City Council - Regular Meeting

For Wednesday, May 13th, 2026, to order the time is now 7:02 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 to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. want to ask our city clerks, please call the roll. Councilmember Beaton is excused tonight. Councilmember Damon, here Councilmember Hudson, here, Councilmember Oliver, here. Councilmember Tsero, here, Council member Van der Stoop, Council member West. Thanks, Gary. Before we continue, we have just a little bit of business to discuss, so I will ask the city attorney to please call the mayor and city council into executive session. Thank you. I invite the mayor and members of city council to enter into an executive session to discuss the legal counsel matters relating to enforcement actions, litigation or potential litigation to which the city of the governing body or a member acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a party. when public knowledge regarding such discussions is likely to result in neither adverse legal or financial consequence to the city pursuant to RCW 4230, 110, subsection 1 I. executive session, it will be scheduled for 10 minutes. We will reconvene at 7:13 unless we extend further which will be publicly announced to the

I'm calling the Mount Vernon City Council meeting back at the session from an extended executive session, the time is now 7:24 p.m. Item two on the agenda is approval of tonight's council meeting agenda. Council entertained a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved. Second motion my hand drew in 2 by navor, all in favor, say I, I opposed say no. she passes And 3 is community comments. If there's anyone in the audience tonight that wishes to address city council, invite you to come on forward to the podium. Please state your name and your city of residence and let us know if 3 minutes will be enough time for your comments. Come on up. Hello, my name is Sage Wilkerk. I live here, oops, I clicked the button. I'm so sorry. That was a preview, everybody. Sorry. I live here in Mount Vernon. Um, I um, a couple of weeks ago, maybe, um, somebody said that the uh police department have been doing a better job of filling in the blanks on the flock, um, search queries, and so I pulled that up just because I was curious about how much better they were. Um, in the last 30 days, there were 21 different um searches. And I just want to tell real quick, so when we pull this up online, you can do it at home you can do it here if you want to. Um, we get an ID string that's probably about like 20 digits long, meaningless. Um, a user ID that's blanked out, it just has three a is k s a search date and a search time, um, a network count, which is meaningless to me. So if you have any idea what that is, but there's like, it says like 683 98, 68, 69, no 67, thankfully. Um so those are all the network counts. And so I don't know if those are the person looking it up or the or the police department looking it up. Like I don't know if that tells anybody something. So the only piece of meaningful uh data we get from these searches for the public

records is the reason that's plugged in. So there's no case number attached. There's no badge number attached. There's just this was a search done on this date and this is why. And those are hand typed. So, um, over the 21 searches, I I combined ones that were doubled up. So like if there were 3 searches for the same thing within the same like 2 hours. I assumed that was for the same um search, you know. So, uh, one of those was a uh partnership with Bellingham Police Department for an arson DUI. One of those was an agency assist, um, that doesn't say what it's for Um, one is for forgery, one is for racing, 2 are for a rape suspect. Um, one is for stolen plates, one is for a stolen vehicle Sorry, yeah, one is 3 is for a suspect vehicle. to for theft, and then 4 of those are blank. So that's another 25% of our reasons that are blank from the police department. So that's the exact same percentage that I polled when I looked at this in March. So we have not gotten better, um, and there is no, again, no lake, there's no way to look up like who isn't. putting in the reason, right? There's no case number attached, there's no badge number attached. So we, I, if we're gonna continue with this contract, which I really truly hope we don't, but I know we're going to think about that more as we get closer to November. Between now and then we have to be on them about putting in justifications for why they're looking up these records. What's it for? And then we can get a little bit closer into, um, kind of dialing that down because 25% blank could be anything, and that's just really unfortunate. And again, I did combine things that were the same. So it was actually about 29%, but with that, with that compression of, of exactly the same like two hour window within the same day that went down to 25%, but that's still um just way too high personally for my comfort. So thank you for your time

tonight and I look forward to our Mayor's report that you're gonna actually give to the people. Thanks for coming by. Anyone else I do address counsel. All right We will move on to tonight's consent agenda. It includes meeting minutes, payroll claims, agreements, and a street closure request for the Mount Vernon High School graduation parade. That's on June 10th and counsel, just so you know, that's a council meeting night and I have reached out to the school and asked them to please consider in 2027 putting that on a night when we can attend, um, they're going to consider that. So anyway, that is your consent agenda to me. I'll move to approve the consent agenda. 2nd. I marrying the second by before any discussion on that? All in favor say I. Aye aye. I'll opposed say no. Motion passes. We'll move on to reports item 5A is council member comments Any council member comments this evening? Yes, Councilor member Oland Um on Tuesday 19th, which is next Tuesday. Uh, we have our ward to community meeting. It's going to be from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Hillcrest Lodge again, and I hope to see everybody there. Thank you Other council member comments. Council, really quick, um, our wellness committee put on a blood drive today and it was very well attended, and I just want to say next year I'm hoping that I'll have fellow council members coming to sit with me to do that. So I just want to say thank you to Tara and to Vanessa. So, thank you. Thanks for donating. Get your arms out and get a pint. Let me know. Any other council member comments All right, we will move on to the mayor's report and

it sounds like everyone's already seen it. So we can skip. It's just fine. Uh, many of you have this, have heard that despite being being down to minimal staffing in the city's development services department We are continuing to move forward with our efforts to make the permitting process more accessible and easy to use for our residents. One of the ways that Steve and his staff have identified to achieve this is by implementing an over the counter permit approval process. This would be for smaller projects that our residents might have, like putting in a deck, a patio, a fence, inter i or remodel, replacing a furnace, hot water heater, and there's even more than that. Uh, but starting now, our permit department will be setting aside hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 20 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. for folks to come in, sit down with someone who can explain the code and the process and provide you with the resources to help ensure that your, your project is built or installed the right way and to save any headaches that might come from trying to navigate the permit process on your own. So please keep that in mind. It's, it's almost like getting your own project consultant on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 20 to 4 at City Hall. We believe that your city government should exist to serve the needs of our community, and that includes trying to simplify and clarify processes that can be overwhelming sometimes if they're not things that you're used to doing every day So thanks to Steve and our building official Tim Woodard and all of our staff in development services who are working on ways to try to make life a little easier for the people that we serve Uh, and then we are trying to get the word out to our community that there's about one month left to get individual assistance. If you're a Skagitt County homeowner or renter who has suffered disaster-related damage during the December 2025 flooding.

