City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to call the City of Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, July 8th, 2026 to order. The time is now 7 p.m. Would you please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

Pledge of Allegiance to the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America.

to ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Council Member Beaton. Here. Council Member Damon. Here. Council Member Hudson. Here. Council Member Oliver. Here. Council Member Tercero. Here. Council Member Vanderstoop.

Here.

Council Member West. Here.

Thank you, Carrie. Item two is agenda requests. Council, new item on the agenda. Of course, you always have the ability to add anything to your agenda at any time, but here's a spot for future meetings going forward where we can make a request make a motion for future Council agenda items are there any motions for items to be placed on future Council agendas. Seeing none we will move on to approval of tonight's Council meeting agenda.

I would like to move that we approved tonight's agenda, but making an amendment striking item and be from the agenda. Item B being the business of censure.

I will second.

Okay. Okay, so the motion that was made was to approve the agenda but strike item B, the censure item. Before we discuss, I was hoping at some point tonight to make a statement, and I feel like this maybe is as good a time as any. So... Wanted to just address this topic and say you know that the city code that was cited as grounds for this censure request is Mount Vernon Municipal Code 2.12.080 subsection B paragraph 2. And it's a code that specifically applies to city council members and to their rules of debate during city council meetings. It doesn't have anything to do with our personal First Amendment rights outside of city council chambers. I also want to recognize that the spirit behind this censure charge likely has a lot more to do with the intent of that city code that was cited. And of course, the intent of that city code is the expectation that's set up how we speak to each other, how we speak about each other, or in this case, how I said some of the things that I said publicly. I want to address that tonight. Now that I've had several days to think this through a little bit, some time to confer with some trusted advisers, I believe I've made it abundantly clear in the last couple of weeks that I disapprove of the twice-repeated practice of some members of this council. Adding items to an agenda after an agenda has been posted publicly eliminates an opportunity to hear from the public. And of course, hearing from the public that it's a vital part of our democratic process which ensures that we maintain a healthy government here in mount vernon what was done here twice now doesn't technically violate any codes in mount vernon it doesn't technically violate the open meeting open public meetings act i think it betrays the spirit and the intent of a transparent and open process And so for me, circumventing that process is alarming. And it's especially alarming given that we all knew how close the last vote on this topic was back in March. And that this issue at the time was in no way an emergency that required an immediate vote. Still, I can see how that vital message of concern that I had could have been lost in my expression or my public response to those concerns. In hindsight with this, I don't feel like I needed to include descriptive words, strong language to amplify what I think was already a fairly disturbing fact and message. At the time, I felt like I had made it or it had been made abundantly clear during the two public meetings where this came up, where the warning had been brought up in both of the meetings prior to those surprise votes taking place, but then those surprise votes still happened. And so I think A couple of weeks ago in responding to the media, I felt like it was necessary to figuratively raise my voice. My concern was that the public needed to know what was going on here in council chambers. I added adjectives that describe my feelings about this practice of counsel suspending their own rules and pressing on without public notice. And I realize now that by including this more descriptive language, I gave some people the opportunity to misconstrue my message or to attempt to redirect the public outrage toward me by inferring that I was making derogatory comments about individuals, which wouldn't be acceptable. The bottom line is the message itself was dramatic enough. I didn't need to add colorful descriptors to amplify it. And if I could do it again, I would change a couple of things. Number one, I would have brought this up to council members individually first. Or maybe discuss the hazards of a practice like this in a different setting, like a committee meeting where it's maybe more conducive to back and forth conversation. Secondly, again, I would leave out the descriptive language that could be misunderstood and taken as a personal attack or could anyway obscure the heart of the message itself. I can see now how a simple change like that might have helped us to avoid a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of division and helped us to stay focused on addressing the real concern. So with or without this item on tonight's agenda, going forward, I am committing to this city council and I'm committing to the community that I will make a more concerted effort to exercise more discernment in my public comments. Our community needs to be informed. But what they don't need is more charged rhetoric from elected officials. We get enough of that on the news every day. And I recognize that I can play a significant role either in building up or in eroding our community's trust. And I'm intent on continuing to be a builder. And finally, I believe that we genuinely believe that we still have a chance to demonstrate a commitment to what I'll call drama-free politics locally. so i just wanted to take this opportunity tonight to apologize for any role that my words have had to play in in creating the type of drama that we are all trying to avoid here and i'm committed to continuing to look for ways to work collaboratively with this city council and and to serve the interests of the entire community in the city of mount vernon so Thank you for hearing me out. Floors open for discussion before we for we vote on this. Any more discussion. Yes, Council member.

I wrote something out so. I believe we all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves professionally and respectfully. When our concerns arise they should be addressed fairly consistent the and with the goal of improving how we work together, not creating further division. Our community expects us to focus on solving problems, serving the public, and working together despite our differences. I believe our energy is best spent improving communication, increasing transparency, and rebuilding trust, not only with one another, but with city staff and the people we represent. We won't always agree, and that's healthy in a representative government, but we can disagree respectfully. We can communicate openly, and we can commit to treating one another fairly and with professionalism. My hope is that after tonight, we turn our attention towards working as a more unified council, And we strengthen our relationship with the mayor. We strengthen our relationship with the city staff. And we demonstrate to the public that we are committed to collaboration, transparency, and moving on to serve our city together once and for all. Thank you.

More discussion? Yeah, that's not good, sir.

Yeah, I would just like to say that in the spirit of wanting to move forward and put this behind us, I don't see a vote on censure serving any purpose. I don't see this being at all constructive. Each one of us up here have said that we want to do the work of the city, and this vote will not help us in that endeavor. And so, again, I will just put that out there that The mayor has said what he had to say, and I think hopefully that satisfies everyone. And so I would just ask you to consider voting to strike this from the agenda.

More comments? Council Member Van Der Steen. Thank you for the almost apology. That is very much appreciated. I do appreciate the sentiment for most of what you said. So I'm ready to move on and get through this. I will just mention this is a boring subject, but when there's a motion on the floor and there's a second, you normally speak to the item and you do not use it as an opportunity. To make a formal statement, um, this is 1 of those communication things that we should probably work on. Where I'll just let, you know, because you probably can't tell I take offense. When the leader of a meeting uses an opportunity like that during our formal council meeting. But I understand the sentiment and I'm also ready to move on. Any other comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have heard the sentiment, and I have trouble with it because, one, it doesn't apologize to the two council members who were singled out when five voted. And number two, that's not even the important part. The important part is that as the chair, you have a gavel. And it's not the council members' fault if you do not know how to use the gavel and maintain the agenda. Last week, Navor was chairing a meeting. He said, nope, we're sticking to the agenda. We're going to talk about flock. It's what we told the public we're going to do. And that's what he did when he was on the gavel. That's what you could have done on March 11th. That's what you could have done two weeks ago. You made the choice to keep the ball and play, and then when you lose, you say the serve was bad. I don't know. I mean, not everyone plays sports, and I understand that, but a lot of people play chess. If you have a queen and you treat her like a pawn, that is your choice. That's your head work. That's not any of our fault. If you have a queen... She's able to make moves. That's what the gavel does. That's what the code does. It's better if you learn what the code is so that you know what the rules are at the game that you're chairing. This is embarrassing. How many people are watching, realizing that the mayor doesn't know what the gavel does? Also, March 11th, I've seen that you make multiple references to March 11th. However, never have I heard you say that on March 11th, our flock cameras were pending imminent illegality as soon as the governor signed Senate Bill 6002. Do you remember? Do you remember the clause in there that said that was going to be effective, pending governor's signature? Do you remember that? Maybe you don't, but I'll tell the folks out there. When the governor signed Senate Bill 6002, our flock cameras became illegal effective immediately. It may not matter to everyone else, but it mattered to me. That seems like an emergent situation. That seems like something that if you're talking about speaking in terms of

Transparency that's something you wouldn't want to forget I Move to maintain the There's a motion on the floor So I can go over the rules later the the rules of the meeting that you referenced and I'm assuming you're talking about June 24th Where City Council made a motion that to suspend their rules and add something to the agenda.

