City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the 01/06/2026 meeting of the North Bend City Council to order. Will the clerk please call roll?

Mayor Pro Tem Errol Tremolotta?

Here.

Council member Brendan Elwood? Present. Council member Mark Jocelyn?

Present.

Council member Heather Cullen?

Here.

Council member Rob McFarlane?

Here.

Council member Christina Rustic?

Present.

Council member Susan Torgerson?

Here.

All present, your honor.

Thank you very much. Will the clerk please lead us in the flag salute? Okay. Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to a new year. How about that?

Let me begin by welcoming council member McFarlane, and welcome back to our reappointed council members Jocelyn and mayor pro tem Tremolata. And, of course, the colon, miss colon, mister Trump or mister Elwood, miss Torgerson, and miss Rustic. I welcome our fun experiences ahead. So we're gonna have a great time, team of seven, and I look forward to every moment. And thank you, staff. As always, I I can't thank you enough, and I look forward to this year all the more with you alongside me. Okay. So let's begin. We're gonna start with the approval of I'm gonna ask at this time for mayor pro tem Tremlada to make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. However, prior to him doing so, now would be the time for council to inform us if they had any item that they would like on the consent agenda to be pulled for debate.

I would like to move the payroll vouchers off of the consent and onto main agenda?

K. Thank you very much. Mayor Pro Tem Trimolata, would you please make that motion?

Motion to approve the January agenda as set forth with the exception of the amendment by council member Torgerson.

Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Motion by mister, Tremolodden and second by miss Trusztik. Thank you very much. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Sorry. Aye. I was delayed.

Motion carries and is fully unanimous. Thank you so much. We'll now move on to consent agenda. We have three items on our consent agenda. Can I get a motion?

So move.

Oh, didn't we just do that?

No. We said the agenda.

That's the agenda.

Oh, the agenda. Okay.

It's this is new, so it's a little bit we're gonna have little bit of a learning curve, but but you're listening well, so I appreciate that. Did we have a second on that already?

Second.

Okay. Thank you. Motion by mister Tremlotta or mister Johnson. Excuse me. And second by mister Tremlotta. Thank you so much. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any any opposed? Motion carries and is unanimous. Thank you, one and all. If an item, let's see. Let's go on. Okay. Moving on to audience participation.

A point of order.

Oops. Yes.

I believe we now need to take up whatever item that payroll that was moved off at consent and have a conversation.

My sincerest apologies. Let's go back to that item that miss, miss Torgerson did pull on, and this is the time to address address that comments you'd like to make.

Great. Okay. So

Welcome now.

The reason why I wanted to pull it is, well, originally, I was concerned that these were the 2026 payroll vouchers, but I realized they're not, once I saw the agenda. But as I was doing some research, I found what I would call, from Norwegian perspective, a big. With the help of the MRSC, I discovered that the director position was revoked in the North Bend municipal code back in 2013, and we need to fix that properly, and I'd say right away. This motion that I'm presenting is going to approve the 2025 payroll checks that were paid correctly, but it does not ratify the pay tied to the job title that was already removed from the city code. Any payments made under the revoked job title will be set aside and clearly labeled until the legal issue is resolved.

We'll set those payments, like, into a suspense account until the city finalizes the lawful plan and how to address this, what I call, issue. The motion also directs staff to report what was paid, correct the city code, and come back to counsel with a lawful plan to address the issue. The bottom line for my motion is it'll ratify what's legal, flag what isn't, and protects the city and employees and council while the problem gets fixed. I'll hand out my motion to you all so you have it in front of you. Here we go.

There's two documents there, the summary and then the motion. My motion, I'd like to make it now. I'd like to approve the payroll vouchers listed on today's 01/06/2026 agenda with the following three conditions. Exclusion of and recategorization titled 2.07 violation that the council refuses to ratify any and all payments issued to the administrative services director title as this position was previously revoked, repealed, and does not exist in the North Bend municipal code 2.07. I move that these specific funds be immediately recategorized as unrecognized and uncertified expenditures in the city financial records until the legal resolution is passed by this body.

The limitation, the council ratifies all vouchers only at the twenty twenty five pale scales, which is this this is for the 2025, paychecks that we did in December. By ordinance eighteen twenty three, we hereby reject and withhold any pay scale increases for '26 that have not been legally adopted by the ordinance as required in RCW 35 a 12 dot one thirty. Directive to cure, that the council directs the mayor to direct staff to provide the following to the January 20 council meeting or at the latest, the January 26 work study. The finance director will provide a certified report of all funds paid to the revoked administrative services title since the repeal of the title 2.07. This report will be retained for auditing purposes for the state auditor's office to ensure full transparency in the mitigation of council liability.

The city attorney will draft an ordinance to reconcile the with the municipal code and and with current staffing, a formal plan to reallocate the un unrecognized funds once and only once the full full legal compliance is met.

Is there a sec Yes. I will second for the purpose of conversation. Yes.

First and second.

Mayor, if I may, the motion raises a few legal issues that might

be wise to this session. Should you be able to convene one?

So would you like to convene an executive session, mayor?

To it's not about a particular employee. This is about a legal thing. It's not about an employee. It's about legal status of our code. So it's not pertaining to the employee. It's something we need to fix to make the employee valid again. I don't know if it needs to go to executive session.

Bear, as the chair of the meeting, you have the right to call an executive session. The executive session citation would be RCW4231101I, and I'd ask you to state how long and who should be present, including the city administrator likely and finest.

This might start with, I'd like Amber Emery be there to call and. We'll start now. They can both. Hear about you. That's the simple. Hear about you. Yeah. Thank you. We are back from executive session. Thank you, everybody. And we have a motion on the floor so we can continue debate at this time.

I'll go. You bet. The the purpose of my motion is to make us clean, to make sure that we are doing things properly, and that's why I'm bringing it to council and making the motion. And so that was that was the reason why I brought it forward because I feel like, after talking to municipal, resource service center, they they were in concurrence that we did need to clean this up. And so that's why I'm bringing it forth and hoping that I would get support on it.

Thank you. Anybody else? Ready for a vote? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any nays?

Aye. Nay. Nay.

Nay is win. Thank you very much. Now we're gonna move on. Same motion. Motion on the floor.

Original sal the original voucher. Mayor is

on the

floor now. Provoked. The payroll item Where is it?

That item that we moved is now back on the floor.

K. So Approved one should go to Motion approved. Item number two. Number nine item number two, payroll. Where is it? Payroll December 5? Yeah. Okay. 2025, dash 07/2017 through 7816 in the amount of 377,195 dot 2. And 12/19/2025, 07/1937 through 78240, the amount of 334,549 and 59¢.

12/31/2025, 78244 through 7825 in the amount of 528,147 and 27¢. Do you go in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Apply all thank you for the unanimous, decision making on that.

I I I was point.

Was there a no?

Yeah. I said no.

