcome mats that will be uh placed there at the station. Um, we also place photos of those who live, work, play, uh, in the community around the station where they stay up for a few months. Um, these specific images were taken from the Bellev downtown station during that opening. Um, and as I said, those did stay up for for a few months. Um, some of those folks had a whole lot of fun on opening day and then subsequent days coming back and taking a picture with themselves um, up here. So um again it's all about giving that sense of ownership and that sense of pride um to the community who you know truly needs to be a community partner through the years of planning design and construction on one of our projects. Next slide please. So I'm going to uh continue on that um with that tactic. So um up here we have community portraits. This is an example from the uh Hilltop link extension opening uh down in Tacoma. um you know these portraits are really stories and key pieces our of our um creative strategy around an opening. Every one of these people is somebody who as I said lives, works or plays um in that community and um you know it it really gives folks the opportunity to celebrate um both community members, leaders as well as driving traffic to local businesses. Next slide. And um here with our final slide um on the left we have the moment after the ribbon was cut in Belleview in April of 2024 and then next to it in Lynwood uh later that summer as the music commenced immediately uh following the opening. Um I can report both joy both occasions, excuse me, were extremely joyous and celebratory and we are all looking forward um to that same uh that same vibe when the Cross Lake Connection

opens on March 28th. So with that, I'll turn it to my colleague Brian.

Just making sure the microphone works. It does. So I'm Thank you for having me. I'm I'm Brian Deplace. I'm the executive director of security and fair engagement. So I oversee all of our frontline passengerf facing uh staff that will be out there on the system day in and day out once we start operating. Uh before that I spent a number of years um running our service planning. So I thought a lot about how the system would operate, how the two line would integrate into the one line and how people would access the system. So I'm going to talk a little bit about about that in the next slide, please. So here's a map of uh the two line there and how it integrates with the with the one line. As D mentioned a few minutes ago, uh two-line trains will arrive every eight minutes here and at every station uh during the peak and then 10 minutes in the off peak. that steps down to about 15 minute headways in the in the late evening and that frequency is in either direction. Uh the two line as you'll see it will then merge uh with the one line at the international district station and then head north. And what you'll have is even headways between even frequency between the uh one and two lines. So any rider that uh is getting on board will be able to wait just four to five minutes if they're anywhere between uh Lynwood and IDS and then every other train if they're coming um you know outbound out of Seattle will be able to uh access Mercer Island. Uh service will run uh from approximately 5 in the morning till 1 in the morning. Uh and we run seven days a week. Uh, as DA mentioned, uh, it's approximately, um, 20 minutes from downtown Belleview to International District and it's about 10 minutes from here to the to downtown Seattle. So the to the International District, uh, we have, we'll talk a little bit more about uh, our um, frontline presence on the station, but I'll all of our stations are also ADA accessible. And let's go to the next slide, please. So this slide lists uh,

the multimodal ways that people can access our system. You'll see if you could tally up those numbers, there's over a hundred different types of uh bike parking available at the station. And you'll also see that along the two line in general, there are uh approximately 4,000 parking spaces uh for people to access uh the two line and about um 400 just under 450 are here on Mercer Island, but a lot of others uh elsewhere on the two line. So, let's go to the next slide, please. Uh just a little bit of statistics. Uh right now on our busiest days on the one line, we're experiencing um sometimes up to 150,000 or more riders uh a day. Uh which means about 3 million uh in a in monthly boardings. On an average weekday, I think the two line would be around um 50,000 more on average additional riders uh that will be added to the system. So super exciting mobility for for everyone in the region. And next slide please. And this slide here lists uh a handful of the frontline passenger focused um deployment that we have on the system. On that top left picture you have uh our fair ambassadors. So they are uh out there every single day uh doing a variety of functions. One is they're providing education for to help people right right help people understand how to pay their fairs when they need to pay their fairs uh and doing some compliance work there. They also spend significant amount of their time uh providing customer service. So if folks have questions you'll see them out on the system and they are just absolutely excellent at providing customer customer service. Uh below that you'll see um uh some photos of our uh um King County Sheriff's Office. We have a contract with the sheriff's office and they provide our enhanced law enforcement services on the system. We continue to

staff up with them and have a very productive um working relationship with with the sheriff's office. And then we also have on the top right uh a number of uh security officers. Uh they are at every single station on our system and they also ride uh they also ride the trains and provide that visible presence on the system. Below that you'll see a picture of those screens. That's our security operations center. So that is a 247 operation and they are in constant contact with all those other frontline staff. So uh they're able to monitor the system, respond to any issues that that may happen on the system and uh quick quick deployment and passenger facing uh uh support that's constantly happening out there. And that is all that I have. I'll turn it back to Ariel.

Yes, of course. So, we went through quite a bit of information. We recognize that there are likely questions and we're happy to answer them. Great. Uh, thank you for that. I'll start with Council Reynolds. Got a thousand questions. I'll start with one. Uh, first off, thank you for uh the great presentation. I can't tell you how excited I am to see this thing finally being open. Uh, one issue that I hadn't thought of until recently, March 28th is an auspicious day in other ways and that there's going to be a no kings day event on Merc on the Seattle area and around the country. How is that impacting your planning for opening and you have any concerns about that?

I think I can begin speaking to that and then Luke has he said he's in charge of a lot of the celebrations. We're um planning to make sure that we have all the uh speech making and ribbon cutting done good and early that day and the celebrations well underway at every one of the stations so that uh folks who are heading to the no Kings protests or to the Mariners game which is also happening that day uh have easy access uh to their brand new transit system. It's it's going to be a pretty exciting day for the east side with big events happening to be able to jump on the train and get to where you need to go. Did you have anything to add to that?

I I think that covers it. I would just say that we have already begun um discussions with our own uh internal uh public safety partners, operational partners just to make sure that we uh have a full view of what's going on to make sure that we can um execute a successful event while also understanding that there are um other events happening in the region on that same day. Uh, Council Member Sheay.

Yes. Thank you so much. I also have a lot of questions, so I'll start with one. Um, so yes, along the lines of um, rider access. Um, you know, we have a lot of people on Mercer Island who are super excited about this light rail being here and available to us. Um, but you know, we have 450 spots as you mentioned in our parking ride and oftentimes it's already full. So, I'm just wondering how can we get you know, um, Islanders to the light rail? Would you like to speak to that?

Yes, I can speak to that. So, what a great question. We realize that people need a way to access our system and that's why we've built nearly 3,000 or excuse me 4,000 uh parking stalls all along the two line. So, we're hoping to catch people before they get to Mercer Island. Let's put it that way. We want to catch them closer to where they live. Hopefully, to free up some of that capacity for Mercer Island residents who want to access the system. We also are including those bike locker uh amenities here on Mercer Island. And of course, we are also partnering with our very close counterparts at King County Metro to make sure that we are providing transit access and compatibility with this station.

That's really good to hear. um because you know we would love to access this on Mars Island and uh we've had a number of bus routes um that's been decreased since the pandemic and we hope to you know increase um those routes of course. Thank you. Thank you council and yeah thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um I'm concerned about um rider safety and specifically drug use on the trains and I know you've got a lot of trains running right now. So maybe you could talk a little bit about how you um you know prevent and remediate that sort of a problem.

Yeah, so thank you for the question. Um I you know we we have we have security officers uh at every single station and we also have rotating deployment of um what we call transit security officers. So they're actually trained security officers. So they're actually on the train monitoring issues. And one of the one of the reasons why I showed that picture of our security operations center is we have this really useful function I would I would really encourage anyone to use it. Um it's a it's a see something say something text to our security operations center and you can call or you can text. I often text. The number is is 206398-5268. You text them. You tell them uh they'll ask you a question. They usually say, "What train are you on?" They'll tell you where it is. It's super easy. I've done it a number of times. Um when there's, you know, maybe a sticky floor or something like that. Um and by you most often by the next stop or later, uh another security officer is there and will address the issue. So it goes to the security operations center, they contact security and by the time uh the train arrives, you often will find uh that we have a response out there.

Okay. So um follow-up question then you mentioned security officers on the trains, but there's not an officer on every train.

We have officers at every station, not necessarily on every train. We rotate them through the trains. And if I may, I've used this number myself as well when I saw something on the train, somebody acting not quite right. Not observing the transit rules. And it is remarkable, and I've heard from many other people unsolicited how remarkable it is, how quickly we're able to respond. If you text to the number, uh very often there will be security at the next stop. they get on and I've watched them do their job and they're very well trained in calmly deescalating whatever the situation is and uh escorting the person off the train if that's appropriate. I'm uh I was really pleased, you know, always concerned that you don't want to have negative interactions between security whether it's police, private security or even our fair ambassadors and the public. but they do a remarkable job in keeping things calm and um and protecting the traveling public.

Good to know. Thank you. Thank you. Just a sort of follow-up question on that. What is the interoperability capabilities between um your security folks and obviously you start in Seattle and go to Bellev you're going through two police departments, two fire departments or three actually. So how does that can you talk does that go through Northcom? Is that a separate channel? What's the uh so for the like a 911 response? No, I'm saying if there was a reason you had to get in contact with MIPD for example, you know, if your folks on the ground had to get I mean, are we talking about four different relays here? Is there a

our our security operations center has the contact information of every jurisdiction that we're operating in. So that's some of the behindthe-scenes work that we're doing. Uh so when there are issues, we're able to interface pretty quickly. There are also um I know our facilities department and our emergency management department also develops relationships with each of the individual fire departments as well. So if there's a more of a fire issue and less of a you know security issue then then those systems are also in place. Great. Yeah, I know our fire department has been doing extensive training. So, uh, Council Reynolds.

Yeah. Um, just question. Um, the the train is going to be running every 10 minutes or 8 to 10 minutes and then it sounds like once you hit down the international station and head north, it's going to be two trains running eight every 8 to 10 minutes. So, that's just one's on the track every four to five minutes, give or take. Correct. Um, is the system designed and engineered such that if you wanted to at some point you could take half the trains and send them south and just run trains more often that way and get four to five minute service going to the airport as well.

And I can start this and perhaps you'd like to add to it. So, um, there are only certain places where there's the capacity to pull a train off the tracks and turn around the other direction. There's not a a Y in the tracks that would send them either north or south. Um and uh the the way this is designed, it is intended to have adequate capacity for each of these stations. Now when the three line is built um that will be from west Seattle ultimately interlined through the existing tunnel to Everett that will add more capacity uh going south from downtown for a distance as well as uh north and then the Ballard line will come through a new tunnel interlined with Tacoma and so we'll be able to add quite a lot more service taking people south there. Uh we don't anticipate once we have this two-line open that we are often going to have capacity challenges although there's always a NFL champ or NFC championship or a Taylor Swift concert to uh imagine but for most days and most commutes uh this is going to be a very robust system and able to handle uh what the region needs.

Council.

Yes. Thank you. So, I'm just thinking about um the opening day on March 28th and I was at the opening for the um Bell Red Station in Belleview. It was really fabulous, really exciting, and a lot of people came. Um and I basically just parked at the parking ride because there's plenty of open spots then. Um but I'm just thinking on opening day and you know I have taken the south end um the the bus from the south end to the north end. It's it's our island bus 204. So on Saturdays it leaves at 9 and at 10 and at 11 and that's it. And then during the weekday um from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. it goes about twice um in an hour and then it's just hourly until 6:30 p.m. and then that's it. So, just want to just give you an idea of um what's available right now and how I really hope that we can ramp that up um for Mercer Islanders and um and also just thinking about how to get, you know, people around the island to opening day because we already have a bit of a parking issue in our town center. So, it's not like they're going to park at the town center. So, just trying to figure out, you know, that day of festivity that everyone's so excited about, the chamber is working hard on. Um, you know, how can we get the people there?

Absolutely. Um, well, that's a really good point, council member. And, um, if if you were at the the um Bellev downtown station opening in in April of 2024, you may have seen um that our transit partners, King County Metro, were actually running a shuttle from the South Belleview station where there's approximately 1,600 stalls up to opening day. um that is, you know, as I said, we're we're very early, you know, in the in the planning phase, but um a a shuttle concept is something we've employed successfully and we're actually looking at um uh employing for this opening as well. So, more to come on that.

Okay. Uh one more question for me. kind of surprised that council member Weinberg didn't ask this because I know it's really close to his heart, but as it comes to um you know obviously after opening day with the chamber you know do you have activations planned for stations and local businesses going forward, you know, I know council member Weinberg is very big on you know wayinding and things like that. So I'm curious what the what the vision is going forward.

Of course. So we do station activations absolutely at our stations especially ones that are open, right? Um, so, uh, for instance, we are opening two new stations for this particular opening, Mercer Island and Judkins Park, but we're planning station activations on stations that have already been open for that opening day celebration. So that way we get more people excited in more communities and they ride more transit. We are also happy to work with the chamber, businesses, the city, whoever is excited to activate one of our stations. Let's say it's, I don't know, another Seahawks home game next fall and someone on Mercer Island wants to put together a marching band. Like, yeah, let's do it. Let's figure that out together. We absolutely welcome station activation.

Our high school has a great marching band. So,

um, thank you for the question. Uh there's a long a long story here, but we're building the capacity within the agency to go beyond um sort of heads down building rail and building stations to concentrate on station area development, concentrate on things like cleanliness, safety, security, and concentrate on station activation. And we know there are a lot more things we can be doing to make these stations exciting, vibrant places where everyone feels welcome and safe. For example, uh we know that uh having uh music buskers in stations improves the environment of the stations. It makes people feel safer. It makes people feel more welcome. It makes people behave better uh just simply by having a musician there. Having vendors who are uh selling items that people might need uh and as they go uh on their commute um can really enhance the customer experience with very little impact. And making sure that we are looping in area businesses as was pointed out earlier. We really want each of these stations to be very unique and local focused on the local business community. And so we're excited to be building the capacity in the agency to be good partners with the city, with the chamber, uh with other groups to really make the stations their own and to have the people feel a sense of ownership of their local train station.

And um I could just offer um an additional thought for you, mayor. um more immediately uh as a new station opens uh we do have a a group of community engagement professionals uh focused on that kind of writer familiarization um we have somebody uh who has a really great youth program you know so they are happy to go into you know a school on the island and talk about you know here's what it is I if if you've not um you know gone to a link station before ridden the train before you know understand uh you know the fair payment um the size of the platform that sort sort of thing. Um, that's something that, uh, we will do. We'll do it with businesses, interested community organizations to, you know, again, just make everybody feel welcome, you know, with this new amenity in the community.

Uh, Council Wymer.

Yeah. Hi. Uh, so, uh, this is exciting. Uh, it's historic. Uh, I've been waiting for it all my life. uh as the as the entire region. Uh many of you remember the bridges to nowhere that used to be on the south end uh of uh near the old kingdom back when we had the kingdom. Uh and we've come a long way. Uh and it's marvelous to see this day finally uh come to fruition. Um I I'm delighted to hear you talk about uh vendors uh and uh and having something uh at the station other than just waiting for the train. uh there's going to be a lot of noise with the traffic going by on either side and it would be nice to have music uh there. Um I think in order to have the vendors be able to provide something hot, it'd be nice if they could have power if they like could be an electrical outlet at either end of the uh new station uh so that uh someone who's doing like a latte stand or something or a creps or what have you have a place to plug in. Uh water would also be helpful so they can uh wash up there. Um, I want to make sure is the ribbon cutting planned for um the Mercer Island station or are they going to be cutting the ribbon at both Mercer Island and at uh uh Judkins Park?

