City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the April 7th, 2026 city council regular hybrid meeting. I'm Mayor Dave Rosenbomb. Tonight's hybrid council city council meeting is being brought to you in person and by Zoom and we're also broadcasting on the city's YouTube channel and on MITV channel 21. Welcome to all and thank you for joining us today. Uh, council members, please have your microphones turned on for the roll call. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Androl has not arrived yet. Council member Sheay here. Council member Reynolds here. Council member Wer here. Council member Weinberg here. Deputy Mayor Becker here. And Mayor Rosenbomb

here. Okay, we have a quorum. Uh, next we have the pledge of allegiance. Council, if you join us in council chambers, please stand and face the flag if you have joined us via Zoom, which no one has. And 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. Uh, city clerk, can we note that uh, council member Anderall has joined us.

Okay. We now move to approval of today's agenda. If there are no questions, may I have a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay. Uh, moved by council member Andrew and seconded by Deputy Mayor Becker. The clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Sheay, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, I. Council member Wer, I. Council member Andraw. Hi. Council member Reynolds. Hi. Council member Weinberg. I. And Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Next on the agenda, we have the city manager report, and we welcome city manager Jesse Bond.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Welcome to Tuesday, April 7th. I have an incredibly short report tonight given the length of our meeting. I'll ask Casey to flip to the next slide. All right, here's just a quick meeting snapshot. Council reminder, your next meeting is Tuesday, April 21st. Uh the board and commission meeting schedule is posted to our website. Looking ahead, the arts council will be meeting on April 15th and the Open Space Conservancy Trust on April 16th. Next slide. Uh council, speaking of boards and commissions, I wanted to remind you that we are underway with our annual recruitment for board and commission seats. Uh you may recall that we just uh filled a couple of vacancies not uh a meeting or two ago. Um we have a long list of open seats and with all these audience members here today, maybe you will consider applying for one of these positions. Uh the deadline for applications is May 8th and then we will be coming to you I believe it is the second meeting in May for appointment. Next slide please. I wanted to give one project update tonight. As you know King County has been working since 2022 to replace um and upgrade uh a significant portion of the sewer system on the north end of the island. Uh their contractor, Walsh, is currently working on Southeast 36th Street, which is right in front of City Hall. Uh the purpose of this work is to install a temporary sewer bypass between Southeast 36 and Southeast 35th Streets. If you've been through there, it's uh looking like a construction zone right now. So, from middle of this month to early August, uh, two lanes of Southeast 36 will remain open with eastbound traffic shifted into the center turn lane. Um, just alerting you, we've got a traffic issue. Um, we wanted to make you

aware of that. Uh, but the good news is the project is finally, I think I can say that, finally in the home stretch and we are hoping they will be concluding soon. We have um the King County website on the Mercer Entai sewer web link there at the bottom of the page. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me after the meeting. Couple of events and then I'll wrap up. Hey, we have a lot going on. It's Earth Month. So many events actually on the calendar. Too many to list on the slide. So I'll encourage you to check out um all of the opportunities uh on our website, which is our public works link there at the bottom of the page. and our communications manager is standing over here to my left. He is working with all of the team members that are coordinating and hosting these events and he'll be uh sharing them out across our communications channels. Also, uh one event coming up uh right after the Mercer Island Spring Break, Saturday, April 25th, uh at city hall from 10 to 2, our former city hall loading dock. Uh we'll be hosting our annual drug takeback day. Uh this is in partnership with the DEA. So our police teams up with uh the DEA. We collect unwanted and expired medications, tablets, capsules, and patches um and other solid forms of prescription drugs. So again, we'll be promoting this across communication channels. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the upcoming event. And I think that Nope, not yet. All right. Hey, we do have some great news to share. Um, uh, Senator Wman, uh, in partnership with the 41st delegation, uh, was able to secure a little over a million dollars in funding for us during this last legislative session. Uh, this money will be directed to the community center HVAC replacement project, which I am going to cheer loudly because I am sitting under a blowing cold uh, vent

right now that I believe we cannot turn off unless we do so manually. Uh so many thanks uh to the 41st delegation for securing this funding. This is a project that is incredibly important giving the highintensity use this building has serving our community. I believe we'll be uh sharing this in our weekly news uh tomorrow and also coming back to you council to approve a thank you letter for the 41st delegation. And that is all I have tonight.

Okay. Thank you. Uh our next item of business is appearances. This is the opportunity for anyone to speak to the city council on any item except items requiring a public hearing, any quasi judicial matters or campaign related matters. Tonight's agenda includes both in person and remote public appearances via Zoom. Individuals wishing to address the council may do so in person or by Zoom. Remarks must be addressed to the council as a whole and not to any individual council or staff members. Any person making personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks or becomes boisterous, threatening, or personally abusive while addressing the city council may be requested to leave the meeting. Due to the high attendance at tonight's meeting and the number of registered speakers for appearances, staff will call participants in groups. When your name is called, please line up next to the staff member holding the clipboard and provide your name. This process will help us move efficiently through all the speakers. Once your turn, you'll be called to the podium to speak. 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 or item of business. Staff, please call the first speaker. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our first two speakers tonight are Addie Smith and Dustin Jolly, and they were both should be on Zoom. However, Mr. Mayor, I don't see either of them in the meeting. Um, and I will move to the next speakers, and we can come back.

Okay. Um, our first three speakers in person tonight will be Courtney Hamson, Jill Hawkins, and Kim Florence. Courtney can go ahead to the podium. Okay.

Hi, Courtney Hson, a resident of Mercer Island. Um, I grew up on Mercer Island and returned home to raise my kids here and this year I serve as the Mercer Island Preschool Association or MEPA president and I'm speaking today to represent the needs of young families on the island. MIPA wants to offer its support for the proposal to approve and fund the planned improvements to Dragon Park. For generations, MIPA has supported the development and revamp of large community parks, knowing the priority they are for building community and attracting young families to our city. So over the past few years, we've partnered with the Friends of Dragon Park coalition um to put this effort forward. Dragon Park in particular has very close ties to Mipa. It is actually Mipa who volunteered the labor and donated funds and materials to create the park in partnership with the King County Parks in 1962, then later handed the park over to the city to maintain in 1965. The naming of the park with the designation of Children's Park was intentional. It was um specifically designed to serve the island's youngest residents. And while we understand that the park needs to serve the broader community as a whole, we also very much appreciate the focus that this park has on specific spaces supporting younger kids so they have access to play on equipment as well. Many of our parks do not have designated spaces that smaller kids can independently explore, and it's something that we're really excited some of the design maintains. While not every park needs every piece of equipment to be for everyone, from the beginning of this park, There was a goal to ensure that there were spaces that everyone could play independently and that families with mixed ages could bring all of their kids and know that there would be a place for everyone. Over the years, this unique play space has become more than just a playground. It's a cornerstone of our community and captures the spirit and nature of Mercer Island. As someone grew who grew up here, I have a deep personal connection

to the park. playing on it myself and having the opportunity to paint the old dragon, an experience which instilled in me a sense of ownership and pride in this shared space. Now, we have another opportunity for our community to invest and give back into this park. And there's been a lot of debate around concepts like accessibility and inclusivity. And the theme that I'd like to focus on is around access. While not every single piece of equipment needs to be for everyone, regardless of age or ability, it's about being able to access the park and be where your family is. Prioritizing access means opening up the park to the broader community. That may include people with disabilities, but also the wide variety of ages and types of families that visit our playgrounds. Parents pushing strollers, grandparents navigating wheelchairs. This is about having a toddler that's learning to walk and a kid that's riding a bike and a parent pushing a stroller who can all access the same play equipment. As one of the most popular parks on the island, I think it's important that we take this opportunity to open the door versus close it to parts of our community.

Thank you. The the next speaker tonight is Jill Hawkins, followed by Kim Florence. Our next group of three after those two will be John Hamer, Andy McAndrews, and Julie Day.

Good evening, council members and neighbors. My name is Jill Hawkins, and my husband, Doug, and I have lived on Mercer Island for 15 years. I'm here tonight with our children, Charlotte, who's 20, and Cooper, who is 15. Like many of you, our family has spent countless hours under the canopy of our beautiful parks. To us, the woodsy feel of Mercer Island isn't just an aesthetic. It is home. When my kids were little, they navigated through these trails and climbed the equipment independently. But today, life looks very different. Charlotte and Cooper are living with a rare genetic disorder that is slowly taking away their ability to walk. For Cooper, the joy of the park is still found in the rush of a swing and the height of a slide. For Charlotte, it's the sensory delight of anything that makes a silly sound. Most importantly, an accessible park gives Charlotte something she fights for every day, independence. There's nothing more magical than watching her navigate a space safely and joyfully on her own. I've heard the concerns about losing trees in Dean's Children's Park or Dragon Park as we all know it. I want to be clear. I share that love of our forest. I don't want to lose the magic of the woods either. But I also know that a park isn't truly magical if a segment of our community is left at the trail head unable to play in the structures. right now. To get Cooper and Charlotte to the equipment they love, we have to struggle through terrain that was not built for them. We shouldn't have to choose between our environment and our neighbors with disabilities. I'm asking the council and our community to move past the eitheror mindset. Let's find a creative path forward. One that

preserves the integrity of our forest while ensuring that every child and adult, regardless of their mobility, can experience the wonder of the dragon. Please, let's build a park where the only thing we're losing is the barriers. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Kim Florence.

Thank you, Joe. That was very well said. My name is Kim Florence and I'm the VP of advocacy for Island Park Elementary School. I've spent a lot of time over the last six weeks thinking about Dragon Park more than I ever thought I would. My children love Dragon Park and we go there many times a week. But when I was first contacted by families that had concerns about the proposed Dragon Park site plan, I didn't realize how extensive the feelings about the park on this island really were. Since then, I have met with parents, city staff, friends of Dragon Park, city council members, and talked to countless numbers of you in this room today to try to get a better understanding of what why we got here and how to move forward. In my quest for a better understanding all things Dragon Park and frankly all things park on Mercer Island, I have dug deep into commission meetings, the pros plan, city code, and the state's extensive grant programs. I thought about sharing where I personally saw things going wrong. maybe a a parks commission meeting where commissioners were told to just vote for the plan and they could change their vote later and then were told actually you can't change your vote. A well-laidout community engagement process that did an excellent job surveying the community for what they envisioned for the park, but then fell short of advertising the draft site plan and communicating with park neighbors to get feedback on that plan or a budget that far exceeds the $ 1.5 million the city has allocated for this park and relies heavily on the idea that somehow we will receive millions in grants and donations. I even looked at the 2022 ADA accessibility analysis done by an outside consulting group that uncovered the $7.2 million in investment needed on this island to make 22 parks more accessible. Ironically, that is the amount of construction costs that the city is currently proposing to make this one park more accessible. Instead though, I want to focus on moving forward. Where do we go from here? The city council should amend the pro proposed site plan to address the unrealistic budget, the tripling of imper imperous surfaces, and the phasing of this plan. Despite bite people are saying out there, we do all want the same thing, a more accessible and

inclusive dragon park that maintains the magic and beauty we all love. I'd like to borrow from the vision that the Island Park PTA laid out in their letter to the city council, one that I believe could become the council's northstar and how to lead the community going forward on this issue. The beauty of Dragon Park is its ability to inspire imagination. Perhaps it comes from the sword for sword ferns and mossy covered tree branches. It is a safe place for kids to build tree forts and search for fairies. In many cases, the equipment becomes secondary to the games of imagination that only an unstructured natural environment allows for our students. In a world that is increasingly overstimulating and overcurated, Dragon Park is a place for our students to find grounding in their natural surroundings. And we believe that every child should have the ability to access this magical place. The Island Park PTA PTA believes that nature is for everyone. We believe that accessibility and inclusion should be the foundational standards across all parks on Mercer Island. And we hope that the city council will amend the site plan as proposed so that we don't fail to achieve those goals, sharing magic at of Dragon Park with everyone, achieving accessibility at all island parks, and preserving what makes Dragon Park special.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Eric Timrich, followed by John Hamer and Andy McAndrews.

My name is Eric Timrich. I'm a resident of Mercer Island. Um, kids love Dragon Park. Uh, and I would submit that it is not broken. It could use updates, notably uh, swapping out some toys and moving the the the building that's there in the middle. The bathrooms could use a little bit of updating, but hundreds of K through five kids from Island Park frequent it. Kids from the baseball uh park frequent it. Siblings uh of of all of those kids frequent it. And I would say that it is age appropriate. Um it has been treasured by generations of kids. Uh and I worry that the plan would alter it to the point so dramatically that it would be it would essentially um it would be for the worse. Um, there are many things that are wrong with the proposed plan for Dragon Park. Uh, I could list them. Uh, but I think honestly if anyone who's read it, uh, knows them already. Uh, so I just want to step back for a minute uh, and say it is a huge project, $7 million, 10 to 20 years. For a project like that, it feels like it should have overwhelming support. And in the parks commission, it was approved four to two. 30% of the folks voted against it in the parks commission. Similarly, everyone that that has I shouldn't say everyone. I have I have been around plenty of people who have learned about this project in the past couple weeks and the overwhelming majority of them are against many fundamental components of the plan. So, an unpopular plan uh that didn't pass cleanly seems it seems like it that is not the situation you want to get into with something that is so long-term and so costly. Some people are against it because of the age appropriateness, others for the rubberization of the play surface and

the the paths. That's a particularly important one for me. Uh, some are against it for the price tag. Some are against against it for the timeline or the scale 10 to 20 years. Some are against it because of the phasing plan, the things that they care about a lot. The bathroom is one I keep hearing about. It's in the last phase. And some are against it for a mix of reasons. But the net takeaway is that that it's not popular enough at this point to approve a plan like that. I've consumed all the information. I think the writeup was beautifully done. I am completely on board with all of the all the reasons behind people wanting the changes. Um but at the end of the day it's the plan itself if you look at the end product is just not where it needs to be. So while I applaud the efforts of everyone involved in it, I think we need to go back uh to the drawing board. MI Parks are are fantastic. Let's keep them that way. Um sorry Brent, see I'm out of time. I better hurry. Uh I think we need to s seek a new smaller plan that is appropriate. So I ask for you to reject the plan.

Thank you. Our next speaker is John Hamer followed by Andy McAndrews. Our next group after them will be Julie Day, Bob Day, and Rich Gruts Mocker.

My name is John Hamer. I've lived on Mercer Island for over 25 years. My wife and I often walk to Mercerale where Train Park is now wonderfully accessible and inclusive and may now be the most popular playground on the island. We go with there with our four grandchildren and watch kids of all ages play with each other on the train, swings, slides, ramps, plus the xylophone, drums, and other sensory features. We sit on donated benches with other seniors and are really grateful for soft surfaces that help cushion any falls. I've lived in the Seattle area for almost 50 years. I came in 1977 to join the Seattle Times editorial board. When I arrived, I asked who are the most respected leaders around? The name everybody mentioned was Jim Ellis. So I called his office and asked for a brief interview. We talked for two hours. I realized that he was an extraordinary community leader and we can see the results of Jim Ellis's leadership everywhere. His guiding star was Alexis Dtoqueville who wrote the greatest thing about America is that when a group of citizens see a problem, they form a committee to solve it. I took his advice. I helped form neighborhood organizations to work on needs such as forest management and waterfront restoration. I joined Mercer Island's forest stewards program to help plant trees and remove invasive species. And this is why I'm here today. When my grandson Ford Parks was was was born with a rare genetic disorder that would limit his ability to walk, speak, eat,

and care for himself. I became acutely aware of the need for inclusive parks. I followed the city's long-term pros plan to renovate all our parks and playgrounds. We knew Dean's Children's Park would be a major challenge due to its natural forested terrain. Ford cannot use any of Dragon Park today because of its rough and rocky paths, huge timbers and bark chips around the play structures, trails that simply don't work for wheelchairs. So, channeling Jim Ellis, I formed a committee. I helped convene our friends of Dragon Park coalition, and I'm chair of the Rotary Club's parks and playgrounds committee. We've been working for three years now to help make Dragon Park an example of what's possible when citizens share common goals. The city's design team welcomed our suggestions from day one. Our goal is to find the best solution that works for the most people over the longest period of time. As elected officials, that must be your goal as well.

Thank you. Thank you. our next speaker tonight. Thank you. Just a note, I I will have to be enforcing the threeminut limit just so we're to ensure that we're fair uh to everyone.

Our next speaker is Andy McAndrews, followed by Julie Day and Bob Day and Rich Gretz Mocker. Hi everybody, my name is Andy McAnnrews and I'm 13 years old. I live right across the street from Dragon Park and I've been going there since I was two now. My 10-year-old brother, Jack, plays it all the time, especially since the school is right next door. My dad grew up in our house, too. So, my family has been using this park for a long time. I was even interviewed in the Muran Reporter when the bike skills area opened, so I feel like I know this park pretty well. My brother and a lot of his friends walked through the park after school and stopped to play just like I did when I was their age. Dragon Park was the first place that my parents let me go alone with my friends, which was pretty cool. I know a lot of work has gone to this plan and I want to say thank you to everyone that has been involved. I really appreciate the focus on accessibility and inclusion. Accessibility is something that this park actually needs to improve. There are places that are hard to get to and not everyone can use all parts of the park easily. But accessibility is not just about getting into the park. It's also about having play areas that kids with different abilities can actually use and enjoy once they're there. That's really important and that's something that does need to be improved. But inclusion also means including all ages. Right now about 50% of the park is designed for kids ages 5 through 12. In the proposal that drops to this 7%. That's not a small change. That's a big shift. This proposal has lots of space for younger kids and there are awesome accessibility improvements which is great but it feels like older kids are being pushed out. And the blended play spaces sound good but in real life they don't really work that way. At parks with blended play, like the brand new park in the downtown area, older kids get yelled at by adults for using things that they think are meant for younger kids because the blended stuff really is better for younger kids. That happened all the time, so I just stopped going there. That's what I'm worried about happening here. Also, kids grow and a lot of families like mine have multiple kids at different ages. One of the best things about Dragon Park is that when I was younger, I could go there with my brother and we both had things to do at

the same time. We can still do that today. Another thing that makes Dragon Park special is how it feels. It doesn't feel like a typical playground. It feels like a forest. There are woodsy areas where we played Nerf Wars, hide-and-seek, and just to make things up. That kind of free play is a big reason kids keep coming back. When I've seen a lot of that natural feel is being reduced in this proposal, and once it's gone, you don't really get back. And one more thing, even as a kid, I know spending around $9 million on one park is a lot, especially when there are a lot of parks on Mr. Island that also need improvements. What are we going to do about Homestead or the LI parks? Have you talked to the kids who play sports on those fields? They're pretty bad. So, this just feels kind of irresponsible. So, here's what I'm asking. Please improve accessibility because that really matters. Make space. Make sure there are meaningful play opportunities for kids with different abilities, but also make sure older kids are still included in a real way. Keep space for challenge, independence, and growing up. And don't lose making this the kind of place where kids walk through after school, stay for a while, and actually want to come back without their parents. I hope you'll reconsider some of these changes and make Dragon Park equally usable by kids of all ages and abilities. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker tonight is Julie Day, followed by Bob Day and Rich Gretzmocker.

Hi, Julie Day Mercer Island. Uh my three children have all been power users of Dragon Park for about 25 years. Uh I strongly support the approval of the site plan uh as it is. My family walks, pulls a wagon, or rides our bikes to the dragon park throughout the year. On hot summer days or when it's raining, the forested canopy and the picnic shelter make it a really pleasant place to watch our kids explore and play and we consider it our neighborhood park because we walk there. I've kept up with the community input process and plans for the park. Yet, I certainly understand that it could be challenging to quickly grasp the purpose of a site plan, a long range plan, and the processes it goes through to get to approval. I want to thank all of you for supporting the incredible staff, providing funding for the experts who created this plan, having it go through the parks and recreation commission approval process, and for your consideration this evening for this long range vision for Dragon Park, one of the jewels of our community. We all know that the unprecedented community input process uh occurred for this site plan. We had 1,200 students across four elementary schools provide input, hundreds of adults, public uh events through surveys and the parks and recck meetings. And based on community input, priorities were identified and then the city hired experts to incorporate the community's priorities into the overall plan. I'm going to address one aspect of the plan that I deserve think deserves to be highlighted. And because I'm an engineer, it's going to be about math. Okay, so let's look at this for a second. The impacted area today, the parking, the play area, the paths, and the picnic structure are currently 62,300 square ft. In the site plan, there are also 62,300 square feet of impacted area within the park. That's parking, play, paths, picnic, and the new restroom. Same number of square feet.

In the site plan, the parking area is a bit larger. There is an accessible path to Island Park which is fantastic and all around the dragon and the picnic shelter is in more or less the same area and restrooms are added. So simple math tells us that the actual play area didn't expand greatly. When you look at the footprint of the play areas, it may seem larger, but the impacted area of the park remains the same as it is today. Also note that the current woodland area, the 70,100 square f feet, is the same today as it is in the site plan. There is no loss of vegetation square footage in the park. The area for collecting sticks and building forts today, 70,000 square feet, remains the same in the future. This is confirmed in the city's FAQ. We all have personal preferences and I'm confident that the site plan has been designed by experts aligned with the community's priorities. Experts such as Inger Canix understand the appropriate selection of play equipment based on age ratings, accessibility.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob Day followed by Rich Gutsm Grutz Mocker and then our following group of three is Eve Hampton, Emily Moss, and Tasha Brown. Mayor Rosenbomb and council members. My name is Bob Day. I have a home a short walk from Dean's Children's Park, Dragon Park, and I'm here to emphatically endorse the city's site plan. I specifically want to thank the council for your leadership on AB6395. By pausing for a more holistic design, you chose inclusion over a quick fix at Dragon Park. And this plan divisions this plan delivers on that vision. As a resident of Mercer Island in the neighborhood of Dean's Children's Park, I have paid attention to the changes being planned and I have seen the results that suggest this plan is awesome. It maintains the precious precious woodland nature of the park yet provides walkways and play spaces that are welcoming for those who have mobility issues. It does this with appropriate pore in place surfacing. As a child, I was in a wheelchair for five years. I was on crutches for one year. I remember how restricted I was and I was unable to play with normal kids in a park because of the lack of mobility. I remember how isolating it made me feel. friends would only play when they were in my neighborhood, and I had to turn down invitations to simply go to the park and play. As a soon-to-be grandparent, I see that accessibility isn't just for kids. It's for my aging neighbors and me as well. We need a park where we can navigate with a walker or a cane to play with our grandchildren. The dragon is the heart of the park.

This plan finally ensures that every child on the island, regardless of ability, can reach and play with that dragon. I value the roadmap approach. The phased plan allows the city to leverage grants and community fundraising to build what we can afford. It is the right direction at the right time. Thank you for the work on AB6395 and for bringing this inclus inclusive vision to life. Please approve the plan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ritz Grutsmcker followed by Eve Hampton, Emily Moss, and Tasha Brown.

Uh thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Rich Grusbacher. I'm a parent of a fourth grader at Island Park Elementary School. Uh I'm here today because I'm strongly aligned with many of the concerns uh outlined by the Island Park PTA and respectfully ask that you consider the following three amendments to your plan if you do choose to vote on it today. Um the first involves common sense fiscal responsibility. I'm asking that you direct the staff to re-evaluate the proposed $9 million plan to fit within the $ 1.5 million budget that has already been allocated by the city. Second, I'm asking that you prioritize accessibility in phase one of the plan. As we've heard from many speakers today, it's extremely important to the community and it's currently funded. Uh the first phase is the only one that's actually currently funded today. Um and that this includes three things in particular. First, installation of accessible pathway connecting Island Park Elementary directly with the playground structures. Second, I'm asking that you renovate the bathroom to include adult-size tables and ADA accessible ramps. Third, I'm asking that you prioritize renovation of the picnic area to be accessible um over non-essential what what I would consider non-essential high-cost play structures. The third amendment that I'd like you to consider today is one that scales back the proposed 3x increase in imperous surfaces. If you look at the 62,300 square foot uh uh area, you will see when you do the math that there is a 3x increase in imperous surfaces there. And so the three things that I'd like you to think about is one, eliminating the parking lot expansion in favor of a safe, accessible pathway to the existing Island Crest parking lot. Second, I'd like you to prioritize the retention of all healthy trees currently slated for removal. uh even if that requires reducing the area of some of the play areas or rerouting those around healthy

trees to make sure that it's accessible for everyone. And then third, I'd like you to evaluate the renovation of existing structures rather than replacing them. This includes the picnic shelter, the fences, and the existing play areas instead of totally replacing them. To recap in my last 45 seconds here, I have several concerns about the over reliance on external funding in this $9 million long-term plan. And I'd like the city to provide uh you with a comprehensive plan that fully addresses the community's priorities in phase one using the funds that have already been approved. As a community, we've already run into problems receiving grants from RCO recently. We saw that with the Luther Burbank plan where the $1.8 $88 million that we requested. We ended up last out of the 25 communities that requested it. This was due in part to the fact that quote the applicant failed to demonstrate matching funds. That's us, the applicant Mercer Island community. And as we all know, we are seeing substantial cutbacks over and over in both federal and grant funding. I'm going to stop there because I'm out of time. Thank Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eve Hampton followed by Emily Moss and Tasha Brown. All right. Uh, Eve Hampton, Mercer Island. Um, my name is Eve Hampton. I grew up on Mercer Island and after nearly 15 years away, I came back to raise my family here. Today, I'm the single mother of a kindergartener and a fourth grader at Island Park. My fourth grader is actually here tonight and happens to be a fan of local politics. I think he may have been the only nine-year-old reading the voters's guide from cover to cover last fall. But I digress. Dragon Park is our neighborhood park. I'm here because I support this site plan. The community community engagement behind it was extensive, and the vision of a park that welcomes children and families of all abilities is what this neighborhood needs. I urge you to adopt it next month. I want to share why this matters to me personally. In the year 2000, when I was at Islander Middle School in seventh grade, I became a paraplegic overnight. Many years later, on my older son's first day of kindergarten, I tried to take him to school through Dragon Park. It is simply the path that families in our neighborhood walk. The forest is beautiful, but the route wasn't accessible. I made it to near where the bike park now stands and had to turn back. They walked the rest of the way to his first day of school without me. I met them at school by navigating along Island Crest Way. I don't share this to be dramatic. I share it because it is easy to talk about accessibility conceptually and miss what it actually means in someone's daily life. And I want to be clear, I'm not someone who avoids the outdoors. I spent 12 weeks camping and hiking in the national parks before I had kids, and I still wheelchair hike to this day. I can navigate the perimeter trail at Pioneer

Park in the summer. I'm comfortable in challenging tr terrain. Even so, Dragon Park stopped me. Some people worry that accessible design and natural spaces are in conflict. They are not. Islandwood on Bainbridge Island, Yellowstone, Seoia, these places are forested, wild, and accessible. This is established practice, not a trade-off. More than one in four Americans live with a disability, and mobility disabilities impact 12% of the population. That does not include parents with strollers or older adults on this island who benefit from the same design features. One in four. We are often invisible because inaccessible spaces keep us out. And when we are absent, it becomes easy to assume that we were never there to begin with. It is easy to say that we all want accessibility in this park. But when a plan comes along like this one that actually has it, we tend to dismiss it. When I first heard the price tag attached to this plan, I balked. But then I learned that a site plan is not a final design. It's not a final price tag. It's the overall vision and a necessary step to procure outside funding, which will significantly reduce the cost to to the city and the taxpayers. Are there parts I would change? Yes. I've never had trouble parking at the Dragon Park and I don't need think we need to add spots, but I think that those modifications will come down the pike as we continue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily Moss, followed by Tasha Brown, and then our next group of three will be Nick Jones, Mariana Parks, and Kristen Duel. Hi, I'm Emily Moss. I'm 10 years old and I have lived on Mush Island my whole life. I'm here to talk about the Dragon Park. In my opinion, there are lots of cons in the plans and I don't think that they should do this big of a plan. Here are some of the reasons. Number one, it cost $8 million. I feel like we should spread it out over all of the parks instead of doing it on this one park. Number two, Dragon Park is fine. We don't need to anything to it except clean it up a little bit, maybe add a wheelchair ramp or two for disabled people. It is a historical site on Mercer Island and lots of kids have grown up with it, including me. Due to my experience with construction, it almost all the time takes way longer than anticipated. And if we do it during the school year, there's an elementary school right next to it and it can disrupt learning, cause air pollution, and when kids are outside are and when kids are outside, it can distract them and affect the neighbors. Lots of people will probably get angry and complain because it is so loud. Number four, you're cutting down wildlife and more and more animals are losing their homes. We're losing trees and valuable resources and wildlife should just live peacefully. If you want to change the park, you can do it, but I won't cut down trees and I won't spend $8 million on it. Thanks for listening. I hope you can rethink and private from this idea.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tasha Brown, followed by Nick Jones, Mariana Parks, and Kristen Duel.