I am so sorry. Miss Torges is noted as a nay. And it does pass. Thank you, everybody. Okay. I think we now can move on. Alright. Ah, yes. We're now gonna move on to audience participation. We'll no longer have be taking public comment at every item in the main agenda. Now would be the time to come forward to the podium to comment on any ad agenda items or any item that you wish to speak about. If you request accommodation with the city clerk, wish to speak, through the virtual platform, please raise your hand, and we will take your comments after in per in person comments. Please remember to state your name, your address, and you have three minutes to speak for the record. And on the item you wish to speak on, let us know that if you don't mind, and particularly if it's an item, agenda item. And you're limited to three minutes, as I mentioned.

Anybody tonight wish to speak? Okay. Come on up. You must be new in town. Welcome, Deb.

Hello, and happy New Year. Deborah Landers, 1415 438th Avenue Southeast in North Bend, Washington. And I'm here to talk a little bit about art and industry. Are you guys surprised? So so first of all, I want you to be invited to our second Tuesday MuseDay. It's an artist reception. We have three local artists on our showcase wall, and it's this coming Tuesday January from, six to eight. So I'm gonna pass these around. Come and join us. We've got beverages.

We've got snacks. We've got three amazing artists. You can mingle with the artist. You can bring home a gorgeous piece of art. You can just join house those around. Next, we're super excited. We're collaborating with Art Commons. They're a new nonprofit out of Issaquah that wants to bring more art and have it more accessible to our public areas. So, they do a quarterly creative summit and at their first creative summit, they did a sculpture, a community sculpture that's right now on display at the North Bend Library. Well, their second creative summit will be at the Center for Creativity on January 23.

They've got three speakers that are gonna be talking about art as a catalyst for change. So a really cool presentation and speaking opportunity. We also have several artists that are gonna be displaying pieces of art or mediums that demonstrate how art is used as catalyst for change. And as this is the beginning of the new year, what a great topic. Please come and join us on January 23. More flyers. I'm using enough of those flyers. We also have a lot of cool classes in January. So I'm gonna pass those around in a moment. We started up our new version of our writer's group, the quirk sorry, the Quirk and Quill.

They met for the first time tonight, so that's gonna be twice a week. I'll leave some flyers at the back of the room for that. And then finally after much anticipation, we're kicking off Curious Creators and this is for the little ones. Every Sunday starting in February it'll be all year long. Every Sunday for two hours, all kinds of creative activities that kids can choose from and learn from, it's free.

Encourage people that you know that have children that maybe don't have art opportunities in school, this is a chance for them to try a number of mediums out. With that, how close am I to time? Because I'd love to tell you a little bit about 2025. So we're again, we moved to our new location. Things have kind of exploded from there. We had a 108 classes that we did in 2025 with almost 700 people participating in classes. That's it. Thank you so much and happy New Year.

Thank you so much. Anybody else from our wonderful public wish to speak? Yep. Mayor, please join join us here. Thank you for being here tonight, and welcome.

Thank you. Hello, council and staff. I am Jim Mahid, mayor of Snoqualmie. My address is 16733 39th Northeast, Snoqualmie, Washington, and I've been on the job for a few days. I have a pass that gets me into city hall, and I've discovered it works great on New Year's Day and that when you use it, you need to know the code for the alarm.

Yep.

I know that now. But, seriously, I'm that actually happened. The chief can tell you they had to come respond to that alarm. But I'm looking forward to all the things we're gonna be able to together in the Upper Valley here. There's so much that the city of Snoqualmie and the city of North Bend and then the rest of the Upper Valley with us can do together.

I've already had some wonderful meetings with mayor Miller as mayor elect, and we've been talking about things like how do we bring tourism into the Upper Valley, how do we support our businesses, and, you know, there's other topics out there, aquatics, you know, things that are on our communities' minds. And I just wanna say how much I look forward to working with all of you and with the city of North Bend as I take this new role on. So thank you, and I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it. Anybody else from our wonderful public? Anybody? Oh, thank you, sir. Come on up to the podium when you're ready. Thank you for being here tonight.

My name's Jim Curtis, and I live at 615 Thrasher Avenue Northeast. I live in a home that my wife's dad built back in the early seventies. And we just had a heck of a problem with the flooding that took place. The water came out of EJ Roberts Park over into the my neighbor's neighbor across the street and filled up his gully. And the pipes that go underneath thrash aren't large enough to pull the they got plugged up.

And so the water went over the top and we almost lost Bruce Spruce there that's been growing for quite a while. And now I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna repair that. But the guy across the street, Neil is his first name, I can't remember his last name. He told me that there's been money in the city's pockets to take care of all these ditches and just put culverts in or pipe the big pipes. And he's he said to ask you why that hasn't been spent to do that.

And I'm concerned too. My wife and I were visiting her mother while she was still alive back when they had the flood in the early nineties. It was on Thanksgiving Day. And the water came about that far from getting in the living room of the house. And I had to carry her out across we didn't have a carport then or a driveway, but I had to carry her out in about knee high water to get her in our car so we could go up to Makoto and spend the night with her, my wife's sister.

But anyhow, that flooding, it's a real concern And the on EJ Roberts Park, it seems to me that there's so much water collecting there and it doesn't have any place to go but over to Neil's place. And then if it gets stuck in Neil's place, then it comes across the street. I had to move my cars. I had to we had to stay at the hotel up at the casino for three nights because we're concerned about the water getting in there and damaging the home and maybe sweeping us away too. But is there something that's gonna be done with that underneath Thrasher, there used to be a set of pipes, large pipes.

And you a few years ago, you guys the city came in and they revamped things and put in some new pipes, but they're obviously, they're not big enough to handle the water. And then on our side, they put some grates down there where the pipes come out. So all the debris in if kid throws a ball in the pond over at Neil's place, it locks up those deals. So those grates really need to be removed. And it seems like the water that when it leaves my ditch, there's a, like, a culvert or a pipe that's about this big.

If we had something that big underneath Thrasher, that would let the water flow. And, you know, if you're in a well, some of you probably are in homes and you've experienced that flooding is absolutely no fun at all. And one other comment that I've got has to do with EJ Roberts Park. We're in the Silver Creek development. And when EJ Roberts developed that area

Not to have any rattles here.

Just need to change the name of the park.

Anybody else from our fantastic public? Anybody else online? Possibly.

Not tonight, your honor.

Fine. Okay. Thank you very much. We're gonna now move on to announcements, presentations, and appointments. Item number four is our proclamation of National Mentoring Month.

Here we go. Whereas January 2026 will mark the twenty fourth anniversary of National Mentoring Month, highlighting the need for mentors and the power of mentoring to ensure positive outcomes for young people. And whereas the city of North Bend honors volunteer mentors who strengthen our communities through programs like youth success mentoring, a program of empower youth network, building relationships that increase social capital and support networks, and whereas mentoring fosters career exploration, workplace skills, healthy relationships, positive self esteem, and emotional well-being. And whereas students with mentors are likely to more likely to attend school and enroll in college and avoid risky behaviors, and whereas national mentoring month is a time to celebrate, elevate, and encourage mentoring and recruit caring adults in the city of North Bend. Now, therefore, I, Mary Miller, mayor, do hereby proclaim the month of January 2026 as national mentoring month in the city of North Bend and encourage those interested in becoming a youth mentor to contact Empower Youth Network and thank current youth mentors for devoting their time in an effort to ensure the success of our youth.

