City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm going to sound check.

I'm not hearing anything from you guys. Not sure if that's to be expected.

That's to be expected, Craig.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for your patience.

Good evening. Welcome to the July 7th, 2026 City Council regular hybrid meeting. My name is Dave Rosemond. I'm the mayor. Tonight's hybrid city council meeting is brought to you in person by Zoom. We're also broadcasting on the city's YouTube channel and MITV channel 21. Welcome to all and thank you for joining us today. Council members, please be ready for the roll call. City clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Andrall is absent. Council Member Shea? Aye. I'm here. Council Member Reynolds?

Here.

Here. Council Member Weicker? Here. Council Member Weinberg?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Becker? Here. And Mayor Rosenbaum?

Here.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, there is indeed a board present. Next, we have the Pledge of Allegiance. Council, if you would join us in Council Chambers, please stand and place your flag. If you would join us via Zoom, we'd need to turn off your video. Please turn off your flag if you would.

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. Moved by Council Member Weinberg and seconded by Deputy Mayor Becker. City Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Weicker? Aye. Council Member Weinberg?

Aye.

Mayor Rosenbaum? Aye. Deputy Mayor Becker. Aye. Council Member Shea. Aye. And Council Member Reynolds.

Aye.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. The motion passes 6-0. The agenda is approved. Next, we will welcome City Manager Jesse Bond to the City Manager's Board.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And for anyone that is joining us remotely, I just wanted to let you know we had a problem with our server and had to move the council meeting into room 104 here at the community center. So thank you, everyone, online and in person for your patience. I'm going to ask Ali Speets to help me out by screen sharing. There we go. Thanks, Ali. All right. Happy Tuesday, July 7th. I finally saw the sun today. Next slide, please. Next one. All right. Council, just to look ahead at our calendar for July, I'll remind you that your next council meeting is July 21st. We are anticipating taking the month of August off, which we typically do for our council meetings. You'll make that final decision at the next meeting. We do have still Board and Commission meetings happening in July. The Utility Board, July 14th, Arts Council, July 15th, and the Open Space Conservancy Trust, July 16th. And then most of our boards will also take August off, although the Planning Commission will be meeting on August 5th to hold a hearing. It had to be rescheduled because we did not have a Planning Commission quorum in July. All right, thanks, Allie. Next slide, please. I kept the city updates short tonight, but certainly wanted to call out what is anticipated to be our favorite weekend of the year is here. This Saturday, please join us at Mercedale Park in the morning. We start off with a parade in the town center that leads us to Mercedale Park for a day of festivities, booths, entertainment, and I'm told a phone party. Sounds like foam and bubble and lots of things for kids to do. After that we take a short transition break and then next slide please. We head to Luther Burbank Park right down the hill from where we are tonight. for the fireworks show starting at six o'clock. We have vendors and entertainment at Luther Burbank and then the fireworks light off at 10 o'clock. We will have parking available here at the community center and certainly I know folks will go to the parking right as well. So hope to see you all there. Hope to see you all there. It should be a great Saturday. Next slide, please. World Cup. World Cup games in Seattle have wrapped up. I think you know that for the last couple of years, our region has been planning for these events, including your own City of Mercer Island staff team. We operated our emergency operations center for each of the games that was to deal with anything that we might be experiencing, including heavy traffic from the region. That's a picture there of the EOC and operation on game day. Just want to give a shout out to all the staff members that gave up time on holidays and weekends and late in the evening. Kind of a bummer USA loss last night, but a great, great Mercer Island City staff response. We learned a lot. through this event. We also, since the community center was mostly shut down for regular programs during those days, you know, we've been running the parking lot for overflow parking lot. We collected a little bit of revenue there, $17,000, which goes to offset all of our costs of standing up the staff response for this event, including our police overtime. One final shout out before I move on to the next slide. Amanda Kaverkamp, our emergency manager, just did a fantastic job over the last couple of years preparing us for this event. And it was her efforts that I think led to success on our part. So thank you, Amanda. Next slide, please. Upcoming events besides summer celebration, we are also turning the corner into our Mostly Music in the Park series, which kicks off on Thursday, July 16th. It's running for six weeks, I believe. at Mercerdale Park. Just a reminder, I think the event band start at six o'clock. I don't have the time on that slide. I don't have it. Oh, there it is. 630. Thank you, Ali. 630 to 830. And in addition to great entertainment, we also have food trucks at every event and an arts and crafts area for the kiddos. So looking forward to a great music lineup this summer. And one more event to give you a shout out about here. Thursdays at the community center, as you know, we have a coffee. Welcome everybody to drop in and say hello. And it sounds like we're going teal Thursdays through the summer and into the fall in support of our Mariners team. Next slide, Ali. All right, some good news. I wanted to just, you know, this is that time of year when the community center and the Parks and Recreation team is just at full tilt. That picture on the right is the commercial room next door transformed for an event. It's amazing what can be done in that space. Council, I'm really pleased to share that all of our staff efforts and marketing and promotions as of What is the date here? We have, I think that's supposed to say May. We are already at 90% of our annual revenue goal for rentals on this building. Really proud of the team for taking the initiative and thinking about creative ways to fill time. That includes offering discounted room rates as we get closer to the dates to move our last rental space forward. So it is just hopping here, as you know. We have our council meetings here. And a big thank you to the Parks and Rec team for all that they've done to really amplify this space. It's been a great success. So if you're looking for a rental venue, come to the community center. And I think, Mr. Mayor, that may be my last slide. Yes, thank you. And thank you, Ali, for your assistance.

