City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the May 5th, 2026 city council regular hybrid meeting. I'm Mayor Dave Rosenbomb. Tonight's hybrid city council meeting is being brought to you in person and by Zoom. We're also broadcasting in the city's YouTube channel and MITV channel 21. Welcome to all and thank you for joining us today. 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 here. Council member Sheay here. Council member Reynolds here. Council member Wer here. Member Wer, I couldn't hear your response. Here. Thank you. Council member Weinberg here. Deputy Mayor Becker here. And Mayor Rosenbomb

here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. There is a quorum present. Please note that council member Andrew has joined us via zoom. Next we have the pledge of allegiance. Council, if you have joined us in council chambers, please stand and face the flag. If you have joined us via zoom, please mute and turn off your video to ensure that the US flag is visible. Please join council member Shay 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. Okay, we now move to the approval of today's agenda. If there are no questions, may I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second.

There's a motion by council member Wyberg and second by council member Reynolds. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Sheay, I. Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Council member Weinberg, I. Council member Androl. Hi, Council Member Reynolds. Hi, Mayor Rosenbal. Hi. and council member Wer. Hi. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. The motion passes 70. Next on the agenda, we have the city manager report. Welcome city manager Jesse Bond.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Happy Tuesday. All right, Casey, next slide. And one more for me. There we go. Uh council, here's just a look ahead at the upcoming city council meetings as well as your upcoming board and commission meetings. A reminder that we keep uh all of our meetings and the schedule updated on the city's website which is on the link at the bottom of the slide. Next slide. Also, another reminder, this Friday is the application deadline for board and commissions. We are doing our annual recruitment. Uh this is for positions whose terms expire at the end of May. We have quite a few expiring terms. Arts Council, three positions. Open Space Conservancy Trust, two positions. Parks and Recck Commission, two positions, and the Utility Board, two positions. Uh so any uh efforts or assistance you could uh make in helping us bring in a couple more applications by Friday, that would be great. And the link for the application is there on the bottom of the screen, also on our website. Next slide. I wanted to just give you an update on our SCADA system replacement project. SCADA is the acronym. We love our acron acronyms in city government, don't we? Uh supervisory control and data acquisition is what SCADA stands for. This is the system that we use to provide monitoring. monitoring, real-time monitoring and remote control of all of our sewer pump stations uh while also maintaining uh resiliency and reliability. So, uh this project began back in January 2023 to modernize our uh multi-deade old system. So, we have installed a new flow meter at pump station 11 that's taking place this

week. Uh we are planning for a brief shutdown of that pump station while we are working on that installation. Sorry, I meant to say that is happening, not that it has happened. And this is one of the final steps needed to complete all of the work that we've been doing on the SCADA system for the last three years. So I think we'll be coming to provide you with a a summary overview of this project that's been going on for quite some time. But I wanted to let you know we've got some work on deck that uh will impact sewer operations. Um but we don't expect an impact to the residents. All right, next slide, please. I wanted to share um a little field trip that our staff took last week in partnership with Hope Link. our YFS senior services specialist Marjgerie Carlson coordinated a field trip uh for seniors that wanted to learn how to use the light rail. Um which I think once you've done it once it's actually really really easy. So uh that was a great experience and we're hoping to provide more opportunities for seniors on Mercer Island. So thanks to Marjorie and Hope for coordinating uh that outing. It sounds like it was a lot of fun. Next slide. Under the big top. Hey, a shout out. We have uh for a very long time uh Mercer Island Preschool Association has been holding their annual circus here on the island. I think they just celebrated an important anniversary like 50 years maybe. Uh last weekend uh they held the circus and hosted sounds like over a thousand attendees. Uh the city was there wanted to say thanks to public works staff for hosting the touch a truck event. The police department and east side fire and rescue were also there with vehicles for kids and

families to explore and the recreation team hosted an event as well. A super important partnership between the city and the preschool association and we thank them for including us in the event this year. All right, council. Just a quick look ahead. I saw this slide earlier today and the title cracked me up. Chit chat chew. There I I I said it. This is a a senior a lunch for seniors. Senior community lunch here on Monday, May 11th from 11 to 1. It's free. We just want to invite our s senior community into the center here for lunch and friendship networking and we'll certainly provide them with an opportunity uh to learn about all the services that are available to them uh through the city and other partners here uh in the community. This event is uh hosted by the community fund, the foundation, YFS foundation and youth and family services. And I think that might be my last slide. Oh, one more. Uh, going the other direction for the younger generation. Although any age is welcome. May 15th, we are doing another family movie night. These have been really popular. Uh, we sell out every time. Uh, this will be a throwback to the original Toy Story, which can you believe that came out in 1995. That is seems like forever ago. All right. Uh, so we're doing a throwback. We're watching the Toy Story movie. Uh, everyone is welcome. Uh we do require registration on our website because uh the event sells out. So May 15th, 5:00 p.m. here at the community center and there's a note that Toy Story 5 is coming out in June. So something for us all to look forward to. All right. I think that might actually be my last slide now. Nope. All right. Thanks. Oh, this is exciting news. You know, uh,

as a city, thanks to you, city council, and some really talented staff, uh, we have been leading, I can say that with confidence, leading the effort in the state to provide better regulations for e- motorcycles, also known as e-tos. We were heavily engaged uh, last year and this year in the legislative session and doing a lot of work behind the scenes. uh a bill passed this year um that forms a working group to help revise the statutory framework for regulating these types of um vehicles also known as emotives as I just mentioned. Uh the association of Washington City has a seat at that table and they asked Mercer Island to serve as the AWC representative to uh the stakeholder group and that just is a very distinguished honor. So we have assigned uh management analyst Amelia Chaden to serve in that role and it's amazing. She's done so much re research but she is really one of um the most knowledgeable individuals about uh these bikes, these motorcycles and the regulations around the country. So I'm really proud of us and I'm proud that Amelia will be representing the Association of Washington Cities on that work group. So I wanted to share that with you tonight. Okay. Now, I think that is actually my last slide. All right. Thank you.

That is some great news. I was at a city just to the east of us last night and someone went by on an emoto and someone said, "Someone should do something about that." I said, "Yep." Okay. Uh, our next item of business is appearances is the opportunity for anyone to speak at the city council on any item except items requiring a public hearing, any cause judicial matters or campaign related matters. City clerk, is there anyone who has signed up for appearances that wishes to address the council? Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Tonight's agenda will include inerson public appearances and remote public appearances via Zoom. Individuals wishing to address the council may do so in person or by Zoom, provided they register with the city clerk by 4 p.m. this afternoon. When is your turn to speak, you'll be called by name. Remarks must be addressed to the council as a whole and not to individual council or staff members. Any person making personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks or who comes boisterous, threatening, or personally abusive while addressing the city council may be requested to leave the meeting. Please speak audibly and state your name and city of residence for the record. There will be a timer on the screen. You'll have 3 minutes to speak. When your time is ended, your microphone and video will be turned off. I will thank you for your comments and move to the next speaker item of business. Staff, please promote the first speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our first speaker tonight is Jim Tersza.

You can go to the podium, Jim.

Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Jim Tahar. I live on 7239 East Mercer Way with my family. My wife is here. Uh I'm here to speak to you regarding city of Mercer Island code MIC19 1050B is the tree code as currently written. This pro uh this provision prioritizes tree health ecosystem and slope stability. This code prioritizes such items without considering enough attention to property or human safety. I respectfully request that the CD consider amending this code to ensure that protection of property and human life is given appropriate weight when a tree present a demonstrable hazard. We recently applied for a permit to remove four large trees from our property. Uh our property includes 50 mature trees. We have been asked to hire an arborist to say that the trees are hazardous. Neither of the two arborists that we hired will say that the trees are hazardous because they are healthy trees. They say that there is nothing in the city code that tells them the definition of a hazardous tree beyond the health of the tree that they know. The arborist does not know weight effect of a tree too close to a basement ball either, which can be considerable. My application would fail if only an arborist does not provide a report saying that the tree trees are hazardous

even if a professional engineer may say so. because of the weight of the tree on the basement wall, for example. While our trees are healthy, their size and proximity to this structure creates significant and ongoing safety hazard. During the storm, especially these trees pose a serious threat to our home and the safety of my family. The 20 ton weight of one tree is imminent danger to collapse of the basement wall which is built in 1955. For this reason, I ask the CD to revise MIC1910B to allow property owners to remove trees that present clear property and or safety hazard by their size and proximity to a property even if the trees are otherwise healthy. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker tonight is El Elizabeth McAui. Hi, I'm Elizabeth McCauley and I am a resident of Mercer Island and I'm here just to thank the council for issuing a proclamation that is going to help promote safe uh safe boating here in the next um season. Starting in May, on May 16th, there is National Safe Boating Week and you are going to be issuing a proclamation that is going to encourage people to uh recreational boating safety. So, thank you very much on behalf of Flotilla 22 of the uh US Coast Guard Auxiliary. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker this evening is Addie Smith. Hello. I don't know if you guys can see me. I can't see anyone. We can see you.

I want to talk about three things. The first is going to be how Mercer Islands Municipal Court Judge Jeff Gregory has committed perjury. And here is his statement. Your right to counsel will be lost if you engage in acts that create this situation right here where your attorney is needing to withdraw based on your accusations, unfounded accusations at least by the court at this point about your about her representation of youth. So, you've been warned both of both the consequences of uh not engaging in professional relationship with your current counsel, Miss Hutcherson, and that you could and will lose your right to counsel going forward by public appointment. This statement made on the bench by Judge Gregory is perjury. I'm going to also provide all of the court dates that Judge Gregory um was before the bench and I was present to prove that Judge Gregory committed perjury. And these city council members have continued to allow me to be prosecuted for crimes that I did not commit. Judge Gregory didn't become the judge until June 14th, 2021. I had court dates November 27th, 2019, December 9th, 2019, February 10th, 2020, September 14th, 2020. Uh then Judge Gregory came on on June 21st, 2020, I'm sorry, June 14th, 2021. Then I had a hearing June 21st, 2021, August 9th, 2021. December 13, 2021. March 1st, 2022, December 1st, 2022. That was when uh my attorney, Miss Hutcherson, requested additional funding, and we had another hearing December 5th, 2022 by phone. December 12th, 2022, the motion for additional

funding was denied. On January 17th, 2023, we had another hearing December on February 28th, 2023. the court the court and public defender intentionally called a wrong number for a hearing. They had the correct phone number and my attorney who did no longer want it to be my attorney um didn't give them the correct phone number and then on March 2nd 2023 attorney Hutcherson filed a motion to withdraw and on April 11th 2023 a bench warrant was filed. This court has been suppressing hate crimes and doing everything in its power with the support of these city council members. This is when Benson Wong was was a mayor and then um Selene Meie was a council member minus the two new people. They have been lying and suppressing hate crimes and I'm going to I'm going to post every video of the hearings to social media to show people that these city council members are liars and racists. Thank you.

Our last speaker tonight is Jim Stanton. Am I on? Hey, Jim. I can see you.