Thank you so much. I do believe we have at least Kathy Tylan. Thank you for being here today. And mentor volunteer Michael Rosenau, did I get your name right? Oh, good. Are here. Thank you for coming to the is one of our amazing mentors. Fantastic. Has partnered with him.

So then let Michael talk.

I love that. We love that.

Thank you, Michael, and welcome. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Michael Roseneau, and I'm a mentor at both Snoqualmie Middle School and Chief Canham Middle School with Empower Youth Network's success mentoring program. Thank you for your leadership and proclaiming January as National Mentoring Month in the Snoqualmie Valley.

We also appreciate your continued support and funding of our work. Since starting in 2017, Youth Success Mentoring has grown to serve all 17 schools in the Riverview and Snoqualmie Valley School Districts, impacting 160 students weekly. The need for mentors continues to grow to support more students. As a current mentor, I cherish the opportunity to provide a reliable, genuine connection with my students every week. I believe we create a lasting impact on our students, their families, and beyond by consistently giving them our undivided attention and being enthusiastic to meet with them one on one.

During National Mentoring Month, we're actively recruiting volunteers. Here's what we want everyone to know: just one hour a week can make a difference in a local youth's life. Mentoring happens during the school day at local schools. Students are waiting for mentors, and volunteers receive training and ongoing support. I thank you for your time.

Thank you, Michael. If you wouldn't mind staying there for just a moment, I I think we might have some interest from our council to just ask questions if you're certainly at this moment. Council wish to speak to Michael or Kathy or say anything. Miss Rustic. Yes. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Yes. Thank you for what

you do. Thank you, Kathy. I know she provides amazing support to all of the mentors. How many would you guess how many students are out there that are waiting for mentors at this time?

In Riverview, we currently have, I think, about six or seven kids that are waiting. We did have one student at Ball City that waited for about a month specific for a specific mentor. The concern we're having now is we are down to the bottom. We have lots of mentors that are willing to take second mentees, and that's what's keeping the students getting matched right now, but that's gonna run out. So if I were to have a student referred today, I don't have a mentor in my back.

So the wait list for SPSD is over. We were able to fill that hole by having mentor step up and take more kids. In Riverview, we still have a wait list. Biggest need is, we need females and men. Lately, we we need to rein some men.

So we've had a lot of boys that, have single moms, and the schools would really like to have a male influence in their lives. So we specifically wait for finding men. That's our hardest thing is finding men. But we need to find everybody. So if five if you tell five people and they tell five people and they tell five people, we'll eventually get and they say you need to hear it five times at least before you decide to commit to doing it. It's really very simple. So

Kathy. Yeah. Heather. I guess, motivationally for people that would be nervous to be a mentor, how would you encourage people to not be insecure about that to reach out and be a mentor?

I would encourage them to talk to us. I'd encourage them. We do mentor meetups where anyone can come to those, and our mentors come together to just chat with each other and also chat with people who are interested in mentoring. So it's a great place to come and ask questions and get reassurances and see. It really is very simple. And if they don't wanna do that, they could talk to myself or Heather, my partner that we work with. We provide a lot of support for our mentors. You're not alone, and, you get support all the way through. Second

Great. Second question is if I could talk to people five times. I know a specific basketball group of men that I'm thinking of. How would they get ahold of you?

So they can go to our website, empoweryouthnetwork.org, and we have a page. If you look under programs, assessment, can email be a mentor@empoweryouthnetwork.org. Either of those ways, they can go to it. And or they're welcome to email me directly. I'm glad to leave my card with all of you today. They can email me directly. So it's very simple. Our website has a page on it, and it has a big button that says apply. You click it, and you just fill out the little form. Comes right to us.

We do an interview, and then we do a two and a half hour training. And we do all background checks and clearances and reference checks, and then the school does as well. So it's a double check system to keep our kids safe. And then we have ongoing training that is optional for all of our mentors. We have chances for mentors to meet up with each other and chat with each other if they like. Some of our mentors like the social aspect, especially our retirees. It's a way for them to get out and talk to others. Yeah. We have a lot of fun. And then we really are there every every step of the way to support you.

Thank you, Heather. Anyone else from council wish to say anything? No. Okay. Well, hold on right there. Thank you both very much in all that you do and all the volunteers as well. I'd like to bring this up and get a little photo op before we miss out that opportunity.

And, Heather, you could talk to Christina. She was one of our before you guys scooped her up and her grandbabies.

Bye, love,

Joe. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Bye, guys. Oh, do you guys want cards?

Sure.

Thank you very much for that. Let's see. Item number 5AB26011, twenty twenty six council committee standing appointments. Mayor Pro Tem Tremolotta, we'll turn it over to you. Leave those aside.

Thank you, mayor. So after some conversations and working off what I would consider significant progress in 2025, Try to keep the ball rolling and move some folks around who hadn't been in some committees during their tenure, try to leverage some of the new expertise coming on board for with mister McFarlane. So the committees are outlined below. I'll run through them quickly. Community and economic development committee will be chaired by council member Torgerson with council member Elwood and council member Jocelyn.

Public health and safety committee will be chaired by council member Elwood with council member Cohen and council member Torgerson. Finance and administration committee will be chaired by council member Rustic with co with council member Jocelyn and council member McFarlane. And the transportation public works committee will be chaired by council member Cohen and council member McFarlane and council member Rustic. I think this puts us in a position to make some good progress this year, and I look forward to, more good work that, we had from 2025 into 2026.

Fantastic.

I now make the motion then. Make the motion to approve a b two six dash zero zero one confirming the twenty twenty six appointments to the council's standing committees.

Second.

A motion thank you very much, Errol. Motion made made by Errol and seconded by mister, Jocelyn. Let's see. Would you like to speak to your motion, Errol?

No. Like I said, I think this is a good a good setup, and I look forward to, making progress this year.

Excellent. Mister Jocelyn, would you like to speak to your Washington?

I'd like to acknowledge mayor pro tem Tremolata for no. This wasn't easy. We're a strong minded bunch of folks who have preferences and have been at this a little while. And, so I just want to acknowledge, Harold, your hard work and very supportive. I look forward to serving with my fellow council members in the new year. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you, mister Joslin. Any other on council wish to comment? Oh, it's quiet. Okay. I'll go forward then. Now, now that there are no initial comments, the motion for you is to approve a b 26 dash zero one zero zero one, confirming the twenty twenty six appointments to the council's standing committees. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Moving on to introductions. Item number six a b 26 Dash0 zero two, resolution ratifying proclamation of emergency. Miss Amarin, now is your time.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. Good luck. I'm presenting on a b 26002. This is the resolution ratifying and confirming 12/10/2025 proclamation of local emergency. I'll give a quick brief on the agenda bill, and then I'm gonna ask Tom, Aaron, and James to give a quick brief on each of their sections of how we responded during the flood emergency. And then, of course, all of us will be available for any questions that council has after I give the brief report about the resolution. So on, December 8, King County executive declared an issue, emergency proclamation for King County due to the severe storms and flooding that was happening. On December 9, the team and I met with the mayor and briefed on the deteriorating conditions around North Bend. At that point, we were, looking at declaring a proclamation of local emergency.