All right. Thank you. I just want to give a special thank you to Amanda and the whole team that worked on the World Cup efforts. In a lot of these situations, the best outcome is that everything goes smoothly and no one sees all the hard work that goes into making that happen. So thank you to Amanda, the whole team that worked on that effort. Our next item of business is appearances. This is an opportunity for anyone to speak to the City Council on any item, except items requiring a public hearing, any quasi-traditional matters, or campaign-related matters. City Clerk, is there anyone who wishes, sorry, excuse me, is there anyone who has signed up for appearances that wishes to address the Council?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Great.

Tonight's agenda will include in-person 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. today. If it 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 will become as boisterous, threatening, or personally abusive while addressing the city council and may be requested to leave the meeting. Please note, the city council does not provide responses during appearances. Please speak audibly and state your name and city of residence of the record. There will be a timer on the screen. You have three minutes to speak. When your time has ended, your microphone and video will be turned off. I will thank you for your comments and move to the next speaker or item of business. Staff, please promote the first speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our first speaker tonight is Adam Regan.

Hi, Adam Rageb, Mercer Island resident. Good evening, council members. Three observations, three suggestions. I've observed that the proposed changes in front of you today overachieve what is required by us in a few areas. State law requires us to allow emergency shelters only in our town center, but your policy has been to allow them anywhere on the island. The newly defined transit sub area is larger than the minimum required by law, and the town center up zone is creating a surplus of 1,462 units of capacity above 50% AMI. First, for the suggestions, I have concerns with adjusting parking minimums for 0 to 50 AMI units. They shouldn't be adjusted. It's simple guidance, not law from commerce, and it's only one of the 10 potential barriers identified. No one should fault us for wanting to protect road users' safety by maintaining parking minimums. In practice, these reductions can make things more burdensome to subsidize housing's future residents. Only entity who benefits is the developer. Current and future residents, especially families and those with a handicap, are harmed by this policy. Allowing the code official to authorize an alternative minimum number of parking stalls presents an unclear and arbitrary standard for maybe granting an unspecified unquantified adjustment. This is in direct conflict with House Bill 1293, which requires cities to apply, quote, only clear and objective development regulations. Second, hotels should be removed as an allowed use in the town center zones because they compete directly with our city's stated need for housing. Land in this area is limited, and every parcel developed as a hotel is a parcel that cannot be used for housing. Mercer Island is under significant pressure to increase housing capacity, so zoning should prioritize permanent homes for residents over short-term lodging for visitors. Allowing hotels in new zones risks of creating a visitor-serving commercial district instead of a revitalized town center. If the goal is to create housing near transit jobs and services, then the code should reflect that priority. Hotels should not be allowed to displace mandated housing opportunities. Third, and finally, the existing 1,000-foot and 600-foot separations from schools, parks, and homeless shelters under SSTH should be preserved. These are reasonable restrictions solely intended to protect children. Requiring a homeless shelter to be at least 600 feet from the JCC or the Boys and Girls Club near Northwood Elementary School, among other places, is a reasonable ask. And no one should fault Mercer Island for preserving those pre-existing protections. Removal of this pre-existing distance constraint comes from the only the strictest reading of the law. Let's preserve current reasonable protections for the JCC and our schools, among other places. Surely this is an unintended consequence of House Bill 2266. Has council reached out to Ty, Zahn, or Wellman to ask if this was the intent of the legislation that they passed this March and that only came into effect on June 11th, less than one month ago? Being the first city to comply with this puts us at the tip of the spear again. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Our next speaker tonight is Isabel Perez. Please come up.