That is not true. That is not true.

Which part are you struggling with?

The part that is true is Council Member Oliver asked for consideration to add an agenda item. And as the chair, you can either entertain that or you can reject it, just as Navor did one week and one hour ago.

Council Member West, I preside over your meetings. These are your meetings. You've been told you have broad power to make a motion, add items to your agenda that night by suspending your rules or on a future night. Those are the rules. I don't, I can't, I just, I'm here to preside over the meeting and follow through with the vote. Do you understand that? Kevin went over, we can go over it again.

I want everybody to have an opportunity to speak, but if we're going to argue up here, I am intending to call the question. So if there is anybody else who would like to speak and it's not to argue with somebody before I call the question, please.

I'm not going to argue.

Okay.

I promise.

Go ahead, Melissa.

I spoke to this last week, and I'll say what I said last week again tonight. This is really hard for me. This weighs on me heavily. I'm sad. I respect the decision that the council reached regarding flock. But I am deeply concerned about the public trust that I believe that we have lost. And I keep asking myself, how do we come back from that? And I served for two years with the Washington Court's public trust and confidence. And so I care about what not that no one else up here does. I care deeply, though, about the public's trust in your leaders. For me, the path forward is not to censure our mayor. We make mistakes so we can learn. And I believe we can learn from these missteps. I want to take a moment to thank everyone that has you know, weekly come into our council meetings and our committee meetings, I hear you. And for everyone that has emailed and called me or stopped me on the street or in the grocery store, I hear you. And I know that right now we are very divided, but I'm hoping... that we can come back from that. I just don't feel centering our mayor is the way to do that. I apologized last week. I will apologize again to us, everyone on this dais, to the community. to those watching on TV, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it's devolved into this. I ran in 2017 because I believed in my heart we could do better than what the federal government was doing at the time and what it's doing now. And it just, it breaks my heart that we've reached this juncture, but I hope we can move on from it. I really do. And I just want to say also this is my ninth year on council, and parliamentary procedure for me, I have looked it up. I've got my little cliff notes. I can't quite seem to nail it. parliamentary procedure and we relied heavily um on mark holst when he was here and i look to andrew now okay how do we you know how do we do this and so i was at a meeting not too long ago and i'm going to call someone out who's sitting out there and that's nathaniel block he He's a good guy, and he can run a meeting parliamentary like nothing I've ever seen before. And I thought to myself, I want to be more like that, but it's going to take me a long time to ever get to where Nathaniel is. So anyway, thank you for listening to me.

Thanks, Melissa. Any other comments? Yeah, Councilmember Oliver.

Um... Quickly, I just want to say I accept your apology. I don't know if it was directed to council or the community, but either way, I'll accept it. I look forward to working with you and the rest of council into doing the work that we are here for. We are all equally elected by this community, and it is our job to do right by them. For me, after hearing eight months of public comment, after discussing these cameras for nine months, I thank you for adding the agenda request portion now to our council meetings, because now we have another way to request items for future agendas. So thank you for that. Before this, council really had three ways to choose what it is that we're legislating. One is requesting an agenda item. Typically, we all agree. We request it of the mayor, and then the mayor gets to choose which agenda, which meeting, if it goes on a meeting. That's one way. Another way is to change it same day during the meeting. Another way is to suspend our rules. which is what we did last time. I appreciate that things have now changed. So now we don't have to do that. So thank you so much. Um, I agree with, I think everyone up here, I also would have preferred to not take the vote that way. It is not transparent. It is not very democratic. I know I've talked about that process in other meetings of ours and how we need to change our process. So council members can request items, ahead of time. I know that I've talked about it several times. I know that we've requested this discussion for past committee meetings. I know we're supposed to talk about it in June. That was pulled. I don't know why, but I look forward to the changes that I'm seeing. I think that that is really good to see. Again, I also don't like the way that the vote came up, but after seeing that our community members were afraid to leave their homes because of cameras that we, the city, own, that is an emergency. That is something that, for me, and I know many of our other council members, that is not something that we take lightly. We decided The majority of our council members decided that our tools, our internal tools, they were harming our community. In one, I think we should have turned them off the moment that we thought they could potentially be harming our community. We should have turned them off and then have the discussion about should we turn them back on? So again, I apologize for how the vote went. I wish it could have gone a different way. I'd even requested this as an agenda item in the past. But I am really excited about the changes that we've seen in the last couple of weeks. And I look forward to seeing more of our agenda items being brought forth in our future council meetings. Thank you.

Thanks, Anna. Any more discussion before we go? So the motion on the floor right now is that we approve tonight's agenda after striking item B from new business. So an aye vote would be to accept that amended motion and strike item B. A no vote would leave the agenda as it is. And I would imagine we would then need to vote on the agenda again. So let's roll call. Council Member West, aye or no?

No.

Council member Damon.

Aye.

Council member Beaton.

Aye.

Council member Hudson.

Aye.

Council member Tercero. Aye. Council member Oliver.

Aye.

Council member Vanderstoop. Aye. Ayes have it. The motion passes and we will move forward with, um, tonight's agenda after striking I don't be and more importantly we will move forward. Thank you all for your comments. I don't for tonight is community comments if there's no we don't need to make sure we're doing it right.

All in one that no thank you.

Community comments, if there's anyone. Oh, before we ask if there's someone present here that wants to speak, we have two comments that were sent in by email. So I'm going to ask the clerk to please read those two comments into the record.