As stated in the agenda bill, our emergency conditions are defined in our emergency management plan and also RCWs and the North Bend Municipal Code 2.68. On December 10, Mayor Mayor Miller proclaimed a local emergency, that existed in North Bend as defined by RCW 39.0428 parentheses three. This emergency may require purchases and authorizations contracts outside of the public procurement process and the city's procurement policy and procedures, excepting accept mandatory conditional requirements. So this time, the city is only where we have a Fury Works on call contract that Tom will talk about a little bit in his report, which we brought to council on approval on a separate item. So at this point, I'll pass to Tom to give an update from the public works perspective and then on to Aaron and

then James, and then we'll take any questions that council. Thank you, miss Emery. Tom, when you're ready.

Thank you, mayor and council. So I just wanted to give a quick update on the storm and the public works response. So we received approximately eight inches of rain between December 4 and December 11. Going back into the records to the early two thousands, there was only one event that was about half that amount in that same time frame. And then when you consider that we received probably two to three times that amount in the mountains, it's pretty easy to see why there was so much flooding going happening down here in the valley.

And not only are we dealing with the flooding, but we're dealing with very high and unusually high groundwater issues and still dealing with them in certain areas around town. Some of our tip typical problem areas that we dealt with in the past and we dealt with during the storm, Mount Sai Boulevard being underwater due to storm water backing up onto the roadway. State Route 202 in the South Fork Avenue intersection being underwater as well. Gardner Creek flooding behind the outlet mall. The Safeway complex flooding, the Ribery Creek sediment pond flooding over Ribery Way just east of Forrester Woods, and then numerous drainage issues in the new side new side view development, Old side view development, Silver Creek, and the Cedar Landing development.

We had some flooding of the animal clinic on State Route 202 adjacent to Gardner Creek. And then a few spots in Forrester Woods, we had the creeks jumping their banks and getting into people's backyards and then a few occasions into their houses. And then the biggest issue was the Middle Fork overtopping the levee in the Silver Creek neighborhood. And then on top of all this, the wastewater treatment plant had record flows, and our treatment plant staff did a phenomenal job. At this point, we haven't had any signs of issues.

They took care of that. And then our South Fork Lift Station, one of our pumps at our South Fork Lift Station, as it was working twenty four hours a day with all this flood, went out on us. So then we had staff out there twenty four seven tending that. So treatment I just wanted to give kudos to our treatment plant staff. They did a phenomenal job with the plant and the and the lift station.

Prior to the flooding one thing about a flood event is emergency event is you can kinda see it coming. It's not a power outage. It's not an earthquake, so there is some prep work you can do ahead of time. So we divided our public works crew into a few kind of essential teams just to maintain daily operations, but at the same time, twenty four hour coverage for the flood event. We were constant and we had a couple staff members, couple kind of rovers and crew constantly patrolling town, just trying to stay ahead as many problems as we could and then reporting that back to Breeze so she could get it out.

And then on and the biggest issue was the Silver Creek neighborhood, and we actually had staff and police knocking on doors on some of those people in the Silver Creek neighborhood, the East Side Of Silver Creek, just making sure they're aware of that potential of that levee overtopping. Not necessary in an evacuation, but just so they're aware, you know, if they could get their vehicles out, you know, that type of thing. We also contacted a few contractors, Fury Siteworks in particular, prior to the project and a couple others just as we're anticipating problems and then the need for that help. Wanted to give thanks to Mike Day with Fury Siteworks. He met us up in Forester Woods and dealt with a few of our issues up there, in particular, the creeks jumping the banks and getting into people's backyards and into into their houses near our seven ten pump station.

So with that and then on top of all that, then we had the slide on I 90, which diverted traffic eastbound I 90 on eastbound North Bend Way while we had Bendigo closed from Park Street to Exit 31. So we had state patrol. We had police. We had our staff at key intersection. It's just trying to direct people because everybody wanted to go their own way, but everything closed.

So we're trying to keep them on North Bend Way so they could get out to Exit 32, Exit 34. We got through that after about twenty four hours or so. I think the I think the the traffic died down there a little bit, but just another nuance to the event that you weren't expecting. Many lessons learned during the during the meeting or during the event. Designating a volunteer for coordinators is one thing we will do in the future.

There was times when we probably had 30 people out there packing sandbags and bringing them around, and that's a lot of traffic coming in there in that area with our crew trying to get in and out. And then one thing from a PR standpoint is we provided a list of roadway closures. I think in the future, if we can do it, providing more of a map kind of a that people can see. There's a lot of people there's a lot of looky loos that come into town when an event like this happens, and there's a lot of people that just don't know the area that well. So that map is nice to see. With all that, I can answer any questions after this, but I'll hand it over to Erin to go over the EOC details.

Thank you. It's kinda hard to follow that. Everyone did such a phenomenal job. You can't even start to describe that. So I've been the emergency management coordinator here for going on six years now. In that time, I have worked with staff, tabletop exercises, trying to get training out to council members, employees. You know, not always an easy task, but now we understand why it's so important. Right? Aside from that, a big part of my job is my interactions with our zone partners, and I've spent a lot of time trying to build that. Zone 1 within King County is all cities North Of I 90, so we fall within those cities.

So we meet weekly every Thursday at two to collaborate, talk about upcoming events, what people are worried about, all of that. So it's just an opportunity for us to all get together. But with that, I was able to build relationships that helped with my first EOC experience. So I'm just gonna kinda go through the timeline within the EOC. Some of it will be duplicated, but that's okay. Just bear with me. So one of the big ones for me is King County. Like I said, every Thursday, we have a weekly phone call. Those started Thursday before this event happened. We knew something was coming, so we're on guard already.

Eastside Fire, a big partner of mine. I'm very close with their emergency managers there. City of Snoqualmie, learning and enter meeting them, but I was able to work with chief Bailey through this, situation. City of Issaquah, just an example of that relationship. They called to check-in on us just to see how we were doing out here before they went into what they were going through themselves. So building those has been very important in my role. So based on that and based on the predictions that were coming, Monday morning, as Amber said, we all met some of the key staff members just to discuss what was coming, what the need was gonna look like. Did we have enough sand? Did we have enough supplies for public works? Did they have what they needed to go out and about in the community?