All right.

Okay. Good evening, council members. It's my understanding that the proposed changes before today will likely be approved this month. But I'm here to ask a different question. What is the plan for residents after these changes are adopted? I think many of us are hoping the mandate will stay and changes will stay on paper. But hope is not a plan. As an attorney, I look at the legal structure being put in place. Once the city identifies public land, discusses funding, and makes permitting very easy, this is no longer theoretical. It creates a legal path for a real project. So what happens if the state comes back in a couple of years for the check-in and says, well, Merced Island, you have a mandate. Donate or lease one of the lots you identified to Plymouth Housing or another lot. And what happens if funding becomes available? If the fee program being discussed today is enough, or if not enough, there are grants. That means once there is land and money, the only thing left is the permit. And we're making permitting as easy as permitting ordinary home. Residents and city council have no say. That means that outdoor retail in Mercer Island will still require pre-approval public hearing, but a homeless shelter, a halfway house, or a PSH project will not have pre-decision public hearing where residents' concerns are taken into account. That's very hard to justify. So that comes back to my initial question. What's your plan as a city after the changes today are adopted? Almost 200 units of a low-barrier homeless housing town center would raise serious concerns for safety, to say the least, for residents, small businesses, seniors, and families who use and drive through town center every day. Has the City Council been advocating for Mercy Island with our state lawmakers? Have you explained to state lawmakers the detailed effects of the loss in our community? Have you been working with other cities through the Association of Washington Cities to push for more common sense, public input, and more local control? There are many involved residents in this community who want to support Council's efforts and help advocate for Mercer Island. But we have not heard much about what the efforts are, what's the strategy, and how residents can help. I hope Council is not simply accepting state mandates that have very negative impacts on current residents. Council members should be proud to advocate for Mercer Island, and residents will be happy to be part of the effort. compliance is not silence i know we all value our neighborhoods our town center our parks our safety we all value the mercy island we have today thank you thank you speaker our next speaker tonight is addie smith

Hello, my name is Addie Smith. Today is July 7th, 2026. I'm speaking before the Mercer Island City Council. For seven years, these city council members, as well as Benson Wong, Celine Neese, Blakely Warbington, and the Mercer Island Municipal Court have suppressed hate crimes that happened to my child and I. They have intentionally and maliciously ended my career, my finances, my mental health, my personal life, If I had been murdered, this case may have made national news and my murder would have likely been represented by Ben Crump. But I defended myself and the white woman convicted felon Jill Stamborski, who attacked me that day, had been attacking my child and I for months and has been protected by the police and the city council members. Judge David Keenan, a good man and a great judge with real discernment. honesty and truth, saw through all these lies and deception by Mercer Island police and my former employers. He reversed the most ridiculous orders of protection for my former employers who were worried about the reputation of their company and their jobs than mine and my child's lives and repeated hate crime attacks. These council members have allowed their former police chief, Ed Holmes, to retire after telling me that he hopes things would settle down for me and have allowed their police department to get away with refusing to write police reports about the hate crime attacks that happened to my child and I. On November 28, 2022, the public defender, Meredith Hutchison, presented me with an SOC document. On November 30, 2022, I declined that ridiculous plea agreement. I'm a hate crime survivor and have committed no crimes. By December 1, 2022, Attorney Hutchison had filed a motion for additional attorney funding. It states, quote, Council is contracted with the city of Mercer Island to provide representation on Mercer Island Municipal Court matters. The contract provides $400 per case for representation, $400 per case for representation. In the one month council has this case, council has worked 16.5 hours. Counsel requests an additional $750 for extra time spent on this case and time spent in the future, end quote. Her motion was denied by December 12th. Attorney Hutchinson then allowed the court to call me from a phone number she knew wasn't valid. The municipal court knew as well that the number they were calling wasn't valid. Attorney Hutchinson then allowed Judge Gregory to issue a bench warrant in February. By March, Attorney Hutchinson had submitted her motion to withdraw. I recorded all of my calls with Attorney Hutchinson and still have all of my emails. Attorney Hutchinson was able to use her prowess to get the withdrawal granted, all because she wouldn't get paid more money. Judge Gregory is a liar and has committed perjury from the bench, and he is still the municipal court judge. And every case that he and Blakely Warbinson have ever adjudicated that involves a Black person must be reopened and investigated.