You want to speak to that? Yep.

Uh we are still in the early planning phases. So um and again uh we are engaging with uh city staff as well as the chamber. So um more to come. Uh I can say uh with certainty that each of the new stations will have that that activation, you know, that I talked about and that um actually was was shown in the video if you if you remember that drone footage that was the opening at um the Lynwood City Center Station. So uh the type of you know be it music, vendors, food, um often a marching band, um that that will certainly be happening at Mercer Island Station as well as Judkins Park Station and as Ariel said potentially others. I do have one more question, but I see another person.

Uh, Deputy Mayor Becker. Uh, yeah. Hi there, and thank thanks for the presentation. I'm excited for the opening. Um, can you clarify the uh the volume estimates? I think you said you expect 50,000 people per day on the two-line. I was wondering if that's new volume in addition to the existing two-line usage or in total and also whether you do projections on a per station basis or do we just wait and see what the traffic looks like on Mercer Island? Yeah, excellent questions. So 50,000 riders would be the the full two line. So it would not be added. It would be the full two line. Um and then yes, we we do per station ridership estimates. I do not have those off of the top of my head right now, but we're happy to to follow up what those would be.

All right. Thank you, Council Reynolds. Talk to me about what sort of coordination or cross trainining you've had with local police. Are you doing security training with the MIAPD? Uh so we have just um onboarded a new chief of police for sound transit and um one of his first tasks is going to be working with the various municipalities to make sure that they're aware of um and you know we have joint trainings and good communication. Uh so that's that is on the docket right now. So that hasn't been done in the other stations so far other communities.

In the other communities yes we we're always working Oh, you have been doing okay. Misunderstood then. Thank you. And then you might want to talk about the um joint uh drill that we had uh on the bridge in the tunnel um just recently last couple weeks uh with emergency responders.

Oh yes. So uh that is that is another thing that we do with uh all of the emergency responders in the area. Um we tabletop exercises as well as drills. So, you know, if any emergency should happen, we have act, you know, we will activate our emergency operations center and go through all of the protocols to make sure everyone knows who's on point, what the lines of communication are, and then understand any any lessons learned. So, that's uh something we've done with the bridge. Uh we've done it with um the uh uh tunnel in downtown Belleview. Uh so, this is ongoing uh anytime we open an extension. answer.

Yeah. Uh so operational question. Uh so once the station is open, we've all uh had uh our opening party and we get to uh benefit from this for generations to come. Uh there will be a lot of people who are going to be standing at the station hungry um or who are coming home uh and who are going to want to stop at a Mercer Island business uh to get dry cleaning or to get food uh or otherwise shopping. I want to make sure that people have a way of knowing what's out there because when you're at the station, Ron's kind of up and above and beyond the the edges and when you get to the top, they might be thinking about I want to go to my car and go home if they're uh living here on the island or on the east side somewhere. And I think we had talked earlier about having a kiosk, something on the platform. Well, if you're waiting for a train, you got time uh and to have kind of a map of here's where stuff is in the island and businesses change over time. So, it's something that's going to need to be maintained uh over time. I was delighted to hear that you guys are working with uh the Chamber of Commerce. Uh is the creation of and maintenance of a kiosk one of the things you're working with the chamber on?

I can go ahead and answer that. So, no, not specifically a kiosk, but it's an excellent idea to explore with them. I will say we do have a program at Sound Transit called Loyal to the Local. So, this is where we partner with local businesses along our alignments to help showcase what community activities and also uh amenities are available to riders of the system. We've done everything from Marymore Park and the events going on there to uh other like small and local businesses along the alignment. So, we do try to showcase the local loyal to the local uh businesses through our social media campaigns. So that's only online though. It's not something that's actual takes physical form at at the site.

Correct. Yes. I was wondering if there's some way through QR codes or something to connect uh those two. So people at the site would have some way of connecting to uh such a a resource u so they would have some way of knowing what's around them. It's an excellent idea. I think we're going to take that one back to our marketing team. Thanks. Uh Council Reynolds, is a thousand questions literal or is this an old hand? I I think this is my last one. Unless I think of more. I think we might have to make this the last round. So, okay. Um, if I'm not mistaken, and tell me if I am wrong, the the the trains right now will be two train cars. Is that correct? The two-line trains will start as two train cars. We can add cars as the demand increases.

You anticipated my followup. How is four the max, three the max? Four is the max. Okay. And and we believe the bridge is engineered for that weight and everything else. Yes, it it it we running four car trains on the bridge right now uh as tests. It will start with two car trains. Like the key for most people is the frequency. You you want you don't want to be late and have to wait a long time for the train. So having uh smaller train sets, but having them arrive more frequently is considered an advantage. I I agree. Excellent. Thank you. All right, Council Member Shay.

Yes. So, Merc has um hired two police officers, you know, just standing by when this happens and this opens. And just wondering, is there a space for them um somewhere in the station? I don't have the answer to that. Do you have the answer to that?

Uh we can follow up on that. We'll make sure we can figure that out. And also just um for CEO Constantine um you mentioned, you know, because uh Deputy Mayor um Becker and Council Member uh Reynolds and I were at the uh at the event where you announced the opening day and u you talked about um Jim Ellis and I saw his son today, Bob Ellis, because he's a member of our Rotary Club here. And I mentioned that you me you talked about his father and how this was like the dream he had, you know, decades ago. And he was just so proud to hear that, you know, that you remembered his father. Oh yeah. Well, um there's mention has been made of some events from the ancient past of our region today and I remember a lot of those events and um Mr. Ellis was a big influence. Uh he was a visionary but he was also someone with a lot of tenacity and the ability to get out there and try to help people share the vision and get things done. And it was one of the honors of my lifetime in the summer of 2009 to be able to ride the very first light rail train uh in our region uh in just a little short ride in downtown Seattle with Mr. Ellis. and uh he's no longer with us but in this celebration I hope we will remember him because this was a vision that he tried to make real 50 or 60 years ago and people weren't ready yet that uh they a generation later said yes let's move forward and I'm only sorry he's not here to see it but we are here because of him and many others uh who who laid the groundwork for the March 28th celebration.

Well, I'd be sure I um I was sure to let Bob Ellis, his son, know that this is happening on on March 28th. So, I hope that Bob will join the event. Cand city manager Vaughn.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to follow up on Council Member Shea's uh question and comment. uh for the benefit of uh Sound Transit and council members that are maybe newer to the city, we did up staff by two police officers a few years ago. That was in anticipation of uh a higher demand as a result of the opening of the light rail. Uh but I do want to clarify those officers are not intended to be stationed just at the station. They were brought on to service the whole community uh due to a higher population of visitors coming here. And we have been working both fire and police directly uh training with Sound Transit on the stations in the trains uh out on I90 actually as well doing uh specialized rescue operations and response. Um so we're we're a little tight here tonight. Uh but we did have fire and PD here in case you needed to ask some questions. Um but given the circumstances of our setup this evening, uh council, feel free to reach out to your fire chief or your police chief independently if you'd like more information about um our side of the operation. Thank you.

Great. Uh thank you for being here. Um my son is five and since the two line is open, I've actually taken him to Belleview just go up and down. So uh it'll be nice to not have to do that. Um but I had promised them that we would go to uh Mariners games on the light rail. So they're going to be knocking on your door if that doesn't become a reality. Um one just one real qu quick question here to ask is you know as the World Cup gets closer to if we can sort of stay in touch with us about how those um that's obviously a huge lift operationally and um thank you for your time. Uh D I appreciate your comment about you know that sort of transforming the agency from a real capital building to an operational one and I think that's a very interesting way to put it. So uh I know we're all excited about this and want to thank you and look forward to seeing you down on the tracks on the 28th.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much,

Mr. Mayor. We may need just a few minutes to reset here. Filibuster. Uh, should we take a two-minute recess? That would be great. Thank you. Okay. The council will be in recess until 5:58. appreciate.

Welcome back. The time is now 6 p.m. The council was in recess for four minutes. Uh our next item of special business is AB6852, the 2024 financial accountability and federal audit exit conference. Welcome Deputy Finance Director Lan Tuttle.

Mr. Mayor, um Lan Tuttle, your deputy finance director. I'm just here to introduce the audit team. I will ask them to turn on their cameras um and introduce themselves. You've all been provided, I think, a copy of the exit packet that they will likely refer to. And with that, I will hand it over to Hadi. All right. Thank you. So, good evening. Yes. So, we're here today to share the results of the city's most recent audits. My name is Adams. I'm the audit manager and I'm with Kai Nuin who's the audit lead and also Lisa Kim who was the supervisor on the audit as well. And then as mentioned um so the presentation is going to be a summary of the audit results and then to supplement that presentation we have provided a packet of information that includes copies of the draft audit reports that will be issued and then also the exit conference agenda um as well. All right. So one of the most important things about audits is their role in increasing trust in your city. So, an audit lets you um staff and others such as the public know if errors operations are working properly or if there's any improvements that can be made in the areas that we review and examine. And then also having that third party independent audit's important and increases the public's trust that the information presented by the city can be relied upon. It also gives you all assurance as well that the numbers presented in the financial statements can be relied upon and that the city is in compliance with state laws, rules, regulations, its own policies and procedures in the safeguarding of public resources as well. And then the results are available to the public and published on our website. And then last but not least, audits are designed to help you improve operations. So if there are any other recommendations uh they are made to assist the city in continuing to improve its efficiency and then also effectiveness as well of its operations. So with that hand over to Kai to go over the results of audits.

Thank you All right. So for the city we conducted an accountability audit that covers the period of January 124 through December 3124. The purpose of an accountability audit is to ascertain whether the city complied with state laws, regulations, contracts, grant agreements, and its own policies and procedures. In addition, the audit also looks at whether in general the city has adequate controls to safeguard public funds. Under the heading results in brief, you can see that our audit found the city's operation in most of the areas. be examined, complied in all material respects with state laws, regulations, its own policies, and provided adequate controls over safeguarding of public resources. So, in selecting specific areas for further review, we conducted a number of planning procedures that incorporated um reviewing the meeting minutes of the governing body, analyzing trends in financial data, which included payroll and vendor information. We conducted risk assessments and other procedures. We utilized a riskbased approach in selecting areas for further testing based on those planning procedures. So included on this slide here are the um areas that we've identified for further testing in our audit. We examined the city's controls over accounts payable, specifically the electronic fund transfers and general dispersements and tested those controls. We also reviewed controls over payroll and tested the dispersements to verify that they are valid and supported. We also reviewed the agreement with Eastside Fire and Rescue in our local agreement and tested the controls against the agreement. We also reviewed the city's compliance with minutes, meetings, and executive sessions and reviewed the uh city's financial condition. So, our audit identified concerns during the accountability audit that is

included in our report as a finding. While our audit found that the city complied in most areas examined, we determined that there is inadequate internal controls over the city's vendor payments that contributed to a loss of $420,000 of public funds. We found that the city lacked a policy requiring sufficient verification for all uh requests to change vendor information to ensure actual vendors made the request. We also found that although the city had informal expected procedures in place, those expectations were uh did not include specific verification procedures. Further staff did not consistently follow these procedures. And lastly, um the city uh did not require staff to um direct payment or address change requests through a centralized department or position to better um ensure consistent and sufficient verifications. And with that, we recommend the city enter its new policy over vendor payments require adequate verifications of requests to change vendor information. The city the city's policy should avoid procedures that rely on information being passed through email, which is a communication medium traditionally vulnerable to unauthorized access. We also recommend the city strengthen its controls to ensure staff follow verification procedures to protect payments from internal and external threats. We also recommend the city provide adequate communication and training to staff on cyber security risk and vendor verification requirements. Additionally, we reviewed the city's response to the finding and included the response in our audit report. The response can be referenced starting on page nine of the exit packet.

So with our offic's online financial intelligence tool or FIT, you will be able to find the data to help your government make better business decisions and improve its financial position. FIT has yours and every other city's financial data as submitted to us um in your annual reports each year and transforms the data that you submit in your annual reports into easy to understand measures. This data can be used can be used and is all in one place online allows you to explore your city all cities and make comparisons with each other with ease. For example, on this slide we have the financial health of all 281 cities and towns that submitted their data uh for fiscal year 2024 providing a great overview of the financial health in Washington cities and towns. And if you'd like, you can actually scan the QR code here and open the page and then you can save it for review uh later. So shown on this slide here are the fit results for your government. As previously shared, we examined the financial condition for your city as part of our audit. During our review, we assessed the fit indicator shown above, inquired with your staff, and evaluated financial records for the city's financial health. Our audit noted no concerns or recommendation for the city's financial condition. You'll see there are two cautionary indicators for the city. These are related to the city's change in cash position. This measure looks at the percent change at um the ending cash and investments compared to prior year. It shows the extent that cash increase or was used up at the uh during the year. So during the audit we noted a decline

in um in cash which is primarily due to the spending down of the federal corona virus state and local funds and we also conducted a financial statement audit for the period of January 124 through December 3124. The objective of a financial statement audit is to issue an opinion as to whether the information included on the financial statements can be relied upon to make decisions. And we are pleased to report that we are issuing an unmodified clean audit opinion on the city's financial statements. This is the opinion you want to receive and provides assurance that the financial statements are stated fairly and are materially correct. Additionally, it's important to note that our audits are conducted in accordance with government auditing standards. These standards also require us to gain an understanding of the city's internal controls or processes that go through preparing the financial statements for audit. Should we identify any weaknesses or concerns with the process or could that could or did result in significant errors in the financial statements, we are required to bring that to your attention and include that information in the report. And we are pleased to report that we did not identify any concerns with the city's process that requires us to bring to your attention or include in our report. And lastly, audit standards also require us to consider compliance with applicable state laws, regulations, contracts, or grant agreements where non-compliance could affect the fair presentation of the financial statements. You'll see that the your report indicates no instances of non-compliance or other matters that are required to be reported. Then in relation to our financial statement audit, professional audit standards also require us to share with

you whether there were any material or large misstatements that were identified and subsequently corrected by management. We are pleased to report there is no material misstatements identified during the course of the audit. And with that, we're also required to note whether there were any uh uncorrected misstatements that remained uncorrected in the audited financial statements. And there is no um uncorrected uh misstatements to share. Then lastly, um as part of our financial statement audit, we evaluate certain risks that we'd like to share with you. First, audit standards require auditors to communicate areas requiring um special consideration of which one of those areas is always required to be assessed is management override of controls. This is a risk that management may be able to process transactions of established or effective control process. To evaluate this area, we reviewed uh journal entries throughout the audit period to identify incorrect or unallowable adjustments performed outside of your routine processes. And we are pleased to share that we had no recommendations um to report over this area. And then related work, we also conducted an attestation audit for the period of January 1, 24 through December 3124. We examined the city's compliance with the compliance requirements for activities allowed unallowed and unallowable costcost principles for the corona virus state and local fiscal recover recovery funds uh for our ITA station audit. In our opinion, the city complied in all material respects with the requirements during the period that we audited. I will hand it now over to Alisa for some closing remarks. All right. So, uh, first off, the audit costs are within our original estimate

that we provided at the beginning of the audit. Um, we anticipate the next audit covering fiscal year 2025 to take place in the summer this year in 2026. Um, this will include an accountability and a financial statement audit. And the estimated cost for that is included in your exit packet. And on the next slide here, we have information about the report publication. So the report uh audit report will be published on our website. So if you have not already, you can sign up to receive email notifications on when the report is released as well as other news articles and alerts including uh resources our office publishes. And we'll also be sending you a customer service survey. Um we encourage anyone that participated in the audit um to complete the survey to help us improve our services and learn how we can better meet your needs. Now I'll hand it back to Kai to close us out.