So with that, we just kept monitoring. We weren't activated yet, partially activated yet, but we were talking about it. So that night, as the rain kept going, I couldn't sleep. I'm learning in this rule. You don't sleep when you know your community is being threatened by water. So I get on social media at 4AM, and I see the outlet mall being flooded. And I see different people talking about their communities and their fears and sandbags and all of that. So the deputy public works director and myself went out and did a drive around town, you know, just assessing different areas throughout town just to see what was happening. And so after that, the rivers were obviously rising quite frequently, as you know, but we called a second meeting. So Tuesday, staff met again to say, we're gonna partially activate.

And with that, we notified police and fire that we were gonna do that as well. So while we were partially activated, it just gives us some opportunity. So we weren't fully activated. We knew we needed to assess the situation and monitor it and make sure we had what we needed. Wasn't quite bad enough yet for a full activation, but we did know that citizens, residents of the city, business owners, they needed sandbags. That was our biggest thing, that first partial activation, and we went through it quick. So because we were activated early, I was able to call county and say, hey. We need 80 cubic yards of sand. And that night, within an hour and a half, we had it. So that part was great because in the end, we ended up giving out about 8,000 sandbags.

So it was insane. So when we talk about volunteers, that's why. That's 8,000 sandbags that those people are filling up on their own. So that was a big deal. Wednesday, as it kept getting worse, we decided to fully activate. So with that, I keep my communication with King County office of emergency management. They know every step of the way what we're doing. Just gonna go through a few notes here of all the important roles that staff played within that that are happening in that little tiny room over at the Public Works Admin Building. But it was continued coordination with the King County duty officer at the emergency operations center. We had regular check ins with the emergency management with Eastside Fire and Rescue.

Felt really guilty because Greg Baden was kind enough to come out and just assess what was going on out here, and he got stuck in traffic on the mudslide and couldn't get back for three hours, four hours. I'm not even sure. But that's that collaboration and that relationship that we have. Frequent check ins with the police department who was in constant communication with our public works department, communication with fire chief Bailey at Snoqualmie. As they were flooding worse and worse, they wanted to collaborate with us on shelter services.

So how could we work with them because they were just underwater? Right? So, I mean, I don't mean to be funny there, but we weren't. So we actually were able to collaborate with the school district to have, Twin Falls Middle School open up as a shelter. Our staff went and took care of that. You'll hear about that in a minute. It's cool that we were able to do that. It was unfortunate because Snoqualmie residents that were in need couldn't get here to utilize the shelter. So and we needed it. We ended up with seven people that needed that space and a place to go, which was phenomenal to have that.

Through that process as well comes the partnership with the Red Cross, which I've worked on building for the last three or four years. On the phone with them multiple times throughout the day, their need ended up being higher in other areas because we just didn't have the numbers in our shelter. Had it been a different circumstance, they would have been here. And I do believe that. I mean, they were ready. They just kept asking, what are your numbers now? What are your numbers now? So they could decide whether they came here down to Maple Valley, where their need was. So it was great to have that. One tool that we have in our EOC with King County, it's called WebEOC.

So that is our way to keep in contact constantly with King County without having to be on the phone. It's an online system that we can put in our situation reports, do, resource requests, update roads. Brie did great at updating her press releases. So they can just look on there, see where we're at, don't have to make that phone call. They could just have one dedicated person looking at that.

So we keep continuously updating that information there for them. Fielding a lot of phone calls. One lesson learned there was don't put the main phone in the EOC by the Instant Commander because I was on the phone. Brie was on the phone, many of us all night long because people were scared, didn't know how to get home, wanted to know if they could get sandbags, wanted to volunteer. I mean, everything you can think of. People were reaching out to us, and it was all hands on deck. But that room was very busy and loud at times, but that was great. Our staff were wonderful. We had daily briefings multiple times a day. You know?

And that was the great collaboration now with where our EOC is located over at Public Works. We can have that close communication with our departments right there. And I think they really enjoyed that as well, that ability to just walk in and have that conversation. Thank you to mayor pro tem for coming in and checking in on us as well. That was phenomenal. Shout out to Carrie Smith. She ran the front desk where every volunteer and person needing sandbags came to her. I have a stack of papers very thick of everyone that signed in that day. So, I mean, the list goes on and on of how great it went that day. Granted, there's a lot of areas that, you know, we're learning from. My first activation, exciting.

I don't know

if it's okay to say that, but it was, you know, just to be able to see it work and what we've done and how it's all come together. Yeah. I'm gonna not gonna talk anymore about the shelter because that's gonna be James. But, you know, following up after this, we had a debrief month the immediately Monday following the event. So we were able to pull every single person that was involved in that EOC and a couple from out in the field to talk about what went on, what we can work on, what went well, just all of that. So we've got a long list of things to they're called opportunities, I hear. Opportunities where we can grow, and it's gonna be great. So that's the EOC side.

Thank you, Erin. Hi. Hi, James.

Hi. Good good evening, mayor and council members. So I'll give an update about the, the emergency evacuation center and then sort of the economic recovery that we worked on, following the storm. So as Erin mentioned, the city of North Bend opened an emergency shelter on Wednesday, December 10 in the afternoon. Initially, the shelter was open at Twin Falls Falls Middle School.

Staff from staff from finance and community and economic development opened the shelter and purchased snacks and refreshments from local grocery stores, and made the shelter ready for evacuees. So I just wanna give a big shout out to the finance team and also the CD team for really rising to the occasion and helping out that evening. The local faith based communities and volunteers responded quickly with blankets, coats, and games for evacuees, so a big thank you to them as well. The shelter received a total of six evacuees from Snoqualmie. We anticipate receiving many more evacuees, but the closure of I 90 and Highway 202 limited access to North Bend.

Realizing that no new evacuees would be arriving, we relocated the evacuation center to Cascade Covenant Church just down here at Cedar Falls Way. The church did a great job to provide a comfortable location to house a small number of evacuees overnight, and the church volunteers did a great job welcoming the evacuees and providing them with an overnight shelter. By around 10AM on Thursday morning, the evacuees had picked up were picked up by family, friends, and social service volunteers. One of the things we really sort of recognized very, very quickly when we opened the evacuation centers that most of the families that arrived had very limited time, to evacuate their homes, and this caused a lot of severe and significant emotional distress. There was actually one couple that was really having a very hard time.

We had to call Eastside Fire and Rescue to have them come out and provide some medical support to them. Fortunately, it wasn't anything serious, and when we relocated them to the church, the situation was was much, much better. So I'll move on to the economic recovery. Unfortunately, the storm hit North Bend during the height of the holiday shopping season. On Friday, December 12, economic development staff and Jessica Sell from the Downtown Foundation went door to door and talked with nearly 80 businesses across North Bend and asked if they were, one, open for business and, two, if they were impacted by the storm.

Overall, storm damage to the business community was relatively light. The line in North Bend Theater had groundwater flooding, but were open by the weekend. About 10 suites at the outlet mall were damaged by flooding from the Ribery Creek. There was also localized flooding at Safeway and QFC. However, the North Bend Animal Clinic on Highway 202 had considerable damage but had reopened within a couple of weeks.