Uh, my name is Jim Stanton. I've lived on Mercer Island and my wife and I have lived on Mercer Island since 1985. and I want to speak. Well, before I do that, I'm on uh the steering committee and a founder of Neighbors in Motion, which works on safe bicycling and non-automotive transportation on Mercer Island. I'd like to simply express my uh support and our support for the TIP plan uh in front of you tonight that was created by uh provided by city staff. Um, we're particularly uh in support of the shared youth use path along Island Crest Way. And I think it's worth noting that this is the 30th anniversary of that uh project being recognized by the city uh by the 1996 uh city bicycle pedestrian plan. It's also the 14th anniversary of the night of the 2010 uh city bicycle pedestrian plan uh that called that again called for a need for safe bicycle passage down the center of the island. Um it's also interesting that this year is not only the 30th anniversary but the light rail station is opening and parking is a concern in the city center. Um it creates uh there's been pressure for kids uh concern about kids in the parks because our roads aren't safe and they uh parks are a safer way for kids to transit. And there's funding available this year in the form of grants uh because of the

two or three-year-old state transportation plan which provides unusual funding for bicycle infrastructure projects. That's not going to be here forever, but it's unique to have that kind of state support. Uh so I think it's wonderful and we are in support of it. We're also in support of the new uh bic of doing a new bike ped plan particularly if it provides priorities and timelines which the previous plans have not had. That's it. Thank you. Uh enjoy the nice weather. Thank you. There are no further speakers this evening, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you. We now move to our next item of business. Approval of the consent agenda. City clerk, please put the consent agenda on the screen. Okay. The consent agenda agenda contains nine items which are available on the screen and have been in the agenda packet for review. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Moved by council member Weinberg and second by councelor Reynolds to approve the consent agenda. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Wer. I. Deputy Mayor Becker. I, Council Member Weinberg, I. Council member Reynolds, I, Council Member Sheay, I,

Council Member Androl, I. And Mayor Rosenbomb, I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay, motion passes. 7 nothing. The city council will now go into executive session for approximately 45 minutes to discuss with legal counsel pending or potential litigation pursuant to RTW, RCW42.30.1101.I, I the city council will be in recess from 5:22 until 5:27 p.m. The city council will convene the executive session at 5:27 p.m. until uh five sorry 6 uh 6:05 p.m. Start 6:15 p.m.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 15 minutes until 6:30 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 15 minutes until 6:45 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your continued patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 10 minutes until 6:55 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your continued patience. City Council will continue an executive session for an additional 10 minutes until 7:05 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 5 minutes until 7:10 p.m. Thank you.

City Council is was in executive session from 5:27 p.m. until 7:10 p.m. Our first item of regular business is AB6918 Putranound Regional Council General Assembly voting delegate council. The PRSC General Assembly will be meeting on May 28th, 2026. I know Council Member Sheay is planning on attending this meeting. Is anybody else planning on attending um and want to be our voting delegate? Okay. Well, council, is there a motion to appoint Council Member Shay as a voting delegate to the PRS PSRC General Assembly on May 28th, 201? So moved. Second.

Okay, that was close. It was moved by uh Council Reynolds and seconded by Deputy Mayor Becker. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Androl. I. Deputy Mayor Becker. I. Council member Jay. I. Council member Wer. I. Council member Weinberg. I. Council member Reynolds. I. And Mayor Rosen. I. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you. The motion passes 70. Our next item of business is AB6919, continuence of the April 7th, 2026 public hearing adoption of the 2027 to 2032 transportation improvement plan program, excuse me. Okay. The public hearing is now open as of 6 7:16 p.m. Individuals who register with the city's clerk's office before today may make a public comment on this agenda item. You'll be 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 there anyone who signed up for the public comment that wishes to address the council? Mr. Mayor, there was no one who signed up to speak during the public hearing.

Okay. Well, the public hearing is now closed as of 7:17 p.m. Okay. And we welcome public works director Kelly. Hildy. Okay. I realized I never pronounced your name out loud, so now I know. Thank you.

Okay, mic test. Great. Well, good evening, Mayor Rosenbomb and city council members. I'm Kelly Hildy, deputy director of public works. Joining me tonight is Ian Powell, the city's street engineer, who is available to help answer questions following the presentation. We also have our finance director um in joining us as well. We have a few slides this evening to provide a brief update on the 2027 uh 2032 transportation improvement program our TIP since our last meeting. Next slide. At your April 7th meeting, staff presented the draft tip and opened the public hearing which continues tonight and has been closed as shown on this slide. We're now at the final step in the process with adoption anticipated this evening. Next slide. Since that meeting, we've received additional public input. One resident one resident requested a new crosswalk near the 5800 block of West Mercer Way to better connect pedestrians to nearby trails. Staff will evaluate this request through the neighborhood traffic program and will also consider broader pres uh pedestrian improvements in this area as part of upcoming updates to the pedestrian and bicycle facilities plan and the parks recreation and open space plan. Both efforts will be underway later this year. In total, we received 69 public comments during the comment period, including 37 submitted after the April 7th meeting. These comments are summarized in exhibit 3. Based on this input and prior council discussions, no changes were made to the proposed tip project list. So the scope, cost, and schedule remain unchanged.

One update worth noting is that the 2025 pavement condition index or PCI map has now been finalized and is shown in exhibit 7. It shows a slight improvement in overall roadway conditions with the network score increasing from 75 in 2022 and 78 in 2025. This reflects both recent pavement investments and improved data collection methods. The updated PCI supports the project priorities and timelines um included in the tip. Next slide. Following adoption, staff will submit the tip to the Washington State Department of Transportation as well as the Puet Sound Regional Council by July 1st. And with that, the recommended action tonight is um is to adopt the 2027 2032 TIP as presented. That con uh completes our overview and we're happy to take any questions.

Kelly, I have a question. that 78% number or that 78 score. I know we've talked about this in the past, but can you remind me do we is there a target that we have for that or is obviously that number fluctuates, but do we have like a a goal that for that every year? Uh we don't necessarily have a target. Um our goal is to at least maintain that number or improve that number. Um I would say we've been meeting that over the past three or four times we've taken the PCI score which is every three years. So last 10 12 years. Um but as for a specific target number we don't I don't think we have a set number.

Great. Thank you. Anybody else? Council member Shay has her hand up. Um yes, I just want to um thank the staff for this process and the community community engagement. I that's really wonderful. We had 69 members of the community give input online and you know I've looked at it. It's very detailed and so really appreciate the community for doing that and we also had one person give input in person. Um, and I I think in general the community seems very excited about addressing that missing link on Island Crest Way, especially as we now have the light rail. People are trying to figure out how to get there and this would really help to um provide that access to our community and um so having that shared use path, the phase one of that, you know, from um Southeast 60th to Island Park School. Um, so that will help a lot and thanks also for the staff to get for getting that grant from WashDOT of $743,000. So, um, just thank you for for this this process. Thank you,

Councelor Reynolds. I was going to say basically the same thing, but I've just note in particular that the fact that staff takes the time to respond individually to every individual comment is amazing and wonderful and the sort of service that I don't imagine many cities do. So, thank you. I'll third that comment. Anybody else? Okay, council. Uh, is there a motion to adopt the 2027 to 2032 transportation improvement program as shown in exhibit one? So, moved. Second was moved by council member Andrew and second by deputy mayor Becker. City clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Reynolds, I. Mayor Rosenbomb,

I. Deputy Mayor Becker, I. Council member Sheay, I. Council member Andraw, I. Council member Wer, I. I think maybe I heard an I. I. Yep. Council member Weineberg. I Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Motion passes 7 nothing. Our next item of business is AB6921, fiscal year 2025 year end financial status update and budget amending ordinance. And for that, we welcome finance director Matt Morn.

Good evening, Mayor Rosenbomb, members of the council, uh, city manager Bond, and members of the community that are joining us remotely. I'm Matt Mornick, your finance director, and tonight I'm going to provide a summary on the city's financial position at the end of fiscal year 2025. Next slide, please. We're going to go through 22 slides beginning with a recap on the general fund's performance uh before we go through an overview of both the fund balance and long-term liabilities for the general fund and other city funds at the end of December 2025. We reached a major milestone in 2025 um with the city being reimbursed over $10 million per the 2017 Sound Transit Settlement Agreement. So, we're going to provide a recap on on how those resources were invested within the community and then we're going to wrap up with a handful of proposed budget appropriations for the city council's consideration uh that are included in the budget amending ordinance uh exhibit two of our agenda item tonight. The information is dense. Um so, I will pause at natural breaks uh for questions uh throughout the deck. Um, and I just want to thank Lan Tuttle, deputy finance director. Ben Schumacher, our financial analyst, too. They're both joining us remotely tonight. Uh, and I also want to thank Mel Thomas Shad. She is a senior management analyst. Their collective efforts help pull together the information that we're we're going to go through tonight. Next slide. As the council is well aware, uh the 2025 2026 bianial budget was adopted in December of 2024 and it serves as the city's primary road map for policy as well as public spending in the current 2-year period. At a high level, it outlines the goals and objectives that

the staff has been assigned to accomplish in uh the bianial work plan that's included in the budget and it allocates the staff and the financial resources to to bring those goals and objectives to light. Council oversees the budget and frequently makes changes to the budget as needs evolve during your public meetings. And so finance packages all those adjustments into budget amending ordinances similar to the ordinance before you tonight. Ordinance number 26-04. Next slide. Each spring staff present financial analysis for the prior fiscal year. Uh the purpose of this is threefold. We want to offer a clear picture on the city's financial position at the end of the previous year at a point in time. This really informs the policy decisions and the financial decisions that the council is making with the city's limited resources in the in the current fiscal year 2026 as well as laying the groundwork for the significant work that we have ahead of us to build out the next bianial budget, the 2027 and 2028 budget. Work is already underway on that and we are going to present the preliminary draft budget to the council in uh the end of September of this year. Next slide please. The uh general fund recorded over $40 million in revenues which amounted to 93% of the amended budget. The key drivers of variance includes sales tax, business and occupation tax, and investment uh our earnings on the city's investments that are nested in the local government investment pool. I'm going to walk through in the next few slides and provide some more context into what happened with those three revenue streams, but overall it resulted in

about $1.2 million in additional revenues that exceeded our budget estimates, our budget expectations. On the other side of the ledger, we spent $42 million of the general fund expenditure budget that amounted to 99% of the budget authority as granted by the city council to staff. If you look back at the prior four years, on average, the organization uh spent about 96% of the general fun expenditure budget. And so this 99% figure really speaks to the volume of work um that is is being done. Um and that that we we came right up to that line on the the full budget authority in the budget amending ordinance tonight is uh two uh budget carry forwards, excuse me, carryovers. They're minimal amount to about $41,000 and they're tied to uh work to uh update the city's comprehensive plan as well as police police technology upgrades uh per council actions that were made in 2025 to appropriate resources to do this work. But the work is continuing and will be completed in in in 2026. Next slide. Sales tax. Uh back to our one of our strong performing revenues. Um, this chart uh is somewhat hard to see, but it provides a 10-year look back on the overall performance of general sales tax revenues that come into the general fund over the over that 10-year period. In 2025, revenues exceeded our budget estimates by about $270,000. Um, and this is this is good. This is something we want to see that um we were wrong in the right direction and it was within a 4% variance of of what we had budgeted. Um overall when you look at

this this line graph you'll see that there's year-over-year positive revenue growth. Um in 2024 there was a dip um that in in overall revenue that wasn't tied to the the amount of revenue that the city brought in. It was tied to our change to cash basis financial reporting. So there was an impact on the timing of the revenue not the overall amount. Um and then in 2020 in 2017 there was there was another subtle dip and that was tied to a slump in the construction sector and the resulting sales tax revenues coming from from that sector. Um we we can track um sales tax activity um by sector in in exhibit one of the the financial status update. Next slide. Business and occupation tax revenues exceeded our budget expectations by a significant number. Um $640,000 um which um was nearly $400,000 more than we saw come in in 2024. This 10% tax on gross revenues um for businesses that earn more than $150,000 a year. Um, and if businesses uh bring in more than a million dollars a year in gross revenues, they they file their tax returns uh for BNO tax quarterly. Uh, our financial analyst uh Ben Schumacher pulled this graphic together. Thank you, Ben. Um, and it it was just part of us trying to to get a sense around what exactly happened um in 2025 with this revenue stream. Um the blue bars represent the total revenues and they uh per year and they tied to the left yaxis and uh the purple line graph informs the council on the total tax receipts or the total tax returns that

were filed in that respective fiscal year. Um there are a lot of factors that um influence the total BNO tax revenue that comes in in a calendar year. Um, and we we can talk more about that um, when we bring the revenue forecast to the city council, but I think the key takeaway in 2025 was that we had a historic high of BNO tax revenue that came in. And in part that was tied to there were there were more tax filings uh, in 2025 than in the prior year. And there's just uh, higher thanex expected economic activity within the region. Next slide. This a big fan of line graphs. So this line graph is over a two decade look back on uh the city's uh interest earnings tied to funds that are invested um tied to funds from the general fund that are invested in the local government investment pool. Uh in 2025, we brought in $274,000 more in uh interest earning revenues for the general fund than we had anticipated. Um however, when you compare what came in in 2025 relative to the prior year, you'll notice that there was a significant drop. Uh 2024, that $2.1 million figure represents the city's all-time high of uh interest earnings. This decrease from 24 to 25 really is attributed to lower levels of idle cash reserves as well as a a lower earnings rate on the funds that have are invested. And so in 2024 at the end of the year December 2024 the LGIP earnings rate was about 4.6% and by December 2025 it dropped to 3.8%.