Thank you. So before we wrap up our presentation today, we would just like to thank city management and officials for their assistance and cooperation during the audit. Specifically, we'd like to extend our appreciation to Lan. It was really great to work with you. So thank you, Lan. All right, so this concludes our presentations to the city for our fiscal year 24 audit results. Uh we thank everyone for your time today and for your participation in the meeting. At this point we just like to open it up for any last minute comments or questions that you guys may have for us. Great. Uh thank you so much for the presentation for your time. Uh we'll start with Council Reynolds.

Can you go back to slide eight for a moment? Yes. I think that I am Am I still presenting? I think I just got uh Let's see. Not currently. There we go.

One more. It looks There we go. Um I I may have missed this while taking notes. I apologize. But the the bottom line comment on adverse opinion on US GAP also issued. What's the basis of the adverse opinion? Um so go ahead. Yes. So because you produce your financial statements on cash basis which is the regulatory basis of accounting we're required to have that um paragraph in there because you use the cash basis or cash basis method of accounting because because GAP would ordinarily be on an acrruel basis. Is that the issue? Correct. Correct. But there were no other items that were problematic other than that.

So yeah. So it's not a it's not a issue or anything like that. It's just required language that we'd have to have in there since you don't produce gap financial statements. Okay. I have more questions when others are done. That's great.

Yeah, I'll take a turn. Um, I guess my my question is for our staff here. You know, we we knew uh you about the loss that was occurred. Um, you know, I think that was something that I appreciate the staff kept us in the loop on and also the law enforcement response and attempts to recuperate those funds, recover those funds. Um, obviously don't want to give away all of our um, methods of secrecy and protection here, but if you could talk a little bit about sort of what the staff response was to to safeguard this and prevent it from going forward.

Sure. Let me u let me start and then I'll hand it over to Matt Mournick. For the record, I'm Jesse Bon. I'm the city manager. Uh, thank you for the question, Mr. Mayor. Uh, the audit uh, presentation tonight is a point in time presentation. and it's looking back at a moment uh where we uh had a loss and a number of issues were identified. I think the piece that this presentation misses is all of the actions the staff immediately took um as a result of that. So we have provided a response to the auditors which you will see when the um audit report is published that outlines all of the things that we did uh including I think the second phone call was to the state auditor, the first was to the police department. Uh, but I'm going to ask uh Matt Mournick uh our finance director sitting to my right to walk you through uh the actions uh the city immediately took in response to the uh council payable loss.

Good evening council and members of the community. I'm Matt Bournick and I I just want to start off by saying uh to echo city manager Bond and assure the council and the community that the moment that staff was aware of the fraud incident um we took immediate action and we notified the Merland Police Department, the Washington State Auditor's office and our banking institutions. Um but that was just the beginning. Um, we took many steps internally within the organization and the city manager's office uh actually initiated work by bringing in a a private accounting firm that uh specializes in municipal finances that conducted an internal audit. Uh they really focused on the city's account payables dispersement procedures and our uh protocols that are in place for when we make changes to information related to our vendors with an eye towards coming up with improvements in our internal processes and that led to new policies and practices within the organization. Um, we have since established secondary review and supervisory monitoring whenever there are any vendor changes to information for the the countless vendors that provide goods and services to the city of Mercer Island. And we have a formal approval process in place before any funds get issued to uh vendors where information may have changed. Uh I just also want to commend the IT department because we have leveraged new software tools and have really increased our trainings. Um we have a new fraud notification software system that was immediately implemented and we've really ramped up sta staff training. So both of these components have really been focused on identifying and preventing fraud here moving forward. So um these efforts are

ongoing. This isn't a point in time thing. there has been a cultural shift within the organization as a result of this. It was taken very seriously and uh our our focus moving forward is to make sure that nothing like this happens again. Great. Uh thank you very much Counc I would like to talk about the finding and the fraud incident and I just question for the auditors. Have any other communities around the state been uh experienced something similar and what uh what's the common problem? Is there any anything we can learn from the collective problem if there was one?

So cyber loss has been there's been a big uptick in fishing um schemes. Um so yes so electronic fund transfers um internal controls around um changing payment information updating payment information is important and also vendor information. So yes there has been an uptick across the state with those types of u losses as a result of fishing attempts. So obviously one loss is too many, but do you have a sense of how many other jurisdictions had this happen? I don't I don't I just know that there has been an uptick. Okay, Reynolds. Any other questions?

I had one other on the tip of my tongue, but I think I've lost it. So that should do it for now. I just want to say thank you. Um, I think this is the sixth time I've been through this and I I think it should not be lost that you know our audit reports are always very stellar and I think that's a very reflection of the team. Um, so obviously Matt Lewan, thank you to your your team but also to the whole city that I know plays a role in this. So, um, thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone and thank you to the audit team for joining us tonight as well. Our next item of business is appearances. This is an opportunity for anyone to speak to the city council on any item. Oh, excuse me.

Next up on the agenda is our city manager report. And for that, we will welcome back city manager Jesse Bond.

All right. Uh, good evening again, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Doing a little seat shuffling here. All right. Casey's got the screen share up. Uh council, uh this is a slide I always show just reminding you of the look ahead upcoming meetings. We do have a meeting uh Thursday with the school district. It's our uh one of two annual linkage meetings. We will be at their place. Uh the slide says six o'clock, but I actually think that meeting starts at 6:15. Is that right, Andrea? That is correct.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry for that. Meeting starts at 6:15, but come a little early and uh we'll get you all ready. Uh your next uh hybrid meeting is Tuesday, February 17th. Uh council, sometimes we cancel the meeting during mid-winter break, but in this case, given the volume of agenda items, we are um going to go ahead and meet twice in February. Uh board and commission meetings are all kept current on your city website. Uh parks and recck commission is meeting this Thursday. I will note that overlaps with uh your joint meeting with the school district uh utility board and the open space conservancy trust will be meeting next week. Next slide. I wanted to let you know that we have extended uh the ask and invitation for uh folks interested in joining our boards and commissions. Uh we've extended the recruitment and I do have an update. Uh there are three vacant positions currently open. one on the Arts Council, one on the Open Space Conservancy Trust, and as of I believe just this morning, one now on the utility board. Uh the recruitment for these positions is being extended. We'll keep uh that recruitment open through March 6 and anticipate you would be making appointments to fill those seats March 17th. Uh this is happening on the eve of our annual boarding commission recruitment, which will likely commence here shortly. uh we decided to move forward to fill these vacancies if we can now. Um if we can't, they will be rolled into um the annual recruitment where you typically make the appointments in May. Anyone interested in applying, we have all the information available on our website at the link there at the bottom of the slide. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, we are actually tonight uh we'll be talking a little bit um about your capital improvement program and one component of that is your transportation

improvement program, the TIP. Uh we wanted to alert you, city council and members of the community that the public comment period uh for the annual update of the six-year transportation improvement program is now open. This is an opportunity for the community to uh weigh in on how we will be making our investments um for bike, pedestrian, um and street investments over the next six-year period. Uh council, we do have a let's talk page uh stood up. It's hyperl here on the slide, which you can't see. Um but we'd like everyone to provide comments uh to be considered by the city council um by April 21st. Council, we'll be coming back to you with a tip uh preview and overview on April 7th and then we anticipate you'll be adopting uh the tip uh May 5th. Lot of work overlapping since it's a budget year. Okay, next slide, please. By the way, I should mention uh when we open up public comment for the uh transportation improvement program, we will push it out across city channels. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of this tonight. Next slide. Uh this is uh now moot because we just had a uh extensive presentation from Sound Transit, but we plugged this in just to remind you uh that we have a celebration coming on March 28th. I want to thank the council members that were able to go out and uh join uh CEO Constantine for the press conference announcing the date. Uh the city is actively involved with Sound Transit and the chamber and will be helping to produce uh that opening event. Next slide, please. Uh switching gears uh a little bit, I wanted to just share that we are continuing our work on the sewer lake line reach one assessment. This is uh when we talk about reaches, we're talking about the different segments of

the lake line that sit sewer lake line that sit in Lake Washington and convey sewage off of Mercer Island. Uh this is a really important 2026 project where we're evaluating two and a half miles of sewer lake line on the eastern shore of Mercer Island. I don't think we have the map on this slide deck, but we've presented it previously. Uh we're assessing the condition uh long-term capacity needs particularly important with all of um the work we're doing related to housing and density on Mercer Island. Uh this is the oldest section of the island's lake line and it contains several pump stations. Uh the pipe is largely uninspected uh and has experienced overflows in the past. Really important work. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that the assessment is underway including field investigations and boat-based surveys. That's that uh little picture that you see there on the right. Uh and we'll be back uh sharing our findings with you council in the very near future. So this is important work moving forward on our sewer infrastructure. Next slide. Okay, just a couple of slides here to wrap this up. Uh we are celebrating Lunar New Year again this year here at the community center. Uh Sunday, February 8th from 10 to 2. That's this weekend. Also happens to be Super Bowl, but you can do both uh because the game starts at 3:30. Uh this is uh uh in partnership and um sorry I've lost my track here. So we have uh cultural performances, games, activities, uh food, uh a lot of fun. It's also uh very busy here at the community center. Um so come on by uh drop by for the Lunar New Year celebration and uh when you're done, you can go watch the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. Next slide, please. All right. And next week is uh the uh Youth and Family Services Foundation

breakfast. Uh certainly one of our uh favorite uh events of the year hosted here at the Community Center bright and early in the morning, 7:30 a.m. uh on Wednesday, February 11th. Uh the foundation will be hosting a fundraising breakfast that directly supports uh youth and family services. So uh please put that on your calendar and uh come on by. And I want to give an early shout out to the recreation team who uh works late the night before and is here early in the morning making sure the facility in the parking lot is ready to host the event. Next slide, please. All right. Uh this has been a really long time coming. It's super exciting to share that we launched the new utility customer portal uh where our water customers can view hourly water usage, set up custom notifications for their account, and pay their utility bills. Uh this just launched recently. We've got over 20% of our customers already registered and using the portal. Um, and customers will begin receiving uh alerts through the portal once they're registered about potential leaks. Um, I won't get into a lot of great detail. The public works team will be coming back to you probably later this year with a more comprehensive update on all the improvements we've made uh regarding uh utilities. So, this is exciting. You might be getting some questions and uh we our fielding um uh customer service is offering support I should say. uh to people that have questions about how to use the portal and and any bugs that need to be worked out. So, nice job across um the city team for deploying this new and very important resource. Next slide. Um council, as we transition to the next item, I just want to acknowledge that uh we have lost some airflow in the room and so it's getting warm in here. We're going to see if we

can't uh turn that back on. Bear with us. Uh, I think the next presentation actually covers the HBAC issues we're having with this building. Um, all right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think we'll take your word on the HBC needing to be replaced. You don't need to demonstrate. Uh, our next item of business is appearances. This is the opportunity for anyone to speak to the city council on any item except for items requiring a public hearing, any cause judicial matters or campaign related matters. City Clark, is there anyone who has signed up for appearances that wishes to address the council? Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Tonight's agenda will include inerson public appearances and remote public appearances via Zoom. Individuals wishing to address the council may do so in person or via Zoom or telephone provided they register with the city clerk by 4 p.m. today. When it's your turn to speak, you'll be called by name. Remarks must be addressed to the council as a whole and not to individual council or staff members. Any person making personal, impertinent or slandish remarks or becomes boisterous, threatening or personally abusive while addressing the city council may be requested to leave the meeting. Please speak audibly and state your name and city of residence for the record. There will be a timer on the screen. You have three minutes to speak. When your time is ended, your microphone and video will be turned off. I will thank you for your comments and move to the next speaker item of business. Staff, please promote the first speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our first speaker tonight is Jean Robertson, and you can go to the podium to speak. Miss Robertson.

Thank you. Um, esteemed council boy these days we do not take good governance for granted and I want to thank you all. I feel well governed. Um, thank you for your leadership to our community. It's a high responsibility to make decisions that impact every resident of our city. I am here tonight to ask you to make a statement reassuring Mercer Island residents that you, our city government, is committed to protecting us. I appreciate the statement issued yesterday by the police department stating that they have no legal role in immigration enforcement and that they are committed to our safety. They stated accurately that they have no authority to inter interfere with lawful federal activities. What I have not heard is that they will defend Mercer Island residents against unlawful federal activities. We have watched in horror as the first, fourth and fifth amendment rights of motans and yesterday Portlanders are being grievously and illegally violated and violence is perpetrated against peaceful protesters. There have now been several creditable sightings of federal immigration agents on Mercer Island, including on residential, post office, and church property. I would like to propose that you, our elected representatives, provide public reassurance to the Mercer Island community, that our city is committed to protecting us from these real and present dangers. Perhaps you can take a page from the book of the Seattle mayor and number one, prevent or prohibit federal agents from using city or school district property. to inform private property and business owners that the Fourth Amendment gives them the right to insist that agents, federal agents, present a judicial warrant before they may be granted entry and asking our city police to enforce that right. I urge our city council to take a leadership role in our region that will

inspire other cities to likewise commit to the obvious protection of our constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and freedom from fear of our own federal government. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Our next speaker tonight is Addie Smith. the clock. Andrea, please. Has it restarted? Yes, it hasn't started yet.