On December 16, the city convened a meeting with the downtown foundation, the Snow Valley Chamber, to develop a social media plan to promote to residents and visitors that North Bend is open for business and to encourage them to shop local. The city also shared information about disaster loans from the small business administration with the business community through both the Downtown Foundation and the Snow Valley Chamber, basically to help local businesses who may have been impacted by the storm. Just wanna give a big shout out to both Jessica's self at the foundation, Michelle Katwar, and Kelly Kaufman at the Snow Valley Chamber for their tremendous help to the local business community. And just as Erin was saying about partnerships, I think it's the partnerships that we've been developing both with the chamber and the foundation that really kind of made this work because we were able to communicate via text, via social media, and really kind of rally the troops to, you know, help the evacuation center but also help businesses as well. Thanks.

Thank you, James Council. Do you have any questions or comments to make? Heather.

Thank you. So we had our first public health and safety committee meeting this afternoon at 4PM, and it was brought to our attention that maybe you didn't have all the things that you needed during the flood, such as, like, barriers to block streets? And if so, could you tell me more about what you need or would have been helpful?

I'll take the first shot at this. But, yeah, I mean, there were so many road closures that we ran out of barricades. We were I think we provided some to Snoqualmie as well to help with them on two zero two out by the out by the high school. So, yeah, a need for more signage, barricades, a a need for more, like, portable generator pumping equipment type things to help. Like, in this case, the South Forklift Station was underwater.

Anything we can do to pump that down so the crew can go out there and work instead of six inches of water running over their feet and dealing with power and all that stuff around there is not a safe situation. So backup, you know, smaller generators, portable pumping equipment, street barricades, that type of stuff. Definitely could've used more of that.

Thank you. I have one

thing to add to that. One piece that I've talked to Amber and a few others about, 800 megahertz radios. So in a more severe event where our radios are super busy, the North Bend Aries team isn't available to help out, that would give us an opportunity to, sorry, talk to the King County Emergency Operations Center, talk to Eastside Fire, talk to the police department on that 800 megahertz radio system. So that's something I'm looking into as well.

Thank you. Merrill.

Yeah. First, I just wanna say how impressive it was. Aaron, you did an incredible job to have such a cool, calm personality running the show, and then seeing everybody execute was pretty impressive. And I'll tell you, I I think I told you guys during the debrief, but I'll tell counsel. During the event, the volunteers and the folks in the in the community were so impressed and appreciative of how active we were.

Obviously, things are exciting and live and problems are occurring quickly. But I think across the region, there was so much damage. North Bend folks felt very safe and secure that they knew the the city was working for them and adjusting as the days were going on. So just incredible work, really impressed. And I think one thing I'll I'll just share here because I was able to be a part of some of that.

I I took a ride along with Tom late at night to check those levies. How much thoughtfulness and strategy was involved in actually looking at every part of this from the early partial EOC all the way through the thick of it in that night that we we drove around town. I think a lot of that is important for us to understand at scale. So I'd I'd like to maybe see at some point during this year, maybe we can work in a work study for all of council to walk through more live, like, how that occurred and maybe through some future hypotheticals. And to councilmember Colin's point, kind of maybe flagging and pinpointing, you know, this was the point where had we had those radios or had we had more barricades, maybe we can walk through and understand why we need those things and at what point.

So, you know, in eight to ten months when we're potentially in that position again, we're maybe more prepared or we can, as counsel, take some more active measures to get those things lined up for us. But incredible work. That was really, really impressive.

Thank you, Errol. Anybody else from counsel? I'm just all hands are up now. Let's go Rustic and go Torgerson and then Ellenton.

I'll keep it short. Because, yes, it was extremely impressive, just all of the activity that was going on. And I know residents of Snoqualmie were complimentary of the city of North Bend, and I was so proud of you all. And thank you to Brie for all of the communications. I felt like I had, like, up to the minute knowledge of what was going on, so thank you very much. Just a quick question maybe for Aaron. You know, we heard a resident here talk about, you know, the issues he had and ended up going up to the hotel. Thoughts on clearly in the message that we had resources here in town where people could go didn't reach them. Any thoughts on how we could address that in the future?

I know for this event, it was on the news channels through King County EOC. We had it on social media. Always open to suggestion if there's other avenues within those moments, but one thing for those areas that may have been a possibility, there's, you know, the code red system. But, I mean, that's more like you need to get out type of situation, which is a resource that we would have utilized had Silver Creek needed it that night. But that would be one other way to get the word out. And if they had to evacuate, that would have been part of the message. You know? But open to suggestion always. So yeah.

Yeah. Christina, have or I'm sorry. Susan?

Yeah. I just wanna say I stopped by and checked it out. Very well run. I mean, you guys were on top of it. Everyone. There was, like, no one sitting still. Everybody was working hard, and it was really impressive to see. And I just wanted to say kudos to everyone, and thank you for stepping up and doing it because, you know, not everybody has a passion for that, but you could tell everybody did in that situation, and it was great to see. You know, I can't I can't point out this one person. I mean, every single person was doing an excellent job. So just thank you for that.

Thank you, Susan. Brendan.

Yes. Thank you, for the update and the report, and I imagine and thank you, council member Tramolata, for bringing up that maybe we have a little bit more of a connective tissue and do some more analysis. And with that, we had more soak time. But I just wanted to say, you know, I was out of state observing this panicking because my daughter was at home. She's what do I do? And I'm FaceTiming her, telling her how to lift things on blocks, all this other stuff. A friend came by and helped get some sandbags. But from their report, to other people in the community that I've talked to, it was just a hands down amazing feedback that I've received. And and and as a result, I think our community has actually weathered the storm quite well, pun intended there. So I just wanna say thank you to all staff that was there managing this and getting through everybody.

You know, it was a peace of mind for me knowing that, hey. Okay. Piper, my daughter, you can go here. There's people here, and there's people that were gracious enough to offer their homes in case ours were flooded. We live on the river. So thank you for all of that. Couple items that that came to mind, for me specifically that I I hope we can work on this year, and Tom, I think you alluded to it, which is the interior saturation point was the biggest problem that I saw at least in my neighborhood. And what I'm attributing that to is that we have had turnover in real estate. So a lot of legacy property owners who know where the flood channels are, things like that, usually kept them open, kept them clear. New people come in, put up fences.

There's things like that. So I'm just wondering long term what we could do to focus on the interior of the river system. In talking with King County, they were very clear to me that, they focus on the river itself and the levees and and all that, which makes perfect sense. But inside the city, limits within the limits of the the river levy system could be a problem. We heard testimony earlier.

Mister Curtis talking about his house, and this is kind of a rare backup point. So I'm just wondering if there's some initiative that we could put in mind, maybe get forward, and I'll try to spearhead a little bit on public health and safety, is what we can do to drive greater awareness and education to folks that live within the city that may not be worried too much about the river coming over the levee because there's already a lake in in your front yard. Like, my house was a moat. Right? I had a moat all the way around it.

