City Council - Regular Meeting

I would like to call the sea of Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, November 12, 2025 to order. The time is now 70 p.m. Would you please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pray the black She didn't just one under God and for all. OK. Next up, I'll ask our city clerk to call the roll. Esper are beaten Here, Council Mayor Rocksmith, uh, excused. Council member Crees, excused. Councilmember Hudson, excused Council Mayor Molinar, here's Caro He's remember Chasero Councilman Van der Stoop here. OK, thank you Next up, uh, we have approval of tonight's council meeting agenda. So 2 And we have a motion by Councilmember Molinar, and a second by Councilmember Tercero All those in favor? oppose All right, motion passes All right, we're going, we're jumping right in here to community comments. There's anyone present in council chambers here tonight that would like to address counsel. Please step up to the podium. Uh, state your name and city of residence, and please let us know if uh 3 minutes will be enough time for you to share your message. I'm not sure, but Ed Johnson, I live in downtown Mount Vernon and currently La Connor. I'm trying to move for the last 6 weeks because I'm doing it on my own and it's not been easy.

That said, um, I'm kind of wondering where is Barney Fife when you need him. All the numbers and stuff I just heard thrown out, 350,000. I'm like holy moly, I mean, back in the day it was $50 they were up s et about. But now it's mega 1000, so this is way wrong. This should be a million dollar bill instead of a $1 bill. It's just crazy Anyways, I came in tonight because there was some um comments that had been made two years ago, actually. And I didn't understand how our American English has been um mutated in such a way that I can't understand it. I've been to university and 4 colleges. I come back and people are texting and all this other garbage and they can't pass English class and whatever else, and I, OK, so I, I'm finding def different definitions and different industries with the same word that I grew up with, and it's driving me crazy, so I'm retired. I forgot to set my clocks. and I'm here an hour early Thank you, Steve. And uh I just, well, anyways, that's what happens. I'm on your schedule, not mine, cause I ain't got one no more. Thank God. But I'm having to do all this education and that thing I want to bring up is what somebody said and, and I had been through the personally been through the visa process 45 times. Um and so I understand it It's to make sure we screen out the bad players, period. You got to get background checked and stuff. So, the word that came up and I I argued it in my head, is illegal. It is illegal if you don't follow the law. I mean, it's really simple. I couldn't figure it out, and people said, no, there's no such thing as illegal people or illegal aliens or illegal

whatever. I'm like, let's see, they bypassed the laws, that's a crime. Yeah, I don't know about that. So, 57,000, 522,000 suspected illegals have been detained and uh over 2000 some odds have been deported. and of that concerningly were pedophiles, rapists, uh, murderers, and so on. Any one of those is too many in my book. So if we have 13 million, but they're all mostly uh good people and have gone through the background far out. That's all I ask But I'm hoping that one day soon the police are going to be able to do their jobs in all law enforcement and all these vehicles that are all illegal with tinted windows, you can't see what or driving the vehicle because everything's so black. and then the the, the headlights are crazy. That frequency is just annoying. I can't believe how bright they are. And it's not just me, I'm hearing it from a lot of folks. The other thing is these vehicles that have modified them been modified like raising trucks or cars or whatever, there's a limit to how high that headlight can be. There's a federal law So I, I just kinda wonder where are we at? I just reread the US Constitution in its original form. It is difficult. It took me a bit, but I got through it. Then I realized, holy smokes what happened to our English language? It's not what I saw in the Constitution. It's changed considerably. and it keeps changing. So I, you know, I just kind of worry about the kids that can't even read cursive because that's what it's all about. So getting back to that, it's not one person that has control like this committee. It's a lot of people involved for decision making, and I get

really irritated when I hear, oh, this person did this and this, no. Read the Constitution, will you? That's how it really works, but you guys seem to be on top of stuff $350,000 for any kind of holy and change orders, 100 plus back in 19 mid mid 80s, I worked as a federal agent. for uh military and we were doing DET 50s or payoffs for uh $250,000 plus for countermeasures that protected our military people. Today, you're talking about what? Oh, changing something in the street, a sidewalk, what? Sorry. I just find it. Thank you, Mr. Johnson Is there anyone else that would like to come up and speak? Hi, Jerry. Please state your name and place of residence. I'm Jerry Douglas, and I live here in Mount Vernon. and I'm here tonight to say to you, I hope you had a nice veteran's day and you had some celebrations in your life. I had a celebration today that I want to share with you. I was at the senior center We also call it a community center because it serves the community. We have lots of groups that meet there. in the evenings as well as during the day. And of course, senior services and senior meals are served there. But today I had the privilege of helping a scout group, a girl scout group of 12 members make fairy gardens. And that was such a pleasure. Um it brings joy to my life and it's