So, the key takeaway here, um, there's a lot to look at, um, on this on this graphic, but I think the key takeaway is that interest earnings between 2023 in 2025 have really proven to be a stabilizing force for the city's general government operations. Next slide. Okay. Um, fund balance. It's an accounting term. We use it often. We talk about it often. And as the council is aware, it refers to the net difference between a fund's assets relative to its liabilities at a point in time. The city's uh financial management policies distinguish between these different categories of fund balance that are are illustrated on this slide. And I'm not going to walk through each one in detail, but what what essentially uh the financial management policies do is they distinguish between resources that are reserved based on states regulatory laws or prior city council actions that are in our either financial management policies or our city code um versus resources that are available. They're unassigned. Um, so at the end of 2025, the general fund had $10.4 million in total fund balance. Once you remove the 5.3 million that has been um committed res or is restricted or it's non-spendable or it has been assigned per council policy, there's a $5.1 million remaining in uh available fund balance. Next slide. So what is the basis for this figure? How did it come to be? Um this table provides just a brief summary on the key factors that led to that $5.1 million figure. And most of it is due to

the um to unspent prior year available fund balance that the council demonstrated uh fiscal restraint. Um in 2024 we had a $5.2 million unavailable fund balance. Most of those funds 3.4 4 million have carried into 2025. As I had mentioned in the previous slides, we had strong revenue activity um there for sales tax being bo tax and our interest earnings. Those are included in that table. And then that that 1% of unspent expenditure budget is also included which nets out to that $5.1 million figure. I I could point to many factors that led to this final figure. Um but I I really would sum it up to the pro this is a product of conservative budgeting and uh the council demonstrating fiscal restraint. Um so as we go into the next bianium, this resource is is going to be vital as we we navigate the unknowns that that lie ahead of the the city. Next slide. Okay, just pause here. Um, any questions on on the analysis so far?

Cancer Reynolds.

Yeah, Mr. Morning, can you go back to slide five, please? Okay, this is something that I I think I asked in the matrix, but I didn't understand the answer yet. So, I want to see if I can get a handle on it here. Um, we have add a million dollars in additional revenues that exceed budget expectations. It says in that second bullet point and the prior line refers to variances in sales tax, BNO tax, and investment earnings, which are all directionally good things happening. That's consistent with the fact that uh we have more revenues than expected, but we're saying we have less re the first line says we're 93% of budget, which makes it sound like we have less revenues than expected. Okay.

So, help me to understand that.

Sure. So, as I mentioned, throughout the the year, the city council adjusts the budget. Um, you appropriate a budget to acquire a new building. Um, you set aside resources. You create a new fund via the development services fund. So, there's two examples right there uh that council took action in 2025 that were really significant and increased the revenue budget via budget transfers from the adopted budget to the amended budget. And so, we transferred $3.3 million to acquire a a new building. We transferred $1.7 million in restricted fee, restricted uh revenues that are tied to permit related services from the general fund to the development services fund when we created the development service fund which went live January went live in 2025. So that increased the the revenue budget and the amended budget figure. If you were to take all of those out, all of those budget transfers out and kind of go back to the adopted budget figure, our revenues would have been 107% of the original budget.

Thank you. That's perfect. Matt, can you go to SL? I think it's slide seven, the BNO. Do we know for the folks that file quarterly when they hit that threshold? Do we know of the of the increase over the previous year, how many folks fall in that c category versus the previous year?

It's not something that we track, but we can get that information. And based on I I can attest that based on what we just saw happen in 2025, uh my team and I have our work cut out for us for really kind of coming up with a a a better projection, a better forecast for BNO taxes, and that will involve going into the data. It's it's somewhat limited um on what what we can unearth, but I I do believe that we can take a look at our quarterly quarterly filers and do a year-over-year comparison of of what might have been coming in from for each uh specific business. Yeah, I'm curious if there's something we should take there from the terms of the business climate if there's been a shift on the island or something on those.

Uh council Weber. Yeah, I I didn't see a mention on the slide. Are are you going to be getting to in the future slides the EMS revenues? No, I was not planning to talk about that, but I'm happy to answer questions about it.

Yeah, I got a question on it. So, um in the packet, uh it mentioned that there's $1.8 million in EMS revenues. So this is when someone takes an ambulance ride um and it's collected by uh the east side fire and uh rescue uh and uh collected uh over the year and then transferred to Mercer Island uh in Q1 of each year. And so I was wondering about the interest uh that collects on the $1.8 million. Uh does that interest come with it uh or does EFNR get to keep the interest? Okay, just so I'm I'm tracking, you said $1.8 million is associated with what specific revenue?

EMS revenue. So, this is emergency uh or the emergency medical services revenue when someone uh uh is transported to the hospital in an ambulance. Uh they get charged uh for that. Um and the money is collected by East Side Fire and Rescue. Um and then each year on uh Q1 according to our contract they transfer it over to uh Mercer Island. I was I was just wondering whether the interest that accumulates in that uh in those funds also comes with it. And since I didn't manage to get this into the uh the uh Q&A packet ahead of time, my apologies. It's okay to uh research that and come back later if you want.

I appreciate the question. I I the the what's throwing me off is our emergency medical transports average about $500,000 a year. So the $ 1.8 million figure is accounting for not just our our medical transports. Okay. Um but our deputy finance director has just uh joined us, Lan Tuttle. Um so she she might help round out our our explanation here.

Thanks. Hi, your deputy finance director, Lan Tuttle. Just to clarify, um the 1.8 million is a combined total. It includes um both a portion of the ambulance transport that you're referring to, which is now coming to us through GMT or a federal sort of payback. Um but also combined in that line item in the agenda bill is our own Mercer Island ambulance utility that's collected on your utility bill and also I think some BLS, so King County levy dollars. So it is a it is a combined number in that report. um only a very small portion of it would be related to ambulance transports in particular. So okay if that helps.

Thank you. So for the portion that is collected by EFNR um and given to us at the end of the year I'm wondering whether what happens to the interest on that no interest uh comes back to the city. We pay a small um administration fee uh per our our interlocal agreement um but no interest associated with those revenues comes back to the city.

Okay. It be it would be pardon the pun interesting to know uh how much uh of that interest uh is uh is being kept by or how much EFNR is benefiting uh from being able to accumulate uh the money throughout the year and whether that needs an amendment next time that we revisit the contract to see what's fair. Fair point. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, keep on going.

Okay, let's keep keep on trucking. Thank you for the questions. Um I think we're on slide 12. Okay. Um long-term liabilities, the the the general fund carries uh future obligations that are that are owed to a third party. Uh and this is really important to note. Um and so this table provides a snapshot um of the different uh long-term liabilities that are the general fund is committed to pay for over time. Th this information is is a little dense. So we're going to work our way through this table from top to bottom starting with these these green rows. So the green um rows, these two rows represent the unused time off that are has been earned by city employees that are tied to uh general government or or the general fund. Um and so this is the total liability of that. So if if employees leave, um the city is obligated to to pay their vacation cash out because all of the vacation hours that they earned. The row beneath it is is somewhat similar. Going back to that east side fire and rescue interlocal agreement. When we entered in that agreement in dece in 2024, we committed to transferring the uh the liability of that um compensated absences associated with all 28 firefighters that went from Mercer Island to East Side Fire. we transferred the that liability, the acred liability that we built up um with uh over a three-year period. So, this is the third and final payment that will go out in fact this year, that $369,000 figure. The the next uh section of color, these purple rows, these are the rent to own and active service contracts that run

city operations. So that includes equipment leases, our leases for facilities including uh the space in the city uh hall at Newcastle to run our municipal court operations, our modular buildings to run police operations and and our software licenses like uh enterprise ERP that that is our our financial accounting system. And then finally, the these bottom three roads which make up most of our long-term liabilities are the retirement and health care costs that are are promised to retired workers. So once you once you you add that up um in the bottom right corner of this table, you can see that the long-term liabilities that are associated with the general fund at the end of December of 2025 amounted to 12.9 million. Next slide. Again, a a very difficult slide to see. Um, but this table um takes what we were previously looking at one step further. Um, from left to right, this table summarizes the available fund balance relative to the long-term liabilities for each of the funds listed in that first far-left column that actively have either available fund balance or long-term liabilities at the end of December 2025. The next column is the description of how the available fund balance for each fund can legally be used. And then the far right column lays out and references all of the regulatory statutes both within the city code and within the revised code of Washington as well as some case laws that directly regulate how we use available fund balance. Believe it or not, this is a distilled version of the tables that were included

in exhibit one. Um, so I know this is is somewhat dense information, but it's really important because when you look at the bottom of that table, you'll see that available fund balance at the end of December of 2025 in these the funds that are listed was about $18.7 million. And it explains, this table explains how those resources can be used, but it also gives the full context of the debt and the long-term liabilities associated with each one of those funds, which amounts to almost $50 million. Next slide, please. Brief update on contingency fund. Um, this is the city's rainy day reserve. Um it has a current balance of $4.9 million. Um relative to the 2025 general fund expenditure budget, it amounts to 11.6% of that. Um our funding target for the contingency fund is 12.5%. That's basically 45 days um in the event of a major emergency to have um what I like to think of it as seedcorn to help keep city operations running and to address any emergencies that come to the island. Council action is required to make any adjustments to this. And because as I mentioned before and we talked about the general fund expenditure budget changing over time with council actions, staff recommends that we just leave the the current balance in the contingency fund where it is. And this is something that we will revisit as part of the banual budget workshops this coming fall. Next slide, please. Long-term liabilities, debt, available fund balance. Are there any questions on on the material we just we just walked through?

Council Reynolds,

can you go back to slide 13, please? Um I I'm not sure this is a question, although I'm going to count on you to correct me if I stated it incorrectly. I I I just want to make a comment that we hear a lot of uh commentary in the community about available fund balance and some try to make it sound like this is free money. We could do what we want with it. And I I think this slide does an excellent job of pointing out that yes, there is that money that's available fund balance, but there is an offsetting $50 million, you know, you know, almost three times that amount that it really is a is a long-term obligation of the city. And so that what we are calling available fund balance is not really available. There there is there is no there's no pot of money that that is available to spend on things that doesn't short change us somewhere else or hamper our ability to to service other obligations.

Is that a fair description? Yes. Well said. and and uh that that then also it's even a little more dramatic than that because I think what's not considered in this table is our long-term CIP and TIP that are showing expenses exceeding revenue on those over the next four to six years and that is a potential further hole that we are creating for ourselves in the long term. So we're we're not exactly uh a wash in cash right now. Let's put it that way. or dot nut in free cash.

Yeah, I would I would agree with that statement and I I think it's an important point um that you mentioned about the capital improvement program. This is something we're going to work on collectively uh in the fall. The staff team is actively building out the the capital improvement program. Right now, I will note that the capital improvement program takes a six-year look. That's the six-year planning period. We take a longer horizon because when we talk about infrastructure, particularly critical infrastructure, we want to know what we need to do in the near term, but also what we have hanging out there in in the longer term. Even though we take a six-year look, we only appropriate funds for the first two years. So, we we take small incremental bites at the capital program. And that's been the case since as long uh as I believe the city has been operating with a bianial budget, a two-year budget structure. Um so even though we know that we have a lot of work to do in those out years in years 3 through six, we're using the time now to figure that out and get creative and find resources. We just worked through the transportation improvement program and I appreciated the the comment council member Sheay mentioned. staff brought in over a million dollars in outside funding that's leveraging the completion of major capital improvements for the transportation system on the island. Thank you for your your your comment.