Hello, council members and neighbors. Um, my name is Tasha Brown. I grew up Mid Island, sent my son to Island Park, and next year I'll have both my children going to MIHS, one in 9th grade and one in 12th. I can't believe I'm already there. This island has been a place where I've spent much of my life, as you can see. And I care deeply about its people and its places and spaces. And that's why I was so concerned when I first reviewed the draft site plan for the beloved Dragon Park. I saw artificial turf, the removal of eight or more trees, which by the way, that is removing woodland area. No matter what the the um site plan says, that is removing woodland area. And the replacement of a few large play structures with 32 new pieces of equipment. And that those 32 pieces of equipment equal are equal to more artificial surfacing um that's needed for all of that equipment. And so that's more than we currently have with the wood chips. And all of this equals more cost. These unnecessary changes risk diminishing the forest and its sense of discovery that so many of us cherish. At the same time, through conversations with friends of Dragon Park, MIPA, PTA members, and others in this community that are in this room, I came to better understand the really large importance of accessibility and inclusivity in this space. Dragon Park could be a truly special place for people with disabilities of all kinds, from mobility to cognitive to everything in between. um to experience the rich richness of the forest, the sounds of birds, the shade of trees, the sturdy branches for making the forts, and all the simple joys of imaginative play. But even with that goal in mind, I feel the current

draft plan falls short. We can go further in making this park include those with disabilities while preserving the forest and habitat. I see a path forward that better reflects the community input and children's visions that were gathered with the following amendments. First, prioritize accessibility early. Second, reduce the scope scale and cost. Let's scale that play equipment closer to the current levels. Maintain the parking we currently have. Only have one bathroom. I've never seen a line for the bathroom there. Actually, I've never used the bathroom there. and limit or relocate these forest secrets. Um because we the forest already has secrets. They're already there. We don't need to put more new ones in. Third thing is include an accessible and inclusive treehouse. That is the one of the number one things I saw. I went through all the community feedback. I saw the treehouse in the children's designs. I saw it in the community survey from the adults. Everybody wants a treehouse. They want people to be able to roll up on it.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Nick Jones, followed by Mariana Parks and Christian Duel.

Hi, good evening. My name is Nicholas Jones. I grew up on Mercer Island. I attended uh Island Park Elementary School. I played at Dragon Park as a kid. Uh I feel very fortunate I was able to move back to the island a few years ago and I've got a son at third grade at Island Park and a daughter in preschool on the island as well. Uh my kids getting up to grow grew up in the same experience as I had means a lot to me. Uh I want to start by saying that the people who have worked on this proposal clearly care deeply about the parks and community. It's clear from everybody that's here testifying today. I don't question anyone's intentions, but for a park this beloved, it's important that as broad a range of voices as possible be heard before the council moves forward. I also want to be clear about where I stand on accessibility. I've spent nearly 12 years professionally managing special needs stress for people with disabilities. I serve on the board of a nonprofit locally providing early intervention services for kids with diverse abilities. I understand deeply how important it is for kids of all abilities to have access to parks that work for them. I'm not here to oppose accessibility. I'm here because I believe kids with diverse abilities deserve to experience the wooded natural character of Dragon Park just as much as anyone else. And that a plan which paves over much of what makes it special doesn't actually serve them well. Dragon Park is almost unique among island parks. A wooded play space with with structures that lets kids play in the forest in a safe environment. That combination is rare. I believe accessibility and the natural forest feel can and should coexist here. The question is whether this plan achieves that balance and at what cost. $9 million for a single neighborhood park is a lot of money. At a time when the city faces real budget pressures and competing priorities across many areas, concentrating that level investment in one park is hard to justify, especially when it's out of step with the cost of comparable projects in the region. I'd asked the council to direct staff to reassess the budget and develop a scaledown plan that delivers real accessibility and real improvements just

without the price tag. A paired down plan can accomplish everything we actually need here. Upgraded restroom, improvement path and entrances and accessible equipment, renovations to the the picnic shelter, etc. The other thing I wanted to uh note is the age breakdown in this plan. Uh, as was noted by a few folks earlier, um, you know, 81% of the kids on the island, uh, 2 to 12, 81% of the 2 to 12 range are in the 5 to 12 age group. Uh, this is right next to Island Park. A ton of kids from Island Park use this. I used it when I was a kid. I've got a preschooler, too. I understand how important it is for play structures to them. Mercerdale does an amazing job, and I don't want big kids down at Mercerndale playing with the little kids. And I think the plan as proposed is going to push those those uh older kids out like uh Mr. McAndrews testified a little bit earlier. So I think there should be some some changes in the plan there. I'm confident we can all move forward and find a solution, but I ask you to reassess the plan as it currently stands to to achieve some better goals. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mariana Parks followed by Kristen Duel. Then our following group of three will be Thomas Alexander, Nikki Norbell, and Adele Carson. Hi, I'm Mariana Parks. I've been a Mercer Island resident since 1993. I'm Ford Park's grandmother. Some of you know him. He has a disability, is in a a wheelchair. My husband, John Hamer, and I have been deeply involved in accessible and inclusive parks for years since his diagnosis. Just recently, we've heard a phrase we've heard repeatedly. Dragon Park is magical. It is. Ford loves the forest as much as anyone. beautiful. He says, "But there's magic throughout childhood, right? Not just at a woodsy but inaccessible park. When your child makes the football team or the drill team, their joy, that's magic." When Ford shows us he's learned to lift himself into his wheelchair from the ground, an often several minute process. His joy, that's our equivalent magic. When your kids team wins state and their teammates hug each other and scream in excitement, their joy, magic. When one of Ford's classmates plays red light green light with him as he speeds down the ramp in his wheelchair, his joy at having a friend and our joy that he's been included. It's our magic. When for the first time your grown child is so joyful about something that he or she literally lifts you off the ground in a hug. That happened to me with Casey, Ford's daddy. That is pure magic. When I pick Ford up, my happiness is that he doesn't know that someday I won't be able to and that he will never be able to pick me up. It's bittersweet, but magic in the moment. When your child is accepted to college or trade school,

whatever enables their future, magic. when Ford's Paris says if he can make some more progress he may be employable someday at the Northwest Center and she tears up when she says it that's magic beyond anything we ever understood before we were blessed with Ford because if you don't have a child like Ford you cannot imagine the fear in your heart about what happens after you're gone so yes we look for magic now everywhere we can for Ford and other children like him including in Woodsy Deans Park. But beautiful as it may be, it's not so magic when all they can do is sit and watch other kids play. Vice President Hubert Humphrey once said, "The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children, those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly, and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped. Children with disabilities meet two of those tests. aging grandparents meet the third. You on the city council are our government. You can meet that moral test by making sure that Dean's Dragon Park is magical to all. Please vote to approve this superb plan.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kristen Duel, followed by Thomas Alexander, Nikki Norll, and Adele Carson. Our family lives half a mile from Dragon Park and have been patrons for 12 years in a row with multiple children. I applaud the hard work that went into the site plans to provide accessible and inclusive experiences for all parkgoers. I don't have any problems with um adding accessibility and and inclus inclusivity to Dragon Park. I actually uh would have loved the Critter Corner which uh is devoted to the youngest ages. something my kids would have enjoyed in their toddlerhood. However, I have other concerns about the site plan as it is drafted and urge you to consider these suggested amendments if you vote for this plan. As frequent users of the park, I would like the site plan scaled down in terms of equipment and changes to the forest floor to honor the park designation as a 3acre neighborhood park. I would also like to see coordinated mid island community engagement during the design phases. Our park is unique in that it has both play structures and natural forests where your child can roam freely because of the fence boundary. Kids spend hours building forts and creative play. In the site plan, forest surprises have been designed to occupy this space with bright synthetic-looking equipment. And this is just not my feedback or my perception. Many families have expressed this to me. The site plans propose a central play with equipment rated for wide range of ages 2 to 12 year for the wide range of a ages 2 to 12 years old. However, overwhelming feedback from families I spoke with expressed concern that it is not engaging enough for their older children who are roughly 8 to 12. There were concerns over the synthetic look of the construction in this area. Also, families also noticed a steep increase in the overall number of pieces

of equipment in the site plan, uh, going from, I believe, eight pieces up to 32 and a steep decrease in pieces of equipment serving the large contingent of park patrons who are 5 to 12 years old. Please consider moving for surprises structures to the space between Kenton's Dragon and the central play zone. Speaking with families with children of various neurotypes, the presence of and interaction with the branches, logs, leave and dirt, leaves, and dirt is the sensory experience. The community already proposed a solution during the engagement phase. I urge you to review the preferred Woodsy Wenders theme for its accessible, inclusive, open, structured concepts. Most of our community did not get to see the site plan draft report until other citizens of informed us a few days ago. Yet, we were expecting an organized input opportunity at this stage. I ask that you please re-engage the community in the design phases going forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker tonight is Thomas Alexander, followed by Nikki Norbell and Adella Carlson. David, are they outside? I'm Tom Alexander. I've lived on the island for just shy of 31 years. We have three generations going. I have two children that graduated uh through the school system here. They've returned to the island and now I have grandchildren. Uh we uh the thing that drew us to Mercer Island was the fact that it was a a small community. Okay. Uh had great schools. It uh it was small enough you put your arms around it. It was a also a forest adventure. Um, and I think the Dragon Park sort of represents that the things that have drawn most of us here. Um,

the park itself is is somewhat amazing for small children. the idea of dragons on Mercer Island and the idea you can go and play with dragons and also the other structures. So, we have fond memories of going and seeing all our generations coming through and they all loved the park. Um, our concerns are I think the cost of the park and also the scope of the park. I think that the scope of the park is going to change the whole feeling of the park will no longer be an adventure in the forest. Uh some of the concerns are removing that large number of trees is going to have a major effect in opening up the park and I think you're going to lose the value of the park uh forest experience um in the process and I think also we all know uh Merceran has a lot of other heated priorities and the price of this uh park. I think you got to really start to weigh where you're going to get the money for this undertaking this large. Uh we were there uh on Easter went over to refresh your tired old memories of the park and the thing that hit us was that the in fact it was a lot.

Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Nikki Norll followed by Adele Carlson. Our next group after that will be Orna Samule, Carolyn Boatsman, and Monica Waldi.

Hello and good evening. Thank you all for allowing us to continue the conversation. Very important one. And my name is Nikki Norvo. I'm a Mercer Island resident and I actually live just eight houses from Dragon Park. Yet, I just learned about the proposed changes last week from a friend. I want to say this clearly at the start of the meeting so I'm not misunderstood with any further sentiments. I am genuinely and wholeheartedly in favor of making this park accessible to every child and every family on this island and surrounding communities. Every person deserves the experience this park affords. My ask tonight is simply that we find a way to achieve this without fundamentally changing what makes Dragon Park irreplaceable. We have both accessibility and nature in play. We can have both if we continue the conversation through a lens of repurpose rather than replace. My family moved here from Houston, Texas. Houston and other cities like San Diego taught us something the hard way. When you remove trees and foliage and replace them with imperous services, you increase the risk of flooding, landslides, and more. You also lose character and naturally creative spaces for kids. We watch parks get re-imagined where children lose the place where they explore, dream, build far um forts and just be. Disruption of the natural landscape was a key reason we left Houston. Neighborhood parks like Dragon Park are what sold us on Mercer Island compared to other surrounding communities, and it's what we're hoping not to lose. As currently written, the plan triples impervious services and removes eight trees. And I understand why. Some accessibility infrastructure requires hard surfaces. The trade-off is real and I respect it. But I'd ask us to consider whether we've exhausted every option before accepting it. Accessibility means more than one thing here. A wheelchair accessible path is an

example of a physical accessibility. We need it. We should build it. And it should be a non-negotiable. And for people with sensory sensitivities or neurode divergent needs, the enclosed canopy, the moss, the quiet of Dragon Park is a kind of accessibility entirely. It's a space to breathe, to escape over stimulation, to self-regulate, to feel safe in a world that can feel overwhelming. This is true for every single one of us in this room and on the call regardless of age and ability. Again, I'm just learning of this project despite living across the street. Have we considered other open already cleared spaces like Mercerell Park, Luther Burbank Park and the play area across from Lake Ridge Elementary to increase increase accessibility for all. Dragon Park is our only forest park and we should weigh that heavily. Please consider all the sentiments shared here today and continue the conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Adele Carl Car Carson followed by Orna Samuel Ellie Carolyn Boatsman and Monica Waldi. Hello, my name is Adele Carson and I live on Mercer Island. Dragon Park is just a short walk from my home and I grew up playing in the Dragon Park. Have very fond childhood memories there. Um, and we'll be taking my daughter there when she's ready to climb and play in the wooded area. I love our parks on Mercer Island and it's really one of the main reasons that my family lives lives here. So that's why I'm here tonight to strongly support approving the Dean Children's Park site plan without changes. What I really like about this plan is that it looks at the park as a whole. It improves the aging areas. It makes the park more accessible and it creates a really clear long-term vision instead of making small disconnected changes over time. I also really appreciate that this plan reflects so much community input, including feedback from the local families and students. The result is a design that really balances the nature-based play, diverse activity options, and a preservation of this park's really unique woodland character. I think this is a smart, flexible roadmap for the future, and I respectfully urge you to approve it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker tonight is Orna Samuel followed by Carolyn Boatsman and Monica Waldi. Okay. Hello. Um, my name is Ora Samueli. I live on the south end of Mercer Island. First, a question. Why do Mercer Island kids cross Dragon Park to get to the other slide? On a more serious note, um I'm here today to voice my opposition to the $9 million project at Dragon Park. I've lived here for 14 years. I raised my son, Bennett, now 21, here on the island. He attended Lacage, West Mercer, IMS, Mercer Island High School. Um, I go to many parks. I went with my son when he was growing up. I go often still. I'm a forest steward. I'm out there pulling ivy and cutting back the blackberries. Um, I've seen our mayor there at uh an event at Clark Beach Park not long ago. Our parks are a treasure and one of the fantastic features of Mercer Island. To be clear, I strongly support our parks. I also strongly support our kids and accessibility. However, the price tag for this park is extravagant. I don't believe we should be spending $9 million on sprucing up a very nice existing park. Sure, fix the bathrooms, fix some play structures, protect the dragon. Please don't go over bar overboard adding additional paths for humans. Leave the land for the plants, the trees, the birds, the animals. Kids can play in these areas. We don't need to pay to change nature to be more kid-friendly. The park and wooded areas are best left alone. I'll

go pull the ivy and cut back the back cut back the blackberry. We don't need unnecessary additional forest paths with imperous surfaces. And we don't need need man-made forest surprise elements. Let the forest surprise naturally, please. Accessibility is important. We have accessibility at Mercerale and other parks. If we can increase some accessibility, great. I I support that. Um, in summary, I love our parks. Clean them, fix them, and let them be. A million to two million is reasonable. $9 million is obscene. Thank you for all your service and your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker tonight is Carolyn Bodessman, followed by Monica Waldy, Cole Kaiser, and Addie Smith. Greetings, council members. Good evening. My name is Carolyn Boatsman. I'm here to comment on Dean's Children's Park. I'm impressed with the work that's gone into the site plan. Placing accessibility at the top of the list is the right thing to do. There's a great deal of interest in this proposal which speaks well for our community and interest and willingness to express opinions is a blessing. However, as this plan comes before the council for approval, there's discord in the community about the balance of particular elements in the proposal. Some of the discord might be a matter of how the plan was brought forward causing insufficient opportunity for input. One, the site plan had not been placed on Let's Talk prior to the commission's February 5 meeting at which a vote was taken. If the city encourages the use of Let's Talk, then the public has right to expect to find there any crucial topic uh update to a topic of interest. Two, the plan was brought to the parks and recreation commission with the expectation of their approval in just one meeting. It would have been better rolled out in the first meeting allowing for discussion and public input. This would have allowed commissioners to reflect on the plan and come back to a second meeting with possible amendments. So after a long uh public engagement process, a really good engagement process, the commission, the lack of early publication of the site plan and the short turnaround at the commission seemed to contribute to difficulty and division. So at this point, I recommend that the goal of the council be to try to resolve the division. The remodeling of a beloved park should occasion uh community joy and cohesion as much as possible. So I recommend sending the site plan back to the commission with a

request to consider the comments received this evening and after and that the commission discuss uh the comments and their own concerns and request any amendments that they may see fit uh prior to recommending to the council. I have just a few comments myself about the site plan. I rem recommend deleting the forest surprises. The previous speaker stole my thunder because the forest offers its own surprises. Um also um that the parents of Island Park Elementary students sign a waiver for their child to attend learning and events in the park speaks to the neighborhood character of the park in relation to the school. Therefore, I think the age appropriateness of the equipment should uh tend to skew more towards that of the age of the children who use the park the most, which would be the elementary school ages of 5 to 12. Maybe we don't need another bathroom there. Is it really that far to walk to the existing bathroom? Save some trees. Um last, I recommend a more uh robust restoration of the woods rather than just trailside planting. Recruitment of forest stewards for this park should be a high priority. The cost will be negligible since it's a volunteer-based program. Forest

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Monica Waldy followed by Cole Kaiser and Addie Smith. Thank you. My name is Monica Waldy. I'm a Mercer Island resident. I grew up on Mercer Island and now live two blocks from Island Crest Park. My seven and 10 yearear-olds attend Island Park and they regularly walk or bike to school. For 10 years, Dragon Park has been our closest playground and it has served our children well at every age. I am a Cub Scout den leader and our Scout Pack 668 uses the park as a regular meeting place because its natural woods provide a perfect setting for outdoor learning activities. I oppose this plan. As a community member who wants all kids challenged to their full capabilities, I struggle with this plan. The magic of Dragon Park comes from its challenges. My kids must duck under branches and step over roots to reach it. That's the point. The wonder is the woods and its challenging access. Feeling the ground tripping on a rock, brushing against a fern. I acknowledge the good intention of this proposal. It has forced me as an able-bodied person to articulate something that perhaps I had taken for granted. That my connection to this park is in large part made possible by my body. I love that we must leave the pavement road near our home and walk with our legs and feet through Island Crest Park, a wooded rooted puddled trail over a wooden bridge. I might have to break a sweat climbing the hill to eventually find the playground and a dragon tucked inside the woods. In the fall, we ma we wade through giant maple leaves around the playground. We can hear them crunch beneath our feet. In summer, trees provide shade and the natural ground keeps the park cool. My kids throw pine cones and hoist branches to build forts. I lead cub scouts through the trail, let them touch the bark of the Douglas fur, listen for

sounds of birds, watch for signs of animal trails. We guard our snacks from thieving crows and laugh when a squirrel pops his head out of the trash can. I provide first aid to a wasp sting or tweeze a splinter from a finger. I love that I can experience Dragon Park this way and that my kids can and we shouldn't feel badly for that. We should feel gratitude. It has been said that paving and rubberizing large portions of the park doesn't separate it from nature and distract from the wonder of the woods. But I can tell you that for me it does. Connection to nature is good for us and doing it in a multi-ensory way is special. Having a variety of parks in our system is a good thing. Not every park or place can or should be for every person at every stage. Not every park should be the same. Please keep Dragon Park as a neighborhood woods playground serving families who often access it by walking or biking. Consider improving the protected pathway along the perimeter of the park to access Island Park. Choose a different site for such an ambitious park that doesn't have challenging.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Cole Kaiser, followed by Addie Smith. Good evening, council members and distinguished neighbors. My name is Cole Kaiser and I am a resident of Mercer Allen and in the spirit of this afternoon, I am here just to talk about community and thank the community. Um, I love Mercer Allen and it has been the home of my partner for almost 70 years. So, I'm looking forward to Asian healthy and happy here. I just want to express my sincere appreciation for you all addressing National Black Wellness Week. Um, through that proclamation, that moment represents more than just acknowledgement, but it also reflects a commitment to inclusion, belonging, and the well-being of all the members of this community. A community that recognizes each and every individual is a thriving community. And it recognizes that we are all different but yet united and no one should be excluded. No one. Black wellness is not just about the traditional health sense, but it's about the safety, visibility, access, and the ability to exist fully to be seen fully in spaces that have not always made it or made to be feel seen or included. So, this is very passionate to hear everyone advocate. Thank you. And also um this proclamation signals Mercer Allen's willingness to not only recognize that history of disparity and exclusion for anyone, but to move forward and with intention and create spaces that open up

dialogue and inclusion again. So I'm happy to be part of the community. I want us all to stay connected. I'm willing to stay connected and do the work. and I'm just grateful in the role that you all played in acknowledgement. So, in community and great spirit, thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final speaker for appearances tonight is Addie Smith. And Addie will be joining us on Zoom. Good evening everyone. I'm glad that I have been able to hear all of the comments, particular the last one about inclusion in Mercer Island community. Seven years ago, my daughter and I survived horrific hate crimes by white people on Mercer Island. I was the business manager at a luxury apartment community called the Hadley Apartments. I refused to allow one of these women on Mercer Island, a white woman, to live in the apartment at a low income because she didn't qualify. After that happened, she began recruiting white people that lived in the building to threaten, harass, attack, and stalk my daughter and I. My daughter, who was a child at the time, would play at Dragon Park with her service animal. About three weeks ago, I told these people at on the council that my daughter's service animal died and he was uh also attacked by those races. They said he looked like he had mange. These racists asked my daughter who is half Korean what kind of [ __ ] she was. That's the experience that we have had at Mercer Island. And I want to tell people a little bit about my background. I was the business manager at the Hadley apartments. I didn't just live there. So when my rights were violated, it was because I was speaking out about the racism and hate crimes that we had experienced. I am a housing credit certified pro um

professional. I am a specialist in housing credit management. So when they violated the law, um when these city council members, the city manager, the police, and my former employers violated the law, they violated local law, the waiverss that the city of Mercer Island, these council members before you, provided them thousands of dollars to build that property with the with um um with the thought that they were going to include 20% to low income families. That's why they gave them those thousands of dollars in waiverss. I'm a certified apartment manager.

So, when I didn't give Nichollet Michaels that lowincome apartment, she recruited a bunch of white people in that building to begin attacking me. They did nothing about it. The police refused to write even one police report every single time that I went to the police department to ask for help. But when I fought back, you're talking about months later, months and months later, even after the city, even after the chief of police said, "I am hopeful things will settle down for you soon." And still, instead of writing a police report, when I fought back, they arrested me. There is no inclusion. I appreciate everybody saying it, but it's a lie. Thank you. Thank you.

There are no further speakers this evening, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Thank you. We will now take a fiveminute recess to give staff the chance to reset the room. We'll turn to our next item of business, which should be the consent agenda.

Thank you. The council is in recess from 6:16 until 6:25. Our next item of business is the consent agenda. City clerk, please put the consent agenda on the screen.

Thank you. The consent agenda contains eight items which are available on the screen in the agenda packet for review. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Weinberg. Second by Council Wer. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Weinberg, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, hi. Council member Wer, hi. Council member Andro is absent, Deputy Mayor Becker. I, Council Member Reynolds, I. And Council Member Sheay, I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Motion passes. Our first item of regular business is AB6903 public hearing 2027 to 2020 2032 transportation improvement program. Um the public hearing is now open as of 6:26 p.m. Individuals who register with the city clerk's office before 4 p.m. today may public comment on this agenda item. You've been called by name when it is your turn to speak, please speak audibly. State your name and city of residence for the record and limit your comments to three minutes. City clerk, is anyone who has signed up for public comment that wishes to address the council? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Would you like me to call the first speaker? Please do. Thank you. Our first speaker tonight is Robert Thorp.

Good evening. I'm Robert Thorp. I'm a resident at 5800 Westminster Way. I bought my property in 1971 and built a house in ' 81. At that time, John Rose with the city manager. I've been the neighborhood watch captain and a couple of you know me. We doorbell together. So, good to see you all. I can't believe these meetings. I was on the staff for five years, but I couldn't have set the table more for what I want to talk about. Um, I did want to thank you for advancing the uh affordable housing. I've been talking to about 30 synagogues and churches and Habitat for Humanity. I served on the board. I think that's a vehicle for an opportunity to put some housing on the island. So, thank you for advancing that. I'm here to talk about the transportation plan. I couldn't had a a better setting. I live down the hill at the only trail that goes up to that park and the school for almost a half a mile north and south. We're just above uh Luther Bank Park. When you come around that curve, people seem to think that's the point you hit that. And it's a it's amazing. It's the hybrid Germans. It's the sports cars and it's a motorcycle. We had a motorcycle race for motorcycles. You've had accidents time and again. There's a bank that's actually owned on a property. I would like to see that bank, but what we want to do, there's a lot of neighbors and I represent a lot of people. The neighborhood is changing. It's an ethnic diversity, a lot of young kids, but they all walk across there. Just put a crosswalk between my house and 5802 where the bus stop is with two signs. You did it on 72nd. You've done it on several places up north. This needs it. So, I'm telling you that there there could be a problem there. More times I see people jumping out of the lane there. People walk their dogs. There's bicycles. The kids from the junior high uh train there. It's just people don't and it's a blind alley. So, as you come

up 77th for the park, put a sign that says 20 miles an hour both ways. People neighbors stand out there and tell them to slow down. And we, you know, we get the signal that we don't like it. So, it's real simple. You want to pay for it, police department, park a car down there. You park a car down there every day for a month. You'll pay for several several crosswalks. So, anyway, I want to thank you. Uh, I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you do. I served on the open space board and been on the island for a long time. You guys put a lot of time and energy into it. I told the new member, I hope you got your uh running shoes on because this is a tough duty. So, thank you guys. I would very much appreciate on behalf of that whole neighborhood. It's real simple. Just add a crosswalk, put two signs at that point. If you want to cut back the bank, it's on my property. We'll work out an easement. We can come in and cut that bank back and and improve that curve there. So, thank you for being here tonight. And thank you for the great service you provide to our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There was one more person who signed up to speak tonight, Jim Stanton. I'm not sure if he is still available. He is still in the Zoom. So, we will try and promote him and see if he's still available because he did say send me an email saying he had to leave shortly.