certainly brought joy to all their lives. So I wanted to share that with you. I hope that, um, my, my hope is that um we can all get together as a community and a group of concerned citizens. uh, and you who represent us in the county and we can resolve a lot of issues by sitting down and talking about possible solutions. So I hope that will happen in the future. Thank you. Thanks, Jerry Is there any, anyone else that would like to come up to the podium? OK Moving on then, we're up to, onto our consent agenda. Uh, tonight's agenda includes meeting minutes, payroll checks, and deposits, wire transfers, claims, and agreements. Would counsel like to move for adoption? So So have a motion by council member Chiro and a second by Council member Andrew Stoop. All those in favor? Opposed and passes. All right Moving along The ports Are there any council members who have any comments for this evening? All right. Next up we have the marriage's report. Surprise, I'm not the mayor. I um have had the honor all year as serving um as the mayor pro tem. And so part of that role is to step in when the mayor is absent, and so the mayor was not able to attend tonight, and so I get the honor. So thanks for your patience with me as I get through this. Uh, so we'll move on to new business. Item A is a public hearing for the city's 2026

property tax levy, and our finance director, Doug Valesky will introduce this item to council tonight. Thank you, councilmembers All right. um as you said, I'm here today for a public hearing on the 2026 budget revenue sources. Um, just kind of some background on what we do throughout the year when we're trying to come up with all these um revenue sources and what, what kind of numbers we're looking at. Um, the city does use analytical methodologies to ensure fiscal responsibility. We balance conservative projections with realistic growth expectations based on data analysis. We look at several different areas to um on getting some of this information as, as far as like hysterical, historical or hysterical lately too, I guess, sorry, historical trend analysis, um. um, you know, spanning multiple fiscal years, economic indicators, correlation studies, and then regional benchmarks against um talking to some other cities, you know, what are they doing? What are they looking at? What are they seeing? Um, we also, um, revenue projections incorporate input from multiple other sources such as our internally with our department managers and department heads and looking at what they're seeing as far as their revenues go in their areas. And um we have several different sources to get state and county economic forecasts as well as the MRSC, um um, guidance and um they actually not only have that, but that there's a um also provide the actual revenue balances for a lot of state re ve nu es that we received that, that we received that are just

plugged in that I'll talk about in a little bit. So as far as the city goes, um we do have revenue policies that we need to follow. Um, our policies are that our current revenues will be sufficient to support current expenditures. Um, we use calculated. calculated using an objective analytical process and will be neither overly optimistic nor overly conservative. and estimates will be performed utilizing accepted analytical techniques and shall access the full spectrum of resources available to finance city programs and services. With that our 2026 estimated total city revenue is $93,131,965. This is all inclusive of all all city funds and not just operational but capital projects, etc. and um and all the fun categories too so this is the, the, the whole amount that I'll go into here. First breaking down that amount, um, taxes, um, 34,256 was estimated amount that we're bringing in this year, and it's going up to 39. I'll talk about that in a minute. I have a whole slide that just go talks about taxes so I'll just keep moving on here. Um, overall, looking at the very bottom there are estimated actuals are 90. just under $90.5 million and we're going to be going up about 2.6 million or just just under 3% from 2025 actuals um we have um some of the things there that you, you see some big differences. Intergovernmental services going down 22%. A lot of that is for grants that we receive for capital projects that, you know, particularly like like right now, the Movern and Library of

Commons Project, and we're no longer going to be seeing grants for that, that were in the budget for the ending the budget in 2025. Um, charges for services, this includes, you know, all the utilities, um, ambulance services, um, and, um, so these are the revenue sources that that we're seeing. um citywide So again, overall just under 3% increase. Breaking that out, looking at the makeup of, of the um all the revenues, 42, you can see the the dark blue section there are 42%, 42.6% are our revenues, our taxes. um charges for services make up 34% and then the rest fall under that. So again, um, no surprise they're our largest um income sources, our taxes and charges for services. So our estimated total tax revenue is just under $40 million 39,715,007 dollars. Um, it is our, out of all of our revenues, 40, like I mentioned earlier, 42.6% of them are are um of revenues are taxes. Going into some detail there, we're looking at um the sales tax projecting at about $10 million for our um our budget. I'm gonna go into this one a little later too. Um, property tax, I will also this, this one includes the passing of the levy lid lift. That's why we see, we're seeing an increase there of 4.5 million, and I'll go into more detail on that one too. Um, public safety and um um, transportation benefit district A lot of our utilities, um, they're all