Thank you. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to try to move quickly through our our last six slides here. Um, as as I mentioned earlier, in in 2017, the city council agreed to a $10.05 million um mitigation package with Sound Transit to offset traffic impacts from the opening of light rail. Um, these these resources came with important restrictions that were stipulated in in the actual settlement agreement. The two I want to highlight here are that these dollars could not be used for day-to-day operations. The agreement uh specified that this money had to go to capital improve improvements that were helping address the the impacts of the light rail opening. The money was also time gated, meaning that the city had to spend our resources first and then go through a reimbursement process to recoup the money. and we had to do it before December of 2025. And I'm very pleased and proud of the staff team because we successfully uh recouped all of that $10.05 million prior to the December 2025 deadline. Next slide. Okay, so this table just uh I want to include it for the record. Um it lays out at a high level some of the major um projects that were completed over this eight-year period and that were paid for with sound transit mitigation money. Um this is something I I hope the council keeps in their back pocket um when out um talking with the community. Um but these are significant pedestrian improvements. They include new lighting, upgraded crosswalks. There's improved roadside shoulders on on some of the the the city's main thoroughares. There's

ADA accessibility by the way of new curb ramps and rapid flashing beacons. Um, so I just wanted to share that. Next slide, please. There are two uh budget appropriations before council this evening outlined in ordinance number 26-04. Um staff is recommending that uh council appropriate $150,000 for real estate services and for ongoing work to update the the city's comprehensive plan by the July 31st, 2026 deadline. Next slide. Okay. In summary, uh we ended 2025 on on a high note. We completed over 10 point 05 million in in critical improvements um prior to the opening of the light rail station and it was all paid for by by Sound Transit. The general fund ended uh 2025 with $5.1 million in available fund balance. Mostly that's tied to available fund balance that went unspent from 2024. Um and and it was carried over. Uh there was also significant um strong revenue activity in in sales tax bo tax and um our interest earnings um and that those were all tied to strong economic activity within the region. And so that this available fund balance is a vital resource that's going to help us navigate uh the work ahead in the the upcoming bianial budget. Okay, next slide. Just real quick, council, I'm going to return in in June. Uh the the finance team will return in June with a revenue forecast that's going to lay the foundation for drafting the 2027 and 2028 preliminary budget. And during the workshops uh for building the budget this fall with the city council, staff

is going to provide recommendations on the potential disposition of the unassigned fund balance in the general fund. Next slide. This is the recommendation before council to adopt ordinance number 26-04 amending the 2526 bianial budget. Next slide. Okay. And with that, um, I'll open it up to questions and we can stop sharing the deck. Thank you, Ben. Okay, Council Wer,

I just want to say thank you, Matt. like you do all the hard everybody does all the hard work but keeping track of the money and all the funds and all the balances and um this is really great to set up going into the budget planning for the fall and I just wonder if you could remind us all in our public about the policies we put in place a couple years ago that help guide this work and give us safe fund balances as we deal with predictable and unpredictable opportunities and challenges that come our way. I just want to give you a chance to talk about that.

Thank you council member. um in uh 2021 um a ad hoc council committee um that included um council member Reynolds, council member Wer and former mayor Nice. Um we went through and developed new financial management policies. There are the latest version of these policies is nested in resolution number 1667. They lay out in detail a game plan to manage the city's finances for the long term. The the policies essentially equip the council and the organization with tools so that we can really prudently manage our limited resources while also striving to achieve our long-term goals. We bring these policies to the council as part of the budget workshops um so that we can revisit them. We want them to make sure that they're a living document. they still remain relevant and useful. Um, and we change them as needed, as things evolve. Um, so I appreciated the work that we did. Um, we still reference that document regularly. Um, it is it is an important tool in our overall toolkit for managing the city's finances.

Council Reynolds.

Yeah. I just wanted to take a minute and thank you as well. Um, I think these presentations keep getting better and better and in particular this time you uh you did a great job of helping to understand um what a fund balance is versus what it's not and and what the offsetting obligations are. I think it's the all the the new information you provided this time was was tremendously helpful and I I hope you can continue with that as we think about going forward for the revenue forecast. It seems like on the revenue side well on the expense side we're doing a great job. You know 99% you can't ask for much better than that of predicting things on on the revenue side it seems like the two significant revenues that are hard to predict are um sales tax and BNO tax and also REIT. Um, there' be a third one, but didn't really talk about that one much here. Um, I I'm going to encourage you to the extent that you have time to put your thinking cap on and and try to sharpen the pencil on that and do your best to explain why there have been some deviations and give us some information that'll allow us to have comfort with the future forecast going forward on those things.

Okay, thank you for that feedback, Council Shay. Yes, thank you very much for this very comprehensive presentation about our finances and just want to um also um you know let our community members know as part of adopting this ordinance that we're going to be voting on today um it's also part of uh city council authorizing the city manager to accept MIFFS grants. Right. Yes. Are you going to talk about that part or um I'm I'm happy to add um some additional insight into that. So, there were two grants um that the MIFS, the Mercer Island um youth

Youth and Family Services Foundation provided to the community um to the city um that we are accepting. I unfortunately don't have the the material directly.

I can actually just read it because you had this. Okay. So, please do. Um, so separate from the 150,000 general fund balance appropriation request that you just mentioned, the Mercer Island Youth and Family Services Foundation awarded $30,000 grant to the city of Mercer Island's Youth and Family Services Department in January 2026 to support and sustain critical services for older adults. And uh the foundation also approved a one-time grant to help fund two key senior initiatives in 2026. The stay active and independent for life falls prevention classes and the senior risings newsletter. And um this grant the grant also offset administrative and supplies costs associated with three monthly senior support groups, living alone, caregiver support, and death cafe. Um, and also, you know, YFS department also received a $1,600 grant from the Mercer Island Community Fund to support senior social lunch program. Um, so, you know, just really appreciate um just the tremendous impact from Mercer Island Youth and Family Services Foundation to support so many city programs for our seniors and also for our schools, right? because um MIFFS funds the mental health counselors for our schools. Um so and I've heard from the community, you know, um to please continue to fully fund, you know, MIFS. I know we have a lot of budget constraints coming up. Um and as you're working on, you know, your presentation to city council for the next bianium, um you know, we have to continue to fund MIFFS because it's just so important in our community for our seniors, for our students, and also for community members in need.

Thank you. Uh Council Weinberg. Yeah, I just want to say great job as always. Thank you. Thank you, team effort. C Reynolds, is that an old hand? That's a new hand. Okay. I took it down for 5 seconds so you would know it was a new one. All right. Okay. Um I had a question about this before the meeting which this this answer I did understand but I wonder if you could just go through it in the council meeting because I think it's important for the community to hear. Can can you just talk a little bit about the trend in the YFS fund balance and the fact that it's generally been trending down for the last couple of years and in particular is as of year N25 is even a little lower than we expected. Can you comment on the drivers for that please?

Uh sure. I I don't have the analysis in front of me right now in detail, but in general, what's happening, and I'll invite uh the staff team to to chime in on anything I miss. Um the fund balance in the YFS fund is intended to help um bridge the YFS fund, youth and family services department operations in the event that there's a budget shortfall. And there very much is a budget shortfall. the um point at which the operating fund balance in the YFS fund was at its peak was about a million dollars and we went into the 2526 bianium knowing that there would be a bit of a funding gap um in which uh we were going to bridge with general fund resources and also some aggressive revenue targets for the thrift shop as well as counseling services. The thrift shop revenues, the thrift shop is doing excellent. Um they are working uh around the clock to to bring in resources for the youth and family services that the that the community benefits from. But they did not hit their revenue target in 2025. In part that was due to the closure of the facility while there were renovations on the building. And when the building is getting renovated, they can't they can't operate. Um and so we also saw slightly lower revenue um come in associated with counseling services. So so that meant that rather than those revenues kind of um filling the gap, we had to draw down the fund balance in the youth and family services fund. The fund balance is about when you take into account all of the reserved resources is about $650,000 with a general operations of about three to to $4 million a year depending upon the level of activity. A key theme that

we're going to have to work through in the 2728 bianium is working through that budget gap and figuring out how we're going to fill that gap in time. And that's work that's ahead of us that we'll we'll dive into. uh this fall. Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. And I'll just uh kind of echo what Council Member Shay said. Uh tremendously important program. I hope you can prioritize ways to try to get that on track. And I realize that's up to us as well, but anything you can do in your preliminary planning and budgeting would be good. Uh thank you for the feedback,

Council Wer. Um, a final shout out to Jesse and Jason and the team for getting that $10 million sound transit settlement agreement done. That sounds like it should be easy to do to spend $10 million, but the planning and the execution, it was a heavy heavy lift. So, great job Jesse and team for managing that every step of the way with the leadership changes everywhere, all the time, endlessly, and just getting that done. So, Jesse, I don't know if you want to take a minute to say yay or just accept my thank you and everyone else's in this community who fought long and hard to get that back in the day. Thank you. I'll just accept the thank you. It was a tremendous, tremendous lift, but uh we got there. Thanks, Council Wineberg. Is that an old hand?

Old hand. Sorry, Council Reynolds. This one is an old hand.

Okay. Um, you know, Matt, as you kind of go into thinking about how we're going to talk about this in the fall, when I talk with folks in the community about the budget, I think sort of people go back to things that they know really well. So whether it's their household budget or their company budget, their small business budget, whatever that might be, they try to, you know, sort of draw those parallels to what the city budget is. Um, I think all of us in this room know that it's it's tough to draw some of those parallels, but I think it's totally understandable that's kind of where people go. And the picture that I've been trying to paint with people is that we we offer a very high level of service. And in the last, you know, pick a pick a time frame, you know, uh, you know, six years or so, the cost to deliver those services gone up um, significantly. um as I think any business or household budget would reflect the cost of buying things has gone up in the last 6 years. Uh what is different is sort of hard to explain because we have different revenue sources that are restricted in so many ways and those numbers differ is that we can't say oh our revenue went up 1% every year right that's the property tax increase but that's not representative of other pieces of the budget that doesn't reflect a soft REIT revenue you know depending on the year you sort of have these fluctuations one way or the other

and I think where we could use some help telling that story is to understand the delta in the cost of delivering those services versus the revenues that have come in to deliver those same services because I think as we talk about I'm sure we will is sort of getting to that point where the two lines cross which I I think unfortunately is not too in the too distant future here. Um you know is how do we make some of these tough decisions? Um so that's my ask. I know that's a very open-ended question. Um so if you could answer right now, I'd appreciate it. Um, I also want to say for folks watching at home, there's a couple dozen questions that were submitted beforehand. Um, that go into some into the weeds and a lot of the materials that are in the packet. So, I'd encourage folks to watch to read anyone watching to read those as well. Um, I think they were insightful questions and insightful answers. So, I appreciate colleagues on the council, also your team for those answers that are turned around in short notice. Um, and obviously this presentation that um, took a lot of work and obviously the work that goes into doing the work is significant as well. So, Uh, thank you for that. I'll give you the up if you want to close or

No, I I I really appreciate the uh the guidance tonight, council. Um, this is really helpful information because we have important work ahead of us. Um, and municipal finance, believe it or not, is not the uh the easiest uh river to navigate, but I'm all in it. Um, and I appreciate the feedback and we'll make a point to make sure that we have the right tools um to work our way through some of the the difficult decisions we have to make around prioritizing how we uh use our limited resources um and share that information with the community. So, thank you. Great. Okay. Thanks, Matt. Thanks. We have a um Oh, sorry. Recommended

business of the day. Council, is there a motion to adopt Horn or number 2604 amending the 2025 to 2026 bannual budget? So moved. Second. It was moved by Council Reynolds and second by Council Weinberg. Uh would you like to speak to your motion? I think I've covered it or we've covered it. Matt's covered it. Okay. Please vote yes. Uh clerk, please call the role. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council member Sheay I. Mayor Rosenbomb. I council member Weinberg. I council member Wer I council member Reynolds I council member Androl I and deputy mayor Becker I

thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you. The motion passes 70. Okay. Thank you Matt. All right. Our next item of business is AB 6920 presentation on the existing condition of the public works building. We welcome senior management analyst Robbie Cunning Adams. We'll take a minute here to get all set up.