He's not responding. Mr. Mayor, would you like to move on? Yes, please. If there's no further testimony this evening, the public portion of this hearing is closed as of 6:30 p.m. Uh we will return for discussion on this item uh later in the agenda. Okay. Uh next item business is AB6902 Dean Children's Park site plan and we welcome city manager Jesse Bond.

Now we're live. All right. Good evening, uh, city council. Thankful to be here tonight and really honored to be part of the team presenting to you on the dean's children's site plan, of which you've heard, um, a lot of feedback tonight. Uh, before I begin, let me introduce uh, the folks who are joining me this evening. To my right is Jason Kitner, to my left Shelby Peralt, and to her left Ryan Daly. Uh this represents some of the staff team that have worked on this plan over the last I think really for us it's been over two years. Um also behind me to my right are two very important people that represented your advisory board uh that stewarded this process. Uh Ashley Haye, the chair of our parks and recreation commission and Rory Westber who serves as your vice chair. Uh after our staff presentation tonight, Jason and I will switch seats, invite them to the table. they will be available to share their thoughts and certainly answer any of your questions. Also joining us uh via Zoom this evening is Ingred Kenn. She has some slides. She's our accessibility and inclusivity. Oh, great. That's going to be the word that I'm going to trip over tonight. Uh consultant who partnered with our consultant, our staff team, our parks and recreation commission, and the community uh in developing the plan. All right. Uh with that, uh what we'd like to do tonight is walk you through a slide deck, an overview of the site plan that includes some background, some additional information, and then as I mentioned, I'll invite uh the chair and vice chair up to to speak with you. And then from there, uh we'll take questions and uh turn it back to the mayor Shelby.

Okay, great. Slide, please. Okay. Uh, I want to take a moment to highlight the purpose of tonight's discussion, which is to provide an overview of the planning process of the site plan and to present the plan for your review and approval. Ahead of you are two options for this evening. Option one, if no further input or modifications are requested, to approve resolution number 1692, adopting Dean's Children's Park site plan. Or alternatively, option two, if additional changes are required, um direct the city manager to revise the plan and return at a future meeting. Uh we'll bring this slide back up at the end of the presentation. Next slide. Um after over a year of planning, we're really excited to present the plan for your review. A look ahead for our conversation. Uh I'll provide some project background, review the planning process, walk through the site plan itself, and wrap up with preliminary costs and phasing. Uh but before we do that, I would like to have our inclusive consultant, Ingred Canix, who's joining us virtually, um have present on a few slides about the her experience and the project itself. So with that, I'll hand it off to Ingred.

Thank you very much. Good evening. If we can go to the next slide, please. Uh my name is Ingred Canox. I'm an occupational therapist. I've been working in the field of inclusive play since uh 2001, so about 25 years, both indoor and outdoor. Um I was invited to be part of the team and actually had the chance to actually come and experience Deans Park actually about a year ago, I think last April if I remember correctly. Um my background uh is also as a part-time wheelchair user. I broke my neck during Desert Storm and I acquired an incomplete spinal cord injury. So, I refer to myself as bimo. Sometimes I walk and sometimes I roll, but a lot of times I'm rolling. And that has allowed me to get back out into the community and do things. And I basically parlayed this experience from the military into my OT degree and really have had the chance to work with communities all over the world for a period of time. I did consult with landscape structures as an inclusive specialist for them. Also worked on some very large state initiatives as well as uh country initiatives. So able to play was funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation in the early 2000s to bring inclusive play to the state of Michigan as part of their 75th anniversary. The Trillium Foundation has done quite a bit of work in uh Eastern North Carolina over the last 10 years. And then Jumpstart Charities is the charity for Canadian Tire that's just wrapping up a $50 million inclusive initiative across Canada. So every province and territory has an inclusive play environment. Um as as part of that, one of the things we were mandated to do was create an inclusive playground playbook of the best practices from around the world. And that came out in 2022

in July. and it really has lots of wonderful ideas from around the world on how to do this. Well, one of the things I've struggled with and I think this really applies to Deans Park. If we can go to the next slide, please, is how do we find this balance between play environments and nature? And I was so struck by just the beautiful mature trees at Deans Park and just that ability to get into the space, but in my wheels I couldn't. And I think you heard some of that from different people tonight. Um, and yet there's this beautiful balance of being in nature and especially the nature that you find in the Northwest um, in that particular park. And these are a couple parks that I've worked on recently with different landscape architect firms where we've really focused on how do we bring the experience of nature to everybody in the community regardless of their age, regardless of their ability, the benefit to infants and toddlers to be in nature, for young families to be in nature. Uh so Exploration Place is a science museum in Witchah. This uh sixacre park has just opened. Um, and then East Side Park is a park in Alabama that's part of a nature reserve that is sacres of totally untouched uh overgrowth with a lot of invasive species. So, totally get the invasive species thing too. Um, but where we've been able to design 95% of the trails as wheelchair accessible or more. And so, how do we find this balance? And I think that's definitely something that you all are charged with. And part of my role is to help um the community the community take that community input with the design team and the park district and help you find this balance. So that's who I am and uh again really enjoyed coming to to enjoy your

parks while I was there last year. And I think at this point I'm passing it back to you. Right Shelby Ingred I think you have a few more slides after this.

Oh do I? Oh okay. Yes. Sorry. Um, so I think you've heard several people bring up some of the statistic pieces. Um, I actually like to start with this definition of disability uh used by the World Health Organization where disability is the complex interaction between the features of the person who's coming to play in the environment in which they're trying to engage. And you know, this is definitely the challenge that we're seeing here. Somebody brought up already that one in four individuals in the United States have some type of disability that impacts their ability to get out and do what they want to do. Um over around the world, we're looking at over a billion. When we think about children, uh we get our data through the Department of Education special education idea act data. So based on uh 2022 2023 data, we know that 7.3 million school age children have some type of disability. Autism is one of the grow those that's growing the most, which I'm sure you've all heard. The current rate is now 1 in 31 as of March of 2025. Also, sensory processing disorders. So, we're hearing more and more about children who have neurodeiverse needs. And that's also something that we just see in children who are going through um just typical development kind of uh that ability to learn to self-regulate whether I'm a 2-year-old or a four-year-old and I get overwhelmed in play. So, trying to find those balances within the the environment. Uh next slide, please. So, this is the breakdown with the school data. So we can see now autism is actually uh approaching I think 14% of school age children who are getting supports. One of the interesting things with this particular chart from the department of education is that children

who are wheelchair users actually are less than 1% of this 15% of school age children. Um, just so you know, for the state of Washington, your your state number is 14% of your kids in enrolled in public schools. The other thing is this is public school data. So if we have children who are being homeschooled or going to specialty schools, their numbers aren't getting caught in this data. So, you know, the reality is I think oftentimes we think about the park and and we definitely heard from those who are advocating for children. But the other piece to think about is also our parents who have disabilities, whether they're wounded warriors who may have young children and are using a mobility device or again grandparents. So the research is now showing that grandparents pro 40% of grandparents provide at least 25 25 hours of child care a week for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren. So, you know, again, that ability for that grandparent to take their great grandchildren or great-grandchildren to the park and enjoy this experience. And oftentimes they're taking younger children in the morning and maybe after school meeting up kids uh with the the grandkids coming from school on the way home. Next slide. Okay. So, I think at this point that should give you enough background of kind of who's coming to play. Again, one of the emphasis with this project was really this multi-generational piece. And as uh Shelby goes into more detail, we'll you'll see more of how that plays out from that inclusive message of all ages and all abilities. Thank you.

And Ingred will be here uh to answer questions as soon as we finish our slide deck. So, as we heard this evening with all of our public comment is that everybody has a special memory of Dean's Children's Park and it has been and continues to be a beloved park by our community for over 60 years. Um, if there's anyone tuning in for the first time and you're not familiar with the park, just want to provide a quick orientation. So in this image to the right uh you can see that the park is actually located within Island Crest Park and Island Crest Way runs along the eastern edge. So on the right side of the screen um here the site plan limits are shown in red and the bike skills area is in that yellow dash line slide. So having that context in mind uh just want to provide some background about our pros plan our parks recreation open space plan. Um, this serves as our six-year roadmap for managing and improving our park system. So, the plan itself is grounded in community input, which helps define our priorities for how we improve our parks. Uh, from there, we establish goals for how we plan, operate, and maintain our park system. The primary goal that emerged in this plan development is accessibility, which has been a key focus for our park improvements since adoption. The plan also includes a systemwide assessment um to identify aging infrastructure and investments um where they may be most needed. Those needs are then translated into a six-year capital improvement program or our six-year CIP um which helps us to prioritize our projects. And importantly, having an adopted PROS plan allows us to maintain eligibility for applying for state grant funding through the Washington Recreation and Conservation Office or RCO. Slide, please.

As part of our PROs plan, uh we evaluated playground conditions across the island. Most play equipment has a lifespan of about 20 years, and right now more than half of our playgrounds are at or approaching that point. At the same time, many of these spaces lack accessible um accessibility and lack inclusive play features. Based on these findings, from these assessments, five playgrounds were identified for replacement in our 23 to 28 park CIP, including deans. This replacement work is already underway, as you can see with the image on the right, showing a before and after of Rowan Oak Park, which wrapped up last fall. These playground assessments highlighted where equipment is aging and where accessibility gaps exist, which helped inform priorities for our 2022 parks levy. Next slide, please. In November of 2022, our voters approved the renewal of a 16-year parks levy to fund ongoing maintenance, forest management, and importantly, playground replacements across our city. The levy provides roughly $415,000 per year specifically for replacing playground equipment. The castle and platform structures at Deans were identified for replacement over the life cycle of the levy. Um, and Deans was prioritized because of the opportunities that it provides for accessible play and inclusive play options. These replacement schedules are based on the age of the equipment and when staff estimated that they would be due for replacement. At the time, um, these projects were planned as simple replacements rather than the broader park improvements. I wanted to give a quick refresher of what a site plan is. Um, also for anyone tuning in for the first time. So, a site plan is kind of like a master plan. um

but on a smaller scale. So it focuses on a specific area of a park rather than the entire park. It gives us a roadmap for how the park can evolve over time over the next 10 to 20 years by identifying priorities and phasing so improvements are coordinated rather than peace meal which also makes more efficient use of limited funding. It's developed collaboratively incorporating community input along the way. And while an adopted site plan isn't a capital budget and doesn't guarantee funding, it really positions us to pursue grants, donations, and other funding opportunities, having this adopted site plan is critical for securing grant funding because it demonstrates support for the project and readiness to start improvements. Next slide. So let's look at an example of a long range plan in action um which is Luther Burbank. Um Luther was uh had an adopted master plan in 2006 and since then over 15 major and minor capital projects have been completed at this park and those improvements span the buildings um the shoreline as well as um other infrastructure within the park. We've invested over $15 million at this park 6.6 6 million which was secured through grants and donations. The image to the right oh sorry that's okay. Uh the image on the right is the master plan graphic and so we've shown the major capital projects that have been done since that time. So the numbers on the right are showing where those projects are located within the park. So anything from the off leash dog area improvements to the shoreline improvements that spanned 13 years to our most recent project with the waterfront improvements project. Um this shows how a coordinated long range plan allows for phased implementation.

And then we also wanted to respond to some of the questions that we've heard about when further input is needed. So providing some real life examples of how that comes into play. Typically projects don't go back out for review unless significant changes affect the design. So at Luther of the 15 projects that we have completed, we have two examples that required additional input. So first was the sports court renovation and that was changing the use from tennis to dedicated pickle ball courts and then second was the waterfront improvement project and that was really prompted because of the updated shoreline regulations between 2006 and 2019 substantially changed and required us to go back for more um input. These examples are great for showing the smaller community processes and when they may be needed. Now turning to deans um and why it needs a site plan instead of a like forlike playground replacement. So, while the park was initially prioritized for replacement with the levy renewal, we had an assessment completed in 2024, which found that in addition to the play equipment, a lot of the amenities are near the end of their useful life, including the restroom, the picnic shelter, the little hobbit house in the image to the right. Um, as well as other furnishings throughout the park. um they're outdated, in disrepair, not accessible, and the play areas themselves are disjointed. They don't have inclusive options. They don't offer clear sight lines, and the trails are not accessible and are undefined. Deans is also centrally located on the island. It has a relatively flat layout, which creates a very unique opportunity to develop an inclusive play environment that is fully immersed in this wooded setting. something that's not commonly

found in this area. There's an opportunity here to honor the park's natural character while also expanding access to all ages and abilities. So, with this in mind, we pause the playground replacement to pursue a comprehensive site plan. Taking this sitewide view allows us to coordinate improvements across the park rather than adding features in a peacemeal way like they are currently. So, I've talked a little bit about accessibility and inclusive design. Um, so wanting to give a little more input about what that actually means. The Americans with Disability Act or ADA is a federal law that sets the minimum accessibility standards. And Title 2 requires local governments to evaluate and remove our barriers. The city's 228 transition plan looks across sidewalks, buildings, and parks to set priorities, estimate costs, and define a strategy for removing barriers. For Dean specifically, our priorities included adding ramp access to the play areas and upgrading restrooms to meet ADA standards. But then above and beyond that, let's focus on playgrounds. So ADA compliance is the minimum standard and design guidelines show how to make play areas accessible. So playgrounds need continuous paths that connect entrances to play areas. We have a minimum number and variety of play components that need to be accessible. Routes need to be firm, stable, and play components need to be reachable via ramps or transfer systems. And safety surfacing itself can either be un unitary like port in place rubber or pvious like engineered wood fiber. And then building on the um minimum standard of ADA compliance, we can then

go further to just beyond physical access with universal and inclusive design, creating spaces that welcome everyone. So universal design considers multiple medical needs and its goals and principles are for broad usability by all. It emphasizes multigenerational access and you know one of the things that I learned from Ingred over the course of this project was that over 40% of grandparents provide some level of child care for their grandchildren. So designing for access not only for children but for caregivers as well is important. And inclusive design then builds upon these principles of universal design, but goes further to respond to the needs of the community, looking for solutions that provide meaningful and engaging access. And this image to the right is a great example of inclusive design and practice. So instead of a traditional seessaw in a park, um a weaw provides additional support, but those molded bucket swings so that a wide range of ages can actually use them. So achieving true inclusivity really means taking a carefully balanced approach to play design. We look at it across multiple areas. So accessible and adaptive equipment for different mobility needs, opportunities for social interaction, sensory experiences, cognitive challenges, and physical activities that support coordination and motor development. These coordin considerations guided both the overall design and equipment selection. You see these 10 icons on the screen are shown throughout the site plan report and these show how each piece of equipment contributes to an inclusive play environment. Together these areas highlight how the many ways

that play supports different types of engagement and sets the stage for our seven inclusive design principles that guided the project. So accessibility, making sure that everyone can reach the equipment, equitable play, supports developmental levels, flexibility, so children can engage in multiple ways, and readability, so spaces and equipment are easy to understand and navigate. And then sensory engagement, so providing for tactile, auditory, and visual play. social interaction to have solo, small groupoup and large group opportunities and multigenerational elements so we can encourage family and intergenerational play. These references or these principles were referenced continuously as we worked on the site plan and it was to ensure that the playground is truly inclusive, engaging and supportive. Okay, now that we've gone through some of the background, we can now jump into the process and the planning that was done to get us to the site plan that we have today. Um, so at a high level, the plan was developed through a four-phase planning process starting with initial input gathering followed by design concepts, development of a preferred site plan, and ultimately plan adoption where we are today. Community outreach was a central focus during the early phases while coordination with the parks and recck commission and arts council continued through the design process to bring it forward to the city council. In phase one, we looked at existing conditions, park programming, and gathered input to understand what was working, what wasn't, and where opportunities existed. During this phase, we started with the more traditional forms of outreach with an online survey, an open house, and booze at community events. Um, we then took it

to the kids to see what they wanted in our park. Uh, we visited four elementary schools, spoke to over,200 students from kindergarten through fifth grade, and students were able to vote on their top three choices for play equipment and pick their favorite theme. Additionally, the students were given the option for a take-home design your own park exercise, which two of the images to the right are those fun designs that we got to see. Um, you can also see our voting exercise on the right. So, swings, climbers, and spinners were the top play features across all four schools. Of the four themes that we presented, the treehouse adventure and the fairy tale kingdom were the top two choices. Other things we heard during our outreach was strong support for inclusive play, providing a range of play opportunities and preserving the character of the park. And then in phase two, we developed two distinct design concepts. Um we tested them through community outreach to identify preferred elements. So this took place over the summer. Uh we had an online survey. We joined four community events um from celebration to mostly music in the park, pride in the park, hearing from over 500 attendees on the designs. With our event booths, we focused on the preferred overall concept as well as the look and feel of play equipment. Um they expressed strong support for the woodsy wonders concept and for our online survey. There is also strong support in play elements that encourage creativity, exploration, and movement. um especially those climbing and sliding features within our play structures. And here on this slide, you can see the two design concepts that we presented with the woodsy wonders on the right being the preferred concept

as well as the look and feel of the play equipment. Um, so we have on the far left the top rated overall and then the middle is our second choice from our outreach events and then the image on the right is our per our second choice from the online survey. Um, those aesthetics were then used to guide us as we developed play equipment selection for the commission in November which then led us to phase three. Um, in phase three, we revised the Woodsy Wonders concept into our preferred site plan. Um, we synthesized what we heard from the Arts Council and the Parks and Wreck Commission. The arts and the arts council specifically provided input on public art opportunities um with an emphasis and excitement on engaging those students once again for each phase of improvements um to help shape the final designs for public art. We also presented the preferred plan to the commission along with a variety of play components including summaries of materials, their lifespan and maintenance elements. Commission feedback leaned toward the natural inspired elements and the inclusion of a unique larger play structure. And here in this slide is the preferred plan that was presented in November. This plan integrated the restroom and picnic shelter orientation from the quest. Uh reduces the entry points from the parking lot from three to two and added sensory elements to integrate Kenton's dragon into the design. And then for phase four, um this is where we are today. Following discussion with the commission, we advanced the design from a handdrawn concept into a more detailed plan. We built on the preferred plans layout by specifying equipment, accounting for required fall zones, including specific facility footprints, and refining pads in

circulation to meet accessibility standards. We presented this plan to the commission in February for recommendation and then returned to them in March to finalize a handoff memo. And now we're here tonight. Okay, so that concludes the overall planning process. Um, do we want to provide a moment to ask questions before we jump into the site site plan design? Keep going. Do you want to keep going or see does anybody have a question? Okay, keep going.

Let's do it. Okay, before getting into the details of the site plan, um let's take a quick look at the existing playground. So, the park currently has eight pieces of equipment. Um the diagram shows how um play is currently distributed by age and type. So, green is for the 5 to 12, pink is for 2 to 5, and blue is that blended 2 to 12 plus. Next slide, please. The site plan equipment uh was selected to increase that multi-age play and create a better better balance of play values across all age ranges but also providing separate age specific areas. Um you can see that the amount of blended play has doubled with this design largely within the central play zone. The graphic is included in the site plan report and I do think it has caused a little bit of confusion. So, I just wanted to provide a little clarification here. Of the play features included in the site plan, over 60% serve a broad range of 2 to 12 plus including the 5 to2 age group. So, just wanted to make that clarification. And then going one step further, this slide shows how inclusive design principles show up across the equipment itself. So this graph shows the total number of components in the plan and how many of those respond to each of those 10 design considerations. What's important here is that most pieces of equipment support multiple inclusive benefits, not just one. This illustrates that inclusivity is really layered throughout the park. Each element contributes to accessibility, social interaction, sensory engagement, and physical activity in different ways. And it reinforces that the site plan's not just about adding equipment, but really about intentionally distributing inclusive play features across the park.

Council back up 17 or

it's never on for the first time. Um, can you give me an example of one or two types of play equipments or experiences that's going to appeal to both a 2-year-old and a 15y old? Because I I am, you know, I kind of understand that once you're 12, maybe you're aging out of the playground experience and you're mountain biking with your friends. Um, but to the extent that we still want to accommodate children in that age group, what what is there that and and to respond maybe a little bit to Mr. McAnnandrews's um statement that says, you know, we get yelled at when we play on the younger kids equipment because it's even though it's supposedly blended, it's really more suitable for the younger kids.

Yeah, that's a great question. I I will start the response and then I'll also let Ingred chime in if she has anything she'd like to add.

Okay. Thanks. Um, I think the we saw image was a a great example of what we showed earlier in the presentation and was actually one of the elements that um was recommended because it's something that any generation any age group can sit on. Even if you're just hanging out, chatting with your friends, sitting in the park and just slowly rocking. It's like an opportunity to gather together and chat. Another piece would be our it's called the Moyamu in the central play area and it's a quite large climbing structure. So being able to climb through and traverse that and be able to go into the woodland area. So it's a little bit more of um being able to utilize the equipment for like hangout zones um as well as um sorry I just lost my train of thought. I apologize. I will let Ingred add to that as I lost my

I can just add too on like the climbing elements. So it's a blended play experience. So younger kids or maybe inexperienced kids start at a lower level, but they're still engaging, interacting with older kids that are maybe climbing higher in the structure. So that's an example of a blended structure as well. Okay, that's enough for me. Thanks.

Any other good to go? Okay. Okay. So now we're going to give an overview of the site plan. Um so the site plan itself is organized around a central forest path which guides visitors throughout the park. Um this path connects all the play zones, the bike skills area, gathering spaces, key amenities, and it's supported by clear visual landmarks. Uh most notably our tree snag inspired climbing tower. Play experiences are organized to support a progression of ages, abilities, and play styles. that includes a two to five critter corner, adaptive and sensory elements in the central play zone, and a series of smaller forest surprises throughout the park. At the heart of the park is a shared gathering space with the picnic shelter, restrooms, and informal seating. Uh tonight, I'll focus on the three core play areas, the critter corner, central play zone, and 5 to 12 plus play zone. um to help orient you as we go through the different renderings. Um I'll just touch on the surfacing materials that we used. Um our circulation had a mixture of trail types between concrete, gravel, mulch, and a short boardwalk um to balance accessibility, durability, and the natural park experience. Within the play areas, surface is primarily poured in place in engineered wood fiber. As you enter the central play zone, we also have some fun turf mounds to provide informal seating and help slow movement from the bike skills area. So, we'll start with the critter corner um at the southern end of the park. In the top right, you'll see these small site plans in each rendering to highlight where we are in the park and the direction that we're facing. So, this rendering looks into the Critter Corner towards Island Crest Way um if as if you were standing on the forest path. Um this is designed for our youngest

visitors. It's a nature inspired play space with low animal themed elements like the song bird that you see in the right. All of the elements in this area are low to the ground, open and visible from the forest path, which creates uh clear sight lines for our caregivers. This also encourages exploration and imaginative play through a loose uh connected loop of features. Um you can also begin to see our surfacing strategy here. So the dark green in the foreground is the poured in place rubber and then the lighter brown in the background is the engineered wood fiber. Okay. Then moving deeper into the park. Uh this is the first of two renderings in the play zone. This perspective is also from our forest path with the picnic shelter visible on your right. Um here the forest path transitions from stamped concrete to port and place surfacing um as you go through the core of the central play area. Play mounds like that turf in the light green on the right um is our strategy to slow cyclists that are entering or exiting the bike skills area while also providing some casual seating. A centrallylo communication board also supports inclusive interaction and shared communication. Uh from this viewpoint, you can also see our adaptive swing, our weaw, our no transfer spinner offering accessible and engaging play experiences. And then in this second view, um we're looking toward what we're calling the fallen log. Um the centerpiece of this central play zone. This view is actually oriented away from the road looking towards the bike skills area towards the heart of the park. So here the design really starts to come together as a connected experience. Um so children can move naturally from one activity to

another balancing, climbing, exploring musical elements or interacting with the surrounding natural features. So without feeling confined to a single structure. The fallen log itself um creates a variety of play opportunities at different heights and scales, inviting both solo and group play. At the same time, the openness of the space allows caregivers to stay connected to the area whether a child is on the swings, climbing, or moving along the path. And then that looped accessible path frames the space. So, it provides an easy way to circulate, pause, take it all in, or have a moment to separate from the activities. And as you can see, the play elements are scaled to support a wider range of ages. So, it's approachable for younger children while still offering the height and challenge that older kids are looking for. It's a space that's designed for siblings and families to be able to play together in one area. And then in this final rendering, we're looking again towards the bike skills area, now focused on the 5 to 12 plus play zone. This area is anchored by the prominent climbing structure that is inspired by a standing tree snag, so something that you would find deep in the forest. It's designed to feel like a natural extension of the park while also standing out as a visual landmark that draws you in. As children approach, the structure begins to feel like a tree you can actually climb. Wood accents and vine designs wrap the exterior, reinforcing that sense of ascending into the canopy. The experience is layered, so it offers different paths and levels of challenge, so kids can choose how they want to engage. One route is a spiral tightly woven net ramp that leads you up the slide. Um, which is also

lower than the highest point in the climbing tower. So, you have the choice to either take the slide down or continue ascending into the canopy. Um, along the way, there's also an opportunity for vertical climbing, spatial exploration, and moments to pause. There's also another path that offers a more gradual ascent with a flexible climbing ramp that leads into that fun treehouse pod in between the structure. At the ground level, the experiences are still available, too. So, we have open-ended play elements like a hammock swing and activity panels that help to activate the base of the structure along with um paths that connect all of the transfer points and provide view around all of the structure itself. It's also worth talking about the materials and the safety strategy that you've seen um now that you've seen more of the equipment. So, every piece of equipment meets rigorous federal safety standards through the Consumer Product Safety Commission or CSPC. Manufacturers must certify their equipment is for public use and routine inspections are completed by certified safety inspectors to ensure that safety is maintained. When it comes to materials, particularly wood, um the team took a very deliberate approach. wood is incorporated across all play zones but in different ways. So for example, the 5 to 12 plus tower has those um has wood mainly as accent panels on the exterior while the fallen log structure and the critter corner components feature wood more prominently. The goal was to strike a balance. So, honoring the desire for natural materials, but also taking maintenance considerations into account. And you know, even playground grade wood needs regular cleaning, staining, and