First comment is from Scott Correa, Mount Vernon. To the council, you, my council, are failing me. You, the council in general, as opposed to singling anyone out, have decided that you have no use of the guidance supplied by the people you serve. as shown by rapidly running motions through the voting process in a single meeting without any public notice. Yes, I understand it is allowable per Robert's rules, but it runs counter to a slower process of agendizing new subject matter so the public may comment and participate. Recently, the Council has demonstrated the schizophrenic nature of their decision-making process by making an unannounced motion to turn off locked cameras. and voted to maintain them in an operable condition when that motion failed. Instead of viewing their failed accelerated vote as settled policy, another unannounced motion to turn off the flock cameras was made, again with no advanced public notice. This time, an incomplete council reversed their decision to leave the cameras on and turn them off. But wait, there's more. The council's continued circus-like atmosphere then spilled over to the next public safety meeting, where the police chief briefed council on the benefits of the very system council just got done shutting down. Really? None of you were imbued with the leadership skills needed to amend that agenda and scrap the chief's discussion? If I remember correctly, you had settled policy turning it off. Why waste any more time on it? I expected better from all of you. I am sorely disappointed in the council for repeatedly fishing for the vote results they want using unannounced agenda items on multiple occasions. I am not a fan of flock cameras, but I have to tell you that I am even a smaller fan of how the council has utilized Robert's rules, albeit correctly, in an intentional way to achieve their aims without input or monitoring by the public. There is a huge difference between what is allowed and what is the right thing to do. Your intent to censure the mayor. Today's question, does Peter Donovan have the same rights to express his opinions to the media and in social media as John Q. Public? Here one must agree that he does and that he has not stated his beliefs as a specific finding of the city or as city policy. A look at his comments clearly show that they were his feelings and he is allowed to have those. Understanding that he was allowed to say what he said as an individual, we need to see if he as an individual was in violation of the ordinance. The city code under meetings rules of debate is the hammer chosen to whack the mayor. Chapter 212 reads as a meeting specific. not as a general code of conduct that follows council members outside the meeting room. Therefore, it is intellectually dishonest of the council to use this ordinance in a censure effort because Mr. Donovan's comments were outside any meeting. I ask that you either reject the motion as presented as out of order or, lacking that, delete the references to the municipal code from a revised motion that would need to include a rationale for censuring somebody for using his First Amendment rights in a patently offensive way that could be actionable. You need an actionable reason. You cannot censure a sitting mayor just because you get butthurt over what he said. Furthermore, the motion also needs the author's name and the name of the member seconding the motion posted for the public to understand who is requesting censure. Second public comment is from Jill Boudreau, Mount Vernon. Mayor and Council, I don't like surprises, and neither do the voters of our city. In my 12 years as mayor, a council member never surprised their peers, me, and city staff with a motion to suspend the rules. Now it has happened twice in six months. On March 11th and June 24th, council members Randy West and Hannah Oliver's choreographed actions surprised the council, mayor, and city staff and made motions to suspend city code to add action items to the agenda. Mount Vernon Municipal Code 22020C states, quote, it shall be the duty of the City Council to adhere to the policy of advance public notice as declared in this chapter. Matters not placed on the agenda shall be considered only in exceptional circumstances where the necessity of immediate emergency action is deemed by a majority of those Council members present to override the policy of advance public notice, end quote. The item presented no emergency. This suspension of city code has now happened twice. Surprises twice. Political party trickery happens all the time in D.C., but it was rare in Mount Vernon. Council members should resist these surprises and vote no to suspending code. Resist. I support Mayor Donovan in expressing his feelings about these unprecedented actions. Watching this happen here is slimy and gross.

Carrie, are there more or is that just the two? Just the two. Thank you. All right. At this time, I will open up the podium for community comments. If you would like to address city council and the mayor, please come on up and please state your name, your city of residence. And if you could please keep your comments to about three minutes, we'd appreciate that.

Or it's a timer.

It's right here.

It's getting past my bedtime. Yeah. Um, I got two things I want to talk about tonight. Um, one was the process of the two weeks ago meeting and then also council member conduct. Uh, two weeks ago, I watched the city council meet and I was taken aback by some of the council members putting flock cameras on the agenda, which was approved at the beginning of the meeting by everyone. This topic, um, was scheduled to be discussed the very next week so I don't understand why that needed to be so urgent and and there and there for that input and because of that in the input from the community was circumvent and in my view. There was a whole room full of people here that night. There was a huge push, and it was coming from the Democrat Socialists of America. And there was members of the council had mentioned that there was 400 boats that are signatures on this. I kind of was looking at that. A third of those people were not even from Mount Vernon. And I get really antsy when I hear people coming up to the podium and saying, Our demands are this and our demands that are you do this and that? I run from that. I'm sorry. One council member said, I know we could have postponed a decision until next week, but I think we were seen enough from the community to see what they want. This council member was also quoted in the Cascadia Daily News about adding agenda items at the last minute is not the most transparent or democratic way to do it, but we did what we had to do. I don't get that. I'm sorry. Mayor Donovan then warned members they were circumventing the city's public notification process. This was followed up with another council member saying we have a quorum and that's the only thing that matters. This issue, whether you agree with flock cameras or not. Well, we were not that boat last 2 weeks ago was not about. A lawnmower being approved for the parts department, you knew it was a hot button issue. And yet you had to push, push, push, even though the merit asked to just take a break on it. When I was council, we would often table votes on these kind of hot-button topics. Second, two weeks ago in the meeting, during the flock discussion, there was a council member who was talking, and another council member absolutely broke his line of thinking and laughed at him. There is no room for that. Especially for me, because I don't talk too much, so it's hard when somebody else breaks my concentration level. This council member was in also, there were some people that were missing from the meeting on the council. One of them had surgery, and I felt like it was a very snide comment about they have a choice to be here or not.

About 30 more seconds, Gary.

Yep. And you go, you know what? I would, in my opinion, I would argue that there was some censorship that should come on some of the council members that were at that meeting. But you know what? From what I'm hearing right now, I think you move on. And I appreciate that you're doing it. And if you really have an issue with the mayor, go talk to him. Peter's door is wide open. It always has been. And don't go on social media, because remember, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok spy on you more than some camera on a trail or a flock camera. Thank you. Yep.

Hi, Sam Irons, Mount Vernon. I had this prepared, and then it sounded like everyone was moving on, and I wasn't going to speak, and now it sounds like there's still some confusion about the situation, so I'd just like to read what I had prepared. I have been disappointed by behavior and untruthful comments made recently about council members regarding the vote to turn off and cover flock cameras. They have been unjustly categorized as circumventing democracy and slimy, when really they should be applauded for listening to public concerns and taking much-needed immediate action after months of public comments and hundreds of people expressing issues with ALPRs and mass surveillance. I believe what they did was courageous, and even after their actions were dramatically mislabeled, they have carried themselves with grace and dignity. Unfortunately, due to untruthful comments being made by leaders in high authority, there are lots of people in the public still believing council did something wrong, even though they did not, and are continuing to drag them through the mud, and that is not okay. I also want to point out that the categorization of ALPRs as critically innovative and as important to law and justice work as DNA testing has been is inaccurate. A better philosophical understanding would be comparing ALPR technology to... If we as a society started fingerprinting everyone at a young age in the chance that they may commit a crime someday, it might help a potential investigation and maybe make the job of law enforcement easier. I'm not sure that we should be doing that. Or all our land properties to be searched unconditionally without warrant since it is in view outside. Are we okay with these things? This is what ALPRs and mass surveillance do. They create an expansive digital footprint for us at the cost of our privacy. We cannot simply live anymore without being watched. It's incredibly unsettling, and for some populations in our community, it is dangerous. For those of you not already aware, we have had more neighbors taken by ICE this week while they were driving in their car. The concerns continue. Words are so important. And the truth is crucial, and I hope that you do better. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mark Sabo, a citizen resident of Mount Vernon. I don't know Mayor Donovan. Seeing you before, don't know any of the council. I know one of the council members. I respect if there was an error made in judgment, in statements made, and I personally accept apologies. I think we learn from apologies. We learn from perhaps how we can deliver things. And I appreciate, too, that there is seven members here today. I've been on various boards before. I'm in finance. I've had to give many presentations to boards before. And I've seen many times where while a quorum may have existed, when people knew that there was going to be a touchy subject, that that was pushed aside immediately. unless, of course, that was incumbent upon the next week or two, which I don't think this was. So I appreciate that six of you have agreed, and I hope that you will move forward coming together, accepting apologies, moving forward. And that's what we ask of you. We ask you to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sabo.

Hi, I'm Susan Courtson. I live in Mount Vernon. I actually have to say I appreciate all the discussion that happened earlier tonight from your explanation, Mayor Donovan, and all the council members who made comments. I know I'm in Ward 2, and I appreciate Hannah Oliver and Andrew in meeting with them, and I know I've heard the flock notes come up each time, and I have asked, why do things take so long? And they have expressed how long the whole thing comes, so I can appreciate her frustration in doing it. But having done that, I'll also say I have served on boards over the years and It's never a good practice, other than an emergency, and I know Hannah was saying that she felt that, to add something and vote on it at the last minute. And I can understand Mayor Donovan's frustration. And I guess the second letter was from former Mayor Boudreau, and she said that it hadn't been happening during her time. And I do think it's a good caution, Please don't do it again. Again, I appreciate all your work, so thank you. Thank you, Susan.

