City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the March uh tw 17th night 2026 I'm stumbling what day is this uh meeting of this North City Council and happy St. Patty's Day with one and all if you celebrate. Um will the clerk please call roll. Mayor Prom Errol Tremolada present. Council member Brendan Ow present. Council member Mark Joselyn present. Council member Heather Coen present. Council member Rob McFarland present. Council member Christina Rustic present. Council member Susan Toruson. Um, all are present with the exception of council member Toruson. Thank you very much. Would you be kind enough to lead us in the flag salute?

Note that council member Toruson is now here for that. Welcome, Susan. Okay. Well, good evening on this wet evening. Welcome everybody. Um, see Mayor Promp Tremolada, when you have a second, if you don't mind, will you make a motion to approve tonight's agenda, please? Yes. Motion to approve the agenda as written for March 17, 2026.

Thank you. Can I have a second? Thank you very much. Motion by Mr. Tremolada and second by Miss Rustic. Uh, all in favor? I I opposed. I You're opposed. I Is that I? Okay. Sorry. Okay. Pardon me. Uh, that passes unanimously. Thank you, everybody. Moving on to consent agenda. We have three items on our consent agenda, but before we continue, council, is there anyone who would like to remove and uh an item in for debate? Seeing none. Wait, wait, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, point of clarification. I thought there was an issue with the work study notes and you wanted to have that. Yeah,

I have pulled the work study notes and S or Susie will make an amendment for us to clarify the 230 main project and some verbiage that was on that. So, we can we'll bring that we'll amend that as um the language that I sent to you, council member. So, we can go forward to approve the consent agenda then. Yes. Uh can can I That's on the consent agenda now. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve it then? So moved. Thank you, Rob McFarland. Seconded by. Okay. Motion by Mr. McFarland, seconded by Miss Rustic. All in favor? I. I.

Thank you. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Once again, thank you so much. Uh, moving on to audience participation. As always, we appreciate uh those who come to chambers to speak to council, myself, and online. We'll start with chambers first. If you have anyone in the audience would like to speak, come. Thank you very much, sir. come to the podium and please state your name and please spell your last name for the clerk, please. My name is Eric Hman. Okay. And and it's H O H M A N. Thank you.

The reason I'm here today is I want to talk about the water and the sewer billing and another item beyond that. Um, I don't know if if you've heard or who I should direct this to, but the billing has been you can't understand any any part of it. We're getting negative numbers on the amount of water that's been used. We're getting sporadic different numbers for the sewage usage. I'm a a new homeowner. Um, in December, we had our place for 13 days. It's a condo in Timberstone over here. 13 days was $400 in water billing and sewer. And I've been in I've I've called multiple times. I've left my information. There's no one that ever answers the phone. No one ever calls back. I've been here to this desk several times to ask for information. And no one can seem to come up with any answers. and it's never handed forward either uh to somebody else. Um one of the last times I was here, I told him that I would come to this meeting to ask for some help and some clarity on all this and um I finally I did get from Matt Newsbomb got a call. We talked about all this. He said yes that their metering has been way off that they're working on that. Um, but there's been he I did get an email saying it's been fixed and for the entire last month we got our bill was 14 gallons of water. We used more than 14 gallons. So, it's still not fixed. And beyond that, there is also another fee for the size of the meter that's being used.

And the meter that's being used is not what they're billing. They're billing $110 for the meter every month when it should be $25 for the meter itself because of the size of the meter. Now, on one hand, they said it's because of the amount of water flow needed for fire suppression, which is great, but we don't have in that entire unit, we don't have meters of that size. And so if the meters are undersized yet they're charging for a large or larger meter um the difference comes out to actually in a year for the number of units in there $270,000 of extra billing that shouldn't be happening. And so now the other side of that is if the meters, the water meters are undersized and they they didn't meet code in the event that there's something catastrophic that happens, a huge fire and everything was not brought to code, there's a huge liability for the city of Northbend. You

have three minutes to speak, which I was unable to. We really want to hear what you have to say. In January, I lost my hearing. I had influenza A and 75% of my hearing is gone. So, if you could speak up and I didn't hear what you said to me. I'm sorry. I I apologize. Before you spoke, I was to say you have three minutes to speak. So, that's on me, but I need to have you wrap it up for now. What you need to say. So, and thank you. Is there anybody that can address this situation? Yes. and and and who would be at the moment. We can get back to you. Amber, mayor, would you like me to respond to this? Okay, I'd appreciate that.