FEMA has approved this assistance and applications are due by June 10, 2026. So assistance may include temporary housing, rental assistance, basic home repairs, personal property losses, accessibility needs, and other expenses that are a result of the disaster. You can apply in 3 ways, and apply online at disasterassistance.gov. You can apply by phone or you can apply by downloading or using the FEMA app in the screenshot of that app is on the left side of your screen right now, so that you can see what it looks like, but please be sure to take inventory and get those applications in by June 6th for disaster relief, and that is your mayor's report for May 13th, 2026. Thanks, Adam. On to new business, item A is the approval of an ordinance for a fee waiver program and development services director Steve Sexton will introduce this item, Hello see. Hello, Mayor. Did you meet in council. Yet this evening brought to you, uh ordinance number 3939, which does set a temporary fee waiver program for affordable housing. and I wanna just give you a little bit of background on this, how we got here. Uh, it was in September 2025 that uh the request of community action in support of their coalian view development out there. The city of Mount Vernon applied for a connecting housing to infrastructure program grantIP Grant through the state of Washington. And in January of this year, we were notified that we received $450,000 for that grant. Of that, uh, 1 116,016 $15,656. will go towards a waiver that we will grant to Community Action, further sewer connection fees. and the rest will go to Community action as a pass through from the city for their actual development

service charges, meaning putting in the sewer lines and things like that. Mm. What are the requirements of the grant program is that the city have a waiver program in place, so ordinance 3939 would meet that requirement. Um, this fee waiver program, uh, is a temporary program. and the reason it's temporary is uh want to meet the, the requirements of the grant. but also it would give us time as we get towards the end of the year to discuss this again. Um, many cities in our in our area have gone beyond just the, the grant program to actually waive or reduce connection fees, other connection fees, uh. impact fees, uh permit fees, inspection fees out of the city of Burlington recently did that for some of these to go along with that chip grant. So I think that's something that needs to be discussed in Further down the road. So this is just a temporary one to get the community action project on track, so they wanted to start work on that, I believe it is in late June. They want to start breaking ground for this project, so this will keep us on pace to do that. So questions for Steve on this one. I know that a significant portion of our housing allocation for the next 20 years is in that. very low 0 to 30% AMI. income band and tools like this could be really useful for, for fulfilling those mandates, so it would be, you know, you know it would be an important conversation to have in the future, near future. I believe you're right. Um, I'd like to move to approve ordinance 3939. OK. I might marry in a second by the before any discussion on

this one. And all in favor, say I, I, all opposed say no. ordinance passes. Thank you,. Item B is a resolution to put the city's transportation benefit district up for renewal on this November's ballot and public works director Chris Phillips is here. Hello, Chris. Hi, good evening, Mayor. Good evening, counsel. Good evening residents of Mount Vernon. Um, I'm here before you tonight, that, that staff recommends the city council approve the attached resolution 1097 calling for a general election ballot proposition to be submitted to the voters of the city of Mount Vernon for the renewal of 2/10 of 1% sales tax use. Oh, and use tax within the boundaries of the mountain Transportation Benefit District. Um, in the summary here, it talks about in 2016 city council went through a very similar process, uh, went out to the voters for a 2/10 of 1% sales tax, the citizens of Mount Vernon back in 2016 approved that. It's a 10 year program and it actually is coming due April 1st of 2027. So, uh, the ballot this year is on November 3rd. If the council does approve, the ordinance, there are a variety of administrative administrative steps that the public works department will be doing, um, and getting this before the, uh, before the voters. Um again, uh, part of this is a public notice seeking committee members, which we will do here if the council approves. There's a committee application form for pro and con to the transportation benefit District, and then also an explanatory statement that will be a portion of that that will be part of the ballot measure. Um for the citizens, uh, if they were to look and desire to see anything about the transportation benefit district. Uh, they are more than welcome to go to the city's website, fully 100%

transparent. I go to the public works department, and then there's a link right there to the transportation benefit district, and they can find anything of concern regarding past projects from 2017 to the current. and pending any questions that the council may have. questions for Chris on this and this is putting on the ballot a renewal, not a new. tax Um I do just have a quick comment. Um I, I am in full approval of put on the ballot, um, just so everybody knows, just so it's not a surprise. I won't be supporting the transportation benefit district that go around sales tax is typically considered a pretty regressive tax, but I think it's fair to have the voters decide. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? OK. One of the things I love about this sales tax when we look at all of the folks who say come into town for the tulip festival and plug the streets and use the streets and we'll say tear up the streets just by using them. Uh, they'll buy something here they purchase things and it's nice to know that a portion of their purchases is going to address the wear and tear that they've caused on our streets, rather than have it be carried on the backs of of the residents. So I appreciate that part. So move says resolution 1097. Second, motion by the board and a second by Mary. Any more discussion? All on paper say I. all the police say no. Motion passes. Chris, thank you. Thanks for your work to get it to this point. That is the end of our

agenda this evening and the Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, May 13th, 2026. We stand adjourned at 7:39.