Okay, I'm ready. My apologies. Hello, my name is Addie Smith. Today is February 3rd, 2026. I'm speaking before the Mercer Island City Council. Two weeks ago, I told you that I'd be sharing how the Mercer Island Municipal Court judge has committed perjury from the bench. These statements I'm about to quote from him are in fact perjury. on March 14th, 2023. He stated, quote, "You've also been warned, and we've had communication prior that when you ask me to revoke your public waiver of counsel and ask for another appointment for public representation, that I advise you, then that your right to counsel will be lost. if you engage in acts that create this situation right here where your attorney is needing to withdraw based on your accusations unfounded accusations at least by the court at this point about her representation of you. So, you've been warned both uh both the consequences of proceeding without counsel as well as the consequences of uh not engaging in professional relationship with your current council, Miss Hutcherson, and that you could and will lose your right to counsel by public appointment." End quote. These statements by the Mercer Island Municipal Court judge our lies. He has committed perjury while sitting on the bench. The only other time we discussed public council was on August 9th, 2021 when I didn't have an attorney representing me. I would advise these city council members to go online and pull up the recorded hearings from the case. That case number is 900093066. Meredith Hutcherson went before the court and requested more money to represent me when I refused to take some sort of plea agreement concocted by Blakeley Warington. I will never take a plea agreement for defending my life from death by a white racist felon who had a gun. The city of Mercer Island and the Mercer Island police have been suppressing hate crimes that happened to my daughter and I since 2019. They've ruined my name and reputation for seven

years. They've prevented me from becoming gainfully employed for seven years. They've ruined business opportunities for seven years and are still doing that to this day, February 3rd, 2026. eventually is a day. Mercer Island taxpayers will be financially responsible for all of your actions. I am still unable to work because the Mercer Island Municipal Court judge issued a retaliatory, vengeful, false, and fraudulent, law violating bench warrant knowing that I couldn't come to court in person. He granted Meredith Hutcherson's motion to withdraw because she no longer wanted to represent me after she didn't get more money to do so. She was advised that additional money to represent me would have come from the city council members. either she requested it and was denied or she didn't request it at all. If six quote unquote good cops watch one bad cop violate the law and wrongfully arrest someone, then there are seven bad cops. Many of Merc Island's police officers knew the hate crimes happening to my daughter and I were experiencing and did nothing about it and arrested me after defending myself. Three of them were at my home days prior and were again informed of the attack.

There are no further speakers tonight, Mr. Mayor, thank you. Uh, we now move to our next item of business, which is approval of the consent agenda. City clerk, please put the consent agenda on the screen. Okay. The consent agenda tonight contains six items which are available on the screen and were in the agenda packet for review. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. It's moved by council Weinberg and second by council member Andrew. So the clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Sheay, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, I. Council member Weinberg, I. Council member Reynolds, I. Council member Androl. I.

And Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Motion passes. Our first item of regular business is AB6859, the Arch Housing Trust Fund project approvals. And for that, we welcome CBD Director Jeff Thomas. Thank you. Good evening, Council. Um, for the record, I am Jeff Thomas with CPD. Just a quick sound check. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Yep.

Excellent. Thank you. Um, I'd like to I've got a couple of people joining me for this uh item this evening. I'd like to introduce uh CPD deputy director Allison Vanorf who's on the screen as well as Lindsey Masters who's the executive director of ARCH. And Lindsay is going to be um actually taking the lead on the presentation for you this evening. um the slide deck that she's going to walk you through uh will do a little recap of uh an Arch 101 uh brief presentation about what ARCH is all about for uh both our new council members and the public and then um we're going to get into the um order of business for this evening which is um approving um money from Mercer Island's portion of um the housing trucks fund account with Arch for um a number of projects that will touched on. And then Lindsay is also going to give a brief preview of two items that we've scheduled for consent for your next meeting on February 17th. Uh, a couple orders of business. Um, I would characterize them as housekeeping business and Lindsay will get into those to give you a preview of those again for February 17th. Um, so with that, Lindsay, why don't you uh share screen and take it away.

Great. Thank you, Jeff. Let's make sure everything's working here. Okay. Make this bigger. Wonderful. Well, it's great to be with you. I appreciate the ability to join you virtually tonight. Um, and look forward to coming in person at a future date. So, as Jeff mentioned, I'm going to give a brief overview of ARCH as an organization. Uh if you have heard anything about us, hopefully you know that we're all about affordable housing. Uh and we're all about local government. And it's really our job to help connect you um to strategies, tools, and resources that are going to help preserve and increase housing for low and moderate income households in Mercer Island and throughout East King County. This is a map of the geographic area that Arch serves. Uh and in those colored outlines are the cities that are actually formal members of Arch. So we've got 15 cities alto together and King County is also a member. Um we were formed over three decades ago now around the time of the growth management act. Uh and really the idea was to create a legal framework and really a practical way for cities to collaborate and act together in planning for affordable housing and actually delivering that on the ground. Um we were set up with several key responsibilities that really thought through what are all the steps you need um not just to put plans in place but to really get housing built and funded. Um so we provide a number of services all the way from policy planning and technical assistance. Uh we do facilitate direct funding and investment in projects. Um, we also support cities to do uh direct kind of technical assistance on projects

you might be wanting to initiate. Um, we help to steward the local land use incentive and tax exemption programs that local jurisdictions um have adopted over the years as ways to create affordable housing. Um, that includes both rental units that are coming online through those program as well as home ownership units. And then we do a lot of work uh directly with the private sector. As you could imagine, uh partnership with housing developers, owners, operators is really critical to actually getting things done. Um so we have an extensive set of relationships with affordable housing developers that we're working with on real projects. Uh and increasingly we're also coordinating with private funders as well to bring in more investment. just a little bit about our how how we are structured and our governance um which we've been spending a lot of time with our board talking about recently and thinking about how this could evolve in the future. But uh up until now we have operated under the structure you see here with an executive board that governs the whole organization um that is comprised of the chief executive staff of each of the jurisdictions or their delegate. Uh we are also um responsible for staffing a community advisory board that helps give the board advice on funding allocations. So many of the recommendations you're going to see today came about through work with that community advisory board. Um we are staff we really consider ourselves to be your staff and the staff of all the jurisdictions. Technically we are housed inside the city of Belleview. They serve as our administering agency. They're really important for us to um not only be able to operate efficiently and effectively, but also to have a

place to deploy all the resources that we pull through the trust fund. And then most recently um our board had provided direction to uh to test a pilot uh where we would bring elected officials from all the member jurisdictions of arch in a single body. Uh this is not something that was contemplated originally in our interlocal agreement. Uh but in recent years we really saw a need to do more engagement with elected officials. We saw a desire for uh greater information involvement. So, we're excited about piloting that and excited that Mercer Island will have a representative joining us. Obviously, you the member councils have a really important responsibility in this structure as well. Um, so not only do councils approve joining ARCH, but you also have a role to approve our budget and work program each year. Um, to approve any direct funding into affordable housing projects that we might recommend. Um and of course to decide local land use tax policies etc. Um so as I mentioned there's a range of strategies that ARCH really supports our members with to try to make an impact on affordable housing but the one I'm going to be talking about the most this evening is the strategy to invest in housing. Um, currently we are actually responsible for supporting three uh three pretty significant investment programs. The housing trust fund, which is what I'll spend the bulk of the evening talking about. Um, but also two other uh city level funding programs for the cities that adopted the 0.1% sales tax um and have developed their own sort of programmatic approach to that that we uh work very hard to make sure is coordinated with the trust fund.

Um, just giving you kind of a big picture background on what the trust fund can do and how it leverages your funds over the life of the program. Um, we've put in well over 125 million. Uh when you start adding in those other local sales tax resources from those jurisdictions I mentioned, um we're up to about $150 million in investments and that has brought in over $2 billion um in total funding for affordable housing projects that you can see come from a variety of other sources uh which are significant and I think without that local uh commitment and initial upfront investment would be pretty difficult to attract to East King county. Um, so I'll d kind of dive right into what the funding round looked like this last year. Uh, we started the round with about three and a half million of known contributions um that were coming from uh our members. That was able to grow a bit through the year uh with some loan repayments coming in, some returned funds from previous projects. We had um another 600 or so thousand from federal dollars that were very uncertain at the beginning of the year uh but by the end of the year were confirmed that we are able to direct through our process. Uh and then later in the round when we had kind of a known set of projects um another couple cities came in were able to supplement the resources that we had available. Um those were for projects located in Redmond and Kirkland. Um the other two sales tax funded programs you see over on the right. Um so we had about $30 million that was available in Belleview and another couple million or so in Isiqua.

Um just wanted to share some of the bigger context. So I showed you kind of that that big uh house of all the different blocks of funding. Um, a big part of what we do is try to really understand the funding landscape and be able to uh be nimble and responsive and um bring in the resources that are available in the year. And it's a very dynamic landscape as you might imagine. Federal funding in particular um really zeroed out the possibility of projects that would rely on operating subsidies. Um most of those potential projects were taken off the table early in the year. Um but on the on the positive side, there was a pretty robust state investment in the state housing trust fund. So we knew there'd be a pretty big opportunity to bring in some of those dollars this year. And then King County um had some funds as well. Their pool has been shrinking um somewhat as they exhaust their TOD bond funds. Um, so that's kind of the the money side of it, but really we also try to work with our board to set some priorities and some um direction for what we're looking to accomplish in the round. The last couple years since Arch adopted a strategic plan that's focused on building more housing faster. We've really elevated projects that are going to be able to move forward on a timely basis. um and projects that will be able to leverage our investment and really maximize maximize that production. We certainly still care about the range of other goals that we have as a coalition including uh making sure housing opportunities are geographically distributed throughout East King County um and a variety of other goals. So this year we had a historic funding round with over 15 uh with 15 projects

total that came in for funding that is way over the previous uh record for ARCH. A typical year in the past would be maybe three or four projects coming in to apply for funding. So we're thrilled uh to see this level of opportunity out there in East King County. uh it also creates some very difficult decisions certainly with the requests um far outweighing the resources. So I'll start with a summary of all 15 of those projects. You'll see you probably can't read this, but they're they're listed here. They're in your packet um with a lot of detail on each project. I'm primarily going to talk about the ones that we are recommending for funding, but I'll just uh preface this with projects that were not recommended this year. Um certainly some of them we anticipate coming back and reapplying in the future. And so we'll probably have the chance to talk to you about some of those in the future. I will go quickly through these um since there's a lot of a lot of detail. I don't want to get too lost in the weeds. Um, but these each of these are a pretty special project. This one here is a uh project developed by Bridge Housing in partnership with the Bathl United Methodist Church. They have been uh in discussions for quite some time with city of both which um last year approved donating the property at no cost to for this project. Um the proposed project is providing probably the greatest amount of uh do bang for our buck in terms of leverage. They're going to really focus on familysiz housing. They will have a community component on the ground floor. Um and so we recommended full funding for this project. It also came into us

last year and while there was a great enthusiasm for it, it didn't quite meet that readiness um test. But this year we it really uh It really is poised to to go. The next project here is located in Belleview. It's called Altter at East Maine. Um the primary developer is SR Development, but they've partnered with HopeLink um which will provide um important services for select number of families who will be um able to access housing there after leaving homelessness. Um, so there's some deep affordability in this project. Uh, and we were excited to see this one come back as well. This was another reapplication after um, not successfully being funded in the past. Uh, there was previously a kids museum component that took up quite a lot of space in the building. that portion of the project um was eliminated in this latest iteration which actually enabled quite a lot more housing to be fit on the site. Um so we're excited to see this one move forward. Forest Edge is a project developed by Imagine Housing. Um they are our longestterm partner in delivering affordable housing in East King County. Have been doing this work for a long time. Uh, and this is a really special project because it's going to be cited on land owned by St. Andrews Church, which is the founding organization for Imagine Housing. They've had a long um set of uh relationships there and leadership within the church that have championed affordable housing. Um, it'll provide about 100 units of housing. We'll have some set aides as well. Uh, and while we wanted to really fully fund the request, our limited resources really only enabled us to advance about

500,000. Uh, but we worked with city of Belleview to make sure they could help to fill some of that gap. Um, Orchard Gardens is a project uh that we have been working on for a number of years. We previously funded this in 2022. Um the project did hit a variety of challenges that led to significant cost increases. So they've come back to ARCH and to other funders for additional funds. Um this is a project that city of Belleview has also uh recommending funding for and is going to provide familysiz home ownership units in a land trust model that will um preserve affordability long term. Kirkland House is um an existing site that is operated by Porch Light, which also operates um the shelter over here in East Gate. And their program really is about transitioning men out of the shelter um in a into a place where they can regain some stability and more of a housing setting. um they've seen a great success with this program and really wanted to see some additional capacity. So, this project is going to both um kind of upgrade the existing home and add additional uh units on the same site. And this is the project I mentioned. the city of Kirkland was able to help supplement the funds that Arch had since we weren't quite able to reach the entire the entire ask. Um, Family Village in Redmond is a existing affordable housing um project that serves homeless families. Uh it's it's a project that Arch has not previously funded in the past, but it came to our attention um that they had some quite urgent needs for reinvesting

uh due to water intrusion into the building. Um so this one kind of became became a more significant priority for us and for city of Redmond to make sure all the existing families uh living there are able to live in a safe uh and habitable space. Um we're pleased that they've got a renovation plan that doesn't require any relocation or displacement of families currently living there. Um, this one also is going to be quite competitive for state preservation funds again in large part because of this local commitment we're providing. And I believe this is the final project um Leo at trail head. So the organization is lifeen enrichment options. Um they are a partner in a much larger project here. This is another site that ARCH has previous funding committed to uh and has been a long-term priority project and it's going to be really significant for city of Isiqua. They have been planning this larger transit oriented development project with King County Housing Authority for many years and we're very excited for them to actually start construction this year. Um what Leo's portion of the project will be is their own condominium within this larger multif family building that's going to be uh particularly designed for them to serve um their residents who are individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So they'll be able to design that space to meet their needs and to provide space for a living caretaker. So, big picture takeaways from this round. Um, we're excited to see so many projects. In total, we're going to be advancing awards that will create or preserve over 500 units of housing.

These are distributed across five different cities. We don't often get to advance um projects in that many jurisdictions all at one time. So, that's exciting for us. It's a record amount of funding requests and proposed housing and it's far more than we could fund. So, we were as creative as possible to try to stretch our dollars. Um, and we do think the projects we're funding are going to be able to successfully go forward. And I think that's the end of this portion of the presentation. So, I'd be happy to take any questions. I'm not seeing any questions. Uh, Deputy Mayor Becker,

sorry to come in there late. Um, yeah, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the decisions to provide funding as a grant versus a contingent loan. Um, it seems that the contingent loans essentially create a perpetual funding stream. Um, and I'm curious if the loans actually get repaid or if there are forgiveness provisions.

Great question. Um, so they're very much the terms are very much tailored to the needs of the project. Uh there are projects that you could probably guess here which do not generate a lot of rental income for the owners. Uh and therefore it's not expected that they're going to be able to service any debt back to Arch. Um so the Porch Light project is one, the uh housing project for homeless families, the YWCA project, that's another one. Um but on the flip side, there's also um implications for making our funds in the form of a grant that can trigger uh prevailing wage requirements at the state that can add cost to a project. So um in the case where there's kind of a potential trade-off one way or the other, that's something we evaluate with the applicant. Um there's also some projects that really clearly can service some limited amount of debt. um maybe not immediately, especially in the first 15 years of the project when they've got another significant private loan that they're trying to pay down. Um but longer term when they refinance um and reduce some of that private debt, we do want to capture a portion of that income. So, it's a kind of a complex answer. It really it really is tailored to the project. They make a proposal to us for what terms they want. um we review that and make sure that that makes sense um based on the performance they've submitted to us and uh we have seen some funds come back and help to replenish the trust fund in your accounts so that we can get those funds kind of recycled back into new projects.