My name is Ron Campbell, and I do live in Mount Vernon. I believe the crux of this issue occurred in that March 11th meeting. A precedent was set by not doing anything about the fact that an amendment was, I mean, an adjustment was made to the agenda at that meeting. It should have been taken care of at that time. Your council members in the committee meeting last week said, well, we should be talking about this to each other. You should be following Robert's rules of order. All of the branch was extended. And your own city attorney said, we can change the city code. That should have all happened after the 11th of March meeting. I've been in the Valley for just about 60 years. I have never heard of a Mount Vernon mayor publicly shaming a council member. And I think that was totally wrong. I do support the motion to censor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ron.

My name is Mark Johnson and I'm the seventh generation, no, my grandson, sorry, is the seventh generation Johnson born in Skagit County. And Joe Murphy was my civics teacher. And I'm 78 years old. And he would be after me for not being more participatory in this whole process. And I apologize to my civic teacher, Joe Murphy. but I will say to you, the only two people that have ever, and I've lived in the same house on 9th Street, just west of the hospital, quick access for the emergency room so I could run up there. The only two members of there that ever came to my door was Andrew and Peter. None of the rest ever, ever came to my door. The Skagit Valley Herald is no longer available for me to find out what's going on in the community. My regret is I don't pay more attention to the opportunities that exist, but I don't do Facebook. I don't do all the other things. I don't know how to get information. You need to help me, perhaps more of us, to find out what the issues are. I did listen to a Facebook because someone handed me a Facebook that Mayor Donovan produced. And I listened to it and took his words that he was apologetic, but also speaking with free speech. So I want to tell all of you, somehow you got to reach out to seniors in a better way because I don't know how else to get information on what's going here. Unfortunately, you may have to see me more often at these meetings, and you may or may not enjoy that. I know Melissa. I know Mary. I don't know the rest of you at all. I have no idea. When it's time for elections, we sit at our coffee group down at the lunchbox, and we just throw the piece of paper out and say, who should we vote for? Because we have no mechanism to know what you stand for. Joe Murphy would roll over.

Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Anyone else? Yeah, come on up.

I, too, went to the same school where Joe Murphy was, but I think he was way past enforcing too many rules. But Glenn Ash, Mount Vernon, good evening, Mayor and Council. One of the things I've appreciated about Mount Vernon is that the police department is truly about community policing, from neighborhood block watches, resource officers in the schools taking preventative actions, and the rangers who work the homeless areas and taking care of that. They're not all about riding traffic tickets. Their dedication to keeping all the residents safe is commendable. I've observed many times officers in community events, and most live in town. Ultimately, relationships in the community is what creates effective policing, in my mind. We ask a lot for the officers. Most of the time, criminals are a step ahead, using many means that are not at our disposal, including the latest technologies. To counter that, we wanted to ask, do we ask that our police give up a tool that's as effective as DNA in solving crimes? Given Mount Vernon's location on its thoroughfare from Mexico to Canada, within two major metro areas, we face challenges not all cities and and towns in this country or in this state face. I also see my neighbors and fellow residents installing ring cameras, fast and furious, in their cars, in their homes, which do reach out into the streets, and I believe those cameras' information are used in solving crimes, but that all takes time contacting those folks. When DNA came on the scene, as a policing tool, it was not perfect, but it was retained and it was groomed and has become a very vital policing tool to my understanding. And as our police chief noted last week at the public safety meeting, are we going to let fears, worries, and what-ifs control us and preventing safety in our community? The use of flock camera technology has gone through the state legislative process. and was passed and signed into law? Is the legislature out of tune with the public? Is there anything, if there's anything we should be worried about or fearful about is letting a criminal with 17 convictions be free and then ultimately kill a pedestrian as it happened this weekend. We also, do we ignore technology that, do we just ignore the technology that just helps catch a heinous child molester and the recent suspects in a homicide shooting in Mount Vernon. It doesn't sound to me, from what I've heard reporting about what Flock's doing, is just catching shoplifters from Walmart. Do we know or do we ignore that the camera is also acting as a deterrence, and how do you measure that? And finally, to put this in a financial perspective, the cost of this tool is about $34,000 a year. We probably get at least one officer's position's worth of work Out of that cost the cost would be triple of that council still has the has The ability to cure this mistake that was done on June 24th When the topic was pending for community committee discussion in just one more week What was the sudden rush especially when two members were on excused absences and this topic has been around for several months and Were these absences an opportune time to spring this, especially if the two who were missing were in the majority of the vote in March? If this is a sensitive community topic, what is more important, a vote by the entire council? About 30 more seconds. And where it has been put out to the public on an agenda or to slip a vote in when the council was not at full strength? That meeting sure looked precalculating. calculated, including the contingent of speakers, half of whom were not Mount Vernon residents, that showed up to speak for a topic that was not even on the agenda. Is this how this council wants to govern? I can see why the mayor was outraged. Thank you.

It's always such a long walk from the back row. Hi, I'm Sage Wilkirk. I live here in Mount Vernon. I have been gone, so I missed our hot topic a couple weeks ago. But I do want to say that good leadership, they say, praises in public and criticizes in private. And I've watched this council over the past many months, and council members listen. You take notes. You do research. You check over the minutes. You speak clearly. You ask good questions. You care about the community. You take your time out for town halls, which is new. to Mount Vernon, and you definitely have a passion in your convictions. And these are exactly the people that you should be proud to be working with and proud of them in public. Your public tirade, I'm going to say public carefully because I'm not on Facebook and a lot of us have left Meta and the only place that I was able to find that was somebody sent it to me on Facebook, of the council actions are what I would call a breakdown in leadership. And then you continue to buckle down. It's really calling into question for me your integrity. And I just want to remind you that to err is human, but what we do in response is showing our humanity. So thank you. Thank you.

I'm Scott Gassaway. I've been a grateful member of Mount Vernon since December of 2017. I love this city. I love being able to be here. I showed up tonight because trust and transparency in local government is really important to me. I don't have a lot of time to pay attention, and so I extend a lot of trust to the people that I voted for. I try to make that decision carefully and then extend my trust and trust that there's going to be transparency in the way that that the Council operates, and so I was grateful mayor for this you sharing with us showing a spotlight on. a process by the council that to me undermined that trust. And so I just want to urge the council moving forward, please continue to operate with just a high commitment to transparency and please operate not just legally, but ethically as well. So I support your mayor. Thank you, Scott.

