City Council - Regular Meeting

25th, 2026 to order the time is now 7:03 p.m. Would you please stand with me for 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. To ask the clerk to please follow the roll. Consumer Beaton here, Councilor Mor Damon, here, Councilor Murmur Hudson. Council member Oliver absent tonight and excuse. Councilmember Oliver here. Councilser to Saro here Councilman Van der Stoop, here, Councilmember West, here. Thank you. Item 2 comes I would entertain a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So we We should be divorce, 2 by Andrew all in favor. Say hi. Hi, all opposed say no. Motion passes. Item 3 is community comments. If you are here this evening to address city council and myself. Please come on up to the podium, and we'd ask that you just state your name and your city of residence. and keep your comments about 3 to 5 minutes if you could. Anyone here for community comments. Come on up. Good evening. My name's Jason Wells. I reside in Anacortes, and I'm the new director for Sed Prentship House. So I just wanted to chat for a minute. So, uh, good evening, uh, Mayor and council members. Um, I've just taken over within the last 3 weeks for Friendship House. and um I wanted to bring to everybody's attention that it's our 40th year serving Mount Vernon, next, next month. the March 12th will be our 40th anniversary. Um, I think everyone, uh, is, is familiar, but I'd just like to remind that that Friendship House um provides some key

services, providing basic shelter, um, services and supportive structures to help folks be successful. and so um my part of my introduction is just to note that I'm going to keep doing what's working well. I'm gonna improve on what some of the things that I find that we need to do better with. and then sustain our partnerships. So I'm I'm really excited about the community support I've already found with local, local government and are supporting community partners, and I just wanted to stop by and say hi. Offer to have any one on one or follow-ups for anything that we might need to do to improve or ideas we have to to change as we go forward? and uh to say thank you all for partnering with us. Thank you Good to meet you, Jason. Thank you. Thanks, Jason. Nice to meet you. Hm Any other community comments tell me. Right, seeing no more, we will move on to item 4, which is tonight's consent agenda. It includes meeting minutes, payroll checks, deposits, wire transfers, and claims. Um, I actually I have it changed to uh item A. The council meeting minutes. They indicated that I seconded the um K91090 that council member Cursero uh motioned first, but it was a council member had Hudson, I think I made that mistake and the city clerk probably followed my lead on that, what item was that? It was it was council member Hudson on the Kine. OK. 1090 She was the second OK Thank you, Councilor Rabii. And with that, I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the correction. All right Second, which you might Melissa in the 2nd bite, Andrew, any more discussion on that? All in favor say

aye. I opposed say no. Jim passes OK, for reports, it is time for council member comments if there are any. any council member comments this evening. Yeah, Council member so. Yeah, I'd just like to remind the community that we have a Ward one, community meeting there at the Mount Vernon Senior Center, this Monday, which is, I believe, the 2nd um, from 6 to 8. So we'd love to see anybody from anywhere in the city because, uh, our at large uh councilperson will also be there, Debbie. Um, so we look forward to seeing you there Right OK. Council member all Yeah, I just want to thank everybody who came to the ward 2, meeting last week. It was a lot of fun. We had I think about 40 people or so there. um. but we're gonna keep having them, so I hope to see you all there again Lots of council ward meetings and access to government happenings. So thank you, counsel for making that happen. It's been fun. It really has. We had a really good Ward 3, yeah, really appreciating the comments, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the staffing support on that as well. That's making it easier for us to do these, so I appreciate that. Great. does an awesome job. Yeah. She does a great job. OK. We will move on to Mayor's report then. Uh, for my mayor's report today, I just, I wanted to highlight a couple of groups actually, um, in our community that are doing some, some pretty impressive work. Um, the first is our Mount Vernon US Postal Service, um, because we are right in the middle of US Post Office Week. I wanted to give a shout out to some of our