We can. Martin, can I have you also assist? We are aware of the issue. We are working diligently on trying to fix it. The way that the Timber Stone stone um apartments or condos and town houses were constructed with the meter that is is listed. So, we're actively working on it. Martin will be the one to contact um residents back right here. Yes, Martin Chaw. And but we are actively working on that issue and we're aware of that it that it is happening. So clear back in December, our billing was significantly more than it should be and nobody's coming forward saying we're going to credit it.

We're going all the way back. So we'll be in contact with You're not the only one. We'll be in contact with everybody that we that we we find an issue with that um around the billing. When do you think that we'll see anything? because I've been told that it's a problem and we're working on it for two and a half months.

Hey, Mr. Holman. I'm Martin Sham, finance director. Myself, uh, uh, Elaine Morse at the end of the table, uh, deputy finance director. Uh, so we're working on that. Um, uh, give us about a month or so. So, we're we're working on the research on that. Uh secondly, uh regards to your particular case, my understanding is that um your meter your your particular water meter um isn't operating correctly and that's why you're having those those uh funny readings. So there's there's multiple people inside of there that are bringing up the same problems. Okay. So mayor, I will ask you to give your information to Elaine down there on the end and we will connect with you directly. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, sir. Anybody else in the community? Our wonderful community tonight. And welcome.

Hi, Kaitlyn. 980 Mountain View Boulevard Southeast. I'm here on behalf of the board and volunteers from Valley Pool together to let everybody know about some of the um public events that we have coming up this spring. Uh our next one is uh next Tuesday evening at Volition Brewing. We're calling it open swim at Volian Brewing. However, we recommend that you drink your beer. You don't swim in it, but we're flexible. You do you. Uh the purpose of these events starting next Tuesday is just to listen to the public. Um we want to hear from the public about what they want to see the next steps be for a new public pool for us. We know there's a lot of questions and concerns and excitement and um frustration, all sorts of things going on in the community that are affecting this project and we just want to hear from people. So um if you have an opinion about this, please come talk to us. Um we'll be there from 6:30 to 8:30. Volian is very graciously hosting us and we're very grateful to them. Um, on April 6th, we are going to be hosting a screening of Ponyo at the Northbend Theater. That is a Studio Ghibli movie by Hayo Miaki. He also made uh My Neighbor Totoro, How's Moving Castle, those movies. This is a beautiful movie that's a retelling of The Little Mermaid. And if you haven't seen it before, come see it. Your life will be better. We'll be there as well with our volunteers to talk to the community and uh listen to what people have to say. Um and we would love to meet you. Um I've heard that there might be a specialty drink involving um glitter and Swedish fish. So I'm really looking forward to seeing that. Uh and I'll leave you with this. Uh just today I was looking at the 2025 report

from the Trust for Public Lands that does a yearly report on the state of recreation and what's available to the public. And they called recreation the great unifier that it's omnipartisan which really struck me. They said twothirds of the respondents to their survey, 66% of them were Harris voters and 67% of them were Trump voters, said they struck up a conversation with a person at a park they hadn't known previously with half reporting a conversation with someone from a different social or economic background. And that really brought home to me the power that public recreation has in our lives and in our communities to really bring us together, bridge gaps, and create community. So, I'll just leave you with that thought because I think we could all use a little more of that in our lives. Thank you.

Can I ask a question? Yep. Yeah. And how are you getting this information out about the pool board meeting at the So far, we've posted an event on Facebook. We're posting flyers around the community. And I am open to ideas. I am not a marketing professional. I am not a millennial. So, any ideas that you have about how to get those ideas out, I would love to hear them. Does that answer your question, Heather? Yes, but it's next Tuesday.

Tuesday the 24th. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Kate. Anybody else from the community? Oh, hello. Interim chief, welcome.

Good evening, mayor, council members, city staff. Um, I just wanted to come up and say this is my last official meeting as the chief of Tquami Police Department attending a council meeting. So, I wanted to say thank you to everybody. Um, from my time starting here, it's been great getting to know all of y'all. We're going to continue to work together on other obviously other projects and between the two agencies, but I just wanted to say thank you. Um, we've had 14 years of providing service to the city of Northbend and our department has loved every minute of it. So, thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you.