Yeah. All right. Good evening, council. For the record, this is Robbie Canaman Adams, your senior management analyst. Uh, tonight we are going to present on the existing condition of the public works building. council at your council in the followup to the failure of Proposition One last year and at the council planning session earlier this year, you directed staff to come back and you know review some of our existing facilities and some of our options there. You may remember last month we discussed this old city hall building and tonight we're going to do a similar presentation on the public works building. Um so I'm going to start a little bit with just the overview and purpose of this conversation. Um, we'll be introducing to my right our consulting team from McKenzie, uh, Brett Hansen and Sarah Werner who will be presenting some of the technical details. You also have your public works staff, um, Jesse, myself, um, available for questions. So, just a reminder, council, um, the public works buildings on the south end of our properties on that side of the island, that building was constructed in 1980. Um, we've been kind of looking at, you know, the needs of this building for a while now. Starting in 2017 and all the way leading up to the decision to put the ballot measure last year. Um, we've done some existing a little bit of work to um add a little bit of, you know, useful life to the building and we recently completed the um roof replacement, some seismic upgrades just to kind of keep that building going

along as we plan on the longer term solutions. So, let's start at the beginning. What's kind of the highle findings we're going to talk about here? You know, this building constructed in 1980, you know, is nearly 46 years old. It does not meet current building standards as multiple failing building systems and it houses department teams the structure was not intended for. The building has continues to have some seismic deficiencies and does not meet current code. Additional investments in this building are going to be needed to extend the service life an additional 20 years if we would like to pursue that option. Um just a reminder council as I proceed through this presentation um this presentation is going to really focus on the building itself. Um that's not that's of course not the entirety of the public works facilities. Um we have ancillary buildings there is uh the yard and so um this is just narrowly focused on that building. Um, as you remember last year though, uh, on the November ballot, we had a bond measure that would have entirely replaced the public works facilities. That'd be the building, the site, all the yard, the ancillary buildings. Um, if that measures failure, again, you know, you direct us to revisit the conditions of existing facilities and to identify alternatives that we could do to address our operational needs here. So one option as we'll be discussing tonight is revisiting the potential to renovate the existing facilities and again so this presentation addresses the improvements to the extend the life of the current building and does not address needed investments in the other open air facilities structures or the maintenance yard and at this I'll hand it over to Brett should be up there you go

thank you Robbie Uh good evening, mayor, members of council. It's pleasure to be with you again and happy to have my colleague Sarah Warner here. Uh as Robbie indicated, uh we'll be taking you through more detail oriented uh conversation with regards to the to what was uh observed and our recommendations for improvements of the existing building. Oh, thanks. Great. Um so the high high level deficiencies uh this will maintain a similar cadence to the city hall presentation we did a few weeks ago. Um but and and there'll be some commonalities of it. As Robbie indicated the the building itself was built in 1980s in and around the time that the city hall itself had renovations. So a lot of the the same challenges or issues that we found and identified through our our design and our engineering team are going to are going to look familiar to you. So bear with me as we go through those. Uh but essentially the the major elements that uh that we identified if you had three was seismic deficiencies and we'll talk about that in more detail. Uh the programmatic elements of asking the current building to support all the current services that are currently in there um are are taxed and and and very challenged and we'll talk about that. and then the the overall systems of the building and and what we recommend to make those improvements uh to extend the lif or the service life of the building itself. So we'll begin uh with the architectural and we'll go through each of the technical sections very similar to what we did. So it's paired in similar cadence to the city hall presentation. Uh effectively for each of these we'll touch on briefly the existing condition that exists that we looked at the deficiencies that are identified and then the renovation or improvements that were we're suggesting be made or should be made in order to use the building. Those those improvement costs are then of course um at the end of the presentations those are what are included in the overall uh cost projections.

So, architecturally, the building we talked about is 1980 vintage uh type one or type five on our uh non-combustible construction, different code back then, very different than it is today. We have accessibility codes we'll talk about. We have energy codes that that weren't in in existence in in the 80s. Um so, very different as far as what how was analyzed then. Um as such, there's no existing sprinkler system. Um, and then the overall building is around 15,000 square feet and occupancy classifications are mostly a B occupancy with H, which today which would really constitute more of a storage um, occupancy.

Right. I'm going to cut in here and just uh deal with a a follow-up item. Earlier today, the mayor and deputy mayor and I received an email from a community member uh pointing out that over time we have used a a different reference to the size of the building. Uh a couple years ago, there was just a straight error in one of our reports from our consultant. So, we were going to go back and append uh those council packets with a notation where we know those errors are. Uh there's also discrepancy in the uh King County assessor's records. So I think I'm not going to chase around a difference of 100 square feet. The building is about 15,000 square ft. We feel confident with that number. We acknowledge there are some errors in some recent reports. We'll get that appended. I just wanted to go ahead and address that um at the meeting tonight.

And that that's is just counting the sort of twostory building. Yeah. I I because that I think part of the challenge here is that we've talked about a lot of different aspects of that facility. So you have sort of the garage, you know, the the this garage area, but then you have the there's Yeah. holding areas that have obviously square footage, but are partially covered. And we we've talked about this a lot, but I think some of the confusion there is just

Yeah. This this facility, Capital F, includes a whole bunch of structures and we looked at some of the reports just today. We think uh one of the consultants actually picked up one of the ancillary structures in a previous square footage analysis. Um but I do understand it's causing confusion. Um probably in future conversations when we're talking about this facility, I may just show you an aerial too to remind you of all the structures that sit on this property. Um but again, we're just going to be comfortable with about 15,000 square ft for the main building using that reference going forward. Thanks for allowing me to interrupt. Just for clarity though, the the rest of the structures were also sort of built in the same area and sort of have my understanding is a lot of similar structural challenges.

Yes, they they have are also at the end of uh their life cycle and will need to be replaced. We haven't asked our consultants to revisit those structures yet. We were focusing on the main building for this presentation. Great. Thank you.

All right. So, uh, we'll cover a couple of the primary deficiencies that we experienced in in evaluating the building. So, starting with life safety and egress. So, we talked about, uh, the automatic sprinkle system or lack thereof. Uh, there accessibility wise, there's no egress path out to the street, uh, which would be common and expected. It's of course tucked pretty far back, so that's a it's a fair length to go. Uh, fire separations. It's an older building with limited documentation. That's an area that deserves further investigation, but based on what we've experienced and the type of occupy between the S occupies and the B's, we'd expect that that it's probably lacking in that that category. And then improvements on signage and and emergency way finding on the envelope perspective, you know, keeping up with today's energy code as well as best practices in our region. Um, some of the the observable issues that we we note on any building of this age, it's really going to be moisture intrusion. uh things that we can readily see, but even with the city hall, we mentioned that the the larger issues or challenges that we really see are the things that we we can't see in the walls themselves. So, you have air infiltration that results in moisture infiltration. The second bullet there, a lack of flashing or weatherproofing failures in the in those elements result in potential water intrusion. Right? So those are areas that that we want to keep keep in uh mindful and would be part of the next level uh uh evaluation and addressing in in this improvement. Um up insulated walls or underins insulated walls and roofs and then uh overall low uh low performing thermal comfort for those users from accessibility perspective. Um there are elements in there but they just don't meet current code. So when you're talking about your guard rails, your handrails, those nature, there are specific elements to those. They don't meet current code. So those would be modified. Uh there's no wheelchair accessibility path between the floors.

Uh we'll talk about when we get to next section, but all the restrooms are on the ground floor. So when you think about all the office spaces on your upper floors and there's no accessible path via elevator or pathway or ramp, that proposes challenges. Um the eight the toilet room, showers, and locker rooms do have accessibility improvements in them. They simply don't meet current code. So, there's some refinement revision there. And the same would go for any of those ancillary door hardware, uh countertop, break room equipment, and and things of that nature that would be addressed in in a renovation of this type. So, as far as how we would address that or recommend, so first we we'd highly suggest you put in an automatic shrill system. Uh these these are costly assets um as well as improving life safety for for your staff in those buildings and any public visiting them. Uh the complete space for reconfiguration or final occupancy. So we're going to touch on that a bit later, but essentially the the to point on that from an architectural perspective is the building is housing staff that was not currently planned for. It was a purpose-built public s or p public works facility. Uh but things change over 46 years and so the type of staff and the services and operations the city provides to the community have changed. Uh and that building right now programmatically is very taxed to the point that staff are um are overburdened in the office areas are bleeding in. They're in converted shop space below. Right? So those are spaces that aren't originally designed and that's leading to a lot of the challenges or deficiencies that were currently ex u currently exist. So that's that's an area we can't emphasize that needs to be underlined and we'll talk about kind of some relief that that is offered towards the end of the presentation. Uh addressing your accessibility up updates for your stairs, your ramps. Um looking at compliant restrooms and so forth and then addressing your building envelope for water water intrusion as well as

insulation and bringing up to current standards. Moving on to the structural component. So existing conditions. So these are this is how the building's made effectively. You're right. So your your main building's masonry and concrete. Uh you do have wood trusses for the roof and wood sheathing throughout. Uh and then you have uh a unique and special uh concrete plank system above the warehouse which previously had a green roof. So I'm glad that you guys took that off. So uh your foundation system system is shallow uh strip footings. uh supporting the overall structural system in of itself and we'll talk about that a little bit more. That's your existing building. Uh in addition to that, just to kind of build off of that, as mentioned, as Robbie indicated, in 2023, we understand you guys went through an assessment and then you you did selective upgrades and uh these selective upgrades were voluntary uh in order to improve the overall performance of the building. Uh the assessment as we understand was seeking to update to a category 3 that we'll touch base and go into more detail on. Um but it's important to note that the existing condition before those updates were made didn't even meet a category 2 uh risk category which is a basic building. That's exa that's a base building for what you would uh what you would uh expect for this. And so these voluntary upgrades were intended to improve on that. Uh some of the select ones that were uh implemented included additional foundational support for your grade beams in the maintenance bays. Uh additional lateral bracing your non-structural walls. Removing the green roof as I mentioned. Uh so that's a huge loadbearing capacity on that existing plank roof. So removing that helps with your structural performance. Uh and additional top and structural anchorage as well as diaphragm nailing. So these are things that were done that help

connect the building and keep it performing and and operating and and transferring those loads all together uh better. So now we mentioned we didn't do all of them. They weren't all implemented um for for for the rhyme reason they they weren't and uh and those are some areas that we would suggest or recommend as consideration to pursue a category level three. So right now you're in a a two two and a half something. It's in between a two and a three, right? So uh in order to to improve the structural um performance of the building, uh you'd also have to up upgrade uh your structural your shear walls, increasing the the the capacity for those to transfer the loads. Uh in addition to that obviously those SH walls are connecting to your foundation that needs to be addressed and then uh improving uh beyond even what's already been done those um diaphragms and those connection at the roof. So before we go into the the the recommendations and renovations just going to kind of pause on this diagram that we we looked at uh at the city council or the city hall presentation. So effectively when we evaluate or we look at these types of buildings or our structural engineers look at these with us there's some key things that we should just just pause on um as from you know building off of what we talked about previously. So first and foremost we're going to focus on seismic because that's what we deal with here. If we were in the Midwest or we in Florida we were somewhere else in the United States we'd still be beholden to a risk category. We would just have to consider different types of forces. Right? So we have the luxury of dealing with with seismic. So when it comes to seismic forces uh the baseline understanding or what our engineers are working from is essentially looking at it regionally looking at what they understand uh from the the the faults that are here the Cascadian subduction

zone we have the Seattle fault and there it's unique parameters that are set for z for those areas and there there's their seismic design categories essentially A through A through F we're a D right in the middle which is considered ed high risk. Uh so we have the luxury of that but we all know that. Um and what's derived from those categories is and what our engineers work from is essentially ground movement or what they refer to or what they're is classified as acceleration. Not going to bore you with going into that. AI will bring you all kinds of good stuff to to research and nerd out on. And uh if we had to ever go back into more detail, our engineers are happy to come and provide that. But effectively that's that's how the ground moves and it's how the ground moves regionally in that location uh and in consideration of of the particular soils that are on those sites. Those are all taken into consideration. The acceleration values or how the ground moves is based on the specific faults and how those faults work. Our faults work up and down. That's how they work off each other. That's why we get tsunamis. whereas like California they're working more horizontal and they result in different different levels of of movement. Um so based on that they utilize c the codes utilize historic information based on those movements and they utili where there's a lack of information they utilize information elsewhere in the world that have similar faults to derive acceleration values. So just want to let you let's kind of go into that. There's not a level recctor SC necessarily like that. I wish there were I like that's much easier to understand because that's what's reported in the news. Um but effectively that's how those are categories and that's what our engineers work from from a baseline. It's a 500year event and that's where we start. So with that let's talk about the risk categories of how those are applied. So these these four diagrams we're building is going to represent the baseline