sealing. So, placement and materials choices were carefully considered um to really take into account our upkeep. Um, beyond wood, we also looked at a variety of other materials based off of longevity, resistance to wear, uh, repairability, ensuring that the playground can be enjoyed sustainably. So, now that we've seen all the different areas of the park, uh, wanted to show how they're all connected. So, the ha park has two types of paths, accessible and adaptive. The orange dash line shows the accessible paths. These connect all the play zones and amenities. And the blue dash line shows adaptive routes. So, these may include slightly steeper slopes, uh, but they still meet playground and trail accessibility standards. And along with circulation, surfacing played a key role in accessibility and the overall feel of the park. Um so a quick summary of our approach to surfacing. Uh we have a blended approach. So we're combining unitary surfacing like port and place rubber and uh engineered wood fiber. Unitary surfacing is prioritized at key locations such as inclusive play features, transfer points, connected play routes, and ground level surfaces. On the right, the graphic shows our approach for how these materials are actually distributed. So the blue areas represent unitary surfacing and the yellow shows engineered wood fiber. And this diagram shows how the surfacing approach is applied across the plan. So some of which you were able to see with the renderings. Um, in the 5 to 12 plus zone, you'll see how we've incorporated a blend of the poured in place at the

transfer points to the tower around that ground level elements, but then using engineered wood fiber for the other areas in that zone. The goal again is to strike the right balance, right? You know, enhancing access, preserving the park's character, and also meeting budget considerations. And then last is a recap of where we landed with parking. Uh the site plan increases the parking lot by five stalls for a total of 17 including four accessible spaces and about half of the stalls are compact. Um impervious and pvious surface calculations. Um, non-pollution generating pvious non-pollution generating imperous surfaces include all of the trails within the park as well as unitary surfacing like the poured in place in the turf. Pollution generating imperous surfaces are limited to the parking lot and the pvious areas include engineered wood fiber and planting restoration. So this slide summarizes the approximate costs for each phase and I'll give an overview for each phase in the next few slides. Um these construction es estimates are escalated to $227. Um they include sales tax, a design contingency and contractor markups. Implementation of the site plan will happen over time. Um and it will be scaled to available funding. High costs reflect trends that we've seen across many public projects nationwide. uh reflecting inflation, tariffs, supply chain challenges, and labor market pressures. The plan includes preliminary costs to help guide our future investment decisions, and it's organized into four construction phases, allowing improvements to move forward

incrementally as fundings, partnerships, and grants become available. You know, adopting the site plan doesn't commit the city to funding every phase immediately, but it provides us a clear vision to coordinate those improvements over the next 20 years. The phasing strategy itself is based on constructibility and just overall site logistics. So, our initial work focuses on the areas that are furthest from the parking lot where our construction access point is. So phase one really lays the groundwork for future enhancements. Our key work is upgrading the southern uh perimeter fence, adding new accessible stalls, and um adding the first part of the forest path. As part of this first phase, we would also explore the design of a pedestrian connection to the Island Crest Parking lot, understanding that was a big priority during our outreach. Um the new climbing structure replaces the existing uh platform equipment u maintaining play value but then also introducing an inclusive feature. Phase two focuses on building out the central play area. So installing the picnic shelter, completing parking lot improvements, and adding supporting utilities. This delivers our core amenities um to allow for extended visits while also establishing the utility infrastructure for a future restroom. And the picnic shelter is included in this phase because grading for the central play area would affect the existing shelter. So constructing it during this phase ensures that we have a no net loss of amenities in between phases of improvements. And then for phase three, um this really rounds out the park by completing the

remaining amenities and connections. So this includes construction of the central restroom building, enhancing surfacing and access in the southern portion of the park and completing the entry area and the restroom is included in this phase. And then the last phase is allowance for improvements to Kenton's Dragon. And this focuses on providing accessible routes within this area. Uh because Kenton's dragon itself has a lifespan of about 50 years, we don't anticipate any improvements being done to the dragon itself. And then one more thing to highlight is the smaller play nodes that are scattered along our trails. Uh what we've been calling the forest surprises. So, these features provide great sensory play opportunities to enhance experiences as funding allows. Um, they can be added independently through donations and grants or across multiple phases. So, they provide flexible ways to enrich the park um while maintaining the overall vision. And we're almost done, I promise. Um for funding, the city council has allocated one and a half million for planning, design, and construction with approximately 1.3 million available for phase one after completion of the site plan. You know, the funding itself will come from a variety of sources including the capital improvement fund, levy dollars, grants, and donations. You know, an adopted site plan again really positions the city to pursue grant opportunities and other funding sources competitively to help deliver these improvements. You know, we could look at accelerating inclusive play features and maximizing the impact of both our public and private investment. You know, donations and partnerships can also help advance specific elements like individual play features. We understand

that implementing the full vision will take careful and phased investment over the next 10 to 20 years, but our experience at Luther Burbank Park shows that taking those incremental steps over time is achievable when it's guided by a long range plan. And then that brings me to the end of my presentation. And I thank you all so much for listening. And I would like to turn it over. Yeah.

Okay. Why don't we stop uh screen sharing and I'm going to invite our chair and vice chair of our parks and recreation commission up trade spots. Okay, go. Good evening, council. I'm Ashley Haye, Parks and Recreation Commission Chair, and with me tonight is Vice Chair Rory Westber, and we are pleased together to present to you the Parks and Recreation Commission's recommendation regarding the Dean's Children's Park site plan. After extensive review and much discussion, it is the Parks and Recreation Commission's recommendation that the city council adopt the dean's children's park site plan as presented to you tonight. This site plan comes to you following many months of review and multiple refinements of the site plan. Along with the commission's recommendation to adopt this plan, you have also received a handoff memo. The handoff memo describes how we arrived at our decision to recommend this plan for adoption. And the memo also details the background and planning process, which you heard a bit about tonight, the community engagement and the data collected, and reinforces that this site plan is a long-term vision for the park. I would like to especially thank each of you on the council for your careful review of this site plan and also extend a huge thanks to staff um and appreciation for the lengthy engagement process and um it was an

impressive level of engagement that went into creating this site plan. We are available and happy to answer any questions you may have. Rory, would you like to add anything? Uh no, I think you pretty well covered it. So happy to answer any questions. Okay. Does anybody have any questions for the commissioners? Mike, can you can you clarify what the um what the vote was, the final vote um to move this forward?

Yes. The vote was 42 with one commissioner absent. And following that meeting, we had confirmation, I believe it was sent to you recently, that the absent commissioner is also supportive of the plan. So, five of seven supporting this plan in its current form. Okay. Thanks. Because a public commenter had said four to two and I knowing that there were seven commissioners, I was just a little um unclear on what that was, but thank you. That's um that's a good margin. Uh I'm going to go in order here. Uh, councelor Wer.

Yeah. First of all, thank you guys for your service. This parks board is doing exactly what we had envisioned 10 years ago or eight years ago, however long it's been. It feels like forever. And and this is why we came up with this plan to have the parks commission look at these plans, talk about vision, consult with the community, consult with our experts and and uh I know it's tough and I know we all love our parks and I just I think the work that you do at your committee is really valuable and I can't thank you enough for your service. Um I have some questions later, but I think they're more for staff. So I'll just wait on that and say thank you. Welcome, Council Reynolds.

Yeah, sure. Hey, I just sitting as an observer on the parks commission. Um, it's been a great experience. You guys are doing great work. Thank you. This was one of the most contentious issues I've seen in my time on the parks commission. So, I wonder if you can kind of at a high level summarize for the benefit of the council what some of the concerns were for the two people that did not vote in favor of the additional site plan. Yes. And thank you for sitting in on the more than nine hours of deliberation. So, you had a first all of it was interesting view to all of this. Um, so how would you best summarize this?

Well, a lot of the I would say that a lot of the uh concerns uh on the part of the two commissioners that didn't vote for the plan were expressed tonight in public comments. There was and some of them I think reflected the way you may be feeling now after um after having the plan presented to you. there's a ton of information to absorb very quickly and the and the goal of that meeting was for us to be able as a commission to be able to reach a decision uh and a recommendation to council. So I think uh I think just kind of absorbing that overwhelming amount of information uh was one issue. Um

yeah, I would just add to that that um typically our handoff memos to you are a conveyance mechanism to support our recommendation, but this memo that you received is four pages long. Hopefully you found it in your 562page packet. And um it is not only a conveyance mechanism, but it also details concerns or future considerations that um some commissioners had. So it is a pretty extensive summary of what our discussions um entailed and that provides transparency over what was discussed and everything that went into our final recommendation to council. Council member Shay Um, yes, thank you so much for all your work on the parks commission. Appreciate all the time and effort that you spent to come up with this plan. Um, so I don't want to discount, you know, all the public input we had tonight about the cost. So when you found out that the cost was going to be 7 to9 million, what was your reaction

that that was a big number? That that was a very big number. uh particularly coming on the heels of the the levy uh vote uh that it it will be a challenge to come up with that money in order to see all the phases of the plan implemented. But on the other hand, we discussed this too that if you don't if you don't aspire to big things to then uh you won't have the chance to accomplish them. And in this case, yes, it's a a huge number. Yes, it's a big change for um the Dragon Park, but we're looking down not only uh 10 to 20 years down the road to to implement the plan, but probably another tw 10 to 20 years that that equipment and that design is going to be in place. So, if you if you take that long term, uh it may prove to be a bargain. And the chair, did you have any reaction when you heard the price tag?

Oh, yeah. It's a big number. So, I think we all felt similarly. And then when we look at the framework of this as a long-term vision and over 10 or 20 years and also having potentially state, local, and federal grants and potentially corporate or individual donors coming in to offset it over time, it feels a lot less scary. And it also gives us once in a I don't know, half century improvement that will last for 20, 30, 50 years. The restroom, the ADA improvements. Um, this is something that wouldn't typically go into the cost of a playground replacement. However, in this site plan, that's accounted for. So, um, that makes cost look a lot less daunting.

Council Reynolds, hold hands. Sorry.

Council Andrew. Yeah. First, I I was remiss to not thank the parks and recck commission and the parks and recck department and Jesse Bond for um all of the public outreach that you did and all of the community involvement. And um I think you can see that it was successful given the amount of public comment we had. So, it's maybe a matter of be careful what you wish for, but you guys did a really good job of getting the community involved. And I, you know, I think the unifying factor here is that um everybody does care passionately about this park and, you know, I hope we can move forward and and get it right. I do have some questions for staff when we get back to that, but I just wanted to thank everybody for all the work that's been put into this to date.

Um, any other questions for the commissioners? If not, I want to say thank you. um to you both and I know that Commissioner Bretman is also here. Um this is a lot of work and we're very fortunate to have you all serving on the commission um and and the work that you that you do is appreciate. Thank you. Thank you. We'll invite our staff back and if we have any more questions from council members Council Morando.

Okay. Um I have three, but maybe two of them can kind of be combined. I'm hearing about the eight trees that are going to be removed, and I saw that one of them was associated with the parking lot improvements in phase one. Um are there the other seven? Are they associated with expanding the parking lot or just with adding um paths and play structures? basketball.

We have not committed to a specific number of trees that would be removed as part of this project. When we had met with the parks commission, that was a number that we had discussed based off of site observations with our urban resource manager. Um, but there would be two trees as part of the parking lot expansion that would be removed. Um the other tree removal we anticipate in the central play zone and connecting to the 5 to 12 plus plate area. But all of that would need to be verified with a certified arborist during the 30% design of each phase of improvements.

Okay. And and can you talk about the need to expand the parking lot um and whether that's a maybe a negotiable item? Let me take that. Um Dean's Children's Park is woefully underparked. Okay.

Uh it is part of Island Crest Park which is also woefully underparked for the athletic fields that we have there. So there are many moments uh during our sports season where there is no parking. We have parking overflowing onto Island Crestway which is certainly not a pref preferred. Uh the approach to this plan was a modest increase in parking areas. um we probably need more uh but the pros plan has uh really directed us to minimize that. So this was a a compromise approach. Um I can speak from personal experience having kids that uh play sports and visit the park that there are peak times when we are out of parking and it happens a lot. So that is that was the strike a balance. If you asked if we could do with fewer spaces, that would be something that you may wish to consider. As your city manager, I would recommend adopting the plan as presented with the modest number of stalls that we identified.

Okay. Well, and I'll just make an editorial comment, I guess, now that as I as I re scroll through the public comment in my head, it seems like most of the people who were opposed to more parking are the people who are walking to the park. Yeah, it is a challenge. By the way, council, I'm just going to note something. As you know, the HVAC system in the building is uh in disrepair and so it's coming on and off. As it's getting hot, I just asked them to turn the air on, which is meaning you're going to freeze. So, when you're ready for me to turn it off again, let me know. Sorry about that. Yeah, Council Member Wer,

I'm just going to say I love that we have some basketball going on behind us in our indoor playground while we're discussing our outdoor playground. um the jewel of our parks I think for Mid Island residents. Um I just wonder what these forest surprises are. We got a lot of email about yes or no on these particular elements of the plan. So if you could just provide a little more detail about what those are.

Absolutely. Um the forest surprises are a variety of both natural objects you would find in the forest from boulders to logs as well as actual um play components and those are really the where the sensory play components happen. So thinking of somebody that may be neurode divergent and wants to be part of the park but doesn't want to be in the heart of all the action but it still allows them to have an experience within the park. And we also think of say if some a caregiver is going through the park and they're in a mobility device with their toddler. If they're walking along the trail, they can have an experience with their toddler playing music along the trail that they may not have as an experience otherwise. Uh, Council Reynolds,

just a a quick followup on that. Um, I've got a ton of other questions, too, but I'll take my turn on those. Um, the forest surprises, we had a couple speakers during the public comment period say something to the effect of the forest is the surprise. So, how would you compare and contrast the advantage of the the man-made forest surprises versus, you know, interaction with the stumps and logs and trees and whatnot that are already there? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think that it's an eitheror situation. I think that you can still even with these additions. They're small nodes that are along a trail. They're not expansive into the woodland area. They you can still move into the forest and, you know, build those forts that you see as you walk through the park that we love to see as people having that nature play. Um, so you can absolutely have both of those.

Uh, Mayor Becker.

All right. Yeah. I I also have a number of questions and we'll try to figure out which question is the best thing to ask at one time. So, I'm going to ask a followup on the parking since someone else brought that up already. Um, in I mean, we're going to have a window here. It sounds like between phase one and phase two where the parking reduces. Um, I noticed in the parking expansion there appears to be one nonADA parking spot that's adjacent to the four spaces and I'm wondering if there's a reason why we wouldn't add that parking space during phase one when we're doing the work adjacent to it. Um, which would add parking in the meantime if we were to not do the parking expansion later. That might give us an extra space long term is the reason I'm asking. Yeah, that one stall that's adjacent to the ADA stalls is included in that six number count.

It's included in the six in the six that are in between. So, as part of phase one, that section of the parking lot would be totally repaved and restriped. And so, it would be um expanded slightly to allow for one nonADA stall and then the four ADA stalls. Okay. But in phase two, it shows specifically that that one spot is being added, I guess, is the reason I'm asking. So, what work is being done during phase two if it I mean it it's jagged. It's like a straight line except for that one space is the reason. And if you don't know, I mean, you can get back to me, but that was my specific question is whether that spot could get moved into the other phase.

Yeah, my understanding was that it would be part of phase one, but I will double check the report. Let's see. Council member Shay, I just want to um

Yeah, I just want to um just remind um whoever's listening to our council me and also council members about um the community input and I really applaud you for doing all that community input. I remember when it was happening at our schools and I thought what a great way for the city and the schools to collaborate together. Um, so what features do you feel a park playground should have to support someone with cognitive intellectual challenges? So overwhelmingly 70% said good line of sight to be able to see family and friends. And also you know what's the preferred highle concept? So would wonders was 44% and the quest was 36%. Um question preferred high elevated wait uh hold on. um do you prefer more um percentage for less enclosed space versus a more enclosed space? So 65% preferred a less enclosed space over a more enclosed space. Um so I just want to call attention and if you could pull up an image of the tower and if you can confirm the height of that tower.

The height of the tower is 30 feet.

Okay. Um, and if you could pull up an image of the tower just so people can see what it looks like, just so just refresh their memory if that's possible. And while you're doing that, um, and you know, I just wanted to bring up that ordinance number 25 C16, um, that was just came into effect at the end of last year, 1231 2005, um, talks about height limits, um, with recreational facilities um, included in that. And apparently playgrounds are not included in recreational facilities or as is not included in this ordinance as having a height limit of 20 feet. Um but you know this tower of 30 feet coming from someone of a medical background um I feel that you know their height limits for a reason and the reason is safety and we just got a compelling testimony over email from a parent um who had a child eight-year-old son climb onto the roof of the um eastern the climbing toy at the eastern part of Aubry Davis Lid Park in 2021. on. Um, so she mentioned that her husband had both kids there. He was solo. Um, their six-year-old daughter need to use the restroom, so he left their son playing on the lawn and ran with her into the bathroom. He was gone for maybe about four minutes. And when he got close to the big toy, he saw his son falling off the roof of the structure with nearby parents swarming him on the ground to help. And then they had to go to the yard. He had to have seven stitches from a pediatric plastic surgeon. So when he fell and landed on the witches below um while falling, they think that he hit his head against part

of the structure resulting in a deep head wound. So you know as a with a background as a physician, you know, it's we have this, you know, do no harm, right? And to me, this tower at 30 feet that will keep me up at night. So this wall here um is probably about 12 feet. Um just like an average height of a one-story house is about 10 to 12 feet. So this is um about a two to three story tower. And um I just you know kids are kids, right? And this just um will keep me up at night if we have something like this. I just want to share that.

Okay. Uh, Council Andro,

thank you. And last question I think from me. Um, but there was some mention that certain woodland areas would be restored because certain redundant paths would be removed. Did we have that on any slide or diagram or is that kind of TBD once you see the flow? We did not have a slide that specifically identified which trails were going to be com decommissioned. Um it was looking at the existing layout of the trails and identifying those redundancies and removing them, but it was not explicitly shown on a diagram, but you do have a a good idea of what those would be. Correct.

Council Riker. So, I had a question, but I want to address Julie's concern. So, I wonder if our consultant wants to address the height issue. When I was a kid, when my kids were young, they climb tall buildings and structures and and remain safe because they were designed to keep them safe. So, kids are kids and accidents absolutely happen and it's devastating when it does, but I think ADA prepared playgrounds are a different uh scenario. So, I wonder if staff wants to speak to that or a consultant. To me, this tower looks like something I grew up with in the 70s in California, which is even more open than this log seems to be. So, I don't Does somebody want to take that and just assure us this is a safe structure we're talking about?

Sure. I'm going to have uh just Shelby walk through again about playground structures and how they're designed and national safety standards. And if Ingred's available, I'd like her to come back to and talk a little bit about um the type of play and the the if she's here, I'll watch for her to pop on screen. Um did you want to talk about safet playground safety uh safety standards?

Yes, absolutely. So any piece of playground equipment has to go through the CSPC guidelines which is a federal consumer product and safety um coalition essentially and the manufacturer has to certify that it is safe for public use. So there is a very strict process that any manufacturer must go through in order to ensure that it can be used in a public setting. I will also add that while the overall structure is 30 feet tall, the maximum fall height zone is only six feet tall. So it is fully enclosed on the inside. So you have a tight mesh that you climb up, but the slide itself is closed until about six feet tall. So that max fall zone is at six feet. Ingred, welcome back. uh yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure, I had the opportunity to talk to you about uh inclusive play and this tower in particular and you were talking about uh the the physical nature of it and the benefits and I wondered if you could share that information with the council.

Sure. Sure. So, when we were speaking on Monday, I think it was um sorry, I'm like approaching midnight here. So, um, we were talking about the difference between a simple post and deck structure like the ones that you currently have on site and then something like this. Um, you know, and building on Shelby's comments, you know, the actual climbing within the structure is not up to that 30 ft. Um, but one of the things that we found with some research when we're looking at structures that are more netbased as opposed to just a post and deck is that children actually develop more muscle strength and a higher um they actually get their heart rate higher as they're playing on a structure that has much more movement on it like this has. So, it actually for those older kids, you know, and I'm thinking about the the young gentleman who talked about like what's here for me, this is a structure there for him and his 10-year-old brother to really work on um you know th those motor coordination skills and it's also a space for gathering. So, one of the things we see with kind of our pre-teens and teens is, okay, they're interested in the bike trails and but then they want to stop and they want to gather and they want to hang out. So, this is a structure that allows them to kind of hang out. You're still going to have your line of sight through it um so that the parents can see what they're there that they're there and what's going on. Um but it's going to be something that um allows kids to really you know what we call perceived risk. So the child sees this as a real challenge especially um you know kind of again getting into our you know sixth graders, seventh graders, eighth graders. Um so kind of that upper end of the elementary school group there is this is their hangout.

This is where they're going to really work their their skills. There's no There are prescribed pathways but not just one does one pathway. There's multiple pathways and so they can choose how much um strength they want to use. There's still transferability for a child who has some upper ability upper body ability to leave their chair. So the belting that's designed within that gives them that opportunity to do that. But it's it's um it's a little more challenging than excuse me just that post and deck where I go up the stairs and down the slide and up the stairs and down the slide and up the stairs and down the slide. You have multiple pathways that kids can use here. And um you know and again the safety standards are you know the manufacturers required to build to that. And what we find is when kids have a variety of challenge within there then they're going to find that challenge that that fits them better. as opposed to just a very simple structure that eventually I get bored with and then I start climbing on it the way I shouldn't be climbing on it and then we end up with accidents like what was described earlier here of you know a kid getting on top of a structure where they shouldn't. So

thank you Ingred and I uh forgot to mention Ingred's on the east coast so like like I'm in the Atlantic time zone all the way in Nova Scotia so it's it's getting late here. Thank you. In fact, uh just as a courtesy to Ingred, maybe I can ask. Do you have any remaining questions for her? And then we can probably let her go to bed. Oh, Ted has Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. So, um as someone who was in software testing for a bunch of years, uh one of the things we always look for is not h how is the product meant to be used, but how is it actually used? Um so, I look at that tower. uh clearly is designed so that if you climb up the inside of it, you're safe. Um so is there any possibility that somebody could climb up the outside of it? That that's something that the manufacturer has to be able to answer for you

um and show in the field how it's how they are protecting that from happening. So sometimes like when you have a slide going up to a tall structure like that, they'll have um kind of a fan on it to keep kids from especially if it's a tube slide, the kids will, you know, climb up the outer part of the tube to get So um I'm I haven't seen this particular piece in person to really see how the manufacturer has done that. But that's manufacturers's responsibility and you have the right to say to them, you know, prove to us that, you know, our kids are going to be safe here and and show us how that happens. Thank you. Deputy Mayor back. Do we have questions for Ingred? My I was gonna skip to a question for Ingred.

Um, you sort of touched on this before, but I've heard concerns from the community that this tower is not accessible and it's not inclusive and they want a different piece there instead because they think that there's other pieces that were better. I just want to like understand. So, you think this is a good piece for what the goals are or do you think there's other pieces that would be more accessible, more inclusive? What's your take on this from not from a safety standpoint, strictly from accessibility and inclusiveness?

Yeah, I I think it's that's a tricky question because again, when we're looking at accessibility, if we're looking at a wheelchair user and we're looking at that's less than 1% of all, yeah, 1% of the 15% of children with disabilities who are coming to play. And I'm not trying to negate that that child who's a wheelchair user, you know, wants to be part of that play experience. They, you know, we definitely can make them part of that. But, you know, you're looking at then a totally different design, much more ramping, much more fees that go with that. And what's the experience, excuse me, that that child is having there? um if you're going to put that type of effort into money and design, you ne need to really make sure it's a destination for those children. Um for a lot of those, you know, I I mean, for me personally, um what I hear from families who have children who are wheelchair users is they want opportunities where their child can develop friendships. And I think there's many many places within this park where that can happen um without necessarily having to get all the way to the top of that tower which for the most part is a hangout and go down the slide as opposed to the weaw or the the the wheelchair accessible merrygoround that's in there. Um, you know, what we hear is where are those opportunities to socialize and and you know, if I think of some of the kids that I've played sled hockey with who, you know, they have some pretty good upper body strengths, there are pathways in there that are going to challenge them to say, you know what, I I can leave my chair and I'm going to figure my way up this thing, whether it's through this path or through the the spiral through the center. So, it's, you know, there's no clear right or wrong. I think for for the space. I would hate to

see a lot of trees taken out to put in a big ramp structure to get up to a treehouse that's six feet off the ground. So, I mean, think about um that's a lot of money into a ramp system. Um we have created some levels of heights in the design in other areas. um you know, using the boardwalk and getting to have a bit of that vista. Um but but it's also trying to balance preserving the nature of this park and the trees that are so valuable there and um there's still that ability to play up up and below and um so it's it's tricky.

Okay. Thank you. I I I can't say that I saw a specific structure when we were looking at items that was like, oh, like that's got to be it. You know, I think just to get to where you want to get, you're going to lose so much of the park and obviously, you know, the the nature part of the park is really, really important here. You've got beautiful trees and canopy and you've got a lot of other children who will benefit. Um if I think about a child with Down syndrome working on motor coordination totally will be sucked into that. Um a lot of your kids on the spectrum who have motor coordination dis disorders as part of their diagnosis too. So there's you know and then you've got what 85% of your children who are typical in their development and they want some challenge. So we've got to have that balance for them too.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Council Reynolds. Uh, this is not a question for Ingred. It's over on Let Ingred. Any more questions for Ingred? No. Ingred, hey, thanks for joining us. We'll let you go to bed. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck. Yep. Bye. Council Reynolds.

Okay. Uh, Shelby, earlier, I think it was you during this part of my event, Jess, if you don't recall, talked about five parks that were going to be worked on within the six-year period. I believe it was Aubrey Davis, Rowan Oak, First Hill, Deans, and Secret Park. Um, can you comment at all about the accessibility features in each of those, like what has been done or what will be done? I don't recall on Ron Oak or First Hill, for example, if those are very accessible parks.