Hi, Andrea Mount Vernon. I am here every single Wednesday for every committee meeting and every city council meeting and have been, I think, since November. I started coming to city council about a little year and a half ago. I didn't have anything prepared tonight, but I'm a little... Frustrated I think about how the conversation is going a lot of conversation about the March 11th vote and zero conversation about the March 4th committee meeting where Hannah said I don't want to bring this up same day and And the city attorney said, that is an option. And Mary said, yes, that's an option. You can do that. And Hannah said, is that what the council wants me to do? And there was silence. Nobody argued. Nobody said anything against it. And then on March 11, it was put on the agenda on March 4 that March 11 committee meeting was going to be talking about Flock. Flock has been on committee meetings I don't know how many times. There has been hours and hours and hours for months of conversations about this. This was not a surprise vote on the 24th in that like, oh, it just, nobody was talking about it. I brought a petition with 430 signatures of Skagit County residents, of people I spoke to personally while in Mount Vernon, because there is a digital footprint that was being created of them passing through this city. Every single person was concerned. I was talking to people standing under the flock cameras who signed this petition. We're the Democratic Socialists of America, by the way, and I joined that group so that I could have camaraderie in the difficulty that I have felt standing up here trying to express my concerns and then being slandered and talked about during committee meetings and on Facebook. I'm sorry. It's OK. No, it's OK. I have met with a lot of you privately. I have a deep respect for what you guys do. I don't think that this is easy. I don't appreciate the way that council members have been talked about. You all have voted in ways that I was not happy with. I dealt with it. I did not go to Facebook and slander you. I didn't go to the Skagit Herald and call you names. I figured out, OK, what are things we can agree on? I have a ton of agreement with Nabor on what I want to see for bicycles. I have a ton of agreement with Demi on what I want to see with iOS. Melissa, your ideas for parks are brilliant. I participate in ways, and I encourage everyone else to come and participate as well, but this was not a thing that hadn't been talked about since at least October. Mayor, you and I had a phenomenal conversation back in October 2025 about our concerns about Flock, but I heard no follow-up. There was no follow-up of, this is what I've learned. These are the things that I think that we should do. This is an emergency. Turning Flock off was an emergency for our community. I was altering where I was driving. I was not driving over the Riverside Bridge because I didn't want to be recorded doing it. People were altering their ways to work. The Washington Department of Licensing is still sharing licensing data with ICE as of today. We have no idea if Flock is sharing our data or not. We know that MVPD is doing their job. None of us have ever questioned that. But we do not know if Flock, the company, is just allowing ICE into their information, and that is an emergency. Thank you for your time. I respect you all greatly, including you, Mayor. I might not agree with you all, but I will never slander you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Andrea.

Hey, my name is Bobby Morris. I live here in Mount Vernon. I've listened to enough of these, I think, to kind of get where we're at here. And I listened to Mayor Pete talk on Facebook in the same post everybody else saw. We all clearly heard very different things. You're getting some people feeling very attacking and some people very grateful for transparency. I had to get involved with youth football in Burlington this year for the same reason. Like it's the same mindset we have. I had to get people out of there that wanted to just get things done. And that's not really how this works. Like your job is to represent us 498 signatures or whatever is not representative of what do we have? 27, 30,000 people. We don't have time to be here. I have almost no time. Right. I commit my time in other ways. And I'm not saying that people that come here are wasting their time. They're all doing their part, but, We have to trust that you're going to follow a process. And when you start to follow technicalities, you're wrong. Those things are given to government for an emergency, a true emergency, that you need to decide something today or someone's life or the city is going to collapse. Flock cameras aren't that. I'm not going to argue one way or the other for flock cameras, but you're in public. I mean, the First Amendment, when you're in public, people can record you. ATMs, you guys... democratic socials of america are probably on the leading edge of like trying to get cameras on police officers um but all of a sudden this is a problem for them so you know i i think the issue could be talked about a million ways but it's not really why i think a majority of people are here we're here because you're talking about censoring a mayor and that's a problem over him being transparent You guys messed up. I'm going to be honest. You use a technicality to push something through that needs to be talked about. You guys are going to get the vote either way. What was it, 4-2 and two members were gone? Unless you know for sure that those people aren't going to vote that way, you're going to get the vote. And if you know for sure, pushing that vote through was a problem. It's a problem to do these things. That's why people don't want to give the government power. Every time you give the government just a little bit extra power for an emergency, it's used in the wrong way. That's not how this thing should operate. Get people here. People want to talk about these things. Then vote. 498 people is not enough. It shouldn't even be talked about in here. A petition with less than, like, 1,000 signatures shouldn't even be brought up. That's not representative of the community. Please just do your jobs. Your job is to be transparent, is to represent these people. That's all we're asking. And this guy's a good guy. This is a good mayor. He's the first mayor I've been, like, very invested in. Like, oh, I love the things. I told my girlfriend, like, we were talking about leaving Mount Vernon, and we're going to stay here because of some of the changes that it made. We love what's going on. I can go to Safeway for the first time in like five years without seeing the guy sharpening a butcher knife in the front door. Things have changed here, and it's because of this guy. You're trying to censure him. That got me here tonight. That alone got me here. So please knock it off. Just work together. Be transparent. That's all I'm asking. That's what people get involved with. That's what we want to be here for. Let's work together. No one's calling people crazy names on Facebook. Let's just throw that out. We all heard the same thing. It's not crazy. Just talk. Be transparent. That's all anybody here is asking. Be transparent. And then vote. And then whatever happens, happens. But what you're doing here with, like, the last second thing, it's a problem. It's why a lot of people are here. That's a problem. Please just don't do it again. You know what I mean? Be transparent. Thanks.

Thank you.

Bobby.

Hello. My name is Mae Gott. I live in unincorporated Skagit County. Mayor Peter Donovan, I think that you are slimy and gross. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor and Council. I've made comments back in March about my concern for the flock cameras. And I know there was a lot of people from our immigrant community that voice and we care about our, we, we care about all the concerns our police officers and every, you know, our service, our safety service, our police, what they do. And we really appreciate them in our community. And I hear the concern, our, Council has had on trying to get something on the agenda and I I thank you for your candor and your tenacity to to move and I mean we're talking like a year of vlog cameras really it's not just that I mean graduation and all last year we were all talking about this and so I appreciate that and I would appreciate us thinking about the people who are not here who probably would never be able to come to this meeting because they are so vulnerable in our community and i would ask you know mayor or city council if you would like to ever come with me there are people in our community every day every day are going to very vulnerable communities watching 6 a.m., 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., and then other times throughout the day in very vulnerable communities where people are going into work. Our city is the seat for our county, right? So that's why, you know, people don't understand this who live wherever, but people coming in and out through our city, it is very important, the safety that we have for vulnerable people because our constitution demands that, whether you're a citizen or not. constitution and we're upholding that and just to say if you would like to you know connect with me I didn't say my name Lisa and Mount Vernon sorry about that that's what I'm gonna say that's it um that is really important if you would like to come with me I am a in the education community, so summer is my time when I'm mostly available, during the year I am as well, for different things to show you around. I would really appreciate that. There are kids, we're talking like the last weeks of school. Education people in Mount Vernon, I can't tell you about other school districts, but here in Mount Vernon, District staff making sure kids get on a bus. I literally am there to make I saw we finally figured out Okay, this person is a staff person making sure Middle school kids high school kids then elementary get on the bus And their families have been taken I'm in schools where I know several families their parents are taken and And we know that 3% of individuals detained are not high felony, I mean, or sorry, only 3% of many of the detained in our country are felony or violent offenders. Of all these detainees that are, only 70% have no criminal convictions. And these are statistics from very reputable sources. Sources about 30 seconds. Yes, and we know that the data is coming through flock We know this there's there's so much out there and research on how all this works Okay, we're you know, the public are very aware so I would ask This isn't just a, it's been going on since March. It's, well, this is an Obama. This is, you know, not necessarily flock, but other surveillance things. It's not picking out any particular party. It's a concern for all of our people living here.

Thank you, Lisa.

So think about those people that are not here. Thank you.