Thank you. Any further speakers?

Our next speaker is Barbara Sternhoff.

My name is Barbara Sternhoff. I've lived on Mercer Island since 1968. That is 58 years. I chose to live here because of the good schools, the sense of community, feeling of safety, and the quick access to Seattle. I am sure many people moved here for the very same reasons. I am here tonight because the environment on Mercer Island has changed and continues to change and not for the best. The schools are not as good and there is no money to fund them adequately. I no longer feel safe in my own home and the traffic to Seattle is more difficult to navigate. You can't do anything about the traffic, but you can impact the other issues. The state is requiring communities, I should add, I'm really not a political person, so this is to the best of my knowledge, okay? The state is requiring communities to do certain things. However, one size does not fit all. We are an island with only so much land, and we also only have so much business here on the island to contribute to the tax base of A homeless shelter with no safeguards in a neighborhood or near school is unacceptable. And by the way, who pays for all of this? If we have to pay for this, it represents a huge financial burden and probably higher taxes. If forced to do this, perhaps we could build the city hall we need that will house the police, et cetera, and put the homeless shelter above it. or perhaps we should push back to the state's demands. The representatives we have elected to the state legislature clearly do not represent me or many of you. My other concern is the state demand that low cost housing be created with half a mile from sound transit. I understand the need for lower cost housing, certainly. But who's going to pay for the extra demand on the infrastructure, the schools, the water, the electricity, the parking issues? The other concern is that the downtown core is only so big, so you will ultimately have to invade existing neighborhoods and require displacement of taxpaying, law-abiding citizens and their families. Once more, I ask, can't you push back on the state proclamations? I lived here when Aubrey Davis, may he rest in peace, pushed back big time. And I would think that that should be a model going forward. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. There are no further speakers this evening, Mr. Mayor. Okay.

Thank you. We now move to the next item of business, which is approval of the consent agenda. Staff, please put the consent agenda on screen. The consent agenda contains seven items which are available on the screen in the agenda package review. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Seconded by Council Member Weinberg and seconded by Deputy Mayor Becker. City Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Shea? Aye. Mayor Rosenbaum? Aye. Deputy Mayor Becker? Aye. Council Member Reynolds?

Aye.

Council Member Weinberg? Aye. And Council Member Weicker? Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Motion passes 60. The City Council will now go into executive session approximately 30 minutes to discuss legal counsel pending a potential litigation pursuant to RCW 42-3110-1I and to consider the selection of a site of the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase from public knowledge regarding such consideration likely caused a likelihood of increased price pursuant to RCW 42-3110-1B. The City Council will be in recess from 5.50 p.m. until 5 p.m. City Council can be the executive session from 5.55 p.m. until 6.25 p.m.

Good evening. Thank you for your patience. City Council will continue an executive session for an additional 30 minutes until 6.50 p.m. Thank you for your continued patience. There you go.

Okay. Yeah.

He, Alfredo's dropping.

City Council was an executive session from 5.55 p.m. until 6.45 p.m. Our first item of legislative for regular business is DB 6960, GMA Compliance, Comprehensive Plan Amendments, First Reading Ordinance Number 26-09. We welcome CPD Director Jeff Thomas.

Thank you, Mary. Good evening, Council. For the record, Jeff Thomas with CPD. Joining me is Allison Van Gorp, our Deputy Director and Principal Planner Adam Zak. This is the first of two GMA compliance-related items on your Agenda this evening, Adam's going to run through presentations for both. This item will have a few more slides in it as we're going to cover some of the background in just the one presentation instead of repeating it, the second one, obviously. So, Adam, take it away when you're ready. Thank you, Jeff.