Go ahead. Yeah. So, of the five parks, Rowan Oak and First Hill are the two park uh playground projects that have been completed. And when we think about the that um scale between ADA compliance and the universal design, Rowan Oak um you know had opportunity for parking and so was quite open and so for that park all of the playground area is actually utilizing the unitary servicing that port in place. So everything is fully accessible. Um whereas with First Hill Park, we're still meeting our ADA compliance, but that is a very forested setting and you know, understanding that there were not opportunities for parking. Uh we have the ramped access that is going into the play areas and we have access through it, but that is using the engineered wood fiber. And so Deans is, you know, meeting that middle point, finding that balance. So utilizing the port in place for those transfer points and then the um safety surfacing for the fall zones is utilizing the engineered wood fiber. So you know providing access but then balancing with the pvious materials with engineered wood fiber. Um Secret Park and Aubry Davis projects have not yet been started. Do you think the the topography there would facilitate them being designed in a accessible manner

like the Aubry Davis Park? Um Secret Park has some other challenges. So if you're comparing the two, I think Aubry Davis is more likely to meet those needs um over Secret, but to be determined through our design process. Wess I'm gonna go to Jesse I think and um go back to the sequencing and the phasing and the vision and this all started years ago with the pros plan. So um we had some comment tonight about let's spread the money out across all the parks whereas I think our original plan years ago was to focus it in our key parks as we just heard. So, I wonder if you could just speak a little more broadly about why it's so important we we consider this plan as as recommended and and uh why we keep going. This is not just an Island Park elementary school. This is part of the broad park system that we have here. We have lots of parks with trails that don't have any playgrounds at all. We have lots of beach parks with access to the water. Can you speak to the broader mission and vision here and and with that ADA lens?

Sure. I was uh had one foot in the parks director role and one foot in the city manager role as we were finishing the the pros plan. And so I was uh the lead staff on that plan. And really the northstar in that work was that our park system really in its entirety had fallen considerably behind in meeting accessibility standards. And as Shelby talked about earlier, that's the lowest bar, right? Uh there's a whole another suite uh that you've heard about tonight that speaks to inclusivity and the working through the parks commission to adopt uh and the council to adopt that pros plan. That was something that we committed to as we started uh to work through really citywide dealing with infrastructure that was all constructed around the same time. It's all aging out. Our playgrounds typically age a little bit faster than some of our other infrastructure. So that's been the north star. Uh fortunately, the council uh elected uh to put playground replacements into the parks levy renewal. And what we accounted for at that time was the structures alone. And I can reflect back on those conversations with the council. We didn't want to overreach, right? We wanted to try to get some money to help with this piece of infrastructure. We knew then that Deans was going to have to be looked at more comprehensively. We knew that it wasn't going to be as simple as just replacing the playground equipment uh because the layout was not done with accessibility inclus inclusivity in mind and it's really come together o over a long time. So it's a beloved park. My kids played there a lot. They still do. Uh but it's very disjointed. Uh so once the levy passed, thank you um Mercer Island voters. Uh we got to work and that was when we came back to you and said, "Okay, we've we've got to do a new layout for this this park." That's not necessarily the approach for all of the other playgrounds. This one for sure. Luther Burbank uh playground for

example, that's a more modern playground. We're we're many years away from replacement there. We're not likely to do a whole site plan, for example. It's one of our bigger play structures, but we're going to have to look a little deeper at accessibility there, too, because we're not meeting it. So, that has been our northstar. Um, you didn't ask the question about funding, but I want to lean into it. Um, I've heard tonight a lot of concerns about the price tag. Uh, I'm the one that's emailing you regularly concerned about our operating budget and our capital budget. But I can also tell you that, uh, this is a mighty community. We figure out ways to get things done. Our staff figure out ways to get things done. When the Luther Burbank Park master plan was adopted, we had no idea how we were going to fund that dock improvement project and we are on the eve of breaking ground on a nearly $10 million project with over half of the funding coming from grants. I'm pretty proud of us. It took us 20 years from the adoption of that site plan to realize that vision. I am very concerned in a place like this without a vision we're going to end up with more disjointedness. we're going to have kids that can't come and play. The other thing that's really motivated me is the community. Uh the friends of Dragon Park started knocking on my door a couple years ago. I've had to tell them probably 50 times, you cannot raise money for this park yet. We need a site plan. Is John Hammer still here?

Yeah.

Um yes. Um but but truly, what a gift. What a gift to have people organizing and say, "Let us let us work on this. Let us make a dent. Let us help get this vision um built for the next generation and generations to come." Let me conclude with this. I've heard a lot of people say, "We're not going to be successful with grants. We haven't been." That is not true. We are very successful with grants. We have never applied for a grant for an accessible pre playground. This will be our first bite at that apple. Just because we didn't get a grant previously doesn't mean we won't get this one. We're about 15 days away from a first round of the Washington wildlife and WWRP through the RCO all okay a bunch of acronyms. Bottom line state grant coming up right now. This plan was presented so that we could go back to the state multiple times across multiple phases and with the friends of Dragon Park raising money that scores us additional points. That's actually going to put us ahead of the other grant applications. I believe this community can deliver this project over the next 20 years. We just need a chance. I don't like a $9 million price tag when I have police working out of trailers either. But I absolutely believe in the vision. I believe in the staff team. I believe in the parks and recreation commission. I know this will happen. We just need the plan to guide us. Thank you.

Thank you. And thanks, John. You know, I first heard about the dragon park through you. It was two years ago. I remember it was the year of the dragon. and you were so excited and because you told me, "Oh, I can't even push my grandson Ford into the dragon, right?" And um and now I'm hearing this going to be a 10 to 20 year process. So I'm really So you'll be a hundred and Ford will be a 30s. So um so I hope that you can still vision for the dragon then. But um and um I know like the dragon is in phase four and I'm just trying to because you know John has been saying I'm going to raise 9804098,40 for this thing and um if we raise that money can the dragon move forward or we have to wait 20 years from now?

No. No. The um we we've been using Luther Burbank Park as an extreme, right? It took us 20 years to get to the docks. Um I certainly hope we can achieve the vision at this park sooner. Council member Sheay, I um believe that the friends of Dragons Park will go out and knock on doors. I think they literally are seeking corporate donors in ways that I can't. Uh if money aligns sooner, absolutely. We we met this morning and talked about the grant cycle here. If the council is putting, you know, setting aside matching dollars, which we have from the park's levy for this this park, we can be competing in 2026, 2028, 2030 for grant funds through the state. And that's just the state grants. That doesn't even touch on other opportunities that might come up. Your regular run-of-the-mill playground, it's not very competitive in the grant cycles. We wouldn't even apply. accessible play, truly inclusive play like is demonstrated in this plan, it will be competitive. It will be competitive. So, I hope that we're talking sooner about completing all of the phase improvements ahead of 20 years, but I also know sometimes there's other circumstances that that may extend this out. Uh and if that's the case, we have an awesome vision in front of you, something that I believe in uh that will guide future councils and future staff, future friends of dragons, and certainly our future parks commission in implementing the plan.

Uh Council Reynolds, a couple of financial related questions that hopefully the mayor will allow me to bundle together. Um the the first one is just I need a refresher. I was trying to remember from the parks levy. I thought it had either been 16 million over 15 years or 15 million over 16 years or something like that. Yet we're hearing now there's 415,000 for playgrounds. Is my memory just faulty or was it that a lot of this stuff, a lot of the money was for other stuff? Can you refresh me on what the total budget was and where the rest goes? I say funny story. Our finance director was driving here tonight and got a flat tire and so um

I'm sure he thinks that's funny too. Yeah, actually I don't think so. I'm not sure if he's made it here yet. I don't have the park levy material in front of me. Jason, I don't either. I'll remind you that the parks levy included a number of things. Includes funding, operational funding for Luther Burbank Park. The levy was passed originally when we took on Luther Burbank from the county to fund it. It includes resources for Pioneer Park and open space restoration. And then it also includes funding for playground structure replacement, the equipment only. And

oh, I just announced that you got a flat tire on the way here, Matt. Sorry about that. Um, and then when we uh when we when we put the playground equipment replacement in the levey at the time, we did a cost estimate for each piece of equipment to be replaced. And so like Deans is a good example. The castle play structure is smaller. the replacement was estimated a little less than the the larger what I call the platform playground. So, I don't have all those numbers in front of me and I hate to put our finance director on the spot flying in, but does that start to answer that question? Yeah, it does. Can I ask my correlary question?

Go for it. Okay. Um, we talked a lot about grants tonight. I'm I'm seeing in via social media some community misunderstanding because there's some people out there that think, "Oh, it's all going to be funded by grants. we don't need to worry about the city paying for it. I'm assuming that most of the grants out there require some degree of city matching. Is is is that true? And what like if things go well, what share what share would we have to pay ourselves versus grants?

Uh most commonly we see a 50/50 match. That's traditionally what we're looking at. We also you guys my favorite word of 2026 is leveraging. uh we're talking about it with other agenda items. Uh so let's assume we get uh private donations that can also line up as part of your batch. Um we have a private donation that I'm not sure we've shared with you yet coming in for the Luther project, a single donor for $400,000. So let's not let's not discount the ability and power of this community uh to raise money for things that they believe in.

I'll just add not all grants are the same. So some grants have different matching requirements. So donations can contribute to it. Sometimes it can be in kind services or um staff hours work that crews do can be used for some of that um matching funds as well. So it just depends on the grant. Um and this team will be uh aggressive and going after many many different types of grants, but they're not all the same. So they're they're specific on each each component.

I'll give you an example of how a future phase might be packaged. Can you tell he used to be a parks director? Uh we know that restroom buildings don't compete well in state grants, but the restroom building could be what we fund as our match and that the other half, let's call it $500,000 could be for another pieceable piece of an accessible playground development. So the way I think about this is we have to put as we're going for grants and we will every two years we'll be applying for grants for this park. We've got to fund the things that we know aren't going to compete well and put the things that will compete well in in front of the state for funding. Did you have another financial question?

Uh I have many others but no more on the finance end. All right. Uh how many more are we looking at here? You think maybe five? Okay. Can we can we condense any of those? I can try. Okay. Well, I'll I'll come back to you and you work on that. Deputy Mayor Becker,

you know, a couple questions ago, I jumped in with something that sounded critical, and I I should have started with saying thank you to staff for all of the work that you've done. I will say that um I have been really impressed at the level of detail that you have put into this in terms of this play equipment and how this helps with this, you know, this sensory issue or what this material is. And you know, while I and other community members have a variety of opinions and concerns about things, like it's clear that you have spent a lot of time thinking about it and I just want you to know I appreciate everything that you have all done. I think I'm I'm very impressed by it and and and appreciative that we have you. Um I'm going to ask a question that's similar to this just to keep the flow going here. I think the vision is great. I hope we do the vision. And I've been saying I I I think I'm excited to see when we complete the complete the vision, but if we're doing long-term planning, if we don't get the grants, if we don't get the donations, what does this look like for us? We do phase one or part of phase two or whatever pick whatever point we get to in this process. Is the plan designed so that a future council when this project is halfbuilt can fix can they fix it? Is it still designed to make adjustments later? So, I wouldn't use the word fix.

All right. The plan isn't broken. It's it's intended to be constructed in phases. Council at a minimum, uh, we have we will have to place replace our playground equipment and we will have to build accessible path pathways to that. Some of the other things that may be left out because we, you know, have had a terrible run of luck at grants would be like the new restroom building, possibly the picnic shelter. Okay.

Um, the way we We will have a pretty good idea if we make it to this first grant round of how we score. That will really help set the tone for the next actually the 2028 grant round is bigger I believe. That's part of the reason phase one was scaled the way it was is we we knew what um funding would be available in 2026. Uh so yes, just like we do with many other projects, every two years we come to you, we talk about the capital plan. Uh we we reference all of our plans. You have two master plans and hopefully soon a site plan adopted and we present to you a suite of options what we might be able to fund, what we might need to delay. We're constantly thinking about making well sequenced thoughtout decisions. So we're not going to be building a broken park, right? We're going to have to be thoughtful as resources are limited about how the phases move forward.

Okay. I'd like to have a little optimism today that we're going to be successful in the next five years and have really a substantial part of phase one and phase two underway. Okay. And just to be clear, I'm optimistic. I'm just pairing optimism with planning at the same time.

Yeah. I'll just add to so you're as part of that capital plan development, it's balancing staff resources as well and knowing what other projects are in the works, right? So we've been talking about Luther tonight, the Shoreline project. That's that's been many years in the making. It's literally been five years in design and permitting, right? And we have a couple other waterfront projects that are going to be on that scale as well. And so we're balancing as part of that capital plan, we're balancing those needs, resources, available resources, including staff resources as part of that conversation with the council every two years. Coun.

Oh, yes. Thank you. And also I wanted to thank the staff as well. I think I thank the parks commission, but thank you so much to the staff. I know you spent so much time also to our city manager. Um um but you know I also want to just um think back at the Mercerdale park. So just because that was just from 2021. Um so the amount budgeted there was 490,000 originally scheduled for a like for like replacement. Um but then you know during the design process public input said that they wanted to expand ADA accessibility and provide for a more inclusive play environment. Um, so then they asked for more money and it was $333,000. So, um, I'm just trying to just how how do I, um, explain this to committee members who are concerned about the price tag. So, this is something that I think was similar u originally to replace playground equipment and then later on saying we're going to expand ADA accessibility and the price tag went from um you know the total expenditure was $843,000.

Would you like me to answer that question? What happened there?

Yeah, sure. Uh if you remember the former Merced Park playground, it was kind of set down like two feet in a concrete bowl. it was not accessible. Uh so when the council made the decision to make it accessible, we had to then regrade the whole site and actually the fall zone that because of the type of equipment you heard earlier, if we go to a a post and platform type of play, which is what we have at Mercerdale, the footprint becomes much much larger. Um and that's what happened to put in the accessible play structure. So the additional uh footprint and the grading increased the cost. uh the council directed the appropriation of the funds and that was uh what resulted in the ribbon cutting on our first accessible playground and I would say it's been a wild success.

Oh yes, I think it's great. I just um trying to compare that to this project where it went up to 9 million. So just um you know why how this got shot up so much more as far as the price. Yeah,

this is an entirely different scale of of park. It doesn't even compare to Mercerell Park. Marcadel Park is basically one structure with some amenities. This is a you know 60,000 square foot play area. So it it's just a much much larger size. I do I do want to mention uh we've been talking behind the scenes about what it would take to move the accessible path kind of that central path that goes all the way to the elementary school to the first phase. I think we're still intrigued by trying to solve for that. But one of the things that we often forget about building accessible paths is there's an incredible amount of grading. When you stand there, it looks flat. It's actually not flat. Uh so we're going to have to to when that full path comes in, we're going to have to move dirt around to make it level so we can get from the parking lot to the elementary school. um we're willing to if there's if there's still interest um even if it doesn't make it into a future motion, we're still going to look at how we could possibly achieve that. But that is the grading of the site is one of the challenges and just how how all the pieces get decommissioned and replaced. Um so I will mention that there are some grading challenges at Deans. Even if you stand there and think it's flat, it's actually not. Uh, Council Member Wicker.

Sure. I'll just add at Mercerdale. We wanted a water feature, too, that still hasn't come because it got too expensive. Uh, did you want to finish a thought?

Actually, um, Chair Haye behind me had a follow-up comment about Mercerale. Yeah, I did just I did just want to comment that Mercerale was an entirely different project, but the element that was the same that we see now was the community stepping up for something they really believed in because Mercerale was not supposed to look like what it looked like now, what it looks like now. And the community said, "We want this to be accessible." And in a short amount of time, a matter of weeks, they came up with almost $60,000 to put towards that $300,000 um extra that was needed to do it. So, our community is amazing. They believed in it. They contributed 20% of that extra amount that was needed. So, I just want to thank the community for um showing up in that way. And I say this now as a citizen, not a a commissioner, but um I know our community stands behind what they believe in and that was an element of Mercedale, the the fundraising element.

Just one thing to add to that too is that we at the time also heard from people who did not want to make it accessible um because of the cost and because of some other reasons. And um you know that was that was eye opening for me um to to go through that process. I'm really proud that we did that. Um, and but we did we had similar comments. If you go back, people didn't want us to do that. Council Wicker,

we can do hard things. Um, I wonder if you can speak to the community engagement going forward. That Let's Talk page is great for all the information, all the history, and all the community engagement that we've done. So, going forward, this is a 10 and 20 year plan. How are we going to keep people informed as we go through these phases over time and get funding through these grant programs and our own fiscal budget management? Yeah. Um, so what I will say is that anytime we would start a new project, as part of that project initiation is when we bring the let's talk page live for the community. And Luther is a great example of this. Um, we have a page go live when we initiate design. We put regular updates on where we're at in the design process, if we're pursuing grants, um, and letting them know if we're getting ready to go into permitting. So, it part of the capital for each capital project is having those regular updates so that people can ask questions or provide input um and just keep apprised of all the activities and then they get the fun stuff of the construction photos once we go into construction and seeing all the progress that's being made.

Vicker, um yeah, can you touch on when you the council would be involved on this sort of over time? one one question specifically is on the remaining portion of phase one that is already funded. and I'm unclear like would you come back to us for that but then separately like phase two phase three there's a lot of discussion about future phases and I'm wondering how firm are the phases and how what would our involvement be

so I've uh I think I wrote it in your Q&A matrix or I've I've said it to a few of you this part could be developed in 20 phases or one phase if a donor calls tomorrow with all the cash I might be coming to you and saying hey what do you want to do but more likely it will be coming together in pieces. Um I want to talk a little bit just about the four-phase strategy, but really most the the first three phases were designed so that we ensured we had distinct uh construction phases so that we could be competing across across multiple years in grant cycles. That was an absolute intention, but it's likely potential that we might have to break up even into smaller phases. So we see you uh every two years, sometimes sooner to discuss the capital program. We would present to you, you know, the remaining piece of phase one or phase 2a. Um you always have a menu of options. So the council, we have a plan we're drawing from. It's our it's our northstar and as funding becomes available, you have the chance to appropriate it to this project or the many other priorities that we have across the city. So it's a two-year process. um that we do in the fall. In fact, we'll be seeing you this fall and revisiting the capital plan.

So, if there are multiple items in a future phase and the community is concerned about one of them making the cut or not making the cut, there the community is going to have an opportunity to come to council and say make sure this one makes the cut and not the other one and that staff isn't just unilaterally going to decide which one goes first.

Absolutely. Absolutely. what what I've tried to explain and possibly done a poor job is what we're not doing is redesigning the site plan, but we are working with you all in the community to help prioritize future phases. My hope is that, you know, the the resources that come into our PA capital funds maybe start to come back up. They've uh REIT has been a little bit low historically the last few years. Maybe that turns around and we can dedicate some more funding to this park and other parks. Thank you, Council Reynolds.

Yeah, just to follow up on that, I I want to make sure I understand because I'm I'm hearing we'll have decisions at the funding time, but are you saying if at a later stage we decide we don't like a piece of playground equipment that was picked or we want to reroute a path or something like that, will we be able to do those things? I generally say no, but you're the council, so if you adopt the plan, then it would be up to you if you wanted to make a change. Um, the way I've tried to explain it, again, u possibly doing a poor job is sometimes when a plan is taken a long time to implement, what you originally envisioned has to change. And the Luther Burbank docs was a great example, the whole regulatory environment changed. So, we had to design um a new dock system to meet that code. So, we did go out and do a micro process. Um if the playground equipment, if we're 15 years from now and have playground equipment that still needs to be implemented, it's likely what's in the plan today is not not available. And so, we do feel strongly that when the playground equipment is changing, we're talking to the community to say, "Okay, here's what's in the plan. here's all the tenants of the plan and here's some options that might meet our needs. But I would discourage you from assuming that every two years we're going to redo the site plan because that's generally not how it's worked.

Thank you, Counc. Um yeah, so you mentioned that you know the approach with the Marshall Del Park was so great because it was on the let's talk project page throughout the process of developing the site plan and um you know I was getting feedback from the community you know and even today you've heard people saying I live eight houses down from Dragon Park. I didn't even find out about this until a week ago because my friend sent me the information. So, you know, there's nothing on let's talk before the February 5th vote at the pars commission.

So, I think that's why we're today we had so many people come. There were more people who did not support the plan than there were people who supported the plan because they felt that they were not being engaged even though they live just right there in that neighborhood. So, it's something that we cannot ignore because we serve all of our community, right? Um, so and we're elected to represent our community. So, um, you know, when I see that happening tonight, um, with 13 people saying that they they don't support it and then eight people saying that they do support it, you know, it is something that we cannot ignore. Um, so I hope that next time when we have this come up that the community will feel like they're all being engaged, not just a subset of people. I'm really disappointed to hear that you think the community was ignored. The community was not ignored in this process. I will fully take responsibility for not updating the Let's Talk page in November when we presented the site plan, but we reached more than 1,200 youth in this process. I am proud of the staff work that we did. We can always improve, but I stand behind our work. Well, like I said before, um I was also really proud to see that, right? I thought what a great way to collaborate between the city and our schools. But the part is um you took their input and we even had two kids come up here today and that takes a lot of courage. You took their input, but they did not see what you came up with in the site plan until after it was voted on by the parks commission. So, you know, again, I just um you know, we just have to make sure that we're serving all of our community.

Okay. Um C Reynolds, how many more questions do you have? I've weded to three. All right. Can we can are they material to Okay, let's let's get going here. Okay. Uh first one I think is quick. Um, you showed a picture, Shelby, of the first of the top rated playground equipment and number one was a treehouse-like structure and they were all very wooden rustic looking things. The tower does seems like something completely different from that. So, can you explain how we got from one to another?

Yeah, absolutely. And um what I will point out to is the second um most voted on piece of equipment from the outreach events is actually the same structure as what's included in the 5 to12 as the 5 to12 climbing tower. So it is very similar in that aesthetic. But going back to the conversation of balance. So our takeaway from that more traditional treehouse style was you like that rustic natural experience in the materials. And so in our approach, we were trying to find something that balanced that wood material but also long-term durability and our maintenance. And so for our larger structure, finding something that has less maintenance needs um but then providing that more natural wood material in the fallen log structure in the critter corner with all of those um animals and the log steppers. So trying to find a balance between that natural aesthetic throughout the park, but then finding those larger structures that have less ongoing maintenance needs for our staff.

I do want to just mention too, you you heard about the footprint, right? If you think about Mercedale Park, the post and ramp style, it it it takes a really large footprint. And so the team was really looking at knowing that removing trees is not desirable to to to explore a different type of structure that still presented challenge. You know, something really innovative and different. And I do want to mention that that's one of the goals in our park system. In the last cycle of playground replacements, we ended up with a lot of structures that look the same. And so we've taken a different approach. We want every park to be a landmark for its own reason to be a signature in the system and so that as our community members travel around the city they can have something different at each park and so that tower has a much smaller footprint. So keep that in mind too.

Deputy Rebecca.

Yeah. Um, I I guess I just I just want to make a quick comment from followup from what was said a moment ago in terms of community engagement that like I I have heard residents saying they weren't engaged either. And like I agree that I I definitely think there are some lessons that we have here that we can try to improve on for future projects. And I I want the community to know that that we've heard you on that and I think that we will, as the city manager said, we will improve upon that. I mean, I'm I'm struggling with a community member saying she lives nearby and doesn't know about it. I mean, there's A-frames at the park that are still there showing people this. I heard a complaint that the A-frames weren't updated recently, and that's fine, but like I mean that we we've been telling a lot of people this project was happening. So, if you didn't know this project's happening at all, like I I don't know that we necessarily could have fixed that problem. Um, but maybe you didn't know exactly where we were and you didn't realize that there was a site plan. And I understand that and I would just say to the community that like I I think we've heard them and that and that we're going to like like we care about engagement and that at no point were we trying to not have the community know that this was happening. Um just a very fast question and then I guess this will be my last question here. I'm ruling everything else out. We were talking about the tower and the safety and you talked about the interior of the tower being safe because it's six feet. I guess the question is can you climb outside it? I mean, can someone climb the side of a scale the side of a 30 foot tower and end up on top?

We we talked about this already. We did. Okay. Council Wer, sorry, apologies. Yeah.

I just I guess I want to follow up on your comments and say I think the community engagement was significant. We've been here a while and we've got a whole track record of all the engagement we've done. So, I want to thank staff for that. And council member Shay, I would just say look a little further back because uh engagement often brings discordant voices and opinions together in the 11th hour. And that's why we have the process that we have. It's why we have the council meetings. It's why we have the parks commission. It's why we have the meetings that we have and the outreach with the schools that we have and at the community events that we have. We take all the different input that we get from all the different voices that we hear and then we get to make the guidance for staff to get the work done on behalf of our community. So yes, we can always learn, we can always do better, but this process is designed to get us to a point where we can move forward and have a plan and go after this money with a deadline of April 30th. So we have a shot of getting started here in the next year or two and getting this this really important work done with work that's been going on years and years and years before any of us have sat here, staff and council members and parks commission. So, um, all due respect to you, um, the process is here and it works and it's always hard when people hear about in the 11th hour. Encourage them to look on the website, do some research, call us, call staff. This team absolutely responds to all voices in our community.

Uh, Council Reynolds, can you bring back up the slide that had the 62,000 square feet of footprint of impacted area, I believe was the term. And may maybe while we're looking for that, I I have a question for the city manager, which you may be totally unprepared to answer in the time at this time, but I'm going to ask it anyway, and you can tell me. Um, if we were to go back to you and say, "Come up with a revised plan that only costs 3 million instead of 7.2, what would you do differently? What would you take out?" Well, I would ask why. What What do you want me to take out? I mean, if if you want me to cut the plan, tell me what to cut.

Yeah, I I I'm not sure, honestly. I I I know what I prioritize is is certainly the accessible pathway that goes through the middle. That's number one priority to me,

and preserving the dragon and making that accessible is a very high priority as well. Beyond that, it's a question of of what we can afford. And I and I know you and I apparently differ on this, but I'm I'm really concerned about the price tag. And I'd love your optimism, but I'm not feeling it as much. I I'm disappointed to hear that. I I I don't advocate for for cutting the plan. It's a 20-year vision, right? This isn't a budget. It's a long range plan. If we had taken that same approach at Luther Burbank, we'd be demolishing the docks and we wouldn't have any docks at all. That council sat down during a very hard process in 25 and 26 and said, "At some point, we're going to need to replace the docks. We're going to adopt a plan and we're going to give this charge to the council, the staff, the community to figure it out. And we're there. We figured out how to fund a nearly $10 million dock replacement, not to mention all the other improvements we've made at Luther. So, I would just really encourage you to think long term. We're not even going to be here, but we're going to hand off a vision, a really important one and ask the next staff and the next council and this community that's behind us to stay the course and chip away at it. And I will tell you, every day I sit with the financial challenges the city has, I lose sleep over it, but I will never shy away from a strong long-term vision.

Yeah. and for avoidance of doubt. You know, that's one of the things I love about you and I'm glad you're on our team. You're you're a visionary and a planner and we need that. That's very great. But I also recognize that the situation we're in now is it's a different world than it was when council was looking at Luther Burbank plans where REIT revenues have fallen off a cliff where state and county finances are in deep trouble. So the the the pool of grant money, if it hasn't dropped already, is going to is going to drop where we're facing an even more significant threat to try to to do something about the public safety and maintenance facilities. It's going to be a much tougher road to hoe now than I think it was for for Luther is my guess.