Chuck, Malvernon resident, proud. Mayor, council, what a wild ride. I just want to say I'm a big fan of the show. I'm proud that I took part in a lot of the casting decisions over the course of the last few years. So I think we did a pretty good job. I did want to share a little anomaly that a lot of people aren't aware of, and that's There's a neighboring network that has a sitcom that's on at the same time as ours. I had to go attend that show two weeks ago. It was cute. They all wore the same costumes. You guys should consider that sometime. But it was an important decision. And I made a choice to be there because unlike here, it's rare that big decisions, big important decisions, there's a unanimous vote. It was refreshing to see from a cast that really doesn't get along. They're a little bit too dramatic for my taste. But that same night, afterwards, it was actually the mayor that made a decision to add something to the agenda. And it caused quite an uproar, at least with the people that were in the room. I'll have to wait and watch the reruns to see if their show was as well attended as this one. But this is an isolated occurrence. I'm a bit of a historian myself, so I spend my time on YouTube watching various city council, county commissioner meetings. It's not an isolated occurrence in the broad spectrum of things that, at least on a local level, we don't tend to see that action towards adding things to an agenda. I like to look at the TV guide and see what's going to be on the show. which is why I come to this show often. I still don't have popcorn. Hopefully we can work on that. But we see that on a national level all the time. We see if not everybody's there, we like to make decisions, like to try and fast-track things. I will say I'm not a fan of robots, not a fan of cameras. I've seen Terminator too many times. But I just wanted to say that this wasn't an isolated occurrence here This continues to happen everywhere. I really like the democratic process. I like seeing everybody in the room and always a voice of reason. Somebody saying, hey, come on, guys, calm down. Let's let's talk together. Group hug. That's why I like the show. I'll continue to watch it. If you want to hire another writer for the show, let me know. Thank you, Chuck.

All right.

my printer didn't work at the last moment so i got a big clunky computer my name is ben live in mount vernon although i did also want to acknowledge that i think it is important for as andrea noted the city to consider the impact of its decisions on residents and schedule and beyond and i'm actually here to talk about democratic process questions not specific to flock or the agenda setting but i did want to also reinforce sam's comments andrea's comments lisa's comments particularly as regard to the perception of this being like a, you know, political tactics or subversive effort versus a genuine interest in the democratic process, which I believe that all of the council members have. And so I just wanted to put that out there and also the perception, the valid perception that it is an emergency for many of our community members. So where is the clock by the way it moved? Sorry? What was that? The clock.

Oh.

Oh.

You just got it.

You're at 53 seconds. Very good. So what I actually want to talk about is it seems like everybody's really interested in ensuring a democratic process and public input and things like that. And I want to highlight, I sent an email to you guys on June 30. I heard back from Council Member Oliver. But I think it's very important to understand the distinction between the opportunity for informed participation versus the opportunity to simply say things about stuff that is on the agenda. And in my mind, the most critical aspect of this relates to the availability of committee meeting information. So much important information is shared both by addressing the council and indirectly in terms of council's questioning and interactions with each other. Yet, unless their life is structured in a way that allows them to attend meetings on a weeknight during dinnertime, Mount Vernon residents are essentially unable to access this information either at all or without additional burdensome steps. Uh, and his comments about the flock vote, the mayor asked how many people are home because they didn't know a vote was taking place. Um, I think that is a fair question, but I would also ask how many people stay home because they don't know what's actually being said in these committee meetings. Um, said to council, or if they do show up, they might make comments that are not germane because they haven't heard what was said, or they might make comments that are factually inaccurate because they did not have access to the same information as council and those who are able to show up physically. Um, when the chief or other speakers make statements to the council during committee meeting. 99.99% of the city won't have the opportunity to learn from them if they're true or attempt to refute them if they disagree or to acknowledge them but put them in an alternative framing. And as a side, even for those who, like Andrea, do dutifully show up, much of the time there's kind of physical material or other things that are provided access to the council that the people who have made the effort to be here don't have access to, which further kind of reduces the incentive to bother showing up in the first place. So I understand there's some history with not recording the committee meetings. And I get that there's a desire to not necessarily have everything that you say in a deliberative context posted on the internet forever. But I think there are technological solutions to that. And given that they're all still technically open to the public and not actually truly executive session. And given the significant bias who can afford to show up and attend these meetings, um, I would employ the council to find a balance between the current state and another solution that allows for reasonable low effort access to committee meeting recordings, as well as all information that's, that's presented there. Um, you could do temporary full public posting, do limited distribution, et cetera. I'm sure many people can help with that.

Um, yeah. Um, so.

I'm sure that given such strong concern with democratic process and participation, the mayor and council members can work together so the other 35,000 Mount Vernon residents can have the option of providing fully informed public comment. Thanks. Thank you, Ben.

Hello, I'm Jeremiah Knutson, Mount Vernon resident. I had something prepared, but I'm not going to read it because it doesn't really apply, I don't think, anymore. I wanted to first say thank you to the council for dropping the censure and looking towards being more cohesive and respectful to each other. I think that's important all the way around. Professionalism care and grace when we make mistakes all the way around is important. We all make them. We're all going to continue to make them. So let's be kind to each other when we do this. I also want to say I agree with a lot of what all these people said, a little bit of all of it. I think that's what we need to look at, right, is, like, how much of this do we actually come together on? And that stuff that we don't come together on, how do we get through that in a democratic way, in a way that respects the people of our community that we might not fully understand, maybe different racial. But we need to care about them. We also need to make sure that every voice is being heard and figure out what is really an emergency and what isn't. Maybe it was an emergency. Maybe it's not, you know, like. depends on the data that you look at right uh are flock cameras really being used by the federal government with with ice i mean there's data that goes both ways right it's hard to distinguish what's true and what's not so in that i would like to say let's let's be more i know it's hard because we all want to see things get done and get frustrated with the slow government but at the same time we need to uh We need to be careful with that, not jump the gun. So I hope that you guys all move forward like you said you want to with respect and admiration for each other. Thanks for listening. Thank you, Jeremiah.

Guys, I'm Gavin. Alger, talked to you guys before, one of the Yahoo's who comes down to talk about flock who doesn't live in your town but drives through it. On the topic of censure, that's your guys' business. It's enforcing a consequence for when you guys decide that there's behavior that's outside the bounds of polite conduct or whatever you guys agree to. That's your business. I don't care. If you want to enforce the conduct, enforce the consequence, do it. If not, don't. It's a little disappointing that it's been this has now taken like three weeks of your guys's time to talk about just sniping at each other. But I want to talk about last week's committee meeting on flock because there was one point I was disappointed where. In the first 21 minutes of that meeting, you guys had four opportunities to ask questions, and I've been coming to meetings telling you guys about Flock, providing you with questions to ask of Chief Christman, to ask of Kevin, to ask, like, and... Only one of you asked questions. Council Member Oliver asked four questions. That was the entire discussion. Two weeks ago, the motion initially was not to have a vote on Flock. The motion was to have a discussion about Flock in response to a petition signed by over 400 of your constituents to say, we don't want this. And then when the discussion period came up, none of you talked about Flock. None of you, you kind of stared at each other. Back in March, the emergency motion that was there, you had a meeting to talk about the impact of ESSB 6002. And in it, Council Member West pointed out, hey, at midnight, if this goes live, we could be criminally liable for a gross misdemeanor. I think that's an emergency because one of our cameras, And Chief Crispin did have a plan in effect for when it happened to bag the camera, but it was pointed at a church and that wasn't going to be allowed. That was all that vote was about. And you voted to keep them on because you like under that reasoning, don't do it. Right. Fine. The vote that happened after was. rightly just a motion that came out of the discussion for well we've given months of opportunity for discussion the public we've never heard a single public comments for in favor let's just put this to bed and move on with our business That's all it was a majority vote. I know Mary Melissa, you guys weren't there. Sorry, you didn't get to participate, but it was a majority vote. So even had you both been on the opposite side, it still would have passed. The last thing I do want to touch on is in the public safety committee meeting last week, there was points made. There were some, I think, disconnect between the points the police chief was trying to refute about our comments to the city council. and what we were actually saying. I don't have time to go through all of them. It'd take me 15 minutes, but I do really want to point out that, uh, where was it? Sorry. I got a good handful of notes in here. Uh, so he, he, uh, police chief Christman referred to two of our concerns as myths that ALPRs use facial recognition and that they collect private information. The cameras, I believe Creasman thought about the cameras we were using. Flock in general sells cameras that do that. They use our data in their 21-day retention period to train their AI models for their facial recognition on that data.