Okay. Anybody online, Bill? Not tonight, your honor. Quiet. Okay. Good. All right. At this time, let's move on to our presentation of the evening. Snowquali Valley Hospitals Hub Expansion Project. Miss Renee Jensen.

Welcome. And uh we're all eyes and ears. Awesome. Good evening everybody. Thank you for having us. Um going to get some slides up because I bettered with pictures. Everything's better with pictures. Thank you. Awesome. Um, so I'm going to give you some information about our expansion project called the hub and a little bit about what's going on at your community public hospital district. Um, if you don't know, Snowquami Valley Health is part of a hospital district which includes Northbend, Snowquami, um, Fall City, Carnation, and Preston. So, we're pretty pretty big and broad and we serve everybody. Um, but I want you to be able to ask questions. So, I'm going to go through some things, but if there's questions you have, please stop me and I will give you a great update tonight. So, you may have heard a little bit about this hub, and if you haven't, you've at least seen the giant crane, the construction happening on Snowcomi Parkway, right adjacent to the hospital. We are um under construction. This slide's a little misleading. It says opening in November. We anticipate our construction being complete in November and then we'll be moving in our equipment, our staff, our computers, our physicians, and everything. And then uh your guess is as good as mine between November and February sometime. We'll keep you posted. It it really just depends on how quickly our our trades can move. So, I wanted to share a little bit about the why behind the project and the vision because I think it really helps understand what we're doing and why we're building what we're building. When I first moved uh came to this area, actually I grew up I grew up in Snowcomi Valley. I grew up in Monroe, graduated from high school there. Hunted, fished and camped with my father out here in the North Bend and and Snowcomi Valley. So I know quite a bit about the area. But when I came here professionally to work at the hospital, I had the pleasure and the honor of sitting on the economic development uh focus group for the city

of Snowquami. And I learned quite a bit that I didn't know. And what I heard was postcoid our families and our cities really lacked social connections and we saw a huge spike in behavioral health and mental health illness during and after COVID because those social connections hadn't been able to happen. I also heard that there was a lot of uh new residents and young families that wanted more options and places to eat and um the healthcare was lacking and people were going elsewhere because they didn't have the services that they needed here. So the hub, the vision behind the hub is really starting to bring all those things together to stop taking care of people because they're sick and to start thinking more about whole person health and how do we take care of our community as a community that is well as well as sick and then thinking like beyond just medical care. What is social connections mean? What does behavioral health connections? So the hub brings all of that together in one space so that we can have all of those things in one place. There were some guiding principles that were established at the very beginning before we even began the drawings for for it and I think it's important to understand the why but number one community health and wellness. We do a very extensive um community health needs assessment every 3 years and it tells us what are the social impacts and what are the medical impacts and the the things that are leading to the health and wellness of our community. So, the hub is addressing all of those things that are um lacking in that uh community health needs assessment. We also know that previously sometimes people worked there because it was a quiet, sleepy little place and there wasn't a lot to do and and we said that's not good enough for us. We want to retain and attract the very best talented staff. So, it meant that we went to work on increasing benefits, increasing wages, and making sure that we could have an attractive place to work. So the hub in traditional healthcare, you would put all of your your funds and make the lobby really fancy because that's what your your customers see. And then behind

the scenes, it's all blah and it's vinyl and press board. And so we said, "No, that's not good enough. We want our staff to have just as good of an experience and um engagement in this facility as our patients, our customers, and our clients do." So really focusing on not front of house and back of house, but treating everybody as part of our community, including our staff. Innovation is also something that's really near and dear to my heart. I love to figure out if something's working, how can we make it better. And so my team is a team that is extremely innovative and creative and we want to bring how can we do it better? How can we inspire to do things that aren't just the way we've always done them? And so the hub has quite a bit of innovation and creativity designed into the building itself. We also know, as you know, this is one of the most beautiful places in the United States you could possibly live. and we wanted to really connect with nature, bring the outside in and really embrace where we are and our what our local community has to offer. So, we there's a lot of natural Pacific Northwest elements and design and thoughtfulness put into this building. And last but not least, one of the very most important things that this is a revenue-driven design. So everything that we have put into this building has a purpose to work as an ecosystem to drive revenue to ensure that healthcare is sustainable and can be here for our generations to come. I love that photo. Uh the the hub is moving so quickly. That photo was taken only maybe a month ago and there's already walls and sides up on it, but it's just a gorgeous day that we had in the winter to take that beautiful photo. So, uh, our project cost 147 million. Um, part of that is equipment, part of its technology, some of its permits, and some of it is actual construction costs. You might be surprised, or maybe our city folks here probably aren't, but it's about $1,000 a square foot to build medical space. And so, it's it's not an inexpensive project. Uh, we raised revenue bonds. So, what that means is that we had to put together a plan and a