Can I can I I'll just I'll provide a little historical context. So I've been employed with the city since 2005. The Luther Brook master plan was adopted in 2006. When that plan was adopted, I was the park experience team member at Luther Ring Park and this grand vision of what we're going to do with the park became adopted with no funding in sight for it. And over the course of 20 plus years, we've seen the off leash dog area improved. We've seen shoreline improvement projects completed. We've seen Caulkins Point completed. We've seen the pickle ball courts. We built a new playground. We've done We have the Luther Burbank waterfront project on the horizon that's going to break ground later this year. None of that funding was identified out of that master plan process. And I understand the dollar amounts are different compared to where we are today from then. But and the fiscal challenges you identify now are all relevant, but there were fiscal challenges in this organization at that point in time, too. So to the point that the city manager is making is it's a plan. There's not always a clear path for funding to how to do the work. You have a really creative staff team that looks to maximize dollars and find grant opportunities. And sometimes projects come together when you least expect it, right? The Caulkins Point project is a great example of that. It's been in the works, had been in the works for quite some time. We just never found the right funding source to actually get the work done. But by getting the the design completed and get construction ready, we were eligible to secure funding for that project and actually make it happen. So I would just Luther's a great example of that long-term vision and making it a reality. It's not always perfectly clear on how you fund the individual elements, but the staff team is dedicated to finding those resources and working with the council throughout the process to make it happen. And it it may happen in one big chunk. It may happen in a series of smaller chunks, but the plan is in place to work towards that goal. And I think Luther has been a very successful project that this city has implemented over the past 20 years to show that.

Council Andrew, what I was still waiting for the one slide with the 62,000. Was that still going to come up? What's the question?

Well, ba basically what I I had asked about this in the the packet beforehand, but I didn't or the matrix, but I didn't understand the answer. Uh the slide referenced 62,000 ft 62,000 square feet of impacted area. And I I'm thinking what that slide actually meant was that the new plan has 62,000 ft. That's the one. Thank you. 62,000 ft of of developed area. The old one though, of that 62,000, I'm I'm guessing that some of that was just forest land. Is that correct? Or was there 62,000 ft just by coincidence exactly 62,000 of developed parcel in both plans? Because it seems amazing if it cames out exactly the same. Well, I'm going to talk ask Shelby to talk about how how how we approach planning when we have an impacted area. We're we're trying to maintain the play area inside the already impacted heavily impacted area of deans. So, do you want to talk about that?

Yeah. Um what I'll Yeah, I'll say that we're working within that overall footprint, but what's changing is the amount of pvious surface to the amount of impervious surface. And you know, most of the trail, none of the trails there are actually maintained right now. They're all just compacted dirt. So that's considered a pvious surface because we've never done anything to it. We've never added any material. So that's transitioning that surface to now an imperous surface. And you know, looking at some of the paths being widened, but we're also looking at decommissioning trails. So having that offset between the two. By widening some, you're removing others. And I think part of your question was also like how can that be the same if you're potentially removing trees? And that's because you know there are temporary impacts with construction, but anything that would be removed would have to be replaced. So you'd still be if you're removing a tree, you'd be at least replacing it with one new tree in addition to understory planting that would help revitalize that understory canopy. So maybe the way to look at this table a little bit differently, the 62,300 foot, that's the that's the play area. That's

and trails probably. Yeah, it's everything, right? So what what our consultants and staff team have done here is just shown you what what comprises the existing condition to get to that 62,000 square feet and what's what's changing. Does that make sense? So the 62,000 is the play area today. That's that's the bound. But isn't really is it really the combination of play area, path, and parking? It's all of it. All of those things. It is 62,000 ft today. That's correct. And it will be 62,000 ft when we're done. We we stayed within the footprint of the impacted area that we're working with right now today. Okay. That that that's helpful because that's not what I thought that chart meant, but I

I realized as you were talking that I we were saying different things. Yeah. We're running on different paths, so to speak. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Council Enderall,

thanks. Um, just responding to some other comments that have been made tonight is, you know, Jesse, I know you are a long-term visionary. I have been I think I'm entering my eighth year on council. I don't think I've ever heard you make a recommendation that I disagreed with, honestly, because you are such a great steward of the island and the island's finances and the island's natural resources. Um, and you just have such a good head on your shoulders about this kind of stuff. And you know, if you say short-term we should do X and long term we should do, you know, one, two, three, four, five, I know you thought those things through and I really really appreciate that very much and I I would not accept any criticism of your public outreach or the recommendations that are here today. Um, as Daniel pointed out, you know, there are A-frames in the park. If people visit it every day, they've got to know something's going on. And I I understand that there were some people who were unhappy with the way the parks commission recommendation vote came out. And you know, there's obviously been some last minute mobilizing of opposition, and that's fair. people are allowed to have their opinions, but I just um I I think people have ignored the opportunities to be involved in this and um I am fully supportive of this going forward. So, just wanted you to know that.

Okay. Uh Deputy Mayor Becker.

All right. I'm going to take a stab at making a motion here to see if we can move this along. Jesse and Andrea, I've emailed this into your inbox if you want to reference it. Um, we can modify this if you don't like the language. I move to direct the city manager to revise the site plan to remove forest surprise elements 25 through 30 along with all associated impervious surfaces and replace them with organic found objects. semicolon to bring the accessible path to Island Park School into phase one. Semicolon and otherwise approve resolution number 1692 to adopt the dean's children's park site plan. Second. Okay. Uh there's a motion made by Deputy Mayor Becker, second by Council Member Weinberg. Uh I think it'd be helpful for us to hear some perspective on that from the staff if we could. It's also going up on the screen. Do

do you mind if I just like very briefly speak to the my mo the motion here? Yes, please do.

So, the forest surprises, we heard testimony from that. The parks commission included it in their handoff memo that they had concerns about the forest surprises. From the feedback that I heard from the community, the people who are opposed to this plan in general are very concerned about having a the wood just the park is wooded. I don't think that this motion is going to make give these people everything they want. They want way less flat rubber surfacing. They want a much narrower scope. But from what I've heard, these items 25 through 30 are in the northeast corner of the site. That does not include two of the forest surprises which are on the southern half of the site. And I think it would preserve that area of the site for wooded play which the people have said that they um that they really value. So

I just wanted to ask a clarification. We have number 25 in there and that is a forest surprise. I do we have that on the slide? I just want to make sure this is the mokuyama. Yeah. And that you want to include that in the removal. I mean the other I I'm just raising it because it's it's one of the higher age range elements and we also heard.

Okay. I mean I can speak to that. I mean, I I think that a different version of this motion involved also al allowing you to consider relocating any of these things. So, that would be another option that I did not include in here. And if you'd like that, we could do that. I was proposing that we could actually approve this tonight instead of sending it back to the future meeting. I wasn't sure if we include relocating, whether or not we could still do this approach, but I'm open to relocating if you think that could be relocated. I do know that that area that just juts into the wooded area that I know people play in. They pile all the sticks there. They build forts. And so the further we jut into the wooded area, I know the worse it is for the people who are concerned about this. If we could relocate it, I think that would be great and I would be totally fine with it. If we aren't going to relocate it, I guess we can see what everyone here thinks and maybe we we bring 25 back. comments.

Um, just point of clarification. I don't think the amendment up that's up on screen captured the motion to move the accessible path. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I Andrea, I sent you two things. I sent you a follow-up email and you put the incorrect one up on there because I didn't see the second one and that. Thank you. Yeah. And given the costs associated with grading and and the path and and how we sequence that, I'm quite concerned and would definitely want to hear from staff and the city manager on that. Can I just

let uh council wer?

All right. I'm just going to say I don't support this motion because we have the whole rest of Island Crest Park to play in naturally with sticks and stones and trails and dirt that most kids can get to. This element of the park and these found objects are important to nephews like mine that need a place to kind of be alone and away from the noise. And we heard from the consultant today that those spaces are useful for for kids of various neurological states in their lives. and and we have these here for a reason. We've gone through the process to get to this point. We've had the consultant give us the expert advice of her 750 playgrounds. If this is an important element, and it looks like there are eight of them, I don't want to lose that. And I don't want to lose the paths for grandparents to take their kids there, grandkids there, and I don't want to lose a chance for kids that might have needs to get to those more quiet spaces in the park to play there or contemplate there. So, I'm not in favor of that. and I'm not in favor of moving the path forward if we don't have the funding or the plan uh to move that forward into phase one. So, appreciate the idea, but I'm I'm not supportive of changing beyond the original plan.

Okay. Um

Mr. Mayor, can I just comment on the the phase one move? Um you've heard me say a couple times tonight, this isn't a budget, and I'm sticking by that. If the council wants to move that path into phase one, we understand, we heard from all sides that that was a priority. You're right. I don't have in the next two to three years the funding right now to do that. But if you move it, we may have a phase 1 A and 1B. Like my preference would be if you're in a position to adopt the site plan tonight, get it done. Um we've been through a lot getting here tonight. Um And then we'll we'll use our budget process to work with you on on the how to fund that trail. We obviously need to spend some time with our consultants once this is done if that direction's received to figure out how we would move that around. Um the forest surprises, I guess from a staff perspective, uh that would be a loss to us, but you're the policy makers. Um, and so I will look to you to make that final call.

I think keeping those is probably the right move. Um, you know, we we've talked about having this be a a welcoming place for for all sorts of um abilities and I think that's that those elements are important for um sensory issues. Um, if you have your hand up, please please try to update it. Uh, okay. Council member Shay.

Oh, yes. And I just don't want us to forget about some information we're still trying to get about the tower, whether it's scalable from the exterior. Um, I think that was brought up several times by different council members. So, um, I don't know how to add that to this amendment. I'm not sure if we need to. I think that that was my understanding is that that is an element of the plan that staff is going to continue to work on as part of the development. Is that fair? I mean there's

that's correct. I I we don't have a piece of this type of equipment in our parks. I know playground manufacturers are pretty good at this. I have we did not ask the question about how the actual structure is designed but we would want to make sure that we had that conversation when we got to that design phase to understand that implementation. I just I don't have this the specifications on that piece of equipment in front of me tonight. Okay. Uh Council Reynolds.

Yeah. I don't want to get overly hung up in parliamentary procedure issues, but I'm just I'm concerned, you know, Council Rebecca, is a reasonable proposal. I like some of what's there, but I wonder if it might be helpful to instead propose a clean motion just to send it to the city manager and then propose amendments to that motion that can be voted on individual. We have We have a motion on the table. I want you to consider a friendly uh revision of it. But well, yeah, I I if there's no further comments, I'd like the clerk to call the role, please. Okay. Well, can I propose further amendments to it? I I want to vote on this one and then we can we'll have other amend we have other

Don't we have to amend a motion before we approve the motion for the procedure point of view? If the M if the motion fails, you would introduce a new motion. We can have more than one motion. Okay. I mean, if there's not support for this, I can just I mean, it sounds like there's not support. So, I guess I can just withdraw the motion and then we can see if someone else has another idea, unless you specifically want to take the role. Council member Weinberg, are you as a second? Are you okay with the mo the motion? Sure. Okay. Motion is withdrawn. Is anybody would anybody else like to make a motion? Yes. I would like to move to approve resolution number 1692 exhibit 2 to adopt the Jean's children's park site plan. Second.

Okay. So, it was moved by council member um Andrew and second by Council Member Wer. Um Council Member Reynolds. Well, just to be sure by parliamentary procedure, can we propose amendments to this at this point? It's up to the Okay. I I I would like to propose an amendment uh consistent with council member uh Becker to extend the accessible path as part of phase one all the way to Crest Park or Island Crest School. Is that your only amendment? I'm going to take them one at a time. Do you accept that as a friendly amendment? Not a friendly amendment. But does anybody want to second? Sure, I'll second. Okay.

Can you please restate the amendment? Uh I'm moving to amend the motion to uh include the ex the full extension of the accessible path to Island Park School as part of phase one. Council Wer, can can I just ask Shelby or Jesse what that would mean? I know you said 1A 1B.

Uh same comment. Um we have definitely heard from many voices that that is a priority. Transportation corridor serves many purposes. I need to go back to the consultants. We talked about it right before the meeting and just think about how we would resequence to get that path in. Council, this is a plan. If you feel strongly that it should be in phase one, I encourage you to support the amendment. let us do the technical work behind the scenes and when we see you by this fall uh when we're talking about the capital plan I can tell you more about what phase one looks like uh based on our findings. So I don't want to discourage you from doing this. This is your visionary plan. Um we want to solve this problem. It sounds like it's a high priority. I can't do it tonight and I also don't want to postpone uh this work any further with the plan adoption. So I'm supportive. were supportive of this this move. I I need to just take some time with the team

and it wouldn't delay the grant application. It wouldn't delay the plan and it wouldn't we would still I still anticipate if you're adopting the plan tonight that we will be in for a first round of grant um with the WWRP program at the state. Uh I don't believe it's going to fund all of phase one as we conceived it plus the path. But again, give us some time. let us think through how we might approach this. There's other grants and things.

So remember your your I already said this, right? Your phases are concept. They're going to change. This might be the moment where we can point to that happening sooner than later. But what you're telling me is it's a high priority. So let us figure out how to resequence some of this construction. Well, and if I can speak to this since it was my motion, um I agree that accessibility is a high priority and that path may be kind of the foundation backbone for building upon, you know, uh getting other elements done. So, uh upon reflection, I will accept that as a friendly amendment. Council.

Oh, yeah. I just want to um because the tower is in phase one um and just trying to figure out how we'll approach that because of um just some unanswered questions about the scalability of the tower from the exterior.

What what is your concern that someone could climb the tower on the outside? Yes. And since that's in phase one, um, does that mean that we'll proceed with getting bids for that early on or is it movable like what the city manager was saying? Well, can staff report back after discussions with the manufacturer and give just an informal update to put council member Sha's mind at ease or or not, as the case may be.

Yeah. And if it's determined that it is scalable from the outside, um, can we replace that with like a treehouse themed equipment? How does that work? If the council wants to change the equipment, I would need that direction tonight. I'm I'm really confident that the equipment that we've presented to you has met safety standards. I'm not able to answer specifics about the design of the equipment tonight and what measures are taken to prevent its climbing.

Wait, so you mean tonight is the only time we could possibly wait on u whether or not the tower will be in phase one? I have it is proposed to be in phase one. You have a question about how the safety standards on the outside. I don't have the specifications in front of me. If the council majority wants to make a change to the plan and swap the equipment out or direct something else, I would need that by motion. Otherwise, the equipment would stay in.

I think one one possibility would be for us to give some direction saying that it needs to be safe, but I think that's already included in the plan. I mean, like this is gonna we're not going to buy something that's not safe, right? that we work through playground manufacturers that are under the highest level of scrutiny. Yeah, there's also trees that are 50 feet tall there. Kids want to climb those, too. Uh, Council Reynolds, I'm just trying to clarify what we're doing here. I I think we're still voting on my amendment separately. Correct. No, it was You don't think you have to because I accepted it as a friendly amendment. So, that's the way the motion reads now. Yeah. Okay. assuming it would be better to vote on the motion as amended and then we'll go back and vote on the main motion.

So, so vote on the motion amendment. Yeah, there's an amendment on the there's a main motion on the floor and there's an amendment on the floor. We have to resolve the amendment and then we can go back and vote on friendly amendments make for a very unclean record. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Okay, Council Shay, do you have comments on this amendment? Um, yeah. I'm just, you know, I'm new here, so I'm just trying to figure out this process. So, uh, you know, what deputy mayor Becker had said about removing the four surprises, is that something that we can also add to the amendment? The second amendment I would intend to propose or or you can if you prefer, but I think we should vote on the first amendment. Let's vote on the first amendment and then we can entertain other amendments. Are you ready to call the RO?

Please call the RO. We're calling the role on the amendment to the main motion, which is to amend the M motion to include the full accessible path to Island Crest Island Park School in phase one. First, I will call Council Member Sheay. I, Deputy Mayor Becker, I, Council Member Weinberg, I. Council member Wer, I. Council member Androl, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, hi. And council member Reynolds, hi. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Uh, Council Reynolds, you have your hand up.

Yeah, I was going to introduce a second amendment, which was to uh to do what Council Member Becker suggested about the forest surprises 25 through 30 to remove those from the plan and replace them with found objects. You have the the exact wording was up there before that he had. I apologize. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Moved by Council Member Reynolds, second by Council Weinberg. Is there any discussion? Cas.

Yeah. I um I personally like the natural environment, but if we're going to be inclusive and accessible, I think we need to respect the experts and the testimony that we've heard that these are important elements for an certain part of the population. And if you don't want to see a bright colorful object, there are other parts of the park that you can play in. Um, that's what some of the commenters seemed to be saying today was that if you can't access access this park, you should go play in another park. Well, I don't agree with that at all. Um, I think we need to have things with different things for people with neurodeivergence issues and this seems to be one of them. I'm no expert, but I'm listening to what I'm hearing. And um like I said, but I wouldn't put it in in my park, but I would put it in our park. So, I I would not support the amendment.

Deputy Mayor Becker, can I just suggest an alternative because it doesn't sound like this has support that we would reintroduce number 25 and only remove 26 through 30 and also give staff the option of relocating these instead of just removing them because those are much smaller. We clearly cannot relocate 25 because I don't think it doesn't sound like your amendment. I I I will accept that as an I'll withdraw mine if you want to move that. Okay, you guys have lost me. Your clerk is going to Let's Let's Hold on. Hold on. Yeah, we're going to vote on this on this motion and if there are subsequent motions, we can do that. Okay. Okay. Please call the RO. Let me read the motion to make sure that I have captured it right. I did give it to you in a fairly garbled form. I apologize.

The motion wasn't stated for the record. I have captured amendment to the main motion to revise the site plan to remove forest surprise elements 25 through 30 along with all associated impervious surfaces and replace them with organic found objects. Perfect. And it was seconded by Weber. Thank you. Are you ready to close the council member Wer? Nay. Mayor Rosenbomb. No. Council member Androl. No. Council member Weinberg. I. Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Council member Reynolds. I. And council member Shay. I.

Motion passes four to three. Okay. Any other motions? I would move to amend the motion to retain forest object 25 and give staff the option to relocate the other forest objects in a way that perhaps does not extend so much into a more native area. I'll second that. Can you We've already voted on the Okay. Point of information.

Yeah. Uh, when you say relocate the other objects, are you talking about the 26 through 30 that we just removed or are you talking about other objects? Oh, I'm sorry. The 26 through 30. Okay. So, I could I can try to this would add them back in a different location. Yeah, I can on the fly. I can try to restate it in a more simple way. Um, we've got retain forest element 25 and relocate forest surprise elements 26 through 30. Yes, Mr. Mayor. I'm gonna actually ask Shelby to pull up the map. I just

That would be very helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I I I maybe have a You've already passed an amendment, so I I don't want to. Okay. Any chance you can make that bigger?

Okay. Uh just a couple things I want to call out. So your your four surprises category of experience is actually numbers 25 through 32. Uh 25 sits on an accessible path. Uh 26, 27, 28 are on an accessible path. 29 and 30 are not. So if if the if your vision is to start scaling back, I'm just sitting here talking to Shelby. I would recommend you just take out 29 and 30 and then we can talk more about what those others are. I just trying to

31 and 32. Yeah, 30 31 you said could go. Yeah, 31 and then where's 30 and 32 is over by the dragon.

You already have an amendment. So, I'm trying to figure out how to not Should we retract the other amendment? Well, you voted. You have a majority vote. So, but is there But I have another amendment pending right now that's been seconded by the mayor. Is do we do I need to withdraw that and come up with some additional some other compromise? Andrea, can you just read back uh council member Andre's amendment? Yes, we have to revise the site plan to retain forest surprise element 25 and relocate forest surprise elements 26 through 30. Reinstate and relocate presumably because right now they're not in there. Yeah, reinstate and relocate. Yeah,

you're it's your call. I just wanted to give you an option if you wanted fewer. Okay. Well, and you know Yeah. I I'm not a parks designer, but I'm just going to say, you know, maybe the elements that are already on an accessible path should stay on an accessible path. Um, this is this is more in the weeds than I ever wanted to be on this. And I'm sorry. And and maybe maybe everyone can agree on that. But okay. Uh, so we have an amendment on the floor. Uh, Council member Weinberg, your hand is up. You have a

Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, old hand. Deputy Mayor Becker, your hand is up. Sorry. Okay. Council Reynolds, your hand is up. Old hand. Sorry. Okay. Andrew, can you please state the the the amendment as currently stated? Yes. I have to revise the site plan to retain forest surprise element 25 and reinstate and relocate forest surprise elements 26 through 30. Okay. Any comments on that? To be clear, are we saving 31 and 32? They were never out. Okay.

All right. Let's vote on that. Okay. I will call the role again. Who's ever sharing your screen? Drop the screen share, please. No, that's Shelby. Sorry. Council member Reynolds. Nay. Council member Sheay. Nay. Mayor Rosenbomb. Hi. Council member Wer. I. Council member Andraw. I. Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Council member Weinberg. Nay. Motion passes four to three. Okay. I think we have one more motion on the floor. with the main motion. We have the main motion as amended to vote amendment.

Yeah. I I I would like to move to direct staff to revisit the playground equipment choices to make sure that at least onethird of the equipment is focused on children in the 5 to 12 age bracket. Someone going to second that amendment. Second. Okay. Made by Council Member Reynolds, second by Council Member Sheay. That sounds like a very substantial change. Correct. Just just so we're clear. Well, I thought I thought that at least that much was already focus. Can you can you talk about that? Can we look at that?

Yes. 60% is um is suitable for ages 5 to 12 as part of this plan. I So, I think that the issue with the distribution graphic is it was intended to show that we have separate areas. So 5 to 12 plus only and the two to five um only but then that blend of that six that 50% is to show that there is overlap and there are pieces for that older age range and the younger piece. So we are achieving the 60% as the site plan is right now.

I I I I understand and perhaps I'm not clear in my amendment. What I'm worried about is I believe it was 54% or maybe it was 51 is for 2 to 12 year olds which will address the needs in theory of 2 to 5 year olds and 5 to 12 but I I want more stuff that is for 5 to 12 not 2 to 12 things that is aimed at older kids only because I I believe and it was Mr. McAnnandrews, I believe, that spoke. I think there's a difference between playground equipment that 2 to 12 year olds can use and playground equipment that 5 to 12 year olds can use. Older kids want to do stuff that older kids do that if it's a playground suitable for 2-year-olds as well, they're going to be bored. And I and I think this uh this park especially being and I recognize it has to serve the whole island and beyond, but it's right next to a middle school and that there should be a lot of program equipment there that is of interest to middle schoolers, not just usable by middle schoolers.

Middle school is not there. Um elementary school and there is and there is a playground at the elementary school. True. Um keep that in mind. I'm not going to be supporting this amendment. You know, this is I think what was put together was very thoughtful. you know, I I have kids that are in these age ranges, and having the ability for them to play on the same area, I think, is important. Um, and I'm really worried if we start segregating this out some more, we're going to um we're going to cause problems. So, anyone else have any comments on this amendment?

Okay, Council L. This is a very substantial change that's being suggested. Um, and so I realize the impact, uh, if this amendment were to pass, uh, I want us all to keep in mind this is for the kids. Uh, that, uh, we want to make sure that we're building a playground. Uh, that, uh, we have a way to include everybody, uh, in the community. Um, and we heard from a, uh, uh, a courageous kid who testified here tonight. uh that he feels less included uh because of the reduction in the equipment that's dedicated to 5 to 12 year olds. Um and I'm really on the fence on this one because I realize this is a huge impact to the project and I don't want to send the I don't want to put us at risk of not getting this grant. Um but at the same time I want to be responsive to our community. We've got uh 5 to 12 year olds that want a place to play. Um, so I'm undecided at this point. I realize I have to make up my mind pretty soon.

Shelby, one of the things, one of part of the feedback we got for feedback we got from the kids was that they they wanted to have shared play areas, right? I mean, that was a big deal with the,200 kids. Correct. Okay. I just want to ground us in that that yes, there was one student who came by tonight, but there were,200 and I think it was like there was a very large percentage, right, of kids who said that that they wanted that. So, um, Council Member Sheay,

yeah, there are actually two students, right? Everyone just talked about one, but there was also a fourth grader um from Island Park. She was also here giving her testimony. Um, and we also got an email from a student as well. So, and you know, you're two to five, like three years of your life, but then you're 5 to 12, you know, seven years. And just like the number of kids who are on this island that are age 5 to 12, it's much more than two to five.

I think it's also helpful to add that we're directly adjacent to the bike skills area, which is also serving the older kids that are going into the park. So, you know, we're providing multiple opportunities within Deans above and beyond the playground equipment that's being provided. We have that wonderful amenity that was built just a few years ago. If this amendment passes, we would you'd have to basically redo the whole plan. Correct.

Yeah. I I was just telling Shelby, I'll wait and see the outcome of the vote and then we can discuss um reappropriating money that was for the capital project to go back to redesign. Um but I'm not going to go there until I can see the outcome. Uh, and since I have the floor, I just want to remind you that this playground is about inclusivity. We did hear a lot of comments tonight about people that love the park the way it is. And I can tell you, I love it the way it is, too. I also walk in on two feet every day. I have kids that aren't faced with challenges. So, I hope we're also remembering the voice of the people that aren't enjoying our parks because that's what's been guiding us, the folks that were here in the wheelchairs that said they can't enjoy the park.

Okay. Council member Shay, do you have a comment?

Oh, yes. Um, you know, I think that was definitely brought up tonight in the community comments that, you know, it's the accessibility and I think everyone agrees that we need to increase accessibility to Dragon Park so everyone can enjoy it, right? And that's why we moved the um accessible trail into phase one. Um, but also, you know, the kids tonight, they feel like they're getting pushed out. That's what they with a lot of courage, you know, came to a room full of adults to express. So, um, just also keep that in mind.

Okay. Um, let's call the role on this and then, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to cap to read back what I captured as the motion is read. Amen. The amendment, Andrew. Yep. Amend the main motion to direct staff to revisit the playground equipment choices to make sure at least onethird of the equipment is focused on the 5 to2 age bracket. Perfect. It was moved by council member Reynolds and seconded by council member Weinberg. Shay. And I will call the role. Council member Sheay I. Deputy Mayor Becker. Nay. Council member Weineberg,

I. Council member Andraw, nay. Council member Reynolds, I. Mayor Rosenbomb, no. And council member Wer, Motion fails three to four. Okay. Any other amendments? I I have some comments to make on the main motion, but not an amendment when it's Okay. Anybody else have Okay. Um, go for it.