About 30 seconds.

They use that. On collecting public information, we know the cameras don't tell you my name and address, but we know you have access to look all that up. And then you can build a map, like even if it's a point in time measurement of where I am. If you've got enough of those cameras, you can track my progress from my license plate anywhere I go in the county, and that's the product Flock sells. You don't just get access to only the roads in Mount Vernon. You get access to nationwide. Chief Christman back in March gave an example of a case that went from Washington to Michigan. They used ring cameras in that case, not Flock, but it was the same thing. In the case he brought up last week, they used a ring camera, not Flock. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to address City Council? Going once. All right. We will move on in our agenda. Council, tonight's consent agenda includes meeting minutes, payroll claims, and a couple of routine agreements. I understand there may have been an oversight in the minutes of one of those.

yeah Thank You mayor on consent agenda item a for the special meeting we had regarding North Star it indicates that it doesn't indicate that I was present but it also indicates that council members Hudson and West were present when I don't believe either of them were present okay so for the city clerk consent item a

Council members present from the City of Mount Vernon included, and it says, Navora Tresero, Strike Mary Hudson, Strike Randy West, Hannah Oliver, Demi Damon, and Add Melissa Beaton. Does that sound right, Melissa? Yes, please. Okay. So would your motion be to approve the consent agenda with that change?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor.

Second. Motion by Melissa and a second by Navora. Need discussion, Council? Yes. Yes, please.

Item 5G, 5C. I'm not sure what MCMC is under the Finance and Parks Committee Minutes.

Which consent agenda item is that, Council Member West?

5, Charlie. Finance and Parks and Recreation Committee Meeting Minutes. MCMC, Chapter 10.56.

MVMC, Scrivener's Error.

Also, River Plaza or Skagit Riverwalk Park. Which one or is it both? Same item, Mr. Mayor. I see both. River Plaza. Yep. And then I see Skagit Riverwalk Park. Yep. Which one's correct?

I would say likely both. I'm looking for it, though, Councilmember.

It's B.

Consent item B.

No.

Fourth of July celebration. Fourth of July celebration will take place on the Riverwalk Plaza beginning at 8 p.m.

The DVD at this water park will be open for fireworks viewing.

That's all correct.

I think, okay. That one is minor. I can let that go. Um, on item five Delta council meeting minutes, item seven, a sites comprehensive plan update 2005. Committee records treat this as a 2026 cycle. Which one are we talking about? 2025, 2026, or 2026? Which of these? I think there's three different dates in that.

Which? I'm sorry, Randy, can you tell me again which line you're looking at?

Yeah, item 7 alpha under 5 delta, June 24th council meeting minutes. The main thing that I'm interested in is 2025 comprehensive plan update. However, committee records treat this as the 2026 cycle. Is it 2025 or 2026? For the comp plan update? Yes.

Steve, do you have any background on this one? This is DS Committee. Is that correct, Council Member West? DS Committee minutes?

Five Delta. Item five Delta. Council meeting minutes. City Council meeting minutes. Approval. June 24th.

If I may. Yeah, I'm guessing my printed is maybe different than your online.

I believe the council member is correct. It should be 2026 comprehensive plan update.

The reason why I'm interested is we're not editing the 2025 comprehensive plan, are we? We're not. Okay, so then that's the easy answer. It should be 2026 rather than 2025. Okay.

The comprehensive plan is a 2025-2045 comprehensive plan at that 20-year period that we're producing right now. We've just been delayed into 2026 and into 2027 and passing that. It will still be the 2025-2045 period. Thank you. Yep. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Steve.

Was there a motion to amend? Are we okay with those?

I'd like to see corrected records.

Can they be attached on the next agenda?

Sure. Yeah, we'll have to watch the video to try to track what those were. I don't know that they're substantive at all. So I'm going to leave the... The motion and the second, did we get a second to the motion? It's been a while now.

I don't know. Did we get a second to my motion?

Oh, we're good. We're good. All right.

Well, wait a second. I second it. Mary, you're...

Consent agenda. No, Melissa's... Melissa made some changes. Yes.

You seconded it. Thank you for that. We will make the substantive changes that Melissa mentioned, and we will take a look at those other errors and see if we can update those as well, if necessary. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, say no. Motion passes. Item 5 is reports. Item 5A, council member comments. Any council member comments tonight?

Yes. Council member Vanderstube. I'll be really quick. You guys have been very patient. Thank you all for coming. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to moving on. And thank you all for being respectful. I think that it's helpful when the community is also respectful at the same time that we are all trying to do the same. So thank you very much. All right, sir.

Anyone else? Yes, Council Member Oliver.

I also just want to thank everyone for coming. One thing that I heard from, I think, every single person that was here is that you want more transparency and you want a more democratic process in your local government. I agree. So hopefully in the next upcoming agendas, and you all can check online, but hopefully we'll be updating our procedures so council members are, again, able to add things to agendas. I also want to share... something that is coming up soon in see in October and if you were just here for the library committee meeting which was right before this you would have seen it but we have a new civics academy which is going to do a lot of education and training for our community to learn how our city government works and I don't know exactly what it's going to look like but that is something new that our library is doing which is very exciting I also want to say, I think a couple of people brought up getting information out to the community the best that we can. We have started doing ward meetings this year, which is really, really cool. I don't know if it's happened ever that every single ward, every single council ward is having regular ward meetings. So that is a really, really great step in the right direction. And I also want to say at any point, if anyone here or anyone online listening to this, if you want to meet with us. I imagine the whole council agrees, but I would happily sit down for coffee. I know that I have with a handful of folks that are here today. I'm happy to talk on the phone. If you have a book club, you have a quilting club, I'm more than happy to come and join you all and talk about whatever your concerns are or answer questions about what the city is currently working on. And I imagine the rest of the council would do the same. So again, thank you all for showing up today and supporting democracy and transparency in our government.

Yes, Council Member Damon and then Council Member Hudson.

Yes, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for coming. I know it's time out of your day to come and give comments and I agree. I appreciate all of your thoughtfulness and All of us here are ready to make amends, move forward and work together. That being said, I do want to make a shout out to our police, our fire and our parks. I heard from a lot of people about the 4th of July and how great it was. A lot of people had a really good time downtown. So I want to thank you to all those departments who did a good job keeping us all safe and giving us alternative to not having fireworks in our backyard. And also a quick shout out. So there is a new to you thrift shop. At 101 South 2nd Street. And this is for our senior center. And so they are... All the proceeds and everything are for their advisory board because they are interested in a new building and sustaining it. So they just opened it up. So I know they're taking donations, but they're also open... I believe it's Monday through Friday.

I don't remember.