hardest working folks in our neighborhoods The post office is one of those institutions that we maybe sometimes take for granted until we think about what it represents. 6 days a week in every kind of weather, postal workers, connect our homes our businesses, and our community to the rest of the country. They deliver medications, ballots, small business products, birthday cards, everything in between, um, in many ways, they are kind of the quiet uh backbone of civic life, reliable, steady, and, and committed to service. I think when this picture was taken, it was about 35 degrees on that wet day, and right afterwards I went into a warm conference room, and they spent the rest of the day out in the elements. And so on behalf of the city of Mount Vernon, I want to say thank you to our local postal employees for the professionalism and the dedication that they show every day. This is also national FFA Week Uh, and I would like to recognize the outstanding students and advisors of the Mount Vernon High School, FFA program, part of uh the broader national FFA organization. Some of them are here and we could just stand up and, and just wanted to them to be recognized, um FFA is, is far more than, than agriculture, of course It's about leadership, it's about responsibility. It's about teamwork and service, and these students are, are all learning real world skills and public speaking and problem solving and entrepreneurship and that's going to benefit our community for years to come. We of course are, we're a city with strong agricultural ties and roots and a forward

looking economy. So, so program s like FFA help connect our history with our future. So the students and to their advisor that's here tonight. Thank you for representing Mount Vernon with excellence and with pride. We're proud of you. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. Um, and then finally, I, I wanted tonight um to acknowledge some, some difficult news. We, we just learned that um one of our city's senior planners, Mary Anne Manville Ailes passed away yesterday afternoon after a courageous battle with cancer. Marianne was remembered by those of us in City Hall as an absolute force. She was funny, sharp, clever, and always ready with a perfectly timed witty response. Um, my goodness, she was presenting here a month ago. Uh, Marianne cared deeply about the work that she did here. She brought heart and grit and honesty into the office every day, even while facing one of the hardest fights of her life. She is truly one of a kind, and uh, oh, sorry, and she is leaving behind the legacy of of hard work and kindness, um, and unmistakable spirit, and we will miss Marianne. Thank you, Steve Mayor, would you mind standing for a moment of silence? That'd be great.

Yeah, let's do that. Uh, please just join us to stand for a moment of silence for Mary. All right, thank you Thank you, everybody. Sandra, yeah. All right, we will, thanks again, FFA Group. We will move on. Um, item A is a proposed ordinate ordinance related to animal cruelty in our city attorney Kevin Rogerson is going to present the one item. on our business list tonight. Kevin. Thank you, Mayor and the esteemed members of the city council. I wish you had something more exciting for you, but this is just a little bit of cleanup. Mount Vernon has a jurisdiction that's granted the authority under state law to prosecute misdemeanor crimes. About 15 years ago, there was a Washington State Supreme Court case. City of Auburn v. Gaunt around 15 years ago. I don't. directly remember the when the holding came out, but basically it says if you are to prosecute such crimes, you have to adopt those crimes in your municipal code. So even though it's a state crime to commit animal cruelty in the second degree We got to get that in our code. So that's what this does, is it adopts the state statute. and any amendments that the state legislature makes hereafter, so you don't have to worry about a technical legal challenge if the facts weren't us to go after somebody for animal cruelty in the second degree. We've got it in the code.

We can prosecute them. It's a gross misdemeanor punishable by 364 days in jail $5000 fine on both. Questions for Kevin What's the ordinance number on this? Is that? 3936. OK I'll make a motion that council approve ordinances 3936. motion by Melissa, and second by Andrew in in discussion. Any more questions? All in favor, Sam. All opposed say no. and motion passes Thank you, Kevin. For item 7, I will ask Kevin to please call the mayor and city council and two executive sessions. Yes, I'd invite the mayors, the mayor and members of the city council to enter into an executive session to consider the minimum price at which real estate will be offered for sailor lease and public knowledge regarding such consideration would cause a likelihood of decreased price. However, final actions selling or leasing public property must be taken in a meeting open to the public pursuant to RCW 4,230,110 subsection 1B. MR over to discuss with legal counsel matters relating to enforcement actions, litigation, or potential litigation. to which the city of the governing body or a remember acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a party when public knowledge regarding a discussion is likely to result in another adverse legal or financial consequences to the city pursuant to RCW 4230 110 subsection 1 I. That would be for 20 minutes. We would convene at 7:35 with no final action after That we will adjourn the city of Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, February 25th, 2026 at 7:15 p.m.