I I'm I'm torn here. I just want to be on the record on this. Um, I absolutely am a big fan of making the playground more accessible. There's no doubt that that's a huge priority and a thing we something we definitely have to do. Um, I love parks. You know, these are all great things. I'm I'm also struggling looking at the finances of this and I worry that we've I I feel like we've made a mistake by giving the parks commission uh authority to recommend a design without giving them a budget. And we've got a plan for something right now and and I realize that city manager has and will say that this this is a plan, not a budget. And I and I get that. But they've come up with a plan which which is extraordinarily expensive. And we're a city that is facing huge challenges in the need to to uh replace our public safety and maintenance building. Uh we saw already that the the street fund is projected at the end of six years to be in a $10 million deficit uh right uh right now. Um I've seen a preliminary version of the the capital improvement fund which is showing at the end of I believe 2030 a $20 million deficit. Now that was a preliminary one and they're still working on the design but our finance subcommittee saw that. Um, these are deep, deep holes and I I worry that if we go forth with a plan like this that is public, even though it's not a commitment to spend, it is a vision and a goal that we say we're going to try to do, that we're going to endanger the our ability to pass our public safety and maintenance building. And that's really in my mind a a significant risk and a significant problem. And I I I think it's the wrong message to send to our community right now. Counc.

Um, so the original pros plan um allocated, hold on, let me just find my notes here. Um, about hold on. Okay. The original um pros plan, you allocate allocated about two well $281,000. This is um pros plan from 2022. And then in the bianual 2025 2026 budget, we're now allocating $87,758 from our capital improvement fund, $426,490 from our Mercer Island 2022 parks levy, $165,752 from the King County parks levy, and another 100,000 for other. So when you add that up, that's 1.5 million. We've already spent 200,000 on consultants. And the other um no, not sure we have that. That's just sounds like a pledge. So um that's just, you know, just want to Yeah, just kind of echo what council member um Reynolds was saying. You know, we have a lot of decisions, very difficult decisions to make. Um I know that three three council members are working on the budget to present to the rest of the council members um later on this year and um you know this is and we've heard from community and a lot of emails to the council about this price tag. Um, so just um it also worries me too about when we have to come out to the community asking them for a city bond.

Councilor Wicker,

I will just remind us again that this is a plan and a vision and an inspirational goal to reach. This is the good stuff. This is going to outlast us and outlast the city staff and be a legacy for kids and family members and grandparents and grandkids to to come out of the shadows and be in the playground. We have lots of able-bodied kids that can go anywhere on this island and play. This playground is a jewel and a gem. We all love it. We've all raised our kids here. I absolutely am 100% behind staff and our parks commission on this. This is this is a once in a-lifetime opportunity to create an accessible park for everyone to play. And I'm so proud of the work that's been done on the community outreach, on the planning, and as we've seen from Aubrey Davis, if you put a plan together, you can go get it funded. You can get it built. And no one's going to remember this dialogue and back and forth. We're going to leave something here when this is done in the next five or 10 or 15 years when we finally get the bud budget together. One single small step at a time. But in the meantime, kids of all abilities and all all cognitive abilities can be here and play and sensory abilities. This is so important to have a place where all kids can play. The budget is not the budget. The budget this is a plan. We don't know what it's going to be, but this is a framework to move forward. So, thank you so much for staff for leading us and for Jesse getting us through the process from years ago and this was just an idea as you were our parks director. So, um I'm I understand all the public comment that we've had. I appreciate all the perspectives that came in and leadership is hard but leadership matters especially when you have a chance to step forward and do something really good and bring aspiration into reality. So I'm I thank you so much for all the work staff. Well done

council Weber. So, I I guess I want to uh echo what uh Council Member Wer was just saying that uh this is a plan uh and that uh once as we move forward, we'll start trying to raise the funds for it. I think uh to get to a question that was asked earlier about what happens if we can't raise the funds. That's kind of where the phasing comes in. The stuff that we uh planned for earlier phases is the stuff that gets built first. uh and if at some point we can't raise uh funds then the other phases postpone until we can and if we never can then the later phases don't happen. Uh but as we've seen with Luther Burbank Park it does eventually happen. It takes it in that case decades. Um but we we can get there. I I do think that the phasing is key uh because the stuff that we put in earlier phases is more likely to actually happen. Um, and I'd love to see it all happen uh eventually. I'm not quite as daunted as I was originally when I saw the $9 million figure. I think that the explanation that I've been hearing uh that it's a plan we'll uh we'll work on getting it funded. Uh it's a hard thing to do. Um and we'll have to compete with other things that we need to do, other buildings we need to build, uh other pipes we need to fix, uh other things in the city that uh take priority, albeit from different funds. Uh but uh I I I I'm supportive uh of the plan as a whole. Um I'm worried that we might not get there in my lifetime, but let's try.

I'll just be really quick that uh I spent a lot of time at the playgrounds. Uh I think probably more than anyone else here. Um and the Mercerale playground being accessible is one of the proudest things that I've done on the council. Uh, I remember very vividly having conversations with Ashley where she pointed out things about other playgrounds elsewhere and why they were accessible and what made that work. And it was embarrassing that I hadn't thought about that before. Um, now we have an opportunity with this plan to really invest in in that sort of a bill in in in ensuring that all kids and all families can have a place to play. Um, I cannot say no to that. I I understand it's a big price tag. I understand we have a lot of competing priorities. Uh this is a vision. It's a plan. One of our goals as a council is to do these sort of visionary things. Um so I'll be supporting this. I think it's the right plan. I think it makes sense. I really appreciate all the feedback we got from everyone and I know the staff has taken a lot of that into account already. Um and we'll continue to do so. I mean that that's that's something that I think our team always does really well. um they're problem solvers and I think this is a a opportunity that we have to do something really special. So um Council Reynolds, is your hand up?

Yes. Actually, I I I think this will be the last comment tonight, which I'm sure you'll be all relieved about.

Um I I I recognize the importance of plans. I recognize the importance of big visionary plans. They they inspire, they motivate, they help establish good direction. You know, these are all great things. Um, and I I think sometimes plans even need to be a little bit audacious in order to inspire and make sure you you motivate people to work. I I get all that. But at the end of the day, there has to be some degree of realism. And, you know, I laid out some of the numbers on financial holes that we're facing already. What I didn't mention is that the parks commission has met and talked about Groveland and and Clark Beach Park, and those are both facing a a similar magnitude. I believe it was $6 to $8 million each one plus the soft costs uh for Clark and and Groveland Beach Park and and there we're facing uh not only needs for just general improvements but potential loss of of docks and breakaters and swimming walls there if we don't replace them in time because if those are uh damaged by a storm or otherwise go out of commission we'll quite possibly never be able to replace them uh because of uh new shoreline master regulations and things like that. So, we're setting ourselves an audacious goal if we pass this on its own in view of the other street fund and capital improvement fund challenges, but we're also endangering our if if we try to do this, we may not be able to do the other things for Clark and Groveland. I I want everybody to remember we're making some choices and if this is the priority, that's okay, but it's going to be hard to do all of those.

Okay, anybody else? Please call the RO. We're voting on the main motion as amended. Mr. Mayor, would you like me to read the motion as amended? Sure. Main motion as amended, approve resolution number 1692, AB6902, exhibit 2 to adopt the dean's children's park site plan, and one include the full extension of the accessible path to Island Crest Elementary as part of phase one and two, relocate relocate for a surprise elements 26 through 30. you because you had two motions, they kind of canceled each other out. So nothing was actually removed because you you made the mo you and then you put it back in.

They're relocated. So you all you did was relocate 26 through 30. Just for clarification, I thought there was a an amendment to the motion that took out 25 through 30 and so we had to put 25 back in. But you then did the motion that moved them. So they retained 25 and moved the they didn't they canceled each other. Those two motions kind of canceled each other out. And the re result of the second motion was the relocation of for a surprise elements 26 through 30. Can I just make one very quick?

Go for it. The intention of relocating what was to relocate them to the southern half of the site. I just want to be clear on the record that the idea is not just vaguely relocate them. That the goal is to relocate them out of that area. We can leave it as is, but just have it on the record. I think staff's got that direction. Would you like me to call the role, Mr. Mayor? Please. Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Council member Sheay. I. Council member Androl. I. Mayor Rosenbomb. Hi. Council member Wer. I. Council member Reynolds. Nay. And council member Weinberg. I thank you, Mr. Mayor. Motion passes six to one. Okay, it is getting late.

I have a couple options. Uh we have a consultant that's been waiting to talk to you about the city hall property. I recommend that we do that presentation. He's somewhere around here. I think he can be quicker. and then we may just introduce the tip, not do a PowerPoint and we can come back and pick that agenda item up at the next future meeting. Okay, let's take a fivem minute recess and it will be strictly five minutes.

Council is in recess from 9:24 to 9:30 and the time is now 9:30. Uh, our next item of business is AB6891, city hall facility floor renovation cost estimate and city council directional next steps next steps, excuse me. We welcome city manager Jesse Bond. Oh, she was not here. Sorry. Sounds like we're back. We're back.

Okay. Uh council, I will be very brief. Uh in January, we held a planning session. One of the items that we discussed during that planning session was our our bond measure and some items that you wanted us to come back uh and talk about. One of those was completing the full assessment of city hall, the the replace or repair discussion. And you may recall that we had completed a lot of that work, but we had not pulled it together. There were some other things we needed to do. So, I'm happy to introduce tonight uh Brett Hansen with McKenzie. He is our architect that we brought on. He has a slide deck uh to walk you through. And I think um I encourage you this this should be a discussion opportunity. uh really want you to leave tonight with a good understanding of the condition of our city hall building and hopefully uh we've provided some direction at the end if if you feel inclined to uh pursue that motion. So we've had a long meeting. I think it would be better if I just turn the floor over to you, Brett.

Thank you, Jesse. All right. Uh good evening, mayor, members of the council. It's nice to make your introduction tonight. Uh I do have a slide deck. I'll go ahead and um bring that up. the mic.

Okay, thank you. All right. All right, there we are. All right, so we'll uh we'll go ahead and get started. So, uh, again, uh, as Jesse introduced, I'm Brett Hansen. I'm a principal and architect with McKenzie. So, and, uh, leading our design team, uh, with a host of, uh, talented professionals behind us, as well as consultants. So, we'll go through and and cover that this evening. Here's our agenda. She'll cover the purpose of what we were asked to do and why we're here. Uh, the technical details and our findings, and then, as Jesse indicated, we'll move to recommendations. So Jesse covered uh the purpose uh going through uh evaluating the existing city hall, summarizing those findings and uh seeking your your consideration. So uh being uh new to be in front of you, uh just a little information about McKenzie. Uh we're a design firm here in in the Pacific Northwest, regional offices along the West Coast. I lead our Seattle office uh and we focus on a numerous number of different project types but specifically for uh the last 30 years we've been very focused and specifically on uh public uh facility design uh and we're uniquely qualified to do many of the projects that we have uh that we're doing here uh with you over the course uh of the last few months uh and then what we'll cover this evening. We've had the the privilege uh to work with probably over 50 municipalities here in the region and over 200 projects. So um yeah, so we'll jump right into to what we were asked to do. So as we go through that, we thought we'd just touch a little briefly on the history of this building and uh what

we're what we went into as far as evaluating and considering the existing city hall which we're focused on. So the building is built in the 50s. Uh it was not originally built as as many know. Uh the community may not know this wasn't built as a civic facility. Um certainly not a police facility or emergency management facility. Uh it was built primarily as you can consider it an office building multi-story structure uh until uh the 80s in which case the city took over and amended and and did additions and renovations to the building. Um so this building for all intents is nearly 70 years old. So it's doing well for itself. uh and for what the last 37 years it's it's served uh the city for uh as a city hall until um until 2023 in which case uh it was closed and it's been sitting there um since that time. Uh and we'll go over some of those reasonings. So we were brought on board uh to essentially complete additional facility assessment and evaluation of the existing facility. So our initial tasks uh through this study that we'll cover this evening was to essentially identify uh what additional investigations may be necessary beyond what you've already completed. Uh those those additional assessments that we concluded were the facility conditions assessment covers architectural uh uh and structural assessment as well and then our mechanical, electrical and plumbing assessments which will cover those details as we go through this. And so we visited the site and performed those. Uh the conclusion of those assessments was evaluating consolidating the previous information that you you uh conducted as a city. uh add adding in additional information that we prepared uh through our findings that we'll cover this evening and then using that to provide recommendations and uh identify and prepare a high level cost assessment that you can consider to bring this facility up to current and modern

standards. So we'll just jump right into our initial and high level findings. Start at the 30,000 foot level before we go into the details of uh of what those what's included there. So, just right off the cuff, let's just go right to the brass stacks of of what these these costs um uh include. So, renovating a facility of of around 35,000 square feet, multi-story to uh current standards is not inexpensive. Uh renovating buildings uh are prone and uh include a host of unforeseen conditions and so forth that have to be included. So before we go into the details of what exactly included I just want to touch on and point out the fact that these ranges are high level and there these ranges are total project costs. So these include construction costs which we consider hard costs and they also include soft costs. So all the other ancillary uh elements that go into a facility to make make it whole and deliverable uh for its intended purpose. So so want to point that out as you look at those overall costs. included in those is the is the top line which is your full building and renovation seismic assessment. So that's bringing the building up to current standards. That's the bulk of those costs as you can see there. It's the lion share uh to to address and and uh incorporate the re recommendations or the requirements uh necessary. The added alternate is to uh renovate and uh update the building to effectively serve as your police department emergency uh operations center. So that beyond its current footprint, we recognize that that doesn't that doesn't satisfy the operational needs or the the space requirements of the police department as an example, additional area within the city hall is required to accommodate those needs. Um so that's what the alternate one includes. Uh we can't be uh we'd be remiss not to include exterior at least in and around the building to address security and safety

um for the the department. Um so at alternate two is effectively secure parking uh automated gates and a select number of covered parking. So so key deficiencies uh if we if we let if this was the only slide we really talked about tonight you know this would cover the primary elements that uh that this building faces and we'll cover the details but these are the primary elements. Uh number one is non-airborne asbestous or uh discovered of the hazardous materials resulted in the closure of the city hall. That's a huge proponent. We'll talk about that in more detail. Second is seismic deficiency. Uh we'll cover risk category 4 in more detail once we get to the structural uh segment of of our side deck, but essentially bringing the building up to current standards as necessary for a category 4 essential facility as required for a police department. Uh and then lastly uh the building has age systems. So all the mechanical systems it'll be it will be a consistent theme as we go through the details uh of what that looks like but essentially the bulk of the mechanical electrical uh systems are at near or beyond their current uh or anticipated lifespan. So be as we go look at the get into the details it's important to understand what alterations require. So this is a necessary element because as as architects uh code administrators we have to abide by the international assoc international building code for existing buildings. There's three levels of alterations one two and three three being the most intensive. So how do we arrive at alteration level three uh which contributes to the level of detail or level of improvements that are required at facilities like this? So first we're going to let's start with the removal of the non-airborne asbestous. So there's a tremendous

amount of of effort and investment that have to go into preparation of that. And then this the the significance uh can be um misinterpreted as far as how uh how much work goes into actually removing that. We'll talk in more detail and I've come through that but essentially you got to consider the fact that you demol demolish all the mechanical systems. will cover the fact that it's probably recommended regardless uh in order to prove and bring up your systems uh to current standards. Um in order to get to those mechanical systems and duct work, you have to remove the ceilings. Um the windows and doors have have materials contained within them. So the the envelope has to be addressed and touched and then you have walls, flooring materials, things that are going to be invariably affected. Um and you could say arguably probably close to 75% of the building um give or take. Secondarily, the the police department is what we would consider a higher level risk from an occupancy perspective. So, occupancy change from a code perspective does uh also come into play with regards to alteration requirements. So, the building is going to come up or chapter 10 of the existing building code requires that in fact it's would be considered an occupancy change because the police department's expansion into the building further is going to necessitate that. So that results in a level three. We're going to be touching over 50% of the existing building and the building occupancy is going to increase from a risk and higher end perspective. So I want to point that out. So we as we enter into this there's many of these recommendations are not just suggestions but they're going to be requirements um under that. So uh let's let's go through the detail and take a look at what what's included in this. So we're going to cover just briefly highlight of what the existing building represents, what deficiencies we found in more a little more detail and then what our recommendations are that are included in the cost estimate. So essentially the building was built in

the 50s. We all know that uh is non-combustible at the time three uh from you know at this point in time I think we've had 12 at least 12 building code cycles. So things a lot of things change a lot of things changed from the 80s even from accessess accessessible code perspective buildings around 35,000 square feet and it's includes B and A3 occupancy the deficiencies uh that are prevalent throughout from an architectural perspective u first foremost there's no sprinkler system expensive building even in it current form uh if you improve it it's certainly going to be more so whether it's from a a life safety perspective or protection of your asset um that that doesn't exist and that's that's an important uh element. There's no accessible egress pathway from your basement. Um uh and from an egress perspective, uh fire separations are are limited or or not in compliance with what we would consider today from those occupancy perspectives. um or for what's required of a police department, emergency operations center, lack of signage and wayfinding, emergency requirements, accessibility signage, and then we've of course we've talked about the non-airborne asbestous, all the materials throughout the building that need to be remediated, removed, in other words, and replaced from an envelope perspective. Um the current envelope from the 50s, even if anything was updated in the 80s, doesn't meet current code, doesn't meet current energy code. Uh which have come a long way. we have new technology um which isn't just a code perspective right we know that current code is there to support lower maintenance and higher and lower energy costs which is is a benefit and a value to to you your city as well as your community. Um some of the bigger issues that we also see for your envelope is uh the uh demonstration of the observation of moisture intrusion uh in throughout the building on the exterior deterioration

of the CMU or concrete masonry units um rust and so forth as well as water damage on the inside. I think what's probably more critical to to us as architects and as we went through the assessment is what we can't see when we're looking at buildings of this age. It's not necessarily the things that are on the outside that we we we can see and document um but what's potentially in the walls that concern us. And so um we of course we didn't do any uh destructive testing to look inside those walls, but if if you were to move forward with a renovation, that would be certainly a next step for you. Um additional elements include replacing your windows, doors. We talked about that from from a hazardous materials perspective, but really we're looking at is from an energy perspective. And then lastly, um, insulating your walls. It's like they're not insulated. They don't meet current standards from an injury perspective. And that's something that we identified. Uh, accessibility. Uh, there's a lot of detail and current code requirements uh that are that go into your ramps, your stairs, as far as making those currently uh meet current code uh and accessibility requirements. And the we identify that they do not. Uh there's no accessible regress path between the first floor and the second floor uh as required from title 15. Uh there's quite a few uh occupiable areas on that first floor that are not equitably accessible from that second that upper floor. And then uh the current while you have current restrooms, it's fantastic. They don't meet current accessibility requirements um within the building. They did at some point, but that changes and uh and that's something that we would certainly recommend you address. Um so what do we suggest? These are elements uh that would go that are covered in those costs. So from a building life safety perspective, we recommend a new sprinkle sprinkler system or recommend a sprinkle system at all. Uh abatement removal of non uh non-airborne special material. The re uh complete uh renovation as necessary to support the police department program elements and

operations. Uh accessibility updates include uh the consideration of an elevator uh replacement existing ramps and stairs to meet current code and the addition of ADA compliant restrooms or updates to those restrooms. From an envelope perspective, no surprise we suggest that you uh uh invest in waterproofing measures, your basement walls, improvements to your uh your overall envelope for new windows, uh new exterior doors, flashing, and uh insulation to meet current code. Uh in addition to that uh the roofing needs to be replaced as well as the insulation at that time. So let's go into the bones of your building and what our struct our in-house structural engineers um identified. So uh so existing conditions from a gravity perspective. You have steel trusses, steel roof, metal roof deck. Uh your you have concrete masonry units as your exterior walls that those those trusses bear on. and your foundation is most likely uh shallow uh concrete found footings. Bear in mind that uh based on the age of the building, there's limited existing building uh information from a planning uh floor plan perspective. Uh we do have some, but a lot of this is observations and our engineers have done countless studies such as these and we're very familiar with uh buildings of this vintage. The lateral system is uh unreinforced uh masonry shear walls as well as the roof deck. Uh it mentions your your diaphragm. Uh there's additional systems such as your non-ar load load bearing walls which present internal overturning. Uh see the uh bearing walls at your upper level level have a addition of this concrete canal levered system. It's very unique and interesting. Uh it's not great for your seismic uh resiliency. Uh and then you have some mechanical mezzanines. Those those are not unusual and again none of this is unusual for this type of

building for what it was built for at the time. So um one area to highlight mention we talk about the category 4 uh essential facility. So you see the diagram to the right little buildings. We love this diagram. Our engineers like it. It's it really represents the in simplistic form uh what we would consider as far as classifications go. uh at the at the lowest form these these buildings are designed by code to allow for safe egress out of the building in a seismic event. Second above that is immediate occupancy. So either median occupancy close repair you can get in the building you can utilize it hopefully in short form but it's also that is designed for higher occupancy facilities such as schools or otherwise that have a lot of people in them. Want to make sure that all those people can get out of the building safely. And then the the the most stringent is risk category four which is essential essentially essential facilities. So these are the buildings that we all rely on to stay operational in the event of a seismic event. These are hospitals. These are your fire stations. These are police stations. These are 911 dispatch. All the folks that need to to be able to immediately and stay operational uh to serve our community. So I I mentioned that because it's really important to understand that that's the lens that our engineers are are are looking through and are required to look through and we want them to look through uh as far as recommendations to the existing building. So when we consider this this particular these next two slides, there's a lot of structural jargon on here uh that we're going to talk through. Um but realistic uh at a basic form, those walls are not likely grouted. They're not reinforced to current standards to to to meet what we need or what we're currently designed today. Um they don't provide adequate out of plane anchorage or connection of those of those roof joist to your to your walls. Uh and the connections have those roof of those uh diaphragm as well

as those joists are likely uh underperforming um over and potentially would be overstressed in an event. So what does that mean? It essentially means that as the building needs to move in a seismic event, those elements are going to disjoint from one another. So from a connections or components perspective, it's where your your roof starts to potentially disconnect from your walls and that's where you're going to see potential roof failures um in those instances. So those are those are areas in a seismic event of the building. doesn't mean that it's it's necessarily dangerous. Um, but from a a category 4 facility assessment, that's that's what you're you're facing and that doesn't mean current code. From a building layout perspective, it's an irregular building. So, you're going to see information here that we've highlighted as far as re-entry of corners, um the uh shear wall stiffness, differentials, soft story regularity. What all that essentially means is that the building is as currently designed is present internal corners that in a sizing event are not designed to adequately move with one another. And so they're going to they're going to they're going to get damaged. They're going to start to disjoint or tear apart, cause significant damage to the building. Um the shear walls or the any of the lateral uh elements that are within the building are not adequately placed to support a category 4 facility. And so they're going to result in um a unproportional layout of what those look like. So the building's going to move differently and unproportionally. And then the soft story regular hill essentially means that you have a you have an element just uh under maybe a sip and floor your second floor at your lower floor that is going to fail uh ahead of your upper floor. And then lastly, just want to touch because it's important as far as our recommendations that geotechnical information is is available. uh no surprise that they've identified the

potential for liquefaction within the area. Um and as it pertains to uh to a category 4 facility. We're going to talk about what that means. Um that's not uncommon. We live in the Pacific Northwest. There's a lot of water. There's a lot of s the the um the natural gravel beds that that we need for bearing uh are much lower on this particular site. they're up to 20 to 30 feet in certain pockets, which means we need to get down to those areas in order to support the the foundations adequately. So, what's included in the cost as far as our recommendations go? So, first, right at the top, why why we felt it was important to cover the the geotechnical understanding of of the site is micro piles or deep foundations. um those are those are our recommended foundation system for an existing building because they can get inside those buildings and they can they can uh install those types of pile systems. There's a lot of more I'm happy to come back and answer a lot any technical information you have but I'm not going to go into great detail on that. Other than that they're they're difficult and they're expensive. Um, we're going to require supplemental footings to support additional uh lateral systems such as shear walls or brace frames. Uh, as the building is seismically upgraded, you need to shock create or or reinforce your existing masonry. Uh, it's essentially to uh involve including uh grouting and or uh reinforcement to those to stiffen them. And then we have out of plane connections to those walls, connecting those roof forms to those walls, addressing the diaphragm through fastening and so forth. So a lot of a lot of uh information or a lot of detail will go into that next level uh next step. So we talked about the third bucket of of what needs to be addressed from a a renovation perspective. That's your that's your building systems. Your mechanical and plumbing systems are a bucket in and of themselves. Uh best way to describe your existing systems uh is

that they're a buffet of of options uh that you have ahead of you. So you have you have air handling units, you have heat pumps, you have condenser systems, you have cooling towers, all these things are at their lifespan um either near or beyond um imagine your facilities folks that that have to maintain these, right? Um all these different materials and different systems. So not uncommon over time to see these in facilities. We we look at many many facilities like this um but it certainly doesn't meet current code and it's at at its lifespan. So um other areas that currently exist is that there's no return error system and there's no recur no heat recovery system both requirements of current code. Um other elements uh supplemental systems for your your server rooms and so forth. And then the last item is your uh there's no direct digital control system or DDC uh system that essentially controls all of your systems that you're you're uh managing those effectively efficiently and to the degree that they're that's necessary um and required by current code. So from a deficiency perspective um we touched on this essentially all the systems are are antiquated or out of date. That's a fairly simple um uh assertation on our part. Uh the air handlers are original as well as the heat pumps to the 2000s. If you're like me, that doesn't feel like that was long ago. That was over 25 years ago. Um so they're certainly beyond their their current uh lifespan. And the bo goes for the boiler, the heat pumps, they've been addressed over time and they are operating. Um but the question is for how long? uh from uh we talked about the non-airborne asbestous in those systems. So we recognize that there there from the insulation perspective and the lining that's an issue uh as well as we identify that there's there's insulation issues with regards to your hydraulic

pumps that are uh are supported both through PVC it's not appropriate for and in fact it's it's showing signs of uh sagging and warping so it needs to be replaced. So, and there's three categories here. They're all pretty straightforward. It's probably not surprising that we're recommending or suggesting that the renovation include full replacement of your mechanical systems to meet current code. In addition to that, which would be uh complimentary to addressing the non-airborne asus, is full removal of those supporting infrastructure, which would be your piping and uh duct work. And then lastly, uh complimentary to your mechanical system is of course uh installing a u modern digital control system um and integrating and it gives you the ability to even integrate across facilities in the city. So plumbing uh pro intense it's it's pretty straightforward. So not going to spend a ton of time on this uh other than the fact that you have older systems very it's a common theme here. Uh the electric tile water heers there's a ground s water sump pump. Anytime we see some pumps inside a building that's not an elevator pit. It gives us kind of you know raises red flags for us that there's a water issue that needs to be addressed. Um and then we've identified the existing fixture counts here. Um which for all intents are generally adequate. Um but they're adequate for an existing or for an office building, not necessarily a police facility and so forth. So I'll touch on that here. So the inadequate number of plumbing fixtures for the occupancy of the building effectively means that they're in the wrong places. So for an office building, they're in the public spaces, which is great for the public. We can get to them. Um but for the staff or the police department, they're they're inadequately spa spaced throughout the buildings. The locker rooms in particular for the police department are sufficiently unders sized. Um and then we've touched on uh the accessibility requirements for these um these these uh

restrooms. Brett, what did you think about the salmon pink color of the restrooms? I personally I almost wore a salmon pink shirt tonight, so I I I'm a fan and we just had Easter. So, um, original. Yeah, the original original. Yes. So, stretching the dollar, right?