category one up to perhaps you we'll talk about our category 4. So we have four categories. One being the least risk. So it's a low risk. It's your agricultural buildings is that short it's that storage building that has low occupancy or no occupancy that somebody put a tractor under. Low risk. It's it's just it's almost it's lower than even a standard classification of a risk category 2. Risk category 2 as I mentioned is our standard classification. Essentially the way it's the code is specifically written in uh in section605.4 is effectively says category 2 is everything but the other categories. So it's the it's the bucket catch all. Thanks them for them putting that together. leaves a lot to interpretation but thankfully they've provided a level of detail for categories three and four. So category uh two essentially the best way to describe and why I started with the acceleration values is to say you're going to apply a one times that acceleration value or the or the factors that our engineers have to take into account. It's one times, right? So we're going to start there. That's your baseline. an immediate occupancy or or a um a high risk high um human threat or risk uh to human state life safety is your category three. So when we're talking about risk categories, there's two buckets. One is going to be life safety. How do you protect the building and and to the point that people can effectively exit the building safely uh and get out of the building before before failure or collapse or what have you and the second portion of that is occupancy and it's not the type of occupancy necessary it's the capacity to reu to utilize the building. So those are two two of the factors that we have to consider. So when we look at an occupancy category or risk category three, the two things that are clear to

a three, one is high uh high risk or high human life safety. These are your education buildings, your auditoriums. These are amphithe, you know, enclosed amphitheater, stadiums and so forth. These are buildings that have a lot of people in them. So it's going to take a long longer for people to get out of the building which needs the building needs to be sustained to the point where they can exit. Um the second po portion of it is the occupancy piece which is where a public works facility and the supporting structures fall into which is those public utilities uh that are not classified as a four and so that's where we really fall in a public works facility. So um so when you look at a category 3, it's essentially 25% more than a category 2. So we're we're 25% more resilient and resistant to our classifications. Category 4 is our most essential facility. We've talked about that. That's essentially 50% more and that's aimed to provide a the the most significant or highest level of resistance. And so that's effectively designing or someone came up with the factor of of 150% over our baseline. It's going to result in the most um optimal or perceived notion that the building will be um both operational during the event and immediately operational and continued operational after the event. Well, three is is intended to be operational um uh closely after, right? You have to improve it. It's going to be some issues that you have to deal with. So,

I'll just pause there. I know we had a question about it in the matrix. Is there any questions? You do have a question. You go ahead. Filling in for day for one.

So, I'm I'm still struggling with this catery one through four thing. And it seems like you're defining it in terms of what type of building is level 1, 2, 3, or four. Like you're saying auditoriums, etc. are level three. Most smaller things are level two, etc. When you were talking about the 1.25x and the 1.5x, were those the in some ways the a measure of the strength of of ground movement it needs to be able to absorb at each of for each of those types of buildings? Is that it?

So that that that those are the load factors the factor the the resistance factors that the engineers essentially designed to. So let's just say let's say you your your your acceleration vector remains constant. It doesn't matter. It's going to h it's going to do what it wants to do. It's it's the earth, right? It's it's how the building then can react to those forces and how much how much better can it perform above that baseline. So, if a category 2 is baseline, it's a one. It means that a category 3 is performing 25% above baseline or it's resisting those forces and performing 25% better.

So, it's going to be 25% stronger in some sense. Ex. Yes. And as well as and and when we're talking about seismic, we're talking about obviously the structural system. We're focus f focusing on that. But there's also restraints and um bracing for your mechanical units. And there's additional other factors that go into um keeping them, you know, its performance, right? So it can it can continue to operate or in some capacity or protect those users. And and the plans and budgets you've got so far would get us. Did you say we're at level two now or we're not even quite level two? You're you're at a you're at you're you're above a level two based on the last Okay. You're somewhere in between a two and a three.

Okay. You're you're proposing to get us up to three. Is that correct? We we are we would that would be our recommendation. That's that that would be your your new baseline target. Um it's not to say that you can't uh voluntarily go to a four if if you as a city from a risk perspective chose to. It's not often done, but it's certainly an option. Okay. And for um what sort of facilities require it to be a level four? Like my understanding is police generally do in the emergency operation centers. Are those the two things?

Those aren't the two the two things. So this is where the the the code has helped us out a little bit better. Right. So the code describes that um high like institutional to say jails. We it's a high level life safety. you got to get out of the they can't go anywhere. Uh emergency care, your hospitals, things that we're going to rely on in event, right? That has to serve us as as community members that in event your your first responders, so that's your rescue, your fire, your police, uh and the ambulatory, EMS, all of those in folks, those buildings need to support them as well as any structures that also cover or support their vehicles. So those are going to be their emergency vehicles that are responding. Um so uh and also uh power generation that support or utilities that support our those essential facilities, right? So if you had a building that's over your emergency generator, right, at a police station or essential facility or hospital, you can't have that fall down on your on top of your generator. So those all it's a trickle effect. So in those cases, so those are a few examples of of the types of facilities that you would expect

to be level four to be level four. Correct. Okay. But the the other things, the uh the storage for water pipes, the parking for snow plows, etc. All those things, those would not generally need to be level four. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I think we can move on.

Thank you for uh allowing me to extrapolate. I know that was a lot more than you probably expected for this slide. Um, so we'll go ahead and move on to how how would what would we suggest to to meet that level three recommendation for this existing building. So, um, it's a shorter list, but essentially we'd expand and and grow off of the work that you were previously invested in. Uh, improving and strengthening your shear walls with shockrete. Um, bringing them up to to a higher level. Uh, with those obviously we need to address your foundation systems and improve those. You had previously had those grains done. It' be something similar uh to that. Increasing your diaphragm nailing and strengthening those connections in and throughout to make sure that the walls and the roof um stay connected in event. All right. So, we have our m we have our systems. So, we'll go through our mechanical plumbing and then we'll go through our electrical telecom and then we'll get hit the the downstream component of this presentation. So mechanical plumbing key features and expensive features of of the building. Uh as far as existing conditions go, your main uh mechanical systems are your gas fired, electric furnace, exhaust fans, and roof packs. Pretty traditional for this type of building. Uh there is cooling. It is limited to the second floor, which is where the offices are. Unfortunately, there are also offices now in the first floor. So those aren't uh those those are not accommodated by cooling. uh there is the vehicle exhaust and extraction it's just limited and we'll talk a little bit about where where we might suggest improvements and then we talked about direct digital control or how you control all these systems um from a management perspective and and there is some but it's limited additional uh as far as the deficiencies go. So the mechanical system similar theme to the city hall there it's at or past its useful life. Um we also for the uh the warehouse and the shop space

while there is ventilation uh it it certainly doesn't meet current standards and it can be improved on right. So uh we'll touch on on the recommendations and then the server room which is pretty essential to these types of buildings is not cooled. So from a quick question. So you say original that means back to 1980 is it is. Yes. Yeah.

It's old. It's I know he's like how does my my grandmother's washer and dryer outlast three or four times the more current one that cost three times much? I don't know. Yeah. We'll we'll touch again on that with the with the electrical which is also original and still pumping along. It just doesn't want to be modified, right? Doesn't modify very well. Um so some of the things that we we would suggest uh be be addressed from a renovation perspective. So you have your uh replacement and modernization of your mechanical systems. Something that would be important before they they start to fail. Um, part of that renovation or or update would coincide to your building improvements, your envelope, uh, new current code and how we address the envelope is to minimize uh, air infiltration, which is great. Uh, but it also means that we need to now mechanically incorporate more ventilation. So, uh, we're just going to do it more intentionally. So, uh, a dedicated out outdoor air system, a DOAZ, uh, is now required by code and something that would be certainly suggested and recommended. Uh, increasing your thermal comfort with a variable refrigerant flow system or otherwise that essentially gives you more options for for zoning and comfort throughout the building uh, that can be controlled uh, increasing your ventilation and adopting radiant heat for your shop spaces. Uh it's a baseline traditional uh best practice and something that's efficient, improves your um uh your your economy of your spaces and then incorporating um safety measures and and uh and monitoring devices in and throughout those spaces. So looking at your plumbing system, so you have a electric water heater. Uh all again, we've touched on this, all your restrooms, uh you have them. They're great. There's your quantities, but they're all on the first floor. They're not accessible uh from an accessibility

perspective. Uh all of your piping is uh is pretty common. It's copper uh and cast iron. Um you have an air compressor, you have two. You have one from 1988 that's been decommissioned. Um just can't give it up, I guess. Uh, so I don't not probably overly critical, but hey, it's like it's a it's part of the the theme of of how these older buildings really are are uh kind of evolve over time. Some of the deficiencies that we identified uh we certainly suggest before its useful life is is in a failure is to replace your water heater. Uh and by doing so, it's an opportunity to replace it with a higher efficiency heat pump system. uh address the ine adequacy of some of the restroom fixtures which are primarily on the women's restroom. So increasing those to accommodate uh the current staffing and the code requirements and then improving on some of the basic uh plumbing attributes trap primers or what have you um throughout the building. So as far as uh renovation approach again we talked about the replacing the water heater uh improving the restrooms uh also at that time addressing the accessibility issues and utilizing the opportunity to upgrade those fixtures to higher efficiency, better water conservation. Uh once you start adding those types of fixtures, the renovation costs are going to also require uh additional plumbing. So that would come into play and then addressing air compression throughout the building where it's necessary and needed. So let's move to your electrical and your low voltage. So the existing conditions we talked about talking about old here. Um this stuff lasts a long time. It's great. Uh it's it's it it can perform a considerable amount of time. At this point it's been 46 years. But when it comes to modifying them or adopting or being able to accept

and support uh your newer functions, your new mechanical or otherwise uh begins to be challenged. So your main panel boards, your circuit breakers, your primary systems are all existing and original. Um you have an emergency generation system. It's not necessarily original, but it's a 60KW, so it's a bit smaller. You might otherwise expect. Um we'll we'll touch on that a little bit more. And then your existing lighting is primarily fluorescent or converted um highintensity discharge fixtures that are now LEDs. Um so those are getting you along for now. Uh your existing exterior is is fairly minimal. It doesn't meet what we normally expect and uh all of your controls are manual which some people like, right? Those are kind of simple but uh doesn't meet current code. Uh, so deficiency wise, so your main electrical system, it's getting there. If it's it's it's it's antiquated. It's there's probably hard to maintain. It's difficult to to find parts for. Uh, so that's at a sur serviceable lifespan. Um, other equipment such as the ATS, the generator, uh, they're difficult to expand at this point. Uh, they may not support your new new systems or your new uh, loads. So that's going to have to be evaluated and considered. uh and that also contributes to your overall emergency distribution system that you would want for this type of building to keep things going. So, uh from a lighting perspective, we talked about the types of lights that you have. Uh they're also in poor condition and any retrofitted system, as you can imagine, was not originally designed to be that. And while it it certainly fits the bill, anytime you retrofy something such as an HID to an LED, it's not going to have an an overly uh long lifespan to that. So, that's that's something we've identified. Um, your light uh lighting occupancy sensors don't meet current code and your exterior lighting presents perhaps