performer, and we had to go out to the bond market and sell bonds to investors. And so we this is a loan and it is based on our ability to generate revenue with our project. It is not tax supported. The taxes that we collect from our district support less than 5% of our operations. And so uh this project does depend on us being able to have um uh good utilization and to produce a bottom line. We're doing some private philanthropy. Uh we do have a foundation and they are doing a capital campaign and their goal is to raise $2 million to support buying additional equipment for the surgical center for the hub. We've also been gifted um from both the state, the county and the f uh a um several um appropriations that are helping to support a little bit of this project as well. We broke ground in May and we again it says opening November 2026. I think we were really ambitious when we wrote these slides. Uh, but we definitely will have ownership of the building and be moving equipment in by November for sure. 85,000 square ft. To give you an idea of how big that building is, the current hospital proper is about 75,000 ft. So, this building will be larger and have more space to serve our community than the current hospital. Staff and economic impact. I bet there's some people in this room that are interested in that. Um, we anticipate by the time the f the hub is fully uh loaded and busy that there will be 225 new employees. That almost doubles our current staff. We have about 300 currently. And um we'll be bringing um more physicians and uh we think that about 30 new providers. That might be a little bit on the light on the low side, but each single physician that comes comes with at least three to four support staff. When you think about somebody has to do scheduling, somebody has to do billing, somebody has to room your patient. So, that is quite a lot of new jobs and new people that could be um moving into these communities. Any questions? Yeah, I talk really fast because I'm super passionate about this

project. So, I'll take a breath and see if there's any questions. Yes, Colon. Question. Are you going to be able to take in insurance such as people like Kaiser or um sorry, sorry, thank you. people like Kaiser or the unhoused or people that are going to lose their Medicaid, Medicare, all those things that's going to be happening with the new administration.

Yes, thank you for answer asking that question. It's a very good one. We take most insuranceances. Kaiser is a closed network, so they they don't um offer insurance outside of their network. So, we aren't able to do that because that's how Kaiser works. However, we do provide millions of dollars in charity care and uncompensated care to our community. Because we're a public hospital district, we do not turn anybody away regardless of their ability to pay. And that's not just for the hospital, it's also for our clinics. So, um despite the challenges that healthcare is having right now at the federal level, we are still committed to serving our community. And we're fortunate, unlike other communities that have a lot of Medicare and Medicaid and uninsured, we don't have as much. So, as long as our community continues to support us and uses our services, we'll be able to continue to provide that care in our communities. Thank you for asking that. It's a great question.

Anybody else from Council Rob?

As long as it was pertinent, a few slides back, I noticed the four and a half stories, I think it was. I'm curious who's going to be housed in that half story. radiology, we put them in the basement. So, uh there are some building codes that you have to abide by and um in order to be able to get the square footage on the footprint of the site here and have enough parking, we the architects were very creative and they basically did like a daylight basement. And so in the daylight basement, you have radiology. They like to work in the dark anyway, so it's fine. They don't need windows. Um, but it also is really good for their equipment because they have really big magnets and and heavy machinery that needs to have a really solid base. So, it actually works better when it's on a ground level. So,

and do you know what the rough time was um permitting between first submitt and approval? I don't, but I know Northbend's faster. Does that count?

Yes. Um, don't put me on the spot there. Yeah, back up.