Uh, for so renovation wise, um, aside from addressing the salmon and pink color, we'd suggest, uh, replacing that the the electric heat, uh, electric water heaters with modern heat pump technology. It would meet current code. addressing your your restrooms for accessibility requirements. Um, adequately uh relocating and building new uh fixtures and and restrooms throughout the building as necessary based on future planning. Uh modernizing your your fixtures to meet current code for low low uh low flow um fixtures and so forth. And then as the building is renovated, of course, you're going to need to address your overall uh repiping for domestic water. So let's go through electrical and the voltage. And these are our last trade systems before we really get to the kind of end there here. So uh ex your existing building uh from electrical perspective. You have your main service gear. Uh your main service gear as well as your distribution panels, all your feeders, everything that essentially runs your building are from the 80s. So they're well past their lifespan. Um frankly, I'm always surprised at how long these things last. uh and they last a long time when you don't touch them, but as soon as you want to touch them, upgrade them, expand them, or otherwise uh uh refit them, that's where you have your challenges. Uh the emergency generator uh is not at its lifespan. It's close. Touched on that. Um and then your uh your your automatic transfer systems that that work there. That's actually fairly new. You might be able to reuse that. Uh your lighting systems are uh fluorescents and incandescent. So we all know where we're going with that one. Um but you also don't have lighting controls within the building uh that meet current code. So the details uh of your electrical there's a lot a lot of information here.

Uh it's they're aging. There's limited availability for those those replacement uh or serviceability of your systems. uh which leads to service faults, breaker failures, nuance strippings, things that are going to be uh challenges or issues should you even had ability to reutilize those facilities for a law enforcement 360, you know, a facility that you expect to operate 365 247, right? Um probably a bigger issue here is you mentioned is the serviceability. The ability to actually find the parts or install the parts or expand these these services to support the necessary requirements of uh an essential facility. Your lighting is doesn't meet current compliance. It's also an energy hawk. So you're probably paying heaps of money when it was operational to to to keep the building lit. there's ballast failures and so forth that are are common with those types of of fixtures um that results in quality issues and safety issues from a lighting perspective. So low lighting uh taskbased lighting this the basic uh use of the building by the occupants as well as the public are affected by those types of fixtures um and the lack of lighting control. So the human centric nature of how these facilities really support how we work in them uh is really important as well as daylight and controls to keep energy cost down. uh your low voltage systems. Uh this, you know, we recognize this is where your current server is, right? This is where the city server uh exists and for all intents in its current condition, it's operating. It's effective. Uh but there are there are challenges and issues potentially downstream that that uh would present themselves with an expanded uh renovation. Uh you do have an access control system and security and you have a fire alarm system. So that's that's some good news. So we didn't come with all bad news. So those those are great. Um now as far as those

sufficiencies go when we talk about this. So cabling category compliance these are things these are terminologies our engineers like to use uh and backbone capacity. I'm sure your IT folks know exactly what we're talking about here. But essentially it's it's the ability for your information to flow effectively without disruption uh and in the in the amount and cap and capacity that needs to um for these types of buildings. D we're only forced to to deal with more data stream, right? It's like it's not going down. It's it's only increasing and we recognize that that's going to be important for your server system. So centralized server system within this building. Um with more data requires more power, requires more cooling and so that's something that is going to be quickly inefficient or insufficient uh to meet your needs. So what's included in all of this? So essentially, you need to address your full electrical systems uh and and really consider a full replacement of those the primary distribution gear, addressing your paneling for expansion, upgrading those um so that you you address potential issues downstream. The last thing you want to do, just like you, you know, going out to your car in the morning, you want it to fire up and start when you needed to. For essential facility like a police station, emergency operations center, you need to be able to rely on that. and replacing these is important to to that reliability and longevity. Um, your generator mentioned that it's it's probably around four to five years from replacement so you have some time out of it. Um, but certainly that's something that you don't want to fail. I think more importantly, it's 100KW generator. We do we've pro we've been involved in over 70 police facilities and I'll tell you what, that's not going to support what you need from an emergency perspective um on a facility such as that. particularly when you're adding an emergency operation center that you need to rely on. So that's going to be an important feature that's included. We all know generators are not inexpensive. Um talked about lighting. So lighting needs to be replaced. They it needs to

be replaced with current modern fixtures for LED. It's probably no surprise there. And then coupled with your uh occupancy sensors, your daylighting, and so forth that are all required by current code. Um while we didn't perform a full uh security assessment of of the facility uh and you do have access control and security systems uh that is something that is certainly going to come up and it's going to be requ you're going to either expand on it or replace it depending on on its level of either antiquation um or to beat it up to current current technology uh for your department. So in summary just to touch on this. So I know we cover a lot of things in a in a abbreviated short period of time this evening. Uh these cover all the primary elements the key features and in more detail beyond those larger buckets. Uh and then we're just revisiting here the the total cost to do that. Um so really where we're at this evening um is your recommendation. So part of our our role obviously is to come in uh and task with compiling this information. And so our our our engineers and our designers, our consultants have all done the the heavy lifting for you so we can present this and we present it in greater detail in the report of course. Um but it's on you of course we're turning it over to you to really consider what that looks like from your perspective or what that value proposition looks like going forward. So, um, so it's really for from our perspective, uh, coming before you as consultants, of course, your your decisions to make, but really it comes down to new versus renovate. You know, what's the value of of doing it right? Um, and that's whether you're doing it right from a new facility or you're doing it right from a renovation facility. But our job this evening or what we were tasked uh by Jesse and and staff was to present to you what it would take to renovate this building the the costs associated to what that

overall looks like and and what you might consider from uh comparatively for that. So with that Jesse take over.

This is my motion. Um based on uh you know the the work that Brett's company performed, it it is my recommendation that you move forward now with uh demolishing the facility. And I have this up here tonight as a motion because we do have an opportunity should you decide to move forward uh with demolishing the building to incorporate that phase of work into the water supply pipeline project that is immediately on the horizon. I have not done that incorporation. I would need your direction tonight if that's where you'd like to go. Know that there's a lot of other work happening behind the scenes. It's not in front of you tonight. We've been working on the 9655 building. We've been working on the next phase of planning for replacement, but we're waiting for direction on city hall. So, while you have Brett here, I know it's late. We've had a long meeting. Um, we can stop screen sharing. You're welcome to ask him any questions you have about the building or the information we just shared.

One of a council member asked me before the meeting and I forgot to relay this to you. Robbie may have if We just wanted to replace the whole HVAC system, right? Because that's where the non-airborne asbestous is. If we really wanted to reuse the building, is that a scenario? You're gritting your teeth. Oh, well,

we we talked about a couple of things in advance and I don't in that that particular one in great detail, but as but I believe I'd say that that would relate to that that alteration conversation upfront. um in order to re it's I mean I like to a car analogy. So it's like it's that that one that one piece in your car that you you have to replace for it to function and it's it's right in the middle. You got to pull the engine, right? You got to you got to put on a hoist in order to do it effectively to get to it. And that's that's similar to to what we would describe as far as your mechanical HVAC systems. Um the other element is like once you start touching that, you're replacing all your all of your ducting your your overall systems. there's associated electrical with regards to that. It's on a roof. Uh so you're going to have you start putting holes in your roof, replacing that. Some of that can be categorized perhaps as maintenance replacement costs certainly. Um but once you get into that, it opens up a whole Pandora's box, a can of can of worms, if you will. That's going to trickle down to additional costs. Uh invariably lead you to to other uh alterations that that are going to be expensive. And that's where it starts to to kind of lead you towards that potential that you're going to trigger additional upgrades uh to that that you that you'll either you want to consider to you know to create longevity out of your facility um or you'll be required to.

Councor I have kind of a similar question because I'm not quite sure I heard the answer I I I won. Um, if our goal was, and I'm not saying this would be a good goal, but if our goal was do the minimum amount necessary to make the building usable like it was before, but without the asbestos in it, I I think what you're saying is we'd have to do a lot of other stuff, but you you don't have the number for what goes with that other stuff. Is that correct?

We I'd say we in fact I'd say arguably we do. um the the simple act of removing the asbestous touches so much of the aggregate area of the building that it it would constitute uh over over 50% of the aggreate building would trigger an alteration three. So even if you took out the occupancy component of it, it would it would arguably trigger an alteration level three which it which would trigger the seismic upgrades. to trigger other elements of it um of the building to bring it up to to to current code which is that top number.

Okay. So so that so everything else required to get it to code and replace failing systems and all that we'd have to do at that point because it's an alterate it's a significant enough upgrade because what I was wondering about was the occupancy rule that you seem to have up there. I I don't think the occupancy would be changing so it wasn't clear to me why that would trigger anything.

No yes thank you. I can expand on that. So uh there we just wanted to ensure that that was understandable. So in the we we also looked at through the lens of uh called an apples to apples right because comparatively it's we're we're looking at that there's a new facility right for a police department which would meet its current its necessary operational requirements which is beyond its current footprint. So the police department in and of itself has a programmatic need beyond what is currently available in its current footprint. So with that said, we would we would envision if that the police department order to support them, they would need to grow outside of their current space further within the city hall building. Once they do that, it's considered additional activity. And that additional activity in space that was not previously occupied by the police department triggers a change of occupancy. and that sh change of occupancy while they're in the built because it's not just the building it's it's anywhere else in the building right if we're just doing a renovation inside the police department nothing else it would not be considered a change of occupancy but as soon as we expand outside of their footprint

but why why do they need to expand that's what I'm missing their police are already there the the police department program does not their current space does not support their operational needs if they were just to simply move back into the Good. They've outgrown that space essentially. Council.

Okay. Thanks. So, I kind of like your car analogy because I was trying to think of one, but you know what the car looks like when it's on the assembly line and all there is is the metal frame and there's no transmission and there's no wheels and there's maybe no roof on it yet and no seats, no steering wheel, no nothing. This is what I'm envisioning that you have in mind for the city hall if we were to renovate it is you need foundational work underneath. You need a roof on the top. You need to reinforce all the walls. You need to strip out a whole bunch of stuff inside that's unstable. You have a concrete box that has no bottom and no top. Am I wrong?

You nope. You're absolutely correct. That's that's a great analogy. And it's if you consider it comparative even to new construction, you're doing a lot of work to get to that just to get to the body of the car, the frame, just to add all that back in. Yeah. My brother-in-law always says when you remodel an old house, you still have 2x4 walls. Yeah. We're My wife and I are finishing a 1920s Craftsman remodel. I feel you. Okay. Thank you. Well, I I think I've heard everything I need to hear. Council Weinberg.

Yeah. Just a kind of a side qu or tangential question. You mentioned uh when discussing the risk of liquefaction uh in the seismic uh area that that we're in and that it would require going down deeper in order to uh uh have a strong foundation. I presume by that you're meaning that a type four building or category 4 building could still be built on this site. You just have to dig down further uh to get the foundation for it. It's not like the site is unoccupiable by a level four building. Right. You are correct. The build the site in itself will support a category 4 building. Okay. Thank you,

Council Member Wer. So the only thing that works is a generator and it's even unders sized. are your ATS is still in good shape. So

bottom line 1957 to current building standards, they get the energy codes, they get the building codes, but in general, the city's grown since then, we need more space for our staff. We need more space for our servers. We need more space for our police, all the functionality. Can you speak briefly and generally about uh municipal use of buildings from 1957 to now and maybe building for the future because I think we're all in agreement this is not a good investment to retrofit 1957 building but we're thinking about what's next. So your professional opinion what do you think?

Well I I think first off it's it it may or may not be a different conversation if it was a 1957 original city hall, right? It's still not going to meet current code, but at least it was hopefully properly planned and and and considered for for laying out the building, sizing spaces, and so forth. Um, but it wasn't. It's an it's a it's insurance building, right? It's it's an office building. And so, it was retrofitted in the 80s uh to to service the city hall. Uh, but for all intents, when you consider how it's laid out internally, it's operationally ineffective. the fact that that the police department is spread out between different floors and there's no elevator, there's no accessibility, there's there's safety concerns and security concerns from our perspective with regards to where the stairs are or circulation. You have to enter in, you have to exit the the the area to get to the lower floor present, you know, I can go on for a while, but they present uh consequential issues that uh that exist. they existed before 2023 and they they continue to exist and present off uh challenges until it was expanded, right, and properly uh uh inclusive of all the program needs of the police department. But no, it it it's it's challenged in a lot of ways. It's just inefficient and and it's going to you're you're going to have extra space where you don't need it and you're not going to have space where you do need it.

We are your hands. Okay. Council, is there a motion to direct the city man? I I still have a hand up. I think No, you don't. Oh, meant to. Can I raise a hand? Sure. I did it backwards all night. Um, maybe this will come up during the demo plan discussion later, but um and if that's so just tell me. But is there anything that can be salvaged for value? Like a 100KW generator I assume is worth 10 or 20,000 bucks or something to somebody somewhere. Are there other things like that that we could sell off? Were you thinking about that salmon pink restroom and do not not so much wanting that but but what is there that could be saved and and sold on eBay or whatever? Anything?

Um there there's a limit limited amount of equipment that is uh still has a usable life. It's going over to the 9655 building. We're doing that evaluation now.

We're going back through and doing the final inventory. You might recall when the building originally closed, the staff we moved out everything we could. We've been in the process thanks to the council um for investing some resources and um digitizing the records that were in the basement. That's we've made great progress, so we have fewer paper records to chase around. Um I don't want to get your hopes up that there's a lot of value and that we're going to be taking to eBay. Um but we it is it is my intent to make use of the equipment that's still reusable. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Good with your motion. Okay. Is there a motion to direct the city manager to prepare a demol demolition plan for city hall and return to the city council for review and approval? So moved.

Second. Okay. Moved by council Reynolds. Second by deputy mayor Becker. Any discussion? Please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Wer. Hi. Council member Reynolds. Hi. Mayor Rosenbomb. Hi. Council member Weinberg. I. Deputy Mayor Becker. Hi. Council member Sheay. I. And Council Member Andrew. I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Should we I I have a thought. Can you guys handle a six slide tip presentation and at least a a short touch on that? Sure.

All right. Next item of business is AB6903 discussion of the 2027 to 2020 2032 transportation improvement preview. Welcome Jason Ker.

Good evening. So I'll just introduce the topic real quick while Rebecca Coralano and Ian Powell, our transportation engineer and street engineer get seated. Uh we have just a very very brief slide deck. Uh this is an annual process that TIP is done annually. Uh this is an important year though as we lead into the budget process as we've talked about tonight. Um I'll just remind the council that we prioritize reinvestment in existing facilities first and foremost with our valuable street dollars. Um and you will see that there is a number of projects listed that have significant grant funding associated to it. As council member Reynolds alluded to earlier, the street fund does go negative in the outy years. This is not an uncommon practice unfortunately just because of the limited resources we have. But your staff team works very hard to prioritize and plan acceling for these capital reinvestments and strategically get them placed. But I will tell you leading up to this exercise this year, there was some finessing that took place uh to balance the budget um the capital budget for these limited street dollars for the next bianium. So um this is a great opportunity to hear from Rebecca and Ian. Um, and if you have specific questions, please feel free to answer ask them tonight and we can come back to you at the next meeting with additional information if that's desired. So that Rebecca, take it away.

And I just want to confirm we had two versions of the PowerPoint. This is the short one, right? Very quick. Awesome. Thanks, Rebecca.

Yeah, I'm just checking that this is on. All right. Thanks, Jason. Uh, good evening, Mr. Mayor, deputy mayor, and council members. My name is Rebecca Coraniano, and I'm the transportation engineer for the city of Mercer Island. The transportation improvement program, also known as the tip, is updated annually by city council as required by state law. Um, goals of the tip include reinvesting in our existing transportation infrastructure, adding new facilities to increase safety and capacity, and maintaining a positive street fund balance. Our agenda for tonight's TIP preview consists of an update on the TIP schedule, program elements and priorities, streets overview, an update on modified projects and new projects, and what our next steps are leading up to adoption of the tip. Schedule-wise, we are in the council review and public hearing stage now that draft development is completed. Also, let me know if my mic is going in and out. Okay, perfect. Uh, from the start of the public comment period in January to the cuto off for today's March uh for today's meeting which was March 19th, we received 32 comments. Um, as of today, we've actually received 63 comments. So, these will all be reviewed and considered leading up to the adoption of the TIP. Some of the feedback includes support of the pedestrian and bicycle facilities plan update in 2026 and 2027, support of the island crestway corridor improvements which starts with construction of the shared use path in 2027 and also a handful of striping and sign signage comments that we plan to address through the neighborhood traffic program this year. Looking ahead, following today's meeting, we'll be incorporating input from council and revising the tip accordingly. Then at the May 5th council

meeting, the public hearing will be continued and the 2027 2032 tip is scheduled for adoption. The first priority of the tip is preserving and maintaining our existing transportation infrastructure. And the second priority is to build new transportation facilities that are necessary for mobility and safety. I would like to note that both the comprehensive plan and CIP budget policies prioritize maintenance and preservation of our existing facilities over new construction projects. And from here, I'll hand it over to Ian, our streets engineer. Um,

good evening, council. Uh, my name is Ian Powell. I'm the city street engineer. Um, so I'm going to give a brief overview of the city street network. Uh, we have approximately 83 and a half miles of city maintain roads and they're divided about one-third arterial, 2/3 residential. Um, each network segment is a different age and therefore different point in its life cycle. Um the city uses a pavement condition index or PCI to help manage the network. Uh PCI survey detects distresses in the street and gives a score from 0 to 100 for each network segment. We takes uh this survey once every three years. The last one was done in the fall of 25 and the next one will be summer of 28. Um the 25 return to citywide satisfactory score. Next slide. Uh we wanted to highlight how we use PCI to prioritize paving projects. Um this slide shows a typical uh life cycle curve of a asphalt street. A newly paved street stays in the good to satisfactory range for some time before it begins to decline. Once it declines, the it declines at a higher rate. Uh so the city prioritizes repaving streets in the poor to fair range in that blue box. Um rehab can be overlays, crack seals or chip seals. Um once a street reaches the failed stage, it requires a full removal and rebuild. Uh and that can cost four to five times as much as a typical overlay. So the priority is it's cheaper and more efficient to rehab streets when they're in that middle range than when they hit the bottom. Next slide. Um this slide highlights some modified projects. I think we'll just have you refer to exhibit B in your or exhibit 3 in your agenda bill. Anything highlighted in blue um has been modified

most of the uh for timeline and budget uh budgets. Next slide. We also added two new projects to this year's TIP. Uh the first is to develop a set of standard details that will begin in 2027. Um this will help define uh how we build our streets and just um I guess develop a a standard set of plans for everyone to follow when they when they do street work in the city. Uh the second project is was developed in coordination with Mercy Island School District. Um this will add sidewalk on 96 92nd Avenue between 40th and 41st and provide a safe route to school. And these two projects are highlighted in red in exhibit 3. Next slide. Um so next steps will receive fe feedback from you today and then at the May 5th meeting present the updated tip with any comments. um provide a summary of any new public comments we've received in the meantime. Continue the hearing that was open today and then adopt the tib.

Any questions? Council member Handro. Yeah, thanks for that brief presentation. Um so I had to step out. There was one gentleman who made public comment today. I don't know if um I didn't catch his name and I actually also only got the last half of his comment so I didn't get the address or the location that he was concerned about. Were either one of you tuned in for that? We were. Yes. And I think I also need to go back through I think we grabbed a 5800 West Mercer Way address. His name was Bob Thorp. I can get you his contact. Perfect. Thank you. Uh but for crosswalk installations, we can definitely evaluate that through our neighborhood traffic program.

Okay. Thank you. Reynolds. Yeah, I just want to make sure I I confirm something. You still are taking public comment and and how long is that open for?

Uh, we have public comment open. I believe since we adjusted our tip adoption date, our cuto off for public comments. I think we have it maybe I think it was the Yeah, the 16th is what I'm hearing. But the public hearing remains open. So and that will remain open through the 5th. So we can receive comments all the way through the council adoption which has been past practice the last few years as well. So I believe the 16th is the cut off for the written comments but then u members of the public can still come to the council meeting on the 5th and provide comment open and testimony as part of the open public hearing. But presumably it would be a pretty unusual circumstance where you would change something on the fly based on what was said at the meeting. Right. Correct.

That you'd want something in advance. So April 16th you said believe it's April 16th. We can confirm that and get back to you. Okay. As luck would have it, I got some a neighbor emailing me about something tonight during the meeting. So, okay. So, Norway. Very, very timely comment. Just you got some time. Okay. Wicker. I'm gonna channel Jim Stanton here and talk about neighbors in motion. Do you want to talk about that a little bit, Jason? Go ahead, Rebecca. Uh, pet stuff.

Uh, we have been coordinating with um Neighbors in Motion, especially with the new shared use path phase one. Um we've had a couple of touch points with them in the last couple of years. Um but we really are open to all public feedback and anyone whether you're involved in neighbors and motions or not. Um we we'd be happy to hear what comments you have. Just a quick correction. Public comments received through May 5th all the way through the public hearing date. So just got confirmation. Okay. Thank you all very much. Unless you have another question, Craig, your hands up.

Well, and and let me just say that maintaining the streets is one of the most important things we do. And you know, I've always said that some of the most important money that's ever spent in this city is virtually invisible to residents because it's water and sewer and streets. And I I hope you don't think we're giving you short shift because it's late, but we do appreciate the attention that you give to the streets and the engineering and the maintenance and so um our our gratitude is bigger than the length of the presentation. Yeah, it's the hour is late but but we do obviously do appreciate this.

Okay. Uh we now move to other business and planning schedule. No updates. No updates. Uh any I'm not we're not doing this. Okay. Council reports. Anybody have anything to report? Deputy Mayor Becker. Nothing to report. Council member Wer.

Yes. In fact, uh SCA I think it's tomorrow night. I have a another commitment. So Julie's going to be there, but they're are discussing the wastewater treatment division rate increase. They sent you all an email. Staff is following this closely. We all know rates are going up everywhere endlessly all the time in the utility sector. Um, so we just need to provide Julie the council thumbs up to yes, we support the letter to ask them to not raise rates so much without due process and consideration of everything else that's going up. Sounds right to me. Yep. Amen. Okay, have fun. Julie, have have you have you provided the letter to us? Yeah. Okay. And it's always on the SCA website. It's a big percentage increase.

Council Weinberg.

Uh, yeah. So, uh, Alana, Craig, and I attended the electeds outreach committee of the King County Cities Climate Coalition yesterday, uh, and we had a healthy turnout of 18 people to welcome back the delegation from King County, which had some familiar names in it. Marissa Chavez, uh, Megan Webb, uh, Cassie Berley, Matt Kuharic, Terry Sullivan, and Ross Freeman. Uh so Terry Sullivan gave us a walkthrough of his work on the uh buildings and energy uh as as the buildings and energy manager from the uh King County Department of Natural Resources. Uh and in partnership with the energy smart east side program and Seattle's clean heat program. Oh, and the energy shoreline program. King County is going to be uh continuing its work to deploy the $50 million federal grant for building decarbonization. They had 100 uh heat pump installs in 24 2024 and 134 of them in 2025 and so hopeully hoping to exceed that in 2026. In addition to the heat pumps, uh they are have projects that do uh water heat pumps and uh weatherization appliances and planning to help across a broad spectrum of single family residences, multif family, adult family homes, and community spaces. And then Ross Freeman, who's now the electric vehicle program manager at King County's fleet division, uh gave us a glimpse at King County's plans to expand the availability of chargers in single family and multif family homes, as well as expanding the availability of public fast chargers. In addition to lowincome areas, priority will be given to the elimination of public charging deserts and uh that and the fact that Mercer Island already has

two locations with underground cabling and conduits already available should also increase the odds of Mercer Island being added to King County's public fast charging plans. We will see. Uh my next open public uh brunch will be at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 18th at Valhalla Sandwiches. That's at uh 26:30 77th Avenue Southeast. As always, everyone is welcome. Uh it's an open agenda. New sports, weather, humor, anything you like. Uh all I ask is that everybody please show their respects to the chef by ordering some food and or beverage and let me know if you're coming so I can reserve enough tables. Council member Reynolds,

I had lots to say about the last parks commission meeting, but I think we covered it all tonight. Um, but I I just would note that it was two four and a half hour meetings in a row on top of the five-hour meeting tonight. So, I feel like I've done my duty on that. But they also besides talking about the uh uh all the stuff with the the vision for for uh dean, sorry, I'm going a little stir crazy at night. They also reh voted to approve a new athletic field use policy. uh the details of which at this point in the day I can't remember but it was approved. Uh council nothing to report. Council Shay

um yeah so last Sunday I took the light rail for the second time with my family and um I saw a security guard there and I asked him oh how often are you here? So, basically, he said there's a security guard from Sound Transit um at the platform from 4:00 a.m. until 12:30 a.m., you know, past midnight. And then from 12:30 to 4:30 a.m., there was a police officer from Sound Transit. Um and I took the the light rail. It was a, you know, actually I parked um at the parking ride. There's plenty of parking on a Sunday afternoon. Um and yeah, it was a nice ride with my family and um yeah, so our mayor, you know, did an interview with KO and mentioned that city officials are exploring other possible solutions like shuttles, shared ride services or private public partnerships to introduce additional um parking and um and you might have seen some signs around the island about vans share opportunities for sharing the ride to the light rail station. So five or more people with similar route and schedule split the driving duties and costs and you can go to kingcount.gov GV/fansshare for that. Um and um in the article it just mentioned you know that um in late August there'll be two additional bus routes beginning service on the island. Um so there's going to be a new route 215 and a revised route 218. Um so yeah so that'll be interesting to see where that goes. Um I am taking another light rail ride on May 7th. Um that's a Thursday. I'm leaving the SouthN QFC around 10:45 a.m. and you know taking it to Pike Place Market. So if you'd like to join me um you know just uh go on light rail with a council member. I'm happy to have you and um yeah I think that's it for today. Thank you.

Uh great. I don't have anything to report. Uh, the next reg regularly scheduled hybrid city council meeting will be on Tuesday, April 21st, beginning at 5:00 pm. Time is now 10:34 p.m. As a reminder to the council, please stay seated until city staff has terminated the broadcast. Good evening and thank you for joining us.