safety or even security issues that uh that that we would suggest uh uh managing on the low voltage side. Your existing conditions uh they're generally they're newer. It's not it's not really a surprise. We we see this all the time because it's those systems are also newer. So, most of the systems are around 10 years old. uh you're you do have access control and you do have a fire alarm system but your fire alarm system is also original. Um those deficiencies they result in uh at least from the low voltage side of the security side uh essentially they they are becoming antiquated. So they're becoming more difficult to manage um difficult to update uh and they can be difficult to expand on. So, not necessarily when we get the renovation side suggesting that you fully replace them. Um, but just understand that as you get into that, you might determine that a best value is to actually replace them uh versus have a secondary system that supplements that. Um, and again, your fire alarm system doesn't meet uh what's original. It doesn't meet current code. So renovation approach uh we suggest based on this and we'll get into our prioritization list here but effectively replace the entire uh electrical distribution system so you're in good shape for the next 20 years. Uh address your emergency management to coincide with that so that you don't have uh a weak link in your overall system. uh updating and and improving your lighting systems and new current uh energy requirements uh including your automation and your automated lights uh your sur uh adding on to your surveillance cameras, increasing your exterior lighting and replacing your fire alarm system. So um in addition to that uh we'd suggest a next level dive is to look at that uh emergency management ATS and your overall generator. You may not have to replace it right away. might have some serviceable life to it, but it's something that we certainly want you to

be aware of that the overall loads might require. All right, so last couple considerations and then get into the costs. So, we talked about uh just the programmatic ability of this the existing building to support your staff, the city public works uh their engineering staff and their operational staff effectively. Uh right now, they can't. That's why they're they're out of office space and old shop bays and they have office space and in warehouse and so forth. Um you can see some of the issues here in the lower image. Uh but to relieve those issues uh you have an opportunity with the 9655 to relocate staff. So, uh, what we've been discussing is relocation of the engineering capital capital staff and engineering staff to that facility to relieve space and then reorganize the building uh, and bring it back to its original intended purpose, right? To to get shop space back to shop space and vehicle base back to vehicle base and so forth. From a priority perspective, uh we've outlined kind of what we would believe are the high, medium, and low priorities of uh of how you could address this. So, we're going to talk about the whole picture from a cost perspective. Uh but this would help you perhaps organize an approach uh that could be more manageable from a cost perspective for the for innovation. So, your high priorities are going to be replacement of your mechanical systems for your office spaces, making those um current code, meet current wellness and comfort, uh allowing for more flexibility, addressing your your ventilation, your shop areas, uh improving your lighting, and then in addition to that, you're going to need to upgrade your M your electrical and branch service systems. Your medium priorities, there's really a fine line. Honestly, these kind of blend

with one another. They're very very near to each other, but essentially um expanding on your mechanical upgrades uh for the building uh create uh addressing branch paneling or circuiting as the building is reorganized. Uh and then addressing any of the addressing your fire alarm and any emergency management systems and replacing those fixtures. Your lower priority needs are going to be uh uh replacing storage space heaters. You're as uh including dedicated control systems, um updating, spanning your access control, you have it, it works. Um so your base needs, the one thing that you you might have noticed the bottom here, the note of course uh that applies to anything that you do is essentially is to address those accessibility requirements. Um, so by code for any renovation, you're going to need to invest up to 20% of your your improvements into your accessibility improvements. Um, to uh to which point you meet that criteria and then you can voluntarily continue to improve that.

I think I'll just pause and add, you know, I think staff, we asked Brett and team to split this into high, medium, and low. I think these are all necessary improvements to make to the building. We would recommend doing all of them. That being said, you're going to see a number of a total cost. If you wanted the option of could we phase this, could we do this in a certain order, we just want to provide if we were asked to do that probably where we would start first and then pro progress over time. So that was the intention of these slides. Okay. All right. So let's talk about the cost. So uh the costs have been composed into what we consider three layers. Uh it's important to know that a couple things, a couple factors. First, this is intended to u as Robbie indicated, like we're suggesting all of these recommendations, low, medium, high accessibility requirements to give you a building that can support or provide you a serviceable life uh for the city, but also for your staff for up to 20 years. Um that involves, you know, moving staff out of the building to relieve space so we can reorganize it. And then uh as Robbie indicated early on, we're qualifying this that this this study and these costs are focused specifically on this building itself and the improvements necessary. Another aspect that's important to understand is that um this is only part of the overall picture, right? We've talked about the city hall, we've talked about um other needs that exist on the site. So for the purposes of of addressing this specific building, not any of the ancillary yards, an accessory facilities um or otherwise that's this is specific to this building, but it also comparatively to the overall big picture of the previous BSM project. Um there's other parts and pieces that we're all aware of, right? The police department, the emergency management services is a very different project. So I just want to point that out when we're looking at that overall uh initial number. So this

is the this is the initial number to essentially renovate the building uh address the staffing and take on these improvements. The second layer of this uh which we've identified is your is to bring the building up and adopt those recommendations to take the building to your category 3 level. Um so those these are the cost to do that. Um going to answer but just going to just that's essentially what this is. uh it gives you the next layer picture of what that looks like. And the third layer uh is the incorporation of additional support or resource for the public's work department. So this is kind of getting a step outside the boundary of or the footprint of the building but addressing some essential needs uh for the the public works facility to protect their their equipment. So their factory trucks, their extractors and their uh their street sweepers. I think all all told these are it's in the questionnaire. These probably close to what 1.82 million. We do a lot of fire facilities and as much as we love the buildings as architects, they're glorified storage buildings for these million-dollar machines, right? So, these are these are very uh essential equipment to the public works and they're very expensive. They require conditioned space. So, this third layer essentially provides that. So that standalone fully conditioned building effectively is a a conditioned four bay pre- engineering uh building with a two bay covered uh area outside of that that's not conditioned that's open space. So that kind of gives you the full picture. Okay. As part of this the value proposition or just to compare apples to apples to the the highest level degree. Uh we also prepared uh in concert with with our team and and the city a look at what what would be a comparable new construction

apples to apples with the existing building. So it's really clear to make sure we're not we're not recreating a PSM or anything like that or throwing in additional stuff that results in this new construction. But this is effectively if you rebuild the existing building as is to current standards, new construction, so forth, what would what would that look like from a high level? And so what this is intended to provide you is is what that might look like from a a p a new construction perspective. And so this is a high level range um you know based on the delivery. There's other factors that come into play. That's why it's a 16 to$22 million um range there, but it should give you an idea of kind of what that would look like. How many slides do we have?

Okay, that's it. Okay. Uh, Council Randall,

you're on mute. Of course I am. Um, new construction versus the uh renovation. What is the projected uh useful life of each of those? Great. So, uh, great question. So, the renovation we're talking about today, investing in that, we're talking, you know, up to 20 years is really the what we're we're conservatively targeting. Any new construction to date is is 50 years or more. So, it's new construction will provide you a significantly longer building. Um, case in point, your existing building is what almost nearly 50 years is of itself.

So, you would get almost 30 years more for the same amount of money. Correct. Yes. makes an easy decision or not.

Yeah, I I will just uh I'll just qualify that dealing with city hall, we had a different set of circumstances. We we had to close the building. We could no longer operate it. Um I hope we don't find ourselves in a similar situation with the public works building. We absolutely need an an operational building. So we may have to have an in between strategy which is really what we adopted. We made a strategic investment uh starting in 2023 to keep the building going. Uh but even if we come up with a plan to replace the building on site or do something different, that's still going to be a number of years out. And so this this conversation as we're starting to think about this, we we don't have a replacement plan yet. Uh we we had one and that that did not pass at the ballot. Uh so we're back. We're starting over, but we have to keep this building going. There there is no plan B for these types of operations. This is this is the only facility we have that can do this type of work. So that was uh my hallway conversation with uh the McKenzie team before I came in here is it's probably going to be what comes next. you know what what does like 10 years look like to keep us going while the the council is working through these policy decisions. So keep that in mind. We can't we can't we have to keep this building going until we have an adequate replacement.

Yeah. So follow-up question. I mean is there a way to get additional information at another meeting about how little we could spend to keep the existing building going until it's we're able to build a 50-year building? Yes, that was some of the feedback uh we wanted to get from you tonight, council, is, you know, you've made a decision. You you redecided uh to on city hall. Uh we represented a lot of information tonight. For those of you that have been on council, you've seen this presentation before, so this is a a refresher for some, new to others. Uh what what what do you need to know next about this facility? Um, you you heard tonight we're beginning to move staff into the 9655 building without really doing a whole lot to it right now just to provide some relief and then we'll have to talk about where where we go from here.

Yeah, if I heard Council Member Andrew all right, I I would align with that question just you know what is what is sort of the right the minimum we can do to right not spend a ton of money and sort of increase our our optionality. Uh, councelor Reynolds, so many many questions. Um, but pick a couple.

Yeah, pick a couple. Um, if you uh if you opted for the new building or a substantial remodel, either one, how does that impact current operations? I presume a new building would take two years plus to construct. How do you keep running in the meantime? So, so next level conversation would be where where does that new building go, right? On or presume let's let's use the presumption it's on the the existing site, right? So, uh that would have to be mapped out, but you're right between design and construction. It it's a two two plus year endeavor. Correct. Right. So, we're going to that's going to have to happen. Now, construction of a new building can happen independently on site depending on where it's organized and and available space. that you know if city already come down and all that that offers opportunity you know depending on where it goes. So if it was constructed on site it can presumably be constructed uh without necessarily impacting existing operations. So they can continue to utilize the existing building. It is a two so if you're getting to the hey what do we need to do over the next two years to the existing building right while it's being constructed. You know that's that's a layer of of detail like you know when is your you know when's your water heater going to fail? you know those they like to surprise you or your mechanical system. So there's certain things that can limp along for that period of time. Uh and that's certainly a next level of detail that can be evaluated. Um but if you're going to coincidentally if you're going to renovate the existing building, you can imagine that level of money investing in your existing building comes with a fairly significant operational impact to make it happen. um we weren't around when you did your other uh structural upgrades, but I'm sure public works could could provide feedback on when when and where that that affected them. But to come in and do the additional structural upgrades, address your mechanical systems, things

of those nature has to be carefully planned and carefully defined uh in order to to minimize that disruption, which is certainly going to occur. Just a clarifying question, the the 20 million standalone building um sort of apples to apples comparison. Is that on a level site with appropriate soil? That that's on Well, it's it's on your current site, but hopefully a level portion of it.

Yeah. I think where the mayor is headed with this is uh you know we we have let the cat out of the bag in a few conversations that some of our soil conditions are suboptimal especially near the back where the building actually sits now and so as we've talked about uh in the PSM bond measure and now looking at different alternatives are any new building is likely going to need to pull forward on the site and and we had talked about that previously ly. So, since the ballot measure, we've done additional work on the site, soil studies, and we may need to pull the buildings forward even more all the way to the street. So, that's that's something to be aware of as we contemplate our next steps.

Yeah. Uh, Mayor Becker.

Yeah. I have a question that I didn't ask last time because it was getting so late, but it applies equally here. So this question is sort of for both of them, which is that when I talk to community members about any of these facilities, I I they regularly quote, you know, how much it costs them to build something else. And I'm just wondering if you could speak in general to like why are municipal projects so expensive for my benefit and I think for the community's benefit and understanding per square foot, total cost, why does these all cost so much money? It's a Yeah, we I think I don't think there's a project we don't have that question come up. It's like, hey, we built this down the street for X and you know, depending on the type of building. These types of buildings are there's a couple factors. First off, these types of buildings uh are expected to last a significantly longer portion of time than perhaps what you would normally expect. you know, if we're doing a re a standup retail building from a developer perspective, it's not to suggest that they don't want it to last that long, but they're not investing in the building or the types of construction necessary to make it last that long. The other aspects of of these types of facilities that increase the cost um beyond just the construction materials uh is going to be the the risk category. It's improvement on for these types of buildings that they're going to have to be designed uh to a higher level which which constitute higher reinforcing, higher levels of resistance or structural materials or systems that that cost more. They simply do. Um the other element of of it is is simply the delivery of of these public projects. They take longer. They're more complex. um the systems in them or the security or the aspects uh required of these types of buildings are more expensive. Um they're up there with hospitals, you know, the hospitals are expensive. Nobody questions hospitals, but they do they they're expensive, too. Schools are

expensive. Um schools are more expensive today than they were 20 years ago. Unfortunately, we have higher levels of issues, security, safety that we have to to implement in these types of buildings. And because of that, the materials cost more, they take longer. Um, and that's that's just the nature of it. Uh, to ensure that we're putting in the proper technology and the things that are going to support the the users, these unique users that uh that have to operate out of these types of fielding is really important and uh and those types of functionality cost more money. Thank you, Councer.