I'm just going to share my screen here. Our purpose tonight is to complete the first readings of ordinance numbers 2609 and 26C10 and schedule second readings for July 21st, 2026. I wanted to start with some background. We've been working on this project for some time now. So back up to where we started here. In winter of 2025, the Mercer Island Comprehensive Plan was appealed to the Growth Management Hearings Board. Then, in the summer of 2025 hearings board held a compliance hearing and issued a decision on that appeal in that decision. There were 4 issues that the city needed to address. They needed to the city needed to re, analyze its residential land capacity, looking at land capacity at different affordability levels. Make adequate provisions for affordable housing. So, and adopt a station sub area plan and adopt anti displacement measures. The 5th component of that hearings board decision is that the city needs to address those issues by July 31st of 2026. So we're on track to do that now. Then in the fall of 2025, staff began working on the required analyses. This included the land capacity analysis update, the barriers analysis, a displacement risk evaluation, and work on the station area boundary for that station subarea plan. The land capacity analysis and barriers analysis are proposed to be included as appendices to the comprehensive plan that would be adopted with Ordinance 2609. Then in winter of 2026, the city council began providing direction on policy issues related to the comp plan issues that the hearings board order laid out. That policy direction was over the course of several meetings from January 16th to April 21st. with the City Council. And that direction was provided to the Planning Commission, who began their review of the proposed drafts in the spring of this year. Between March 25th and May 27th, the Planning Commission met several times to review the initial drafts. Then on June 3rd of this year, they held a public hearing. And on June 10th, they made their recommendation at the conclusion of the public hearing. And then on June 16th, the City Council received the Planning Commission's recommendation with Agenda Bill 6947. And that recommendation included both the Comprehensive Plan and Development Code amendments that are before you today in the two ordinances. That brings us up to today the 1st reading tonight of both ordinances tonight, July 7th, the 2nd reading plan for tentatively planned for July 21st, and all of that would get the city. Complete the city's compliance work by the due date on July 31st. Then looking ahead after that, there's another process with the growth management hearings board where they'll hold another compliance hearing and issue their decision between August and October. So, all that is to say, there are quite there is quite a paper trail with all of this work dating back to the beginning of this year. And so I wanted to point out for the members of the public that may be joining us for the 1st time. We have those documents posted on the let's talk page for the project. There's a link in the slide show, and this will be posted on the city website. And then also every one of the agenda bills includes a list of all the previous agenda bills and planning commission materials that were provided at the end of the agenda bill. So you can find that material there and see the body of work that's gone into this project. Now we'll get into agenda bill 6960 and ordinance 2609. This ordinance, 2609, would adopt a comprehensive plan update and establish a station subarea plan for the area around the light rail station. The comprehensive plan update will address the development capacity component of the hearings border-to-border. It looks at that disaggregated residential land capacity The comp plan update also includes consistency amendments to the transportation utilities and capital facilities elements. So some amendments were needed in those elements to make sure that as we're adjusting development capacity, our infrastructure capacity will keep pace. And then this ordinance will also establish two new appendices for the comprehensive plan that 2026 land capacity analysis update, which again looks at the residential land capacity that's possible under the proposed comprehensive plan and disaggregates that by affordability level. And then a barriers analysis that looks at potential barriers and ways to address those barriers to affordable housing. Included with the comprehensive plan update is a new station sub area plan. This is an area specific plan for the area around the light rail station. It's divided into I'll start with the goals and policies. The station sub area plan is composed of goals and policies that. Address this area of the city more specifically, and most of the policies in the station sub area plan are relocated from. There are policies that previously addressed the town center. They've been now relocated to the sub area plan. That's to address this phase 1 area, which is the existing town center. The station sub area plan is divided into 2 phases. Phase 1 is the raft of changes that will happen concurrently with the adoption of the comprehensive plan. And that will affect the area shown in orange on the map here. That phase 1 area. It's the existing town center and the adjacent multifamily zones. The existing multi family zones will experience some changes as we'll see when we get to the next ordinance. But then phase 2, the larger area, the blue area on the map here, this is work that will ultimately complete in 2029. so no changes to the zoning or land use regulations. in that phase two area are proposed with the adoption today. That's all work that will take place in the future. It's also worth pointing out that having that 2029 due date for the phase two material will enable for, add some extra time so that we can do some additional public outreach for the changes that would happen in that phase two area. That's the station subarea plan, which will be adopted as part of the comp plan. There's one recommended motion in agenda bill 6960, and that's to complete a first reading of ordinance number 2609 and schedule a second reading for July 21st. That actually concludes my overview of the comprehensive plan update, and I can answer any questions before I move on to the next piece there. Any questions?

Any questions?

Okay.