pretty much staying close to about the same. We're seeing some small increases in there, um, the one that I do have in there that's the public safety, the House Bill 215, um, that's a public safety enhancement bill. that includes um local government funding to provide for local law enforcement grant programs and also local sales and use tax. So funding for this must be used for criminal justice purposes such as our public defense contract and we're estimating if we move forward with that of $650,000 coming in starting the second quarter. So again, just um kind of a bar graph here representative of what our all of our um tax revenues are, as you can see they're the largest is at $14 million as property tax and sales tax at 10 million, utility at 5.5 and then our transportation benefit district at 2.6. Um, so our estimated governmental operating funds budget, which includes um um all the operating costs for the running the city, which includes the general fund, parks, parks and recreation, public works and streets, and the library, and all the administrative functions, um, we're looking at a total of $51.68 million and the breakdown of that again, just looking pretty much the fall lying with the same um as the same line as what we saw previously and the other um chart there, but, so you see that same tax numbers again, they're just carrying forward into this um from about a $5.4 million increase, um. and charges for

services going up about 366,000. So overall totals for um. uh going up from 200 from our 2025 estimated values is going up about $6.1 million or 13.5%. And then just showing the breakdown here again correlates with the rest of the, the total um um revenue projections for the city, taxes is the largest portion of this at 65%. I wanted to talk a little bit about the property tax, um. levy little of that, um, just looks like just passed. are looking at what we currently have right now for 2025 on the left side there. Our assessed value came in at just under $6 billion last year for this year. We were allotted the 1% allowable um amount of $93,000. We had $17 million in new construction assessed value last year, or $27,000 27,000 dollars on tax. Um, there was a refund levy of about 21,000 and then we use bank capacity of 406,000, so our 225 levy amount um was $9,475,709 with a levy rate of 1.5836. So what we're projecting right now for the 2026, um, with the levee lid lift. Now first of all, these numbers are not finalized because the counties still are going to make some adjustments for their assessed values, um, but right now the total assessed values went up from 5.9 million to 6.3 million, um, that number next to it the 6.2 million is what the county is using. Um, that excludes all seniors and disability exempt property, um that that's the amount that's

used for calculating the levye lid lift So the levee lid lift amount does include the 1% allowable in the new construction comes to $4.4 million. One thing it doesn't include that I just, uh, um, there's also $55,000 in refunds that the city could choose to put in here. I did not include that. That would bring it over the the levied rate. Um, so I, you know, if council chooses to do something with that, but right now I did not include it in there. Um so with um um the, the levy that passed, the rate is 2.2537, which just equates to just over $14 million would be our adult levy a projected levy amount. So that's a difference from last year of about $4.5 million. I know we spent a lot of time going over this stuff, but is there any questions on this at all? OK. Just a little bit on some history on his property taxes. You can see here throughout the years, um, our assessed values is that red line. It's just continues going up. Um, the blue line is our population and then our um the green bar is the um, our levy rate, as you can see as the assessed values go up, the levy rates go down, and then back in 206, or up in 26 ft with the levee lid lift, we are increasing it to about the 2020 level and then um again from there um, as a cyclical we'll probably see that outrate will continue to drop down as it says values go up. looking at our, from 2015 on to 2026. You can see there is a steady decline in

rates, and what we're projecting for 2026 is right around that 2018 to 2019. rates that we had for property tax at that point And then property tax distribution in Mount Vernon, um, so our, you know, our rate is $1.58 per $1000 of assessed value, but property tax distribution in Mount Vernon is 10 $10 500 excuse me, $10.57 per $1000 of assessed value. You can see in the bar graph way on the right, um, Mount Vernon schools, um, is about $4.52 of that The state of Washington gets $2.25 of that Um, the city of Mount Vernon there is in the um orange bar there at 1.58. Um, so overall, we have the um property tax bills that go out, the city receives about 15% of that. Sales tax revenue performance, um about this last decade, we can see we had some really good growth, nice growth there about 81% increase and um we're estimating right now that the 26 projection at $10 million. That's about a 1% growth from where we were budgeted at 9.9 million. Um, I believe that number's gonna come in actually a little higher this year the 9.9 million would be closer to the 10 million, as you can see there in 24 we received just over $10 million. I think that number in 25 is going to be right around there too. So at this point, um, we're gonna keep it pretty, pretty flat and um. have