Okay, thank you. Council Reynolds, yes, let's say hypothetically the city of Mercer Island were to decide we wanted to have an arch facility on on on the island. What is the process like and do we have to donate land for it? Can can Arch buy their own land? Do we need to find a builder partner to do it? Does the city become the manager of it, etc. Just give me an overview of that.

Yeah, so the the projects that we fund are privatelyowned and operated. Um we don't directly develop housing ourselves. We are an investor in housing. Uh and so what we do is we try to provide one really early advice and technical assistance. Um so whether it's a property the city might own or it's property that you know a private owner in the community may be interested in making available for housing. Um we are happy to go and provide early advice and technical assistance. Um we have someone on our staff who's really specialized and focused on that work. has a lot of background in development. Uh once kind of a site has moved further along towards uh actually being developed then we also do provide that direct investment and funding. And there's a couple ways that can work. Um in some cases when it's a city directly contributing land, we've been able to work with our board to set aside a certain portion of our funding pool each year for those really special opportunities. Um, but we've also had cities kind of put put sites out for RFP, go through a competitive process, select a developer, and then the developer will come apply to Arch. And those um those are high priorities for us if there's a commitment by one of our members.

So if so, if we had some land available, we we could go to Arch and you could kind of guide us through the process of finding a developer and deciding on how best to make use of that land. Is that Absolutely. Yep. Okay. Thank you, Council Weinberg.

Yeah. Thank you for the excellent presentation. I wanted to uh uh ask a follow-up question about the diagram that you showed that had the house with the one block that is for the uh local um funding. And how much of the other blocks on there were matching funds, meaning funds that would not be there if it were not for the uh the local uh housing piece or local funding piece. It's a good it's a good question. Um certainly I don't think we would have seen all that investment happen without the local commitment. It's it's possible and we could look at um maybe other parts of the county that don't have a program like ours. It's not that they never see projects happen, but they take quite a bit longer. Um they take more funding from King County to cover that entire uh that entire funding gap. Um so I'd say that the pace and the scale of how much we're able to do is significantly greater because of that local resource.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, thank you, Lindsay, for being here tonight. Um, Mr. Mayor, I stuck in one more. Oh, sure. Councelor Reynolds, um, can you go back to that slide that had the list of, I believe, 15 projects that you considered. Sure. here.

This one. Uh, yes, that one. So, uh, I I don't I don't I don't recall if this slide was in the packet or not, so I may not have seen it before. If I did, I apologize. But the I I was struck the the low-income housing institute one that is there, the third one that is not selected, those are the same people that build the the tiny house tiny houses, right? Correct. And it it looks like the bang for the And was this a proposal to build tiny houses or or something else?

Uh, no. This is a proposal for um an existing apartment in Belleview that Arch actually has previously funded. Lehi has already purchased and is operating um but is trying to bring in some additional funds for that project. So, we're we're well aware of it. We have already actually invested in it. Um they were coming back for a supplemental award and it just kind of didn't quite rise to the top. But we do think they're going to be very successful and I believe actually their award from the state was confirmed this funding round. So that kind of gave us another reason to um maybe not have to put so much in.

So it's been a while since I've spoken to them, so my info may be dated, but last time I remember looking into it, Lehi had a lot of constructed tiny homes and no place to put them. is is is that still true? And do you ever do projects with them in in providing sighting for things like that?

That's a great question. Um, we haven't directly talked to Lehi about bringing that model over to the east side. Um, every so often we'll talk to kind of community organizations. We've talked with a church here and there who've expressed interest in hosting um that kind of opportunity. um those haven't really got come to the point where there's a a property owner really ready to do that. Um but if there were, we certainly kind of recommend talk to Lehi as as sort of the expert on this model. So, um we've got a really good relationship with Lehi. Be happy to make those connections if there's a if there's a a place to be connected to.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you for real this time, Lindsay. Um, Jeff, we can move on.

I think we actually have a couple more slides that we were hoping to touch on that are a preview of the items coming on the consent agenda at the next meeting. Should I dive into those? Sorry, what

should I dive into that now? Okay. I don't know if Jeff wanted to reintroduce, but I'm happy just go right in. Okay. Okay. It's a little bit laggy. Thanks for your patience. Okay. So, there's just a couple items. The first is related um to what has been known as the House Key Plus Arch East King County Down Payment Assistance Program. It's a mouthful. One of the changes we're looking at is shortening the name of the program. Um, and the background on this is that uh, a number of ARCH members funded a contribution to this DPA program back in 2005. Um, there was really significant success with that and a lot of um, loan activity in those early years. So, additional funding was put into the program in 2007 and 2012. Um there is there was originally program parameters that allowed for up to $30,000 per eligible household uh to be provided in down payment assistance. Um so those are deferred payment means uh obviously no mortgage payments are required until the homes resell. And uh over the course of time really since 2012 we saw a significant slowdown in activity. Um, part of that was because what was going on in the housing market around 2011, 2012. Um, but also the price of homes in our market area has really just skyrocketed compared to what eligible households can afford. So that $30,000 really doesn't stretch as far as it needs to to serve many people. Um, where we are seeing usage in the

program to some extent is helping buyers to purchase arch homes. Um, so those are resale restricted homes that have more modest prices, are more attainable um to households that are low income up to kind of moderate income. And so that was a a continued need we saw for the resource. We kind of considered should this program even continue? Uh, and we see quite quite a bit of need there and a match for that uh resource. So, the funding partners uh in addition to ARCH, which include King County and the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, um those are the other two funders of this program, staff have worked together over the last year to develop all of the kind updates to the program that would need to recalibrate the loan terms to the needs of those buyers in today's market. And so, that's what this set of recommendations is really about. It's going to help make the loan products more affordable um to the folks who would use them, lowering the interest rate, lowering the minimum required contribution from buyers. Uh and it's going to expand eligibility somewhat to fit better and align better with the Arch home ownership program. So, I I think that's all I've got on this one. Um and it sounds like you won't be taking action on this tonight, but if there's questions, happy to answer those. And then there will be one more item I'll cover quickly as well, but I'll pause here.

Council Reynolds, is that an old hand or a fresh hand? Old, of course. Let me get you a button. Okay. Uh, Lindsay, if you can keep going, please.

Great. Okay, last one. Um, that's super in the weeds of art. So, get to learn about arch history and arch mechanisms for how we work. So, um, you probably recall that Arch I mentioned Belleview as our administering agency as ARCH. They took on that role in 2010. So since 2010 um they have provided this really essential service of being able to centralize all the contracting for the funding that we invest in housing projects. However, we have this legacy of over 60 projects that we funded prior to 2010. Um, and under the ILA at that time, every single jurisdiction executed their own individual contracts with the projects that we were funding. So, we we have projects that might have seven different sets of contracting documents. Um, those were all done a long time ago, but some of those projects are uh aging and needing to refinance uh more frequently. that requires some paperwork to consent to those types of changes. And so what we're hoping to do now is what was contemplated in 2010, but not fully realized, which is um give you the option to delegate administration of those to Belleview. Same as all the contracts we've done since 2010. So it's going to have benefits for the property owners certainly. Um it'll help streamline things for arch staff. it'll not have us pestering your staff as well to kind of um do a lot more paperwork for these projects. So, we're hoping it's beneficial for everybody and also um happy to answer questions on this one, too.

Not see any questions right now, so I think we can move on. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Lindsay. That was a great presentation. Um so mayor, just back to then uh the order of business for this evening um regarding um the housing trust fund. Uh the recommended action in your packet materials is to approve the use of $40,600 from the city's contributions to the Arch Housing Trust Fund as recommended by the Arch Executive Board and authorize execution of any related agreements and documents.

Great. Does anybody have any questions before we move on? If not, uh, council, is there a motion to approve the use of four $40,600 from the city's contributions to the Arch Housing Trust Fund as recommended by the Arch Executive Board and authorized execution of any related agreements and documents? So moved. Second. Was moved by Council Reynolds and seconded by Council Member Weinberg. Any discussion? City court, please call a role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Council member Sheay, I. Council member Androl. I. Mayor Rosenbomb. Hi. Council member Weinberg. I. And Council Member Reynolds. I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Uh, next end of business is AB6857, the Forged Fiber 37 LLC Telecommunications Franchise Agreement, Ordinance number 26-1, first reading. We welcome Transportation Engineer Rebecca Coruguliano. Test test.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members. My name is Rebecca Coraniano. I'm the transportation engineer for the city of Mercer Island. The agenda bill before you is for the first reading for the forged fiber 37 franchise agreement. Staff worked with outside council Daniel Kenny from Ogden Murphy Wallace to negotiate this agreement on behalf of the city. I'd like to introduce Daniel who will be presenting this item and responding to your questions. Welcome, Daniel.

Thank you so much. Good evening, council. Again, Daniel Kenny at Ogden Murphy Wallace. I have a PowerPoint that I'm going to pull up here. Let me just quickly do that. And it worked. Wonderful. Um, okay. Again, we're here for the Forged Fiber uh telecommunications franchise agreement. Um, and I'm going to through a bit of I'm just gonna get a couple things off my screen. A bit of background on the Forge Fiber request franchises in general and then I do have some common questions that I've outlined at the end um about franchises and so I'll go through all of that. If you have any questions throughout of course let me know but there are some questions at the end that we can uh run through as well. So uh AT&T uh uh entered into an agreement to purchase uh fiber business of Lumen. And so that's how we got here today. Um that includes their fiber assets um that are located already in the city's rights of way. Um and in advance of that, they went out and sought all the necessary rights to own and operate those facilities in the rights of way. Um and they created a separate legal entity called Forged Fiber 37 LLC. um in order to undertake this project. Forged Fiber again is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T and it's Forged Fiber that is seeking this franchise agreement with the city um to access the rights of way for these already existing facilities that are in the right of way. Uh Forge Fiber will provide wholesale services which will then be resold to commercial and residential businesses. And so I wanted to take a moment to give a refresher on franchises. Um I was actually with you all uh or with council

back in 2020 for the ZO franchise and went through some of this. Um but it's been a little while so wanted to take the opportunity to uh have a refresher. State law grants the authority to the city to issue these franchise agreements. A franchise agreement is the general right of access to the city's rights of way. It's uh commonly for utilities, telecommunications companies, cable companies and uh similar companies like that. So it grants that access to the rights of way. What it does not do is it does not regulate the operations of those business uh businesses. It is just simply allowing them the ability to access the right of way to place their facilities under certain regulations operated or overseen by the city. The franchisee will still need to apply for and receive necessary permits that would be required for that work later. So this is the general right of access. They will still get all required permitting and get if there's necessary bonding and things like that for those projects down the line. So this is really just the first step to allow them to exist in those rights of way. Um the city has many franchises already. Uh Zo, which is the one that I was here uh at your other location or actually online. It was right in the middle of the pandemic. Um Centry Link, Crown Castle, Power Company, things like that. And so, um, as you all know, there's plenty of different lines and facilities and the rights of way. Those are all covered by franchises. So, just really quickly on the procedure, a company seeking the franchise is going to apply to the city and pay a fee. Um, I've got a little bit more on the fees, but it's a fee deposit that covers their actual administrative costs, including my time. Um, the city prepares an agreement. um and uh the applicant then can review that and provide input. Those agreements generally speaking are going to provide competitive equity between similarly situated entities. And so in this

situation we used the ZO franchise and that that is a already existing um entity in the right of way and then we worked with representative um from forged fiber AT&T to review that and provide comments. Um it was of course reviewed by relevant staff to make sure that still worked for the city um and reviewed by legal. Um council is then required to consider this at two separate readings and so tonight is just the first reading. The only action tonight will be to if you choose is to place it for second reading at a future date. Um then once uh if it is approved the applicant then assigns the franchise and then they have that right to exist in the right of way and will go through permitting to do anything in the right of way. In this particular situation, Forged Fiber is taking over existing facilities in the right of way. So in in many ways, it's just one entity with facilities. The name is kind of just going away and another entity is taking over their facilities. They would still have the ability to operate and maintain those facilities and perhaps add additional facilities within the rights of way consistent with the franchise and the franchise requirements. And then additionally, consistent with any permitting that they may need. And so I'll run through a few common questions. I I touched on this one. Is it is it consistent with the treatment of other franchises? Yes, it is consistent. Um we use uh kind of a building model template to make sure that there's consistency both for the city but then also for those uh applicants. Um can the city charge an ongoing fee for the franchise? No. Unfortunately, the city is not allowed to impose a franchise fee on this type of business uh for ongoing. That is reserved exclusively for cable. Um and you can see that as a franchise fee that you may collect from somebody like Comcast. Uh will they be responsible for the

city's costs? I briefly noted that on that as well. They did pay a deposit at the beginning and so they cover uh city time and my time. Uh and if there's leftover they get a return on that and there's more they would get an invoice for for the additional costs for the review of this franchise. Uh can you deny the the franchise request? Yes, technically you can. Um but you would need to support that with substantial evidence in in the written record. Um and um there's process where they can challenge that. Um and because of competitive equity where you have existing um uh entities in the rights of way similar to this, it would be challenging. And so um we can if there's a need we can go into that further but that's that. Um and can you require the franchisee to build out and serve the entire city? The answer is no. We don't regulate their operations and how they would choose to do that though again they are taking over existing facilities from um a large company and so they're they're certainly in existence already. Um and so at this point you know any questions about franchises in general? this franchise specifically. Happy to entertain those right now and then the recommended action is on the screen as well.

Council Reynolds, I'm going to ask a or preface my question by just stating a general goal which is I want more fiber service on the island. Okay. G given that goal, you know, one of my thoughts is, you know, we should try to look for people companies that are committed to to serve the island and put in lots of fiber lines, but it sounds like granting a franchise to this company, anybody else could just as well come along and do it the next day as well, right? This is a non-exclusive deal, so we don't really have any incentive to force them to try to force them to do something even if we can. Is that correct? Because the next cup they could do it just as well. Uh it is non-exclusive. So the next company can come in. Um again, they're taking over facilities. They're already here. So they have, I think, one would argue, a leg up in, you know, the competition market here in terms of putting their facilities out there. Uh but yeah, we we we can't um there's not much incentive nor forcing that we could do. Um but they are certainly interested obviously in um in this market. They are purchasing and taking over facilities to serve this market. And there's no uh he said to turn it down we'd need substantial evidence in the record on that would you know I have no idea if it does but if evidence existed that they didn't plan to be very effectively utilizing the agreement by putting in lots of fiber service would that be sufficient to deny the lease

under hypothetical no okay I have other questions but I'll I'll take my turnall um Yeah, thanks. So, I'm a little confused. I would have thought that AT&T would have a franchise already with us in its own name. Maybe that's not correct. Um, but I'm wondering why they would do it under a wholly owned subsidiary. Is that just a business decision?