Yes, I just want to find out, you know, what in the state law requires cities to remove the current Mercer Island code requirement. that emergency housing be at least 600 feet away from places where children gather like schools and parks?

So one of the requirements for permanent supportive housing and emergency housing is that those uses be regulated with the same regulations that apply to residential and development in the zone generally. There's also part of the hearings board order that requires the city to make adequate provisions to address not just the affordable housing, those different income levels like 0 to 30, 30 to 58% AMI, but also the emergency housing and permanent supportive housing. So it's part of that code amendment component is part of our adequate provisions addressing issue two from the peer-example order.

Okay, and then how do residents, can I ask a second question? Okay, how do residents find out that a permanent supportive housing project has been applied for in a city?

So that type of land use review action is a Type 3 land use review. And that requires a public notice of application. And then that means the notice of application is provided to neighbors within 300 feet of the proposed development. A sign is posted on site. And then the notice is also published in the weekly permit bulletin that CPD publishes every week and makes available on our website.

And will there be like communication to our community with this link so they can find it?

Yeah, we were planning to post the permit bulletin link on where they can sign up for that on the Let's Talk page for the project.

Okay, so and then is our cities, you know, does the state law require that cities actually ensure that permanent supportive housing and emergency housing get built.

The requirement is that cities plan for and accommodate emergency housing and permanent supportive housing in addition to other types of housing. And plan for and accommodate means that they make adequate provisions, address barriers to those types of, or those housing types, and then also ensure that there's adequate capacity for those housing types. So that's the plan for and accommodate requirement from the GMA.

Thank you. I'll take one.

Thank you for the timeline. I think the long journey that we've all been on and all the consultants and advice we've gotten from professionals everywhere has been really important. And I think that deadline of July 31st is pretty significant. So I wonder if you want to remind us just how hard this has been and why that's such an important date and then what we can look forward to in the months ahead as we meet that significant deadline.

Well, it's been a full year's worth of work. The. You know, the growth board provided a 12 month timeline from the date of their decision, which was early August, right? Beginning of August last year. So. This work started. Immediately thereafter, the decision was issued. You know, and public facing portion of the work really has been going on since January at the council's planning session, which was in mid January, if I recall correctly. So it's been a full year's worth of work. And there's been a lot that's went into it between the planning staff. Our legal counsel. City manager's office, our public works department, as well as the planning commission, and the 7 of you. So. We, as Adam mentioned during his presentation, we have this July 31 deadline and actions for actions to be taken. And then we do have a growth board hearing scheduled on September 15th. where all of this work that has been done and all the analysis to support it will be presented to the growth board again on September 15th. The growth board's job at that point will be to take all of this information and all of this work that's been done and to consider it against their order from last year. They will subsequently issue a decision then on that, informing the city and the related parties as to how they feel the city's work measures up to what they sent us a year ago. And then we'll go from there. So the process does not end for the city tonight or on July 21st. It will actually... you know, we need to go through September and probably into October, perhaps before the growth board issues their decision after the hearing. Okay.

So in the agenda bill, you mentioned failure to comply with the GMHB order can result in sanctions against the city. And I'm wondering if you can just talk more about what kind of sanctions if she didn't comply.

Yeah, a lot of it's related to funding to money. There's a variety of sanctions that are in state statute that the state could enact at some point in time. Looking at eligibility for grants, for example. Tax revenues to come to the city. And, you know, ultimately as well, if Mercer Island or if any other jurisdiction planning under GMA decides not to be GMA compliant, there is a provision where the state could potentially do the work for a jurisdiction. So there's a lot in there and you know, we don't know what would happen. That's part of the mystery of all this is you don't have certainty going into it to choose one way or the other and know what the exact outcomes are, so.

Marcia, is that on your hand?

Oh, yes. That was my question, yeah.

Okay.

I move to schedule ordinance number 26-09 for second reading on July 21st, 2026.

Second. Okay. There's a motion made by Council Member Wanker and Council Member Weimer to schedule ordinance number 26-09 for a second reading on July 21st, 2026. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Shea? Aye. Council Member Weicker. Aye. Mayor Rosenbaum. Aye. Council Member Weinberg. Aye. Council Member Reynolds.

Aye. Aye.

And Deputy Mayor Becker. Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, motion passes 6-0. The next item of business is AB 6961, GMA compliance, Title 19, MICC amendments, first reading ordinance number 26C-10. We welcome CD Director Jeff Thomas. Thank you.