no increase projected for any kind of sales tax revenue. And again, just to breakdown of sales tax revenue, um. our rate, sales tax rate in Mount Vernon is 88.8%. Um, of that, the state of Washington received 74% of it. And um you can see that the city of Mount Vernon receives about 11%, and then the rest are, um, for all the other areas that you're seeing there. And this is the rate currently as it is right now. Real estate excise tax, um this kind of just shows this is not a, a surprising graph here. It's very um cyclical nature of property markets, as you can see, you know, things are going up and then they drop and then up and drop. Back in 201 and 22, we had, um, we were receiving over $2 million. that was for just during the COVID, um, our, our markets increased. and then it dropped back down in 2023, kind of corrected that to down, back down to 1.25 million, and it is starting to increase for 24 and uh 25 looks like it's going to be just over 1.6 million and we're just, you can see the trend line continues to go up, but I'm not, we're not into estimating that to be any higher than that. This doesn't include any one-offs of big properties that could really inflate this costs up, this is, so we think we have a pretty conservative um and realistic amount on this one. And then lastly, just um other city, major city revenue sources that um I wanted to touch base, um, looking at the um top three there is our utility revenues, um, as you can see,

they're they're going up a little based off of um growth and then also there was some CPI adjustments um that were done with um from the rate studies that were done a few years in the years past. We had the ambulance services. This is the EMS levy that we received from the county, um, that amount is set in contract um so the 2025 um went up to 3.6 million from 1.6 just based off a reallocation of those revenues and in 206 it's it's estimated at 3.7 million. Ambulance services, assaults also for transports is also slowly going up. and then ground emergency or the GEMT transports these projections are just going up a little bit, kind of staying flat. We're not exactly sure how, what's going to be happening here. This is all based off the, the Medicaid portion of those transport costs. Um, building permits we've talked about and I, and and, um, Stacy talks about it every month about um what's going on there. They are going up this this year. I think we might go over that $700,000 amount, um, and so we're just kind of keeping that flat for next year. And then the rest of those down below the business or the motor vehicle fuel tax, the liquor. um, board profits and excise tax and marijuana excise tax, those are actual dollar amounts that the that the state has allocated to the city of Mount Vernon based of our population. So those are true, um. true revenue amounts that um we should be collecting in 2026. So with that, that is all I have tonight. um. All right. Counsel, do you have any questions for Dad? No. Uh, it's come up in the past, especially with the

marijuana deal, is that money allocated for public safety? or is it just put into the regular It's just put into the general fund and um no sign of that ever getting up much higher than that. Um, you know, I. you would think it would be increasing, but it's the dollar amount coming forward is just not. um. and again, it's by population, it's by also they, they um distribute it in two different ways. One is by population of the city and then the other is by um I believe it's by shops within city limits. that are allowed. Um, I can't remember exactly how that works, but it's a small portion of it also. OK. OK So, next up, uh, we'll have a public hearing to allow for comments on our 2026 property tax levy, and with that, we will go ahead and open the public hearing. You have a comment, feel please come up and state your name and I know Ed Johnson again, yeah, former property owner here, that's me. I sold my place in '05, and I saw the property values go. hysterically stupid So my place I sold for 85,000. Three years later, it was worth almost a million dollars because of the rezoning and stuff. I had an agriculture, uh, RA type of uh ordinate, what do you call it? Well, anyways, the property was, is uh um I can't even think of the words,

residential agriculture built in 1942. It was on the 33rd and College Way on College Way. So, anyways, I, I just see these numbers, and I'm hoping, are these uh flights available online? that you just showed the stovepipe and the, the other stuff. Um, there's a, there's a. Uh, OK. I'll, I'll get with you later. OK, because I was wondering what those, I, I was trying to look for slide numbers so I can go back and review them, but I didn't see them. I didn't bring my glasses, so that didn't help out. But anyways, I'm just kind of concerned about some of the uh numbers being shown because there's a major um um upset financially. in the United States and it's still not the dust hasn't settled, and I'm kind of wondering where that's gonna end up, but it's also um concerned very much for the seniors, disabled seniors like me, because, uh, we aren't, I am unlimited income and uh these taxes are going up and up and up. Although there are some discounts for the seniors and disability uh persons, but at the same time isn't it time that uh after your 60 years old and paid all these taxes for. your life that you can get a big break like nothing. I mean, you pay for your property, you pay everything else associated with the property, and yet you got to still pay taxes till you're dead. It just doesn't make sense to me, but I understand eminent domain sadly since uh college way was widened and hadn't been involved in that. And we frankly don't really own anything, but yet we are told we do. So again, a play on words in the United States just saying. take Thank you, Mr. Johnson Is there anyone else that