A business decision? I I mean, you certainly see that all the time. I'm working with a number of jurisdictions with another entity that has multiple entities that they do and and that's really their business decision on what entity comes forward. Uh and again, this entity is doing the wholesaling and they'll wholesale it to other providers. And so you'll probably see those providers as the ones advertising and serving the community, but they'll be served by this line. Okay. I have other questions, too, but Nobody else has a term. Councils.

Yeah. I I just want to understand the ramifications to us of it being an LLC. Um whenever I hear an LLC in conjunction with an indemnification provision, it makes me nervous that this LLC may not be able to honor an indemnification if there were some liability to the city and we'd be left with a worthless indemnification. Are there are there risks to the city where we'll we'll regret not having AT&T be the deep pocket on the deal instead of the sub? Like what's the what nature of risk could happen?

Well, I mean, you know, not to put too fine of a point on, but we we don't get to choose who the entity is that applies for and seeks it. So, as long as they are uh satisfying the application requirements and they can put up the necessary things like insurance, which gets to your question, they are maintaining insurance. the levels required by the city to protect the city and they are a agreeing to the indemnification uh provisions that we have asked them to to sign. So um the from a legal standpoint the document protects the city whether it's AT&T or Forge Fiber or anyone else and um and again we we just can't say well we want that other entity that that that you're associated with. We don't have that.

Do we have any ability to judge their practical ability to honor the the indemnification? You know, if they come through and turned out they only had a dollar of equity or something in the company. Could we say that's not a that's a phantom indemnification at that point because you wouldn't be able to fulfill it? Well, but they they still have the insurance though, too. And so there there's I mean they're not the same, but there but they do play off each other. And so they are providing the coverage that we would need. And what sort of what sort of situations would require the in any sort of liability to them to to to occur? Like if somebody tripped over one of their fiber optic cables or construction vehicles, is that the sort of thing we're talking about or or what else might there be? Uh yes, I know they're generally underground, but

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. But but but sure, I mean, I think you're on the right path. But I will, you know, pull us back to one of my first points on one of the slides is they're still going to get permitting that will have bonding and coverage for for what the work. And so a lot of the hypotheticals I think we would come up with, they would probably be working under a permit that would have separate and distinct coverages um that would protect the city as well, just like for anybody else that's out working in with a rideway use permit or something like that where there's more potential liability because there's equipment on the ground or they drop something when they're working or or what have you. Um I think um an example might be uh a windstorm knocks over a pole and it falls on a on a car or something like that. Um and we'd want to make sure that there's appropriate provisions which there are to cover that scenario because it's not related to the work. It's related to there being in the right of way something like that.

Are there any business or operational issues where the city could have liability? Like for example, I was about to make a stock trade and your service went out and I couldn't so I lost a billion dollars. you know, is is there any way the the city could be on the hook for that? Uh, I mean, lawyers can get creative, but no, I mean, I I don't see we're we're again because we're not the provider. We are not the provider. We're not regulating their business. We are not telling them how to do anything. They merely exist in the right of way with our permission. Okay. Thank you.

City Manager Bond, do you have a comment? I just want to advise some caution about going down the path of speculative litigation and a open city council meeting and advise against it. Counder.

Um, good advice, city manager. Um, so questions. I worked for Century Link for a long time and um, know Century Link still has the franchise and Lumen is the parent company. Um, do you have any visibility in this franchise agreement to exactly what assets were divested and which ones weren't? And I mean, how Century Link will continue to provide cable service if they if Lumen's divested its fiber to this forged fiber 37 or do you not get into that type of uh information when we negotiate the franchise?

So, we don't get into that information when we negotiate the franchise. They did provide a letter informing of what they were going through. I don't have that open. I don't recall the specifics, but it's basically the fiber on one side and the the other one on the other side uh the other type of line. And so they're they divided based on I believe the physical line type. Okay. Is that a letter something that we could see if we wanted to? Yes. This I believe the city received that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll I'll get my hands on it. Thank you. Absolutely. I'll make sure. Council Reynolds.

No more questions about application. Okay. Council, is there a motion to schedule ordinance number 26 do sorry-01 for a second reading and adoption at an upcoming city council meeting? So moved. Second. It was moved by council Reynolds and second by council member Ander. Uh any discussion? clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Sheay, I. Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Council member Andraw, I. Council member Weinberg, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, I. And Council Member Reynolds, I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Motion passes. Okay. Our next item in business is AB6839, the capital improvement program overview. And for that, we welcome finance director Matt Norick and chief of operations Jason Kitner. Good evening, Mayor Rosabomb, members of the council, um members of the community and city staff that are attending and joining this meeting virtually this evening. I'm Matt Moric, your finance director, and I'm joined this evening with our chief of operations, Jason Kitner, um for the first of what I anticipate will be uh many conversations this year about the capital improvement program. Alli Speeds, our chief of administration, is is going to share our deck and um

so just be a moment. Okay, thank you so much, Ally. Okay. Uh, next slide. All right. So, Jason and I are going to go through 29 slides tonight, beginning with a summary, uh, a highle summary on the current city situation with the city's facilities and how public buildings play into larger efforts to plan for, construct, and finance capital projects here on Mercer Island. As we work through our slide deck, we welcome questions. Um we we're hoping for a dialogue um and that will help inform some of the discussion questions we have at the end of the deck where we're we're seeking council's direction uh on on potential next steps. Next slide. um just to come out um and say that we're from the get-go that we are at a point where we are really balancing uh a number of uh priorities within the capital program. Our goal tonight is to walk away from this meeting with an understanding of what potential projects could be delayed or cancelled to free up funds for other projects, specifically uh facilities projects. Um, we're looking for your input this evening. Um, because uh, if we are going to move forward with trying to advance work in 2026, let alone in

2027 and 2028 using the city's current resources, we're going to need policy direction to re prioritize our our capital resources. Next slide. on uh January 16th at the city council planning session, city manager Bond provided a very indepth overview on the current situation with the city's facilities. So, if members of the community uh would like more information uh than the two slides we're going to cover this evening, I encourage you to go back to agenda bill 6840. Um but in summary, uh back in 2022, the city council directed staff to initiate long range planning, uh analysis on the city's facility, and that work identified seismic vulner vulnerability issues as well as um operational constraints with the city's public buildings. Shortly thereafter, uh, in 2023, the city hall building was permanently closed for a number of reasons, including seismic deficiencies, that the systems that operated that building were failing, and that there was a significant uh limitation on the return on investment to rehabilitate and abate those issues with that building. Council made a strategic investment uh that went towards standing up interim facilities for the uh modular buildings that are currently sitting in the city hall parking lot for the uh police department as well as making one-time investments into the public works administration building um so that we could maintain our operations in essential services. At the time that these investments were made, they they were never intended to be a long-term funding plan or a cost-effective solution uh for our ongoing operational needs. As the council is well aware, uh in November of 2025, uh the city took a a plan to the

community to uh come up with a long-term funding solution to build a new public safety and maintenance facility. And that uh proposal was not approved by the voters. It did not meet the 60% approval requirement. And so we are very much in a uh situation where we are laying out a roadmap to think through the re rehabilitation and replacement requirements for the city's public facilities. This is this is an immediate priority. Next slide, please. When we talk about public buildings, um it can be somewhat nebulous. So, I included this slide. It's directly from agenda bill 6840 again from the city council's planning session to point out that the 12 buildings that are included in the city's portfolio of public buildings. Of these 12, 10 are currently operational. Um, the Tully's building was decommissioned and now it serves as the parcel serves as a site for long range parking. Um, and the city hall building remains closed. Next slide, please. And so this graphic just lays out the eight uh functional or capital project categories uh that we make up the uh complete capital improvement program. So uh public buildings is just one piece of the larger puzzle and we are going to speak to the different project categories later in the day. So I just wanted to include when we talk about public infrastructure, we it's synonymous with the term capital and public buildings is just a small part of that infrastructure. Next slide. Coming up 30,000 ft here. There are several plans that inform how the city pays for in the near term investments into uh capital projects that are

working towards a long-term vision for the the community over time. And so this upside down pyramid um also known as a NAB for our calculus enthusiasts um lists the three key plans that make up um all of our our our planning documentation for infrastructure. Starting at the top, the comprehensive plan. The council is well aware of the comp plan. Um it lays out a 20-year vision for the community um when it comes to land use changes, resource protections, as well as infrastructure. So, water, sewer, storm systems, as well as public buildings over that that 20-year horizon. Going a little bit further down this this uh NAB, uh the capital improvement program is the city's six-year financial roadmap which identifies precisely the what, the when, and the how the city is going to construct and finance capital improvements. And then the first two years of this six-year financial roadmap is what we refer to as the capital budget. It's in the bianial budget and it's where the city council authorized spending for the first two years of that six-year plan. Um the capital improvement program. Next slide. So this table just lays out the differences between the capital improvement program and the capital facilities element within the comprehensive plan. that is that chapter that's specifically devoted to uh capital improvements, public infrastructure. Um, and it compares the differences between the purpose of each plan, the the the timeline, what the plan's focused on, the legal basis for its existence, and the core components of of each plan. And it just goes to point to that but these two plans share

a common goal to maintain and invest and improve in uh capital pro infrastructure. Um and it they do so via different timelines and for very distinct legal purposes under state law. Next slide. Before we go any further uh are there any questions? Okay. Uh, go to the next slide and turn it over to Jason.

No, there we go. Perfect. Uh, so real quickly, I'll go through a series of slides. We've talked about a number of these items, but just for a refresher for the council and the community uh, regarding the capital improvement program. Before I dive into it, you'll see in some subsequent slides reference to some additional plans. So, in addition to the two elements that Matt was talking about earlier, just a minute ago, the water system plan, the general sewer plan, and the pros plan, otherwise known as the parks, recreation, and open space management plan also feed into that um those two other elements in terms of the capital improvement program, as well as alignment with the comprehensive plan. So uh and those also have their own specific requirements um and timing to be updated and um fine-tuned over time and a couple of them are actually hitting in this benium and the next benium. So before I dive into it, uh the the CIP or the capital approve program as we refer to it, there's 111 million uh in the amended 2526 budget. As we've talked about before, we are in the midst of uh generational reinvestment in the middle of it right now. Um there's 142 active projects across those eight different project categories. Um they are made up of different strategic goals, accounting and legal requirements. Um they're organized to prioritize limited resources and balance with other needs and resources amongst the capital program. So, as we'll dive into uh in just a few minutes, an example will be our new water supply line project that we say water supply project, but it's actually three or four projects in one. And I'll get into that in just uh in a few minutes. So, uh the CIP matches those improvements to those restricted revenues. Uh things like water and sewer pay for water and sewer projects through those utility rates. uh new development that is related to ad capacity are specific for those growth related

elements. Um and then um the general revenue is used for uh any government service. Next slide. So in your exhibit exhibit one to the agenda bill are a list of the projects and the the categories. They're displayed here on the screen. Um, as we've been talking about for a number of years, the water utility is the largest by far the largest program right now. Um, you've heard me reference previously that the sewer the sewer utility is ramping up. Perhaps why the water system or the water utility starts to slowly ramp down though I anticipate the sewer utility is going to ramp up a bit. uh and then the rest of the allocation is spread out across the other project categories and again there this is the exhibit in your agenda bill also identified are the different types of revenues and fundance funds associated with those project codes. Next slide. So just diving into it high level uh we'll talk about a few of the specific project codes or project categories. We'll start with public buildings. Obviously facilities is a huge need for us. Some of the major projects that are current uh under current construction or have been finished in this bianam includes the public works facility seismic retrofit um that's been completed. We have done a number of um facility repairs and improved the access system here at the community center and some of our other facilities. Those facility repairs are um things that you would they're reoccurring projects um smaller projects slightly larger than just regular operating projects but think about it in terms of your house uh occasionally you have to repaint your house you have to replace windows you have to uh redo your roof things like that so those reoccurring project codes for the facility repairs are what pay for those types of things uh we've talked about the community center HVAC C system. It's been an issue

tonight. Uh it's been an issue for quite a while now. This building is 20 plus years old as well as that system. And so we are in the design for the replacement of that system and look to replace it in 2027. And then we have a new acquisition in the 9655 building that also has some improvements that are needed uh before we occupy that facility. The primary revenues for the public buildings and facilities category are the rate run which is the real estate excise tax grants and then those general revenues. Next slide. Streets, pedestrian and bicycle facil facilities. So this is as we have this conversation tonight. This is an important topic because the tip which is what identifies the plan for streets, pedestrian and bicycle facilities is coming quickly as the city manager referenced in the CM report tonight. Um that is what funds that's what prioritizes the capital projects uh on the streets, pedestrian, bicycle facilities. Um a couple of key major projects currently underway obviously the island crest way corridor improvements. Um we do we pay for our residential resurfacing throughout this category. Uh we collect our PCI or pavement condition index every three years. That data helps us prioritize those replacements or resurfacing of those streets. Usually somewhere in the time frame of every 30 years or so is when those streets will be repaved. Um we've just recently completed the 80th Avenue pedestrian improvements in the town center. And then uh that water supply line project. There's a street and pedestrian improvement project tied to it and that's the Gallagher Hill Southeast 36 improvement. This was a project that was actually identified a couple years ago through the TIP and the capital improvement program and it was delayed to more closely align with the water supply project. The last thing you want to do is uh redo a roadway, build pedestrian facilities and then rip it all out to put a water line in. So we work really carefully and closely to

make sure that we prioritize projects and align it with other projects, not only city projects, but also um private development. Um sometimes we have um our partners through utilities and things like that have projects. We've delayed some street resurfacing projects because PSC's had some work to do in the area. So it's all part of that balance in terms of de developing the CIP program. I think this is also an important category to reference that there's in addition to our standard revenues through REIT uh the TBD or the trans transportation benefit district the motor vehicle fuel taxes there's a significant amount of grants that also play into the development and prioritization and timing of these capital projects. Next slide. Our storm water system. put this one up outside of the other utilities because a lot of times the storm water work coincides with the street work, right? So when we're doing streets, we're oftent times we're adding drainage, improving drainage, replacing drainage. I will say the storm water utility of the three utilities is what we call the baby of the three utilities. We know the least amount about it. Um we have the least amount of data to it because it's it's it was the last one of the table essentially. uh we're gathering more information by the day and we're oftentimes partnering that storm water work with those street related projects. Again, these primary revenue sources are tied to the stormwater utility connection charges, grants, um as well as outside long-term financing. It's also important to note that the storm water system is tied to the National Pollution Elimination and Discharge or the MPDS permit that we are required to abide by um and report on every year. So, of those 5,000 plus catch basins, we're inspecting those every two years. All 5,000 alone. So, uh, parks, recreation, and open space, again, major projects on the horizon. We've been talking about the Luther Burbank