Thank you again, Mayor. We're just going to turn this right over to Adam. This is related now to the code part of the program. And I think Adam's got just a small handful of slides to cover for this item. Thank you, Jeff.

So, again, ordinance number 26 C dash 10, this has to do with the implementing development code amendments that would implement that updated comprehensive plan. There are some the headline zoning and development code amendments here are zoning changes to implement phase 1 of the station sub area plan and address the development capacity issue from the hearings board order. The map on the right-hand side of the screen of the top map shows the existing town center zone and the adjacent multifamily or MF zones. The town center is shown in orange. The MF zones are shown in green and pink. And then the map on the lower right-hand corner shows the proposed zoning change where those MF zones would become part of the town center zone. And so that orange area gets larger and takes in those adjacent multifamily zones. In addition to the changes on the zoning map, there's an inclusionary zoning requirement in that town center zone, that larger town center zone now. In that phase one area, 10% of units must be affordable at 50% of the area median income. So that's a new requirement. Then that's also paired with a fee in lieu process, which allows payment of a fee in lieu of constructing that required affordable housing. But then those funds will be used to finance projects with deeper affordability. In conjunction with that, there's the permanent supportive and emergency housing changes proposed in MICC 19-06-080. It changes some of the regulations there for special needs and social service transitional housing to be consistent with the state law and to address that adequate provisions component of our policy. There is word decision, and then finally, there's a raft of consistency amendments throughout the code changes to reflect these changes elsewhere. So, to maintain that internal consistency of the development code. So, as the building heights increase in the town center that requires some changes to the design standards in that in that zone, that kind of thing. We did receive the city received a letter from the Washington Department of Commerce, which recommended 1 edit to the amendments of the definitions and ordinance 26 C dash 10. their recommendation was to amend the definition for transitional housing. So that it's grouped with permanent supportive housing rather than emergency housing. And this would address part of that adequate provisions issue from the hearings board order and would also ensure that the definitions for these uses remains consistent with the state law. So that transitional housing is subject to the same regulations as permanent supportive housing rather than emergency housing. THERE'S A PROPOSED MOTION IN THE AGENDA BILL THAT WOULD INCORPORATE THIS CHANGE THAT WOULD COME BACK TO YOU FOR SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE 26C-10. THAT'S ACTUALLY, I CAN, YOU HAVE THE PROPOSED MOTIONS IN THE AGENDA BILL, SO STOP SHARING MY SCREEN. I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT ORDINANCE 26C-10. ANY QUESTIONS?

Okay. Council, as Adam just said, there are two motions before us tonight. First, is there a motion to direct staff to amend the development code to group transitional and permanent supportive housing together to address the comments provided by the Department of Commerce on June 23rd, 2026, letter to the City of Mercer House. So moved.

So moved.

Motion made by Council Member Weinberg, second by Council Member Reynolds. Any discussion? Let's call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Weicker? Aye. Council Member Shea? Aye. Council Member Reynolds?

Aye.

Council Member Weinberg?

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Becker? Aye. And Mayor Rosenbaum? Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Motion passes 6-0. Second, is there a motion to schedule ordinance number 26C10 for second reading on July 21st, 2026?

So moved.

Second. Moved by Council Member Reynolds, seconded by Council Member Weinberg. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Rosenbaum.

Aye.

Council Member Weicker. Aye. Deputy Mayor Becker. Aye. Council Member Reynolds.

Aye.