So, back to functionality. I think this question is for Jesse. We we talked about the um the PSM building representing all the functionality that we need and if we do like for like with this new construction, how do we anticipate? I mean, I would think we'd have to go bigger given that our needs have changed since 48 years ago. So, what do you think in between this idea of building new, the building next door? Like it feels like we're talking about buildings, not not use and not occupants and not materials and not equipment. Can you talk a little bit?

Good question. You know, tonight we we really wanted to focus on the building itself. The conversation gets a little more complicated when you think about the whole facility, right? All of the things that we do at public works, many of those things happen in a yard, not in a building. Uh council, you're aware that, you know, our current yard is not laid out optimally. um our ancillary structures, all the open area structures, the sheds, the storage or lack thereof is not adequate. So that that all needs to be addressed. Um what we've talked about, you know, following the the failure of our bond measure is this may have to be phased. Uh you have a police department operating out of trailers. Uh you just heard tonight that our public works building is probably not worth the reinvestment, but we need to keep it going. So, I think the next conversation for us is what comes next? Uh what what does who gets rehoused first? How do we phase this? What what does this look like? Uh potentially going back to the voters and when uh we wanted to just make sure this council, which is a different council than was here last year, has all the information again. We're starting the conversation over to think about sequencing, but we have multiple teams and inadequate facilities and that is that is something that's going to have to be addressed. Um, counc

um so for the purpose of tonight um is this more just like a discussion? Are we going to come back to this issue? Because there's a lot of moving pieces.

There is a lot of moving pieces. Yeah. this, you know, the presentation previously on city hall was foundational. You made a decision. I don't need a decision tonight on the public works building, but I want to make sure we're all talking about the same thing, right? So, we wanted to come back, make sure you have the information on the building. You understand it's vintage, its issues. There are a number of them. Uh hopefully that also helps you with community conversations because I know you're asked, tell me what's wrong with the public works building. Well, now now you can rattle off a list. So, we're not looking for a direction tonight. Again, foundational because there are policy conversations coming. And then just as far as moving part of the team to 9655, um when do you anticipate that happening?

It's actually happening now. So, council, we have we have some we haven't opened the 9655 building up to the public. uh that needs some different considerations including probably some treatments to the entryway, some safety and security. Uh but the building is a good solid building and it's providing relief where we need it. So there's a couple things happening right now. Uh we are finishing uh the basically the cleanout and total vacation of city hall. Everything is on its way out and we'll be coming back to you to talk about the demolition plan. Uh some of the things that are in city hall that need to be retained have to move to 9655. So that's happening. It has been happening for a while. Uh we have capital and engineering team. If you've been on the second floor of public works building, our staff are just crammed up there. Uh we're just taking all of them out and they are going over to the 9655 building. Uh we've also started to sand up some um we call it hotel spaces basically flexible workspaces both at Lutherbur Bank and at the 9655 building so the staff that are scattered since the city hall closure have somewhere they can go touch down. I think one of the things that's been hardest for us is like we can't have a department meeting for like the city manager's office or finance because we have no department space. So, we're trying to build in some of that flexibility uh so we can just get some relief. Even the police department um they don't have proper conference rooms or um any space where they can all gather. So, they they will also be able to use the 9655 building at least as a a leaf valve now. So, that's happening now. Uh important to note though, right, the public facing side of operating that building, we're not quite yet ready to go yet. We have our architect team working on the 9655 building to understand uh what we would need to do to make it um publicly accessible. And

we had when we bought that building, we had some known issues as well. Uh the roof uh the HVAC system and the elevator. So that's on our list. So tonight wasn't the night to talk about that building. We wanted to talk about public works, but that was a very long answer to your probably simple question. We're moving in now. Great. Thanks for that update. Professor Reynolds, is that a old hand? It's a new hand or continued hand. Um, if we compare and contrast this to the plan we had for the last ballot measure. It seems like there are a few key things we're not doing now, which which help explain part of the cost. One is the police would no longer go in this building,

at least as I understand it. Um, one is a lot of the staff that we were going to put in the other building are going to go to 9655 instead. So presumably that means we need less people work areas. One is the emergency operation center and and the visitor greeting area, for lack of a better word, would not be in this building either. Um, and I I think it's true there's a lot less vehicle storage space and work space as well. Are those the big things? Are there other things that we would be giving out besides those

stores? Yeah, I'm I'm not sure we could even make that comparison, Council Member Reynolds, because the public works building was never a police building, right? It's it's always just been a public works building. So, it's still just a public works building.

Uh over time, what happened is we ran out of room in city hall. This goes back probably to the '9s, early 2000s. And so the the engineering and capital project teams started moving in in were in public works. There's there's was always uh some teams that straddled once city hall closed. We moved the utility building staff to public works. So we took a building that was already overcrowded and we made it worse. Um, so I I'm not even sure we can like the PSM building was uh police formerly in city hall, EOC formerly in city hall, customer service formerly in city hall, plus all of public works.

Yeah. So, so, so that explains why but it but I think my question is still helpful to understand old proposal versus new proposal. What do the two buildings do differently? And I Right. Th this this is just public works and it doesn't even address the yard. Right. The yard that's another big thing I didn't Yeah. That's that's a very big component. Okay.

Right. And the 9655 building came in. We as a city knew about it while we were preparing the ballot measure. The public became aware when we announced it, but we had planned for that to be the the the partner to the PSM facility. So the the nonpublic works staff, you know, YFS, city manager's office planning would all go into that building. Okay. Can I have one followup? Let's go to council white. Come back.

Sorry, Craig. I can't ban all. Um, I have a question about the ADA part and the 20% and as you design a new building, I assume that's included in the overall estimate, but like could you talk a little bit more about kind of building codes and ADA and architectural standards these days and functionality and materials? Like we're going to get bigger bang for our buck with a rebuild and and that ADA component piece seems pretty important because you put it on three slides and all the different cost estimates. So, expand a little bit on that if you could.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's it's it's it's absolutely important. It's it's I don't know on every slide it's important wise but uh certainly something we want to ensure that we we mention um on any new build of course it's going to meet all accessibility standards right everything that's going to be necessary of today's codes for for our international building code and what would be normally expected for a public facility. um under a renovation, you're only required to to invest a certain amount of up to a point of of your overall construction value to address those those needs. Now, if you're spending a lot of money on your your renovation, that 20% could very well take care of most of all of your your accessibility upgrades. So, when we're talking about accessibility upgrades, it's it is prioritized. you know, they don't make you put the elevator in first. You know, there because you because you you you know, you added a bathroom, right? So, there is there's a rhyme or reason or a prioritization to how the code facilitates or administers accessibility codes, but it starts from the outside in and it's a prioritization and then it starts to address um both egress routes and then accessible public spaces um as some of the priority spaces. So, we're talking about, you know, making sure that your egress routes are all accessible, that your restrooms are are meet the full accessibility codes without having to tear into walls, right? They're adaptable. Um, as well as your stairs and other things of that nature, um, are going to have to meet that. And so, that's that's how it's administered. But depending on the level of improvement, um, there are often times that that you not you may not meet all the necessary requirements. Um, and certainly much easier to address on a new construction than it is on an existing renovation.

Guess we're have you gotten far enough in the space planning to know for the teams that would stay in this building. Is is there enough room? We have we have not advanced the space planning to to that degree of where everyone would go. There's been conversations, right, as far as what we know and where where folks would go. Okay. Council Ris, did you mean in the public works building specific? Yeah, in the public's work building, we we know it's over capacity right now. We're going to move out the capital and engineering teams. If you then renovated this building or built one of a similar size, would it still be over capacity?

This is a bit of a trick question. I I love those.

I know. Um, I'll just remind you that we have staff teams working in maintenance bays that were never intended to be office spaces. Uh, the building is a little bit undized for our maintenance operations. It was never sized to be public works and maintenance and utility billing. Um, many of our maintenance staff are also in the field. So, we have we, you know, we have to account for kind of that type of flexible work style. I'd like to get the folks out of the maintenance bays uh into at least touchdown spaces, shared cubicles, whatever that might look like in a more appropriate area of the building. Um so that's that's still still being worked on.

Thank you. Okay. Foundational conversation literally and figuratively. Uh anything else? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, we now move to other business and the planning schedule. We welcome. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, no updates for me. Okay. Uh, any council member Abbis' to report? Okay. Council reports. Stephan mayor Becker. Nothing to report. Council Wer, nothing to report.

Council Weinberg. Yeah. So, the King County Cities Climate Collaboration or K4C held its monthly meeting of the electeds outreach committee yesterday and among the 14 attendees were Matt Kuharic and Brian Doyle and Vicky Rya from King County. They gave us an overview of the county's jump start program. It's a program expanding the clean energy economy workforce and it provides paid internships to 40 adults per year from historically disadvantaged communities to develop skills and get job placement doing solar installation and heat pump and HVAC electrification retrofits, EV charging infrastructure and energy efficiency upgrades. and funding comes from the state and federal grants as well as from industry subsidization. Um we also talked about how uh cities can partake uh in involving some of these uh uh interns uh in uh their projects. And my next open lunch uh is uh my monthly open uh brunch is going to be at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 16th at Crawlspace. The address is 304178th Avenue Southeast. And as always, all are welcome. It's an open agenda, news, sports, weather, humor, even questions about city business. All I ask is that everyone shows their respect for the chef by ordering some food and or beverage and let me know if you're coming so I can reserve a large enough table.

Council Reynolds. Nothing to report. Council, nothing to report. Council member Shay.

Yes. So, I attended a number of events. just want to share with the community and you can find um these events on the city um Instagram, city Facebook and also you can sign up for the city newsletter through their website. So I attended the um first sustainable fashion show on um April 23rd at the community center and this was organized by the Mercer Island Chamber of Commerce in partnership with our parks and recreation team. And um for Earth Day on April 22nd, uh we I celebrated at the Clark Beach Park um with um the Mercer Island Parks and Recck Team and the Mercer Island Women's Club. We cleared invasive species and transformed um the um the the plants into nature art. So a lot of people ask me, "Oh, I would have loved to do that by known about it." So please sign up for the city newsletter um to know about the events. And um on April 24th um the port of Seattle and this Seattle Tacoma International Airport invited elected officials for an comprehensive airfield tour. and Daniel. Um C uh Deputy Mayor Becker and Council Member Weineberg and I attended and the um lead leadership from the airport proposed um or presented plans to expand capacity, improve the infrastructure and enhance travel experience for passengers and um also attended the first Friday artwalk. So we have a lovely art walk first Friday of every month from 5 to 8:00 PM. So encourage um community members to do that and see your neighbors in person. And um this Thursday I'll be riding the light rail to Seattle with um community members on um so this is May 7th. We're meeting at the Merc light rail station on 80th at 11:15. So please RSVP with me if you would like to join. Thank you.

Okay. Uh thank you. Uh I don't have anything to report. Uh the city council will now go into executive session for approximately 15 minutes to consider the selection of a site with acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase. When public knowledge regarding such consideration would likely would cause a likelihood of increased price pursuant to RCW4231B. The city council will be in recess from 9:20 p.m. until 9:25 p.m. The city council will convene in executive session at 9:25 p.m. until 9:40 p.m.

Good evening. City Council began executive se executive session late at 9:28 p.m. and will continue in executive session for the stated 15 minutes until 9:43 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 5 minutes until 9:48 p.m. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for your continued patience. City Council will continue in executive session for an additional 5 minutes until 9:53 p.m. Thank you.

Talk slow until what time? Oh. The city council was was an executive session from 9:28 until 9:50 p.m. The next regularly scheduled hybrid city council meeting will be on Tuesday, May 19th, beginning at 5:00 p.m. The time is now 9:55 p.m. As a reminder to the council, please stay seated until the city staff has terminated the broadcast. Good luck and good good evening and thank you for joining us.