But anyways, go shop. Donate. Just... help out wherever you can it is a volunteer only so when you go in there thank the volunteers that are there helping you know being there so um but yes thank you everybody for coming and we do appreciate you showing up and giving your comments so thank you yes yeah i'd also like to echo my co-counsel's thanks for being here we appreciate the turnout um i'm gonna

tag onto what Hannah said. I do want to say that Ward 3 has been having meetings For many years, so I'm glad the other two, and I'm going to do that every time. I'm glad the other two have joined us, the other two wards have joined us. And also what Hannah said about if you want to talk to us, please reach out. Even if you don't agree with me, please reach out. I don't want to just hear from people who are always in agreement. We need to talk about things and come to a consensus and be, you know, respectful and just want to come together for the betterment of the city. That's what we're here for. That is really the only thing we're here for. So again, thanks for being here tonight.

Council Member West. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do appreciate everyone that's come to the meeting tonight and over the course of time. I will say it's not fair to you. Each of you saw the agenda tonight. expected to see the agenda executed as written. And we failed you once again. So I'm curious if there will be an equal amount of animosity towards the emergency action we took tonight on changing the agenda. I'm curious. I would gain more respect for our city's leadership If so. And I do have some comments I'd like to make. This censure motion was not about personal animosity. It's about our oath that we took to the city of Mount Vernon Municipal Codes. And if we're saying that Those municipal codes only apply to the rank and file. They do not apply to the chief executive. We're setting a terrible standard. Last week, Chief Christman was talking to us about, I'll put it in my words, just to keep it brief. I know I'm on a timer probably, but Chief Christman was talking about not, putting up with foolishness within the police department. And I told him at that time, I respect that, and that's the way it should be throughout all of Mount Vernon government. However, by choosing to not even vote, by un-forcing that vote, if you say, what we have just done is made it impossible for any supervisor in the city of Mount Vernon to reprimand anyone. With the next person that gets written up for coming to work drunk or sleeping on the job, that person's going to go hire a plaintiff's attorney who's going to say, hey, the mayor just got excused. Why does my client have to follow the rules? And it sucks. I'm talking to the The bottom folks at the police department, the bottom folks at the library, the bottom folks at the fire department, public works, everywhere. It sucks, and I've been there, when you see that the rules only apply to the rank and file, not to the people at the top. And that's what we institutionalized tonight. It's sad, and it's going to take a long time to recover from that. I understand that there's a lot of rhetoric on all of these issues. And even with the change in the agenda tonight, I'm not going to go to the press. I'm not going to call names. I'm not going to pick people out. You know, I'll do what I've done when I lost every other vote that I've lost. I've lost flock votes. I've lost canine votes. Now I've lost a vote on centric. go home, eat some ice cream, come back the next day. That's kind of what you do. So I'm not going to call names. I'm not going to disrespect anyone on this council for the emergency change that we made tonight, although it is extremely laughable.

Yes, Council Member DeSero. I would just like to echo what some of the other council members have said and say thank you so much for caring about our city and coming out and giving us your comments. And I want to say just my own voice, my own support for our mayor. and say that I believe that he has done a great job here in our city. And I think that when we look at staff and the great relationship they have with our mayor, and we are really lucky here in the city of Mount Vernon to have great leadership here. In in our city, and I think that we should appreciate that I do look forward to Going forward and working with everybody on this dais here I know that there were different people who said that I made the wrong decision in Allowing the flock discussion. I had told many of our council members here that that was going to be on and that committee meeting. And so I did want to have a discussion, and I'm saddened by the fact that there was impatience with the process. But I think that a democratic process can afford time. And so I think that that would have been the prudent way to go forward with that. And I don't see that that was a problem in in our discussion. I think that our flock discussion needs to be measured, needs to be. you know, there are concerns on all of the sides of that issue. And I don't think it's, it's a purely black or white issue that it's, um, you know, it is something that has a lot of nuance. And so, um, I do look forward to going forward with my fellow council members in this. And I agree with, uh, councilman West that tomorrow we eat our ice cream and we, uh,

go about our business tonight we'll eat the ice cream all right any other council member comments All right, we move on now to Mayor's report, and I am going to choose to eat my ice cream now. New business. Item A is a resolution for a Citizens Advisory Committee and Development Services Director. Steve Sexton will present this item. Steve.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. Before you, there's a Resolution 1105 that we're requesting approval on to reestablish our Citizens Advisory Committee. We did have a meeting last night with the Planning Commission, and it was a great discussion. And I think we've got a great group of folks that volunteered to be on that committee. And just as a follow-up, later in the month, I will be bringing you another resolution to establish a development regulations work group of developers who are going to help us do that piece of work. Any questions on the membership? Questions for Steve? Council Member Day?

When are you guys meeting? Is it once a month?

You know, we're going to work that out with our calendar. We didn't have it really set yet last night, but it'll be more frequent as we get further down the line and have more public hearings and more public input, yeah.

Okay.

And will we get any, like, details from those or, like, a little rundown or anything from what was discussed at those meetings?

Yeah, we'll follow up at our next Development Services Committee next week on that.

Okay.

I just want to make sure all with the intent that we're going to be wrapped up nice in a little bow by December. Right?

It's the same answer so far.

So far we're right. We're still on track.

We're right on schedule. I appreciate you keeping an eye on us. I really do.

Do we need a motion on this?

We will. Let's let Council Member Vanders do it.

Hey, thank you so much. Were these positions advertised, and when were they advertised?

Really, we picked up on the previous membership wherever we could and filled in about three other spots. Okay. Yeah.

Do you have resumes for these people? Or what was the selection process like?

Just discussion internally with staff and mayor's office and picking a few folks who could fill those spots who would do a good job. Gotcha.

I... I wonder if the rest of council would be interested in entertaining at some point having resumes and having a more involved decision when it comes to this. I know quite a few of these folks. Some of them are great. Some of them, the description of what sort of professional background they bring is, in my mind, inaccurate. And I think it would be nice for us to see a variety of different people involved in this. It would help me make an informed decision because I don't know what the process was like. I have no idea.

Yeah, to Andrew's point. Steve, can you get us out some information on each of these individuals?

I can.

Will that help you, Andrew? Yeah.

Absolutely. But I think going forward, what I'm more interested in is the process going forward, is making sure that we're more involved with the selection of these folks.

You bet. Yeah.

keep you know with me trying to keep with that december our short time zone but yes absolutely moving forward steve yeah one of the efforts we did put into this is to to maintain the for instance uh representative from community action has moved out of the area so her replacement is actually on this committee And same thing with the nonprofits. We filled another nonprofit in there with Jason Wells, the director of the Friendship House. And the business representative, it seemed natural to have. the chamber director to represent the businesses as a, as a congregate in Mount Vernon. So that's, that was kind of the thinking that went into it, but I can surely get some more information for the council.

Yeah. I don't have any problem with any of that. I think that you probably know that I'm really interested in this process. And I spend a lot of my free time thinking about it and talking with other people who are really interested in this process who would like to be more interested maybe. So it'd be fun to see, what sort of credentials they might have so they can participate better in the future. But I don't want to hold up the motion, so in full support.

Thanks. Other questions or discussion? All right, we would entertain a motion to approve the resolution. So moved. Second. Motion by Navor and second by Andrew to approve Resolution 1105. More discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion passes. Steve, thank you for that. Item B was struck from the agenda. For item 8, I will ask our city attorney to please call the mayor and city council into executive session.

Thank you, Mayor and members of city council. The city council will now meet in executive session for a period of 10 minutes to reconvene at 8.54 on the grounds to discuss issues related to collective bargaining sessions and planning or adopting strategy or positions. related to collective bargaining, which is exempt from the Open Public Meetings Act, pursuant to RCW 4230, subsection 144.

That is the end of our agenda this evening. Thank you again to everyone who came to contribute, to listen, to participate. It's also the end of our Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, July 8, 2026. We stand adjourned at 8.43 p.m.