would like to make a comment? OK. With that, we will close the public hearing. and we are required by state law to hold two public hearings. So our next public hearing will be next Wednesday. That's correct on the budget, yes. All right. No action by counsel at this time. Thank you very much, Deb All right. Next up is item B. Um, it's an amendment for an agreement with Scott Wall Construction and our parks and rec director Jennifer Berner will present this. Good evening, counsel. Um, so just for a little background, um, for folks is that we had a fire damage Bakerview, um, back in July of 2024, um, and we worked with Kaufman Engineers to develop a scope of work for that restoration work, upon completion of the bi d process. We settled on a construction company Scott Wall Construction. They were the lowest bidder, um, and as we got into the project, there was um the discovery that there was additional damage done to some of the wiring up in the ceiling, um, section of um the restroom there. So with that, um, what we are asking is to do a change order, um, which with Scott Wall construction. um, and so it will address the electrical wiring that is damaged in the fire, and it's not in their initial scope of work. So with that, the initial contract for Scott Wall Construction was

68,229 without tax and the electrical work is an additional 12,345. Um, so the total will be 80,574,000 in your packet, you had the scope of work for um the change order and there is the estimated cost of work from um integrity Electric, um, as well as the change order from Scott Wall Construction. Um, so what we are asking is staff is recommending city council authorize the mail, the mayor to execute a change order with Scott Wall Construction for the additional scope of work of the electrical piece. Right, counsel, any questions? I can move. please Where you gonna make call me? No, no, no, no. go for it Oh, I would just moved to operate the mayor. Beckett. All right, we have a motion by Council member Van der Stoop and seconded by Councilmember Molinar. All those in favor say aye, oppose same sign All right, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have item C, and this will be some um updates to our city's animal code and our city attorney Kevin Rogerson will walk us through this item. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tempoa and city council. You have 2 ordinances, but you do essentially the same thing, so we're asking it to be one agenda item. Uh, the ordinances, I think city clerk has labeled on 3925 the men's chapter 604 of your municipal code. and uh 3926, which is chapter. 608 titled Dangerous Dogs Your animal control Services, which is a part of the Mount Vernon Police Department's requested

changes to the city's animal regulations. The main thrust of the proposed ordinances would repeal your licensing mandatory requirements for dogs and cats and replace it with a requirement that all dogs and cats be. uh vaccinated for rabies and be chipped. Uh, the reasons for that are financial and time and uh to save time and labor. And for compliance, uh, staff. has uh a pioneering committee meetings that are licensing requirements aren't being effectively monitored. It takes a lot of time. Uh, it takes a lot of resources to do it, and they believe that the new technology, not quite new actually, uh, chipping is a good substitute for that. Um if you look at the changes, it does permit exceptions to licensing and vaccinations, and it requires, as staff recommended, this is not a revenue gathering effort. It's just an effort for compliance. So if somebody were to come in within 2 days of getting a citation that your dog has not been. or cat has not been vaccinated or chipped. If you come in to show that they have been within 2 days. The violation will be dismissed. Um, there are other changes to the code, but those would be the substantive ones, the other changes are set forth in the memo. I'd be happy to talk to. the council about it. Uh, you can take action in one motion to adopt both ordinances. so they don't have to Uh, and it will require uh a majority of the whole of the council, so you'd have to be unanimous here, since you only have 4. All right, counsel what are your thoughts? Oh, I had moved to adopt those ordinances. Nobody has any other thoughts. If if it doesn't pass, can you run it again Because

you said it has, it has to have, yeah, I mean we could always bring them back up for action later. OK I'll go ahead OK, we have a motion for ordinance 3925 and 3926 by council member Van der Stoop and a seconded by Councilmember Trucero. All those in favor say aye, I opposed same sign. both ordinances pass. Thanks, Kevin OK, and our final agenda item for the evening is item D and um this is a meeting cancellation. Council will not be meeting the week of Thanksgiving and according to our city code, council would normally meet on Tuesday, the 25th this year, but we don't have pressing business, so if council would like to make a motion to cancel our meeting on November 25th, and we would meet again on December 10th. 2 motion by Council member Trucero and a seconded by Council member Molinar. All those in favor say aye, I opposed same sign, motion passes. All right Finally item number 7. Executive session. I will ask our city attorney if there is a need for an executive session this evening. There is no need All right. And with that, we will adjourn the city, Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, November 12th. The time is 7:37 p.m. Thank you.