waterfront improvement project. Yes, it's happening. Uh, years in the making. Um, years of permitting, planning, design, uh, headed to construction later this year, hopefully, fingers crossed. Um this is a project that has significant amount of outside grant funding. Uh as well as it takes a long time to get this project designed and permitted. Um we are finding that to be an issue. We are surrounded by water. We have a lot of number wonder number number of wonderful parks in our park system. But it complicates things. It's not just as straightforward as hey we have a construction project. We're going to design and construct it. Oftentimes it requires additional regulatory and permitting and planning that goes along with it. like the Clark and Grlin Beach uh joint infrastructure plan. That's a similar example that's currently in design right now. Uh the parks and recreation commission is going to talk about the draft site plan for Dean Children's Park uh on Thursday. Um so that is finishing up the design and moving towards the construction phase. And also in the parks recreation open space is our open space veg management program. Again, primary re primary revenues are REIT 1, REIT 2, property taxes, the King County parks levy, as well as the 2022 uh Mer Island levy, grants, private contributions, park impact fees, and general revenues. Our water distribution system tied to the water utility rates and connection charges and outside long-term funding. Um major project again, the water supply pipeline project. This isn't just the supply line, the major supply line. This also includes an AC water man replacement that was scheduled for replacement that runs down Gallagher Hill. We're doing both projects at once. So you're adding up the numbers. In theory, the water supply line is actually a combination of four projects. It's an AC water main project. It's a new water supply line project. It's street resurfacing and it's pedestrian improvements. So it's actually four projects wrapped in one. We're trying to do in one construction window. Um we've

talked about the AC water main replacements. We're trying to eliminate all of our AC water mane uh within this six-year capital program. Our PRVs, these are our pressure reducing valves. We have 80 plus of them throughout the distribution system that monitor and manage our um our pressures throughout the distribution system that are in need of replacement, design and replacement. And then I referenced the water system plan earlier which is currently underway. We're required to update that every 5 to 10 years. Next slide. I will say go hold on go back over the water supply line project. I think it's also important to note that we do have uh some legislative funding that's going to that project as well. Next slide. The sewer side sewer is been uh ramping up lately. Um as I've talked about before, we have some department of ecology requirements that we have to meet over on the east side of the island where reach one is located. Uh we have some c capacity improvement projects that are being in design now that will move towards construction. This is similar to those park projects I referred to earlier where uh design and permitting is going to take significant amount of time to get to that construction window. Um tied to that is our general sewer plan uh and our hydraulic hydraulic model update as well as um I'm happy to report that the SCADA system has been completed on the sewer side of the house. That project had to be completed first so that we could gather the data and monitor things in these pump stations to help with that development of the hydraulic model and the general sewer plant. And then um we have 17 pump stations that convey sewage around the island and they are in periodic need of replacement, repair or replacement. And so we are currently in design and heading towards construction for sewer pump station 20. Again, the primary revenues for this are the sewer utility rates, those connection charges, grants,

and outside long-term funding. We'll pause there. It's a high level snapshot of what's sort of on deck, some of the different things that we take into consideration in developing the CIP, how the projects coordinate with each other. I'll pause there, take questions, and I'll pass it back to Matt. See any questions right now?

Okay. Well, whenever we start to talk about how we're going to finance all of this exciting work that Jason and his team is taking on, I like to remind the council and the community that the resources that pay for capital improvements are largely restricted by state law. There's various chapters in the revised code of Washington that point to regulations we have to abide by. And within that context, the city council then prioritizes how we use these funds as laid out in the city's financial management policies. For more information about the laws that the city adheres to, uh, I would point members of the community to Agenda Bill 6839. Uh, we talked at length about this at the city council's January 16th planning session. When it comes to facilities, I just wanted to walk through two revenue sources that could potentially be used to support additional facility work that falls within the guise of the state's rules. And that includes utility rate revenues um and uh the city council's uh policies around real estate excise tax both which are are are heavily regulated by the state. Next slide. And by way of background, the city of Mercer Island provides essential utility services to residents and businesses. That includes drinking water, sewer conveyance, and storm water management services that we bill for on a bimonthly basis. Uh information about the utility billing practices and procedures can be found in the city's utility billing manual that was recently updated by the council. Um, and our rates are reviewed and adjusted every year as needed by staff and utility board and the city council and are included in the city's fee schedule.

Utility rate revenue is used to fund the operations and management of the this respective utility including capital projects with very clear limitations laid out by state law. Next slide. We talked about this at the planning session, but I I'll remind the council and the and and folks watching that there is a very uh clear legal firewall between money that utility customers pay versus the money that the city uses to pay for general services like public safety. Um there are instances where utility revenues can go towards indirect or internal services. Um and in those instances, state law requires a what we call a proportional share test. And so when I refer to internal services, I'm referring to um let's take for example the city's water utility. Um staff are designated to operate and maintain and invest in that system um for day-to-day operation and long-term reinvestment of the the water distribution system. but they also benefit from the city's human resources department, um from legal counsel, from the city attorney's office, um from the finance department, and they also operate out of public buildings. And so there can be a nexus between the services they receive and um the the fees that they pay for those services. And this is not a new thing. The city practices this regularly um every year as part of the the budget. Um, and details about how we ensure that utilities are paying their fair share for these internal services is laid out in appendix B, the cost allocation plan of the city's financial management policies. It's important to emphasize that this is not a policy preference. The proportional share uh is a legal

requirement to ensure that resources are being used as prescribed under state law. This proportional test also applies when talking about using utility funds for for capital projects. Next slide. So I just wanted to take this a little bit further and provide an example that illustrates the approach the city would take in allocating utility revenues to potentially pay for a new facility. So let's take an example where the the city council directs staff to proceed with designing a facility that houses 100 city staff and 10 of those staff 10% of the total employees in that building uh would oversee the util water utilities operations and maintenance from within that new building. Um then it would it would lead towards the utilities paying their proportion proportional share uh 10% of the new utility excuse me of the new building could be paid for with water utility revenues. If the water utility paid more than that 10% threshold, then we would be in violation of state law um because those the the water utility would then be benefiting general government operations and that's illegal. Shifting gears here a little bit. Um the second restricted revenue real estate excise tax. This is a 0.5% tax on the sale price paid by sellers when when property is bought and sold. Uh this graphic just illustrates um state law on the left um that restricts the use of REIT revenue and the city council's budget policy. And so REIT um is restricted um at the state level. Um and the state breaks them in REIT into two separate categories. So REIT one is the

first half of the 0.5% tax that can be used to invest in streets, parks, utilities as well as facilities. REIT 2 is that second half of the 0.5% tax can be used for streets, parks or utilities, but it cannot be used on facilities. Um, I'll just also mention that re cannot be spent and or invested into equipment or technology. The city council's budget poly policy was established in 2019 um that dictates how REIT revenues get used within the city's capital improvement program. 100% of REIT one goes to investing in parks and facilities and then REIT 2 is split 10% going to parks and facilities and the remaining 90% going to investments in the transportation system. So at the very bottom of the slide, uh state law essentially says that 100% of REIT can be invested in um parks and streets whereas 50% of REIT can be invested into facilities. Next slide. I just wanted to give some context to REIT. Um, this table shows the 2023, 2024, and 2025 revenue actuals and how they were allocated to the city's various funds based on that budget policy established by council in 2019. Next slide, please. So, this is a policy question that council can consider. Council can modify our REIT financing strategy based on our current near and long-term priorities in the capital program. For example, we could consider revising the policy to redirect RET funding to facility projects and reduce the funding to parks and street projects. And so this would

require uh revisiting the capital project list and and rep prioritizing our limited resources. Next slide. There's the NABO. Once again, um I just wanted to summarize some of the key takeaways uh from our our discussion this evening. Um we've covered a lot of information. Um, but referring to this uh graphic, um, keep in mind that there are with all of these near-term decisions that we need to make right now about how we're going to work within the limitations of the city's resources to fund the many capital improvements, there's a cascading effect to these decisions. So, it's important that with every bienium, we keep an eye on the six-year plan, let alone how that six-year plan executes the 20-year vision for infrastructure on Mercer Island. Second point is that uh state laws are very clear and they they set rules that regulate how restricted revenues can be invested um for capital improvements, let alone day-to-day operations um on Mercer Island. So, we have to remain within those legal guardrails. There there is there is no wiggle room there. And and then finally, within those state limitations, the city council can prioritize how restricted revenues are used to best serve the community at this point in time. Next slide. We're going to return to council in March with findings from the the resident survey that is currently underway to better understand what happened during the November general election as well as um how to best proceed with priorities for capital facilities. Um, and we're looking for your feedback tonight and and through the first quarter and second quarter of this year to just set priorities for the capital program that's going to inform some of the critical decisions that we need to make in 2026, let alone the

development of the 2027 and 2028 bianial budget. And we've included an alternative. This was not included in the agenda bill, but should the council decide to reconvene the finance ad hoc committee um to review the capital program and return with some recommendations for the larger council, we we would welcome that option as well. Next slide. Okay. So, these questions are um just to incite some discussion um and open up uh the floor for some deliberation about how the council would potentially like to proceed, what additional information you might like um and how we go about prioritizing our limited resources uh given our current needs in the capital program.

Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, Council, do you want to get us started? It's been my honor every time tonight. Um, well, your hands always up. Yes, I know. Thank you. Um, just want to confirm my understanding on the REIT funding. Was it REIT one that could go for facilities or REIT two? I forget which one you said. REIT one can go towards facilities. If there is a decision to use some of that money, is that a prospective thing that we could use the REIT one money going forward or could we re reallocate existing balances that arose due to REIT one and shift them? We could shift them. Yeah. So we could retroactively take action to to make that adjustment.

And do we have a sentences to is is do we think of half of the existing fund balance in relevant funds as being from REIT one or is it more complicated than that? We we've done an internal audit on how much REIT one um has and has not been used based on project eligibility and so we can we can get those precise numbers um if that would benefit the council. I I I would like to see that. Yes. Obviously needed tonight, but Council Weinberg.

So, a thought occurred to me during your presentation. Um there's 10,000 dwelling units here uh on the island. Uh there's a lot fewer uh government buildings on the island, although the government buildings do on average uh are on average larger. Uh but I'm thinking of like schools, uh the facility that we're sitting in right now, fire stations, post office, I'm not sure there are any county uh facilities in the island. Um do these do public facilities pay utility bills and so do they pay utility tax on that? Yes. Both. Yes to both. Yes. Okay. Just curious. Thanks,

Council Mander.

Yeah, thanks. Um, so I feel like not being on the operations side, it's going to be very difficult for council to prioritize capital projects. And, you know, I'm hoping at some point we'll be able to get some guidance. I mean, and I know you guys are already, you know, smart and thoughtful. If you can chip seal a street instead of doing the more expensive repaving, I assume you'll already be doing that. But it's going to be really helpful for us, I think, to have some input in terms of where do you think things could be delayed without impacting life, health, safety? Um, and and and where not. um you know, does the water mane need to be done because we're going to be doing the street project and that's just really a non-negotiable or can it live a couple of more years? I don't know how to think through it other than by asking these questions.

No, it it's a great comment. Um, you know, we brought this agenda, this this uh great deck, Matt, dense deck, forward just to begin a conversation with you and make sure that, you know, you have awareness there. There may be funds available if we shift projects or cancel projects. Um, given the the number of projects we have, it's a lot. It's not something we can do tonight. and you know so we wanted to start the conversation if the council would like us to go back and give you some alternatives. Uh we we talked with the mayor and deputy mayor on Friday and I think it would make sense to reconvene a finance ad hoc committee so that three of you are working alongside us uh to go project by project and present some alternatives. Um the line isn't always life safety, but it's it's not far away from it given the age of our infrastructure and that's one of the things we're concerned about.

Sure. And by the way, I'm sorry I just dove into the questions without complimenting both of you and all your backup staff on um what I when I hear 29 slides, I kind of go oh my. But they every single one of them served a purpose and was helpful. So thank you. I'll just add I think it would be I think it is helpful for the ad hoc committee to have those conversations because I mean I can rattle off I mean I can look through the exhibit and say this is why we're doing this project here and here and there some of them have like a lot of close you know proximity to others have a very clear nexus some of them don't so I think that is part of a conversation that is probably worth having and I can share some of that insight and consideration and it would help develop that list

yeah I could I will also share I think we need to one of the reasons we moved this presentation forward so far in this year is uh your capital projects have had advocates community advocates over years sometimes decades and uh we might have a trail project on deck that doesn't meet the life safety test but it's important uh to a segment of our community and I I think we have to we have to you know walk through the per those scenarios and then check in with our community and say, "What do you think?" Uh because these are trade-offs for them as well, right? We're postponing a project. We're canceling a project to free up funds for a facility. Uh but it means forgoing something that was very important to them as well. So, I want to make sure we're building in enough time to also have that community conversation.

Just want to ask a question here that I'm going to put in form of a thesis and you can kind of give me some feedback here because I I I'm similar thoughts to what uh council member Ander said. You know, I think a lot of this falls into three buckets. So, when I look at the numbers you presented to us here, you know, there's about a half a million dollars plus between open space management in the park system and open and vegetation management in Oper Davis. We could not do that for a year. Correct. Potentially. There's so there's there's some conversations have to take place. So, open space veg management is also tied to the levy fund. So we have to be very specific on what resources are freed up and what cannot be freed up. Um potentially, right? So yes, we could delay some of the open space veg management. How much what's the consequences? That's part of the conversation that should take place. Same thing on streets. So the council Randall's uh discussion, right? So we're resurfacing streets once every 30 years, right? We do the PCI, the payment condition index every three years that we just we now have that we get to sit down and have a conversation and say, "Hey, look," and our street managers will be part of that conversation says, "I'm making up a street southeast 36." This is not the case. It's just for scenario purposes. Um, that street is at this level of the PCI. We could delay that project for two years uh because we're not going to have structural issues. What does it mean? It means you're going to have more potholes, more crack sealing, things like that. We're going to have to do some more maintenance. But in theory, you could delay that project. Um, if Clint and Ian were here tonight, they would say, "Hey, that type of work is fine, but if we start running into structural issues, it's going to cost you X dollar amount above two years down the road." That's the conversation that I think would be beneficial with the ad hoc committee that could probably help shape some of this conversation. Say, "Hey, this project makes sense to free up some trail projects, things like that." That makes sense to have a conversation about. Some of these other things don't because it's going to have potentially catastrophic consequences down the road.

So, Mr. Mayor, it sounds like you maybe were working a scenario. So, let me say uh some of the funding that this that's not tied to the parks levy. Yes. You could not do it um you could not do it for a year and and so then it sounds like maybe you had a follow-up thought. Yeah. So, my second thought is then you have a bunch of projects that you could postpone for a couple years. You would eventually need to pay for them and potentially pay more for them than what we would pay initially. The third buck that I see here are projects that we made a lot of investments in last year and that maybe you could pause some of them and move some of that money around, but the reality is that those investments are in flight already. Is that correct? Correct. And those would be from a staff recommendation standpoint, we probably wouldn't recommend delay those because those already in in flight.