Are you going to have pay for parking for patients and employees? Great question. No, all of our parking is free. We intend to keep the parking free. Actually, part of this construction project is actually adding some uh EV chargers, a couple of different types of EV chargers to give another option for staff, patients, and visitors coming through on the highway as well. But so far, that's one of the things that differentiates us. So, if you go if you go to Over Lake or if you go into town, you're definitely going to pay for parking. But out here, again, that's kind of like embracing the community that we live in. Uh there's no parking meters on your streets here in Northbend, and we don't think there should be any at the healthcare facility either. So, great question. So, the uh expansion, this is focused on ambulatory services. So, basically, we in the healthcare world, we call that all the outpatient services. So, what we'll be adding are a radiology suite in the basement in the dark and it will have X-ray uh DEXA which is bone density and potentially another mamography. We just added a mammo this past year. It's one of the first 3D mammos ever in the area. And we are already so busy that we think that we may need to add another one. So, that's really great. And we built in space for a future MRI uh potentially a CT or nuclear medicine. Uh just a little bit of room to grow there for future services. Our lab is so busy and so great that we have outgrown our space at the hospital. So we will be moving the main lab to the hub and leaving uh critical care services labs in in the actual hospital itself. We'll expand primary care. This is amazing. 33 exam rooms and three pre procedure rooms. This uh quadruples out of the amount of space that we have right now and it will improve access and wait times for healthcare services in the valley. We have a great rehab team. this will expand rehab services and we are bringing um an AI gym as part of that that will be open to the community and so an AI gym. I was really excited when I heard about this cuz I thought somebody had invented uh a way that I don't have to do my workout anymore that the AI will do it for me. Um apparently I was wrong that's not the case. Uh what

it actually does is it works with a medical provider to help you set up um the a program that is appropriate for you. So, if you are a grandmother that wants to do strength training to be able to chase your kids around the playground, or if you're an athlete recovering from an injury, it sets your workout up. You tap your phone or your watch or your gadget and then it moves the equipment. It puts the proper weight, the proper repetition, and it adjusts it so it fits your body. So, no more pulling pins, no more trying to figure out how the equipment work. It just knows how to do it for you. It's really amazing. So you will we that will be integrated which what that means is we will have rehab patients working sidebyside community members working sideby-side staff members and uh really having resources available to help you meet your your goals in that fitness area. We are adding a retail pharmacy. When we started this project there were plenty of retailies but we wanted one close to home close to our clinics and now there are none in Snowquami. So it is very appropriately timed and we're very excited to bring that. We talked about revenue driven design. Another reason to add the retail pharmacy wasn't just to serve our community, but we self-insure our staff for our medical plan. So that means we don't have we we anytime anybody goes to the doctor or gets a prescription, the hospital is pay or the healthcare district is paying for that expense. The number one top expense for us, the thing that costs the most in our medical plan is our prescriptions. And so by adding this retail pharmacy, it will help um reduce the cost of those medications that are going for our staff and reduce the cost of our plan. Yeah. When you say retail pharmacy, is that your organization or are you going to have farm it out to someone else to like CVS or something like that to use that space?

That was a wonderful question. When we first started, I was like, "Oh my gosh, we don't have a retail pharmacy. How are we going to do that?" But the benefits of bringing it inhouse outweighed the benefits of outsourcing it. And we really care about our brand and our customer service and our connection to our community. So, it will be hometown owned by us. Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. Yeah. So if someone comes to your urgent care or emergency care but then needs hospital care,

where do you send them? We have that now. So um we I know there uh previously everybody had thought, oh it's just a rehab program. It's just a skilled nursing center. But actually over the last 3 years, we have expanded our acute care services and we are transferring less and less patients. And we uh we have 25 beds. We have 24 patients in house today. And I think about three or four of those are acute care patients. So, um if you come to our emergency room and need admission, most likely you will be able to be admitted to our hospital. It'll depend on specialy services and the extent of the care and all those things, but we we won't have ICU. So, if you need IC ICU level care, that's not that's outside the scope for us right now.

That's what I was thinking of was like hemorrhagic strokes or heart stance or

things of that nature. No, no, no brain or cardiac surgery so far. Yeah, we're all all of our surgical services are going to be uh focused on outpatient same day type of surgeries. Uh not over patients that might be more critical or need an ICU type of care. So, not yet though. Got to start somewhere. Great question. And then urgent care. So, this will also expand our urgent care, triple the size of our current urgent care. The one that's on the ridge right now h is run by one provider and we can see a maximum of about 35 patients a