Council Member Weinberg. Aye. And Council Member Shea. Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Motion passes 6-0. Before we move on to our next item of business, I want to... This isn't really quick here. First, I want to thank everyone for being here tonight. Usually we're here by ourselves, so I appreciate that we have an audience. I want to address a couple things that came up in public comments tonight. The first is an encouragement for us to work with our state legislature. I have been on the council for, this is my seventh year. Prior to that, I spent 12 years working in the U.S. Congress, so I have a lot of experience in lobbying and being lobbied. We have been working with our state legislature extensively on housing issues. Former Mayor Neese, I'm honestly not sure there's anyone who spent more time lobbying on housing issues than he did, waiting in line, virtually in person, and also a number of conversations that we all took part in privately and in public with our state legislature, state legislators, other state legislators, advocacy groups, whether it be Sound City Association, Association of Washington Cities, I'm forgetting some. We have been advocating on housing issues for years and years and years. I won't take everyone through all the history or all the points we've made, but they are all available. Many of these issues, you know, Adam kind of gave an abbreviated timeline of this work that sort of began in earnest about a year ago. These are not new issues. We have been advocating and working with our state legislators for years. For as long as I've been on the council since 2020, I think our first legislative session, we spent an inordinate amount of time talking about housing. We presented our perspective on these issues numerous times. And the best we can do is make that case. We did that. And I would encourage folks to contact the state legislators. Contact your legislators, talk to the rest of the legislature, and explain your perspective on this. We don't get to pick and choose the laws that we follow. There are, and I think Council Member Shea hit on this a little bit, there are real ramifications for us deciding which ones we're going to follow and which ones we're not. We would stand to lose resources that fund many of the things that we've heard people hold so dearly here, whether it be schools, public safety, access to our own property taxes. Those threats are real. So I want people to keep that in mind. If folks want to chat more, I'm happy to do that. Send me an email at this time. But I do want to thank the staff for the work that has gone into this so far. This process is far from over. But it's also not something that we started recently. This is something we've been doing for years. You know, I think we presented arguments to the state legislature that were further in depth than a lot of other cities, a lot of other organizations. We did our homework and we made the case. We are now bound, I think duty bound, to follow the laws as presented to us. So I think tonight was a step, obviously, in that direction, and there's more work to do here. So with that, we'll move to other business and planning schedule, and we recognize City Manager Bond.

No updates from me, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Council, is there a motion to excuse Council Member Anderall from tonight's meeting? So moved.

Second.

Let's move by Deputy Mayor Becker and seconded by Council Member Weicker. Please call the roll.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Member Weinberg. Aye. Mayor Rosenbaum. Aye. Council Member Weicker. Aye. Deputy Mayor Becker. Aye. Council Member Reynolds.

Aye.

And Council Member Shea. Aye. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Motion passes. Council, are there any upcoming absences to report? Okay. We'll move now to council reports. Deputy Mayor Becker. Nothing to report. Council Member Weicker.

I'm just going to say it's going to be a great weekend. Thank you so much to staff for organizing summer celebration, the parade, all the vendors who are going to be here, the fireworks on Saturday night. We live in a great community. We live in a great city. We live in a great country. I'm really thrilled to participate in all the festivities. Thank you to staff for getting us together.

Council Member Reynolds. Nothing to report.

Council Member Andrews, excuse me, Council Member O'Shea.

Yes, so I have my monthly coffee chat on July 17th on Friday from 11 to 1230 at ASAP. I believe actually our Deputy Mayor is joining me at that coffee chat. And I think Council Member Weinberg, did you say you can make that? Yeah. Yeah, so... there'll be the three of us um at the coffee chat and you know accessibility um is very important to me to be accessible to our community so i'm happy to you know to talk to talk to you and uh hear what matters to you in our community and um also you know we've had um our first friday art walks just want to remind the community about that the next one is on august 7th from 5 to 8 p.m., and that's the first Friday of every month. You can start at Barrels, at Clark & Clark Gallery, at Colville Banker. It's a great way to just gather together as a community. And I also want to especially call out Colville Banker. So Colville Banker has been putting up the flags in our community on our island. for over 50 years and this is done by by volunteers and so just want to thank culver bankers and the realtors and the volunteers for providing this service to our community every year around july 4th thank you that's robert

Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say kudos to Jesse and Alfredo and Adam and Robbie and everyone who answered the all hands on deck call to respond to the technical issues we had earlier and get us all moved here in minutes. I mean, it's amazing that we can all came together this great teamwork and kudos everyone for pulling it together. I felt pampered, frankly, the fact that we were able to continue our meeting that quickly. My next open monthly lunch is going to be 12 p.m. on Sunday, July 19th at Homegrown. The address is 3016 70th Avenue Southeast in Aram or Charlotte. As always, all are welcome. It's an open agenda, news, sports, weather, humor, even questions about city policy if you guys want. All I ask is everyone show respects to the chef by ordering some food or beverage so we can support them. And let me know if you're coming so I can reserve enough tables.

Okay, thank you. The next regularly scheduled hybrid city council meeting will be on Tuesday, July 21st, beginning at 5pm. The time is now 7.23pm. As a reminder to city council, please stay seated until the city staff determine the broadcast. Good evening and thank you for joining us.