Okay. So, worth the conversation. Yeah. I mean, I think my my overall uh perspective here is that a lot of these are there's not a lot of here that's sort of nice to have. A lot of these things are things that we need to have either now or sort of in the near future. Um, so I just think as we have these conversations, we should think about that and be open-minded. So I be clear with the community that there are costs to not to not doing these things now. Um, you know, and I think if you could go back 20 years and some of the decisions previous councils made, would they make that knowing what we know now? I don't know. But I I do want to be thoughtful about, you know, future councils and making sure that they're not put in a in a tough position. Uh

we we didn't present a slide tonight on the real estate excise tax trends over time. I don't think did we Matt? No. No. The the I can speak to it if you'd like. Well, I was just going to share council that something else that the finance uh ad hoc committee if you stand it up could take a look at because you know REIT revenues have been down uh as of late. Uh that may turn around. So there are future policy decisions um to be made if if REIT revenue starts growing again that could perhaps be redirected, you know, REIT one to facilities. Um Matt, did you want to say anything else? Nope.

Great. Uh Council Becker.

Um yeah, I mean I just I support in generalist looking at this. Um, I I don't know who I assume I don't know if we'll move ahead with the ad hoc committee. I assume we will, but and I don't know I don't know who will be on it, but I just wanted to agree with some of the comments that um I I don't want us to short change the long-term plans in the city. I think we should just be careful um with what the projects are that we're looking at. We need data points like council member Andrew was saying on like which projects those are, but like specifically like I don't want us to make bad decisions for the long term um with whatever those projects are. I just wanted to call those out as specific projects I would try to preserve if we can whatever those are. Thank you, Kath Weinberg.

So, so I was sitting here thinking this all sounded very familiar. Um, and there's a reason that back in 2018, um, in my day job at the city of Seattle, uh, we, uh, spent a couple years putting together a citywide prioritization process, uh, for the invest investments in information technology projects, but 80% of our technology projects were for our utilities, uh, for, you know, water and sewer and electric And uh what we came up with uh was a five uh band uh system um where uh the top band was uh compliance with state or federal law. Uh we were just uh constrained by what we have to do there. And usually that was where there was something out of compliance we had to get into compliance. Uh not something where we're already in compliance need to stay there. Um and imminent life and safety risk was also in the top band. Uh so something that uh we're uh it's not just it could potentially someday down the future uh cause life and safety risk, but we can see this is going to you know cause houses to fall down the hill. Um the second ban was service interruption risk. Uh so something that would uh put us at risk of uh a road having to close or a water uh system starting to fail or sewer system not working and pump system not working etc. Third was end of life um meaning that like the AC pipe replacements uh and the repaving of streets that are uh near the end of their expected life u but they're still they're gracefully degrading right they're not and it's just suddenly going

to to fall off. And the fourth one was the uh transformational essentially everything else uh the transformation and new amenities uh and new capabilities that we were creating. I said there are five because we added a fifth one uh partway through which was when the pandemic hit and when we had some kind of major event response. if there had been a massive earthquake or something that would just boom, you know, take over uh the top priority because it uh would be across the entire city. Um but I think those those four bands uh might apply to the situation here where you're asking about what are some of the uh what are some of the uh approaches we might take to figuring out what could go first, second or third if we had to do some tough tradeoffs? Unfortunately, that probably books 9655 the building near the bottom because it's kind of a new amenity. Um, but uh that something we might want to consider that we invested a fair amount of time in developing.

What's interesting, if I may follow up on that, is I I think a standardization would be helpful. Many of these projects are born uh from plans that already includes standardizations. So, we've been talking about that as well. you know the water water plan identifies capital priorities the sewer plan uh the pros plan you know we have a lot of plans um so I don't want to reinvent uh the work that was done there but I think bringing it all together and coming up with maybe a new mechanism to help you evaluate

the many types of projects that comprise our capital program um makes a lot of sense uh to do that quickly we'll certainly do our us, but I appreciate the information and that idea you shared. Council member Reynolds,

a couple things. One, one, I I think creating the ad hoc committee is a good idea. Um, but to to expand on comments that uh the mayor and council member Weinberg made, I think it would be helpful if there was some staff work up front to to give us some information on these and the criteria I thought of, you know, kind of some sorting criteria of the projects, you know, legal requirement. I think council member Weinberg was right on in that life safety. I think council member Andrew mentioned that first. Clearly important one is just things that if we delay them are long run significantly more expensive because we've messed up some maintenance we needed to do and as a consequence we need to do something a lot more expensive. Things that are uh will are at risk of keeping us from delivering key city services. projects that are already underway and projects that have grant funding that we might lose if we don't do the projects. And I'd like to have all the projects flagged on those criteria or something similar. And then we can look at what doesn't have a high score on each of those things and say, "Okay, now let's think about real priority on the remainder."

Yeah, something like that.

I was I was thinking numbers because that's the way I think, but color works. I could adapt. Yeah, that's an um analysis that we can we can do. Um what's interesting, I'll just kind of serve this up. The water and sewer projects are not going to be recommended to be delayed. And I I I'm not even sure it's worth going through the exercise of reviewing them. They are all inside of need to happen, you know, yesterday, but it's probably the the parks and streets and potentially storm water projects that we would want to take a look at. Okay. So, one item that we haven't discussed as a council, I'm curious of folks perspective on is the um what Matt discussed about utility rates in terms of potentially being funded for facilities. Um I think that's something that's worthwhile to look at. Um but I do want to get everyone else's perspective and see if there's any agreement or disagreement on that. I will just like to add that um at this point if we were to pursue that it it comes also with tradeoffs and so um there's no additional funding um available to to fund a new facility with utility rates. It requires raising those rates. So, um, it's it's important to couch that within the guise of that there's trade-offs at play with trying to redirect resources away from some of the critical projects that Jesse just spoke about towards a new facility. All right. So, maybe it's best to park that for now. We can maybe come back to that at a future date. But, I do think that there sounds like there's some consensus here on uh, excuse me, on an ad hoc committee. So, I don't if we can get a thumbs up on that and we can discuss who wants to be on it. Okay, I'm seeing six. Sorry, five thumbs up. So, I think

Oh, six. All right, that gives us enough. Um, who is interested in serving on that? Wendy.

Surprise. Um, Mr. Mayor, historically, uh, the finance ad hoc committee has included a representative council of council leadership. That's not mandatory. I would also like to nominate uh Council Member Reynolds because he's uh been sorry he's been with us as we've uh stopped and started ad hoc committees and I think it would be uh nice to have the continuity there if he's willing to serve. If not, we're happy to work with uh whoever's available. Sorry, Craig. I' I'd be happy to do it. I I think last time, if I remember correctly, with the finance committee was Mayor Nice and Council Member Wer and I. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I I think it was the three of you through two cycles of that ad hoc committee.

Yeah, I I so I'm I would like to serve and I actually do think that Wendy serving is a good idea. Um given she doesn't want to. I I would put my neck on the line. Okay. All right. So, let's go with that. We'll go uh with me, Council Reynolds, Council Wer, and then Council Andrew as a I could be an alternate. It's an alternate. Right. We will uh take our notes from the meeting and do some prep work and then follow up with you probably for a March meeting to kick us off. Great. Okay. Anybody else? All right. Thank you. Thanks.

Uh we will now move to other business and then planning session planning schedule. And for that we welcome back city manager Jesse Bond. Alfredo. Oh, there we go. My computer timed out. Uh, nothing further for me on the uh, schedule. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Uh, council, is there a motion to excuse council member Wer's absence from tonight's meeting? So moved. Second. Uh, moved by Council Member Androl, seconded by Council Reynolds. Uh, city clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Rosenbomb. Hi. Council member Weineberg, I. Council member Sheay, I.

Council member Reynolds, I. Council member Androl, I. And Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Are there any new upcoming council member absences to report? Council Reynolds. I I think you know this, but may not. I I will miss the linkage committee meeting or linkage meeting on Thursday because of the parks commission meeting which conflicts. Thank you for serving in that capacity. Okay. Uh, council reports. We'll start with deputy mayor Becker. Nothing to report. Uh, council member Wer is on here. Council member Weinberg.

Yes. So, I want to start my comments tonight with a statement addressed to my uh, fellow Mercer Island residents uh, and refers to recent events in the region involving the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency or ICE. Uh, we've all heard that ICE officers are required to have a judicial warrant to make an arrest or to demand entry into your home. What many of us do not know is how to verify the authenticity of a judicial warrant. It's I realize it's the age of the internet. Most people can look it up online, but for those who haven't uh thought to do so yet, uh here's a quick summary of what constitutes a judicial warrant. The document must be signed by a judge, magistrate, or court official, not by a an ICE agent. There are over 500 federal judges and magistrate and magistrates in the United States, but you can search through the names on the website fjc.gov/history/judges. You can also search the directory of Washington state judges at courts.wah.gov_dir. The document must be issued by a state or federal court, not an immigration court. The document must explicitly authorize search and seizure or arrest. The document must explicitly name the person or the address of the property to be searched. And the warrant needs to be current and not expired. If an ICE agent is at your door and claims to have a warrant, you have the right to review and authenticate their warrant before opening the door. You have them slide it under the door or hold it up to a window so you can see it, take a photo of it, and validate it. If the ICE agent shows you an form I200 or I205, that is an administrative warrant and does not grant them entry into your home without violating your Fourth Amendment

rights. If you feel that your personal safety is in jeopardy, call 911 for assistance. Our police are dedicated to your personal safety. Also, take a photo of the document and email it to the city's police department. For the city of Mercer Islands, uh the email address is records at mercer island.gov. All right. on a less weighty matter. Uh I have now completed seven of my planned 14 day trips to Olympia this session. Um I've identified 36 bills which may have low, medium, or high impact on the city of Mercer Island. Of those, the six bills with the highest potential impact are HB 2374 with its uh companion bill 6110 uh which is the e- motorcycle definition bills which we helped uh author HB 2332 and its companion bill 60002 which uh relates to regulations around ALPR cameras. uh Senate Bill 6015 which involves permit ready residential buildings significant change to a permitting process. Uh HB 2673 and its companion bill 6201 which involves uh property tax and REIT exemptions for affordable housing uh projects. House Bill 2489 regarding the overnight use of public spaces and Senate Bill 5729 allowing architects to define when their permit applications are complete. There's also a significant uh permitting change should it get through. I look forward to uh continuing to coordinate closely with council leadership, city staff, and our lobbyists uh so we can

all thoroughly understand the intents and implications of these bills and to ensure that we're presenting a cohesive and consistent message to our legislators. Finally, my next open lunch will be at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 21st at the Sushi Joa restaurant. The address is 27178th Avenue Southeast. And as always, all are welcome. It's an open agenda. news, sports, weather, humor, what's going on in Olympia, whatever. Uh, all I ask is that everybody please uh show the respects to the chef by ordering some food and or beverage and let me know if you're coming so I can reserve a large enough table. See you. Coun Reynolds.

Yeah. A couple of things. Um, one is I had to tinder my resignation last week for the law enforce law enforcement officers and firefighters disability board. It turned out that there was uh some confusion about eligibility and Mercer Island is not allowed to send a representative of that board. So I'll be sadly leaving it after I think three or four years. Um second uh just remind the community for those that are not aware there are pro-democracy protests every Sunday typically at 3:00 at what some people are starting to call democracy corner the corner of 40th and Crest Way. Uh all are welcome. It's just a half hour commitment from 3 to 3:30 to show up. We had quite an increase in attendees recently. However, this Sunday, the come the coming event will be at 2:30 instead of three o'clock because there's something else going on that afternoon that some of you probably know about. Um, and then the last thing was just a hat tip hat tipped to Mr. Morn. I've always assumed I was the biggest math geek in the room, but I didn't know what a knob was. I had to Google it while you were talking. So, thank you for educating me on that concept. I would have called it a Dell or something else or a gradient symbol, but you got me. Okay, that's it for today. Okay, I guess for Andrew, you want to top that?

I don't know. Maybe I have a new wordle start word. I'm a pretty good one. Is it five letters? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, sorry. Nothing other than briefly I was invited to um meet with a Cub Scout Den to talk about uh civics and government and checks and balances. And we um we experimented at the end with voting on snacks for the next meeting. and we did anonymous ballots and then we did a voice vote as as the city council does. Uh they were very engaged, very interested and very well informed about the branches of government for fourth graders. I was impressed. So that's it. What was the final snack tally?

Uh well the veggie straws and oatmeal cookies for the next meeting. Good combination. I'll be there. Council member Shay.

Yes. Thank you. So, since our last council meeting, um I joined council member Ted Weinberg and city staff in Olympia for the Association of Washington Cities action days. And we're grateful to the AWC for sponsor for supporting House Bill 2374, which clarifies the difference between ebikes and e- motorcycles. And many thanks to Representative Janet ZH for being the main sponsor of that bill and working closely with our city staff on its development. and uh council member Weinberg and I um attended the committee hearing and heard a bunch of strong pro- testimony from across the region and including our mayor Dave Rosenbomb. So a consistent statewide definition will help cities better regulate for safety. Um there is awareness of ongoing concerns in the community regarding federal immigration enforcement activities and I want to acknowledge the fear felt by our um community members. I see you, I hear you and I am with you. I appreciate our police department's statement reaffirming that their mission remains unchanged to protect the safety and well-being of everyone on Mercer Island. And please call 911 if there is a public safety concern. Last Friday, Mayor Rosenbomb, Deputy Mayor Becker, and I attended the Mary Wait Pool renovation celebration with MISD school board members, King County Council member Claudia Balduchi, students, and community members. It was such an honor to hear from Mary Wait, Olympic gold medalist and MIHS graduate who spoke about the vital role of community pools um in playing um in in um building belonging and opportunity in a community. And this renovation was funded by a voter approved capital levy and a King County grant. Um I've been assigned as council liaison to five committees and I look forward to serving and reporting back. So, yes, Lunar New Year of the Fire Horse is coming up soon

and the city has partnered with the Mercer Island Chinese Association to host a Lunar New Year event this Sunday. Um, a lot going on um on uh from 10 to 2:00 p.m. right here in our community center. So, welcome all to join. And my next community coffee is Wednesday, February 25th from 11 to 12:30 at ASA on the north end. And I hope to see you there.

Great. Thank you. Uh the city council will now go into executive session for approximately 30 minutes for planning or adopting the strategy or position to be taken by the city council during the course of any collective bargaining professional negotiations or gre or grievance or mediation proceedings. We're viewing the proposals made in the negotiations or proceedings while in progress pursuant to RCW42.30140B4B and to discuss with legal council pending a potential litigation pursuant to RCW423010 I. The city council will be in recess from 8:28 until 8:33 and the city council will convene executive session at 8:33 until 9:03 Yeah.

Good evening and thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 15 minutes until 9:18 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 10 minutes until 9:28 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 5 minutes until 9:33 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 5 minutes until 9:38

Thank you. The city council was in executive session from 8:33 p.m. until 9:38 p.m. The next regularly scheduled hybrid city council meeting on Tuesday, February 17th, beginning at 5:00 p.m. The time is now 9:38 p.m. As a reminder to this council, please stay seated until the city staff has terminated the broadcast. Thank you. Good night.