So that's so that's kind of thing one. Thing two is a while ago, maybe three, four administrations ago, we had good council EOC training. I don't know how many people have gone through that, but I think there's certifications of certain level levels. And I found that very rewarding, and I would like to revisit that as a council because if you're here and you don't know what to do, that gives you that little bit of confidence to come here, show up, and then just know where the clipboard is, how to start helping, and how to start chipping in. So I'm just wondering if, you know, if council would support of that, if we could do some sort of EOC type of command type of thing and understanding the whole dynamics, the processes, and and things.

So I don't know if that's already in motion, but I just put it back out there because I I found it rewarding years ago and could use it definitely could use a refresher after this last blast.

Tom, do you wanna take the do you wanna take the flooding piece first, and then I'll talk about the planning that we're gonna be looking looking at for the emergency management piece?

So from a flooding and kinda groundwater standpoint, our current standards with, like, a new development or stuff are gonna take into account all those flood channels and that type of stuff. I think when you're dealing with two neighborhoods in particular, Silver Creek and Old Side View, there's just a lack of stormwater infrastructure in those neighborhoods. I think Silver Creek has some in 6th And 4th Street, and that's about it. And everything north of there is just open swales and flood channels, which I will where the levee overtopped in Silver Creek, there's three flood channels that run through Silver Creek. That flood channel did its job.

It made its way to that flood channel and worked its way through, and it got into some houses. Those houses are right next to the flood channel. It did its job. In OldSideView, there is no storm drainage infrastructure. It's shallow swales, and people have probably filled in some of the channels in their yards throughout the years. So that's something I'd have to look into and get back to you on about what we could do about that. In the old side view, I would say in in what I saw driving through there and after, it's a huge groundwater issue out there, especially right by your house, Brendan. It's you're in a low spot right there by the river, and it's just you got seepage coming through the levee when the river's up high. We had an extended event. It was two and a half, three days where the river was up at flood stages.

There's a lot of seepage. As an example, I walked the right bank from the along the South Fork from the wastewater treatment plant up to North Bend Way, and there was three feet of water on the backside of the levee, but just seepage coming through. So there's that. There's groundwater. There's old developments that don't have proper drainage, but definitely something we can look out for those older neighborhoods.

And to address the gentleman that was here earlier, we do have preliminary design funds to replace a lot of the stormwater and flood culverts in Silver Creek. We're at about the 60% design level. Their flood control district for King County flood control district funds, we're waiting for the flood control district to review our alternative analysis. And his question in particular was, can't we just put a culvert right there and replace that? If we did that, we're just shifting the problem down the road to a 100 feet to the next homeowner. So we're looking at that whole area as a whole. And if we can get flood control districts funds for construction in the next few years, that's something we'll do there. So Cool.

I appreciate that because the the education piece, at least for me and my neighbors is one. We have a lot of people, and they're like, what is going on? What are the? Welcome to our thing. Good thing.

I got the same welcome. So on the education piece and the training in those those areas, so Erin and I have been working on, and we'll continue to kind of develop that criteria for this year of bringing back on a work study, kind of three components. As one, how do our AOCs function through different events? And then we'll look through that piece. We'll also look at the certification piece, the FEMA analysis is great for legislative officers.

And then how we tier. So I've been involved in EOCs for riots, and I've been involved in EOCs for fire and various other elements. And we have a lot of weather elements out here that we can definitely train for and they're gonna be different. Like Tom mentioned, a flood, we can prepare for, we can see it coming, we can know what's gonna earthquake's gonna be different, wildfire is gonna be different. So I think that those are our components that we'll be able to look at, And Erin's putting some exercises together for that. So we will be training on that. And how, typically we set up an EOC is that you have a small group that's in there that can pivot. And then we have a larger group on the outside. So for example, if councils on the outside taking phone calls from residents, or how do we engage that? So we'll have those tiers set up.

And that's typically how I set up those processes. It's how we kinda set up that command structure. And really, like, when we're talking about the volunteer piece is we set up that shelter really quickly. But, you know, Erol was contacted. We had a bunch of people that wanted to volunteer. And how do we coordinate that? And then there's also some civic engagement we can do with some, EOC training out in the community, to your point, of a lot of new residents. How do we take care of our own property while keeping our family safe and then listening to what the government's doing? So we'll have a couple layers to that coming up this year with the lessons learned that we we had from the EOC.

I'm sure this could be an added criteria to the citizens.

Yes. We actually discussed that in our our debrief for sure. Did

I miss anybody else? No? Okay. Well, I don't wanna go on ad nauseam, but most everything that was said tonight, I I completely and utterly agree with fantastic results from an an amazing team that kept the calm during a in a, you know, a pretty pretty incredible storm. So, kudos to all of you. You're amazing people, and and, you know, thank you, Errol, for stepping up too. You're you were amazing to watch calmly and accurately with your information, your willingness to step up as well. So I appreciate you all. And, of course, our east side fire and rescue team and snow pole back there, chief, Thank you very much. And your team and King County's sheriffs, I mean, there were so many people to thank.

I feel remiss that I'm gonna forget somebody. So I my my heart, is just full because this was my first experience as mayor to step into this role with the EOC and to see it ignite in a good way, I mean, and then really the flow and the action. And and they and, honestly, the the people of North Bend and beyond, I I wish to thank you incredibly for your efforts as well. So I hope people are listening and sometimes at some point, know from my heart to yours, how incredible your efforts are too. So, it all worked together.

Fortunately, we weren't as in bad shape as some other cities as we all know, but, it's not a matter of, you know, when. It's it's not a matter about the it's about what if it's gonna happen again. At some point, we're gonna have another event, but we're gonna be more and more prepared as we go along. So I have full confidence in you all. So, anyway, back to you, I think. Mister Tremolotta, we're gonna take it back to you to make the motion at this point.

Sure. Motion to approve a B260Dash002, a resolution ratifying and confirming 12/10/2025 proclamation of local emergency.

Thank you. Oh, thank you. Motion made by mister Tremblatt and second by mister Elwood. Like to speak to your motion, mister Tremblatt.

No. I think we spoke enough.

It was

an incredible job. I might add I may be more effective with the radio next time. Just hammer. I always forget it. I won't.

There you go. Mister Elwood, any comments to make?

No. Just again, well done. Fantastic job. Pleasant community. It was a very positive vibe, and that was due to all of your leadership and everybody else who stepped up and and from all your departments and did fantastic work. So thank you again.

Thank you so much. Any other council members wish to comment? Okay. The motion before us is to approve a B 25 Dash zero two zero two, a resolution ratifying and confirming 12/10/2025 proclamation of local emergency. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Moving on to mayor council administrative concerns and initiative. Let's start with, mister McFarlane tonight, you don't mind.

Well, thank you.

Welcome.

So I wrote down a few thoughts, but very, very briefly. So there are a lot of thoughts running through my mind tonight. January 6, a troublesome anniversary as many of us are aware. But first, many community members have expressed concerns about where the city's headed, services, budgets, etcetera. And I just want council, everyone out there to know that my overarching goal for my role on council is to support and assist my fellow council members in providing the policy and budgetary guidance so that our city staff can best address those concerns as it's been so evident and what they've been doing of late.

I've met with nearly all current council members as well as several former council members and heard about much of the past. I've watched several of the council meetings in the past, year, and I believe that this council, is working really well together as a unit, and I hope that I am able to to continue in that vein with you. With that said, much much bigger concerns on my mind and I'm gonna take the opportunity to express it being handed a forum. I know you can't tell, but I'm a child of the latter sixties and seventies, my formative years, very challenging time for our representative democracy. And as a follower of the real erosion that I feel is underway in our systems of governance, rule of law, separation of powers, the list is just endless, I find a lot of song lyrics running through my head from the war protest era.

And so from time to time, I might mention one and so I offer just one for you you tonight. I hope you'll look it up, give it a listen, and even more importantly, read the words very carefully. And that is the song for what it's worth by buffalo Springfield 1966. I'll share just one line. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.

I wanna thank you all, all the community members for the support and the continued input that you give to all of us. A big thank you to all of the city staff who are ever in service to our community, and the residents and businesses alike that they serve. Thank you. That's it.

Thank you. Councilmember McFarlane. Councilmember Joslin.

That's a hard act to follow. I just I'm nothing but supportive. I'm glad to have you here on board, Rob. I look forward to a productive year. I share, right, deep abiding I too.

I'm a child of the sixties, and have a really deep concern for the state of our our country, total running over of a rule based international order brings makes it hard to sleep at night. One of the beauties of this undertaking that we're engaged in here together is that we hope to I hope to lead by example and express to the folks who live in here that government does have a role in making our lives better. It's the third leg of the stool. So I'm honored to have the opportunity to continue to serve and work with you all towards that end. Thanks.

Thank you, sir. Mayor Pro Temp.

Yeah. My 2026 resolution is to actually have something meaningful to say every night on this list. So I did actually prepare and write this down, but I do wanna first parlay, a couple of things. First, welcome, council member McFarlane. I'm excited to work with you and excited to have you on board. I also wanna parlay off our, flood conversation. The work's still not done, especially with our small businesses and our local economy. The January period is typically a slow season. You've already seen a few different businesses announce new January hours, which are cut back. So let's all please be deliberate and focus our dollars where we can here in town.

Our businesses need it. And so the part that I did include so I don't have much of a platform to the public, but I do have a small one here, and I will be intentional about this every meeting this time in this year. And I wanna ensure that we foster an ongoing conversation about mental health. Mental health matters whether you are a student, a parent, a grandparent, a corporate worker, a tradesperson, a first responder, or a veteran. Whatever role you play in this world, the conversation about mental health is important for all of us. I'll ask all of us to check-in on a friend or family member. Don't hesitate. The phone calls do matter. If you're struggling, reach out and grab a cup of coffee and have a conversation with whomever you are willing. Don't let the hard days win. Thank you.

Thank you, Earl. Christina. That was well said. Yes. I just wanted to say happy New Year and, acknowledge, what was said about how well this council does work together, and we welcome you council member McFarlane to to join us. So we're looking forward to a successful 2026. Thank you.

Thank you. Heather?

Yeah. About the flooding, our staff did amazing. The city did we did well compared to other cities, which I'm grateful for, and sorry for those other cities. But I would like to mention that all my friends throughout Snoqualmie Valley all checked in on each other to make sure everybody was okay. And it made me realize my friend from Snoqualmie, my friend from Carnation, we're all interconnected and looking out for each other, and so I'm just proud of our community. Thank you.

Wonderful. Susan?

Yes. So, yeah, I'm welcome, Rob. It'll be nice to have you on board. You have a unique background to share with us all that we can all probably use some of your insights, as we deliberate different ideas. I wanted to quickly mention one of

my

concerns is the fact that we don't and and probably everybody knows this, but I'm just gonna say it again. I I'm concerned that we don't have a 26 salary schedule in place. I would love it if we'd make one just temporarily until we put one in place. That would make me feel more comfortable. I also feel like we need to potentially put together financial reports at the finance meet well, actually, for all of council.

I'd like to see, like, the, a budget versus actual financial reports, put some policies in place like that, maybe some other policies that we can start working on to make things run more smoothly and, educate all of council when they need to be educated. I'm looking forward to us all working well together. I know we all deeply care about North Bend. We may approach things differently, but we all do, share that that desire to make North Bend better. We wanna help our businesses, and, I hope that we can make some progress that way this year.

Thank you, Susan. Brandon.

Thank you, your honor. Welcome, Rob. Look forward to working with you. Worked with you, I don't know, fifteen, sixteen planning commission days, so we go back. So looking forward to that. And I'm gonna just keep it short. I'm so glad to say goodbye to 2025 on so many different levels, nationally, internationally. Personally, there's just good riddance. I I I don't think I've ever felt so happy to be out of a year as oppo that I've ever experienced this year. So I'm looking forward to 2026.

I think we have a crack team here. I think we have a crack team here. I do believe, I'm committed to making sure that we do a lot of good for our community. That's what we're here for. We're all public servants, that's that's where our vested interest is. And so I'm really looking forward to what we're able to achieve this year. So thank you all for all that you do, and I look forward to the next three hundred and some odd days. Cheers.

Wonderful. Thank you. Amber. Yeah.

I just wanted to say, happy 2026, and I look forward to this year. I agree. I think we have team the great team on both sides that can take a lot of projects across the finish line. And welcome to council member McFarlane. I look forward to our continued conversations. They've been great so far and look forward to that. And just thank you to all the work we did last year and look forward to this new productive New Year that we have upon us.

Thank you for that. Okay. Well, welcome again. Happy New Year, everybody. Can't say that enough. We at the city are very excited about this new year and remain full of hope and optimism for the future. So happy New Year, everyone. The city, was named 2026 Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation recently in honor of its commitment to effective urban forest management. North Bend achieved Tree City USA recognition by meeting the program's four requirements, a tree board or department, a tree care ordinance, and annual community forestry budget, at least $2 per capita, and an Arbor Day observance and proclamation. Thank you to staff and parks commission for helping to achieve this designation.

Just a reminder that a map of the city snowplow roots, yes, snow, I'm talking about it, include and I like snow. Don't get me wrong. Including new neighborhoods in the streets as available on the city's website. Please check it out. The map identifies priorities one, two, and three snowplow routes throughout the city limits as well as, priority access points and locations. After consultation with mayor pro tem, we have decided that there is no need for the tentatively scheduled special work study on January 13. Our next regularly scheduled work study will be held on January 27. City offices will be closed Monday, January 19 in observance of Martin Luther King Day junior day. Excuse me. And at this time, I'd like to make a motion for adjournment. Who would like to join me?

Yep. Okay. K.

We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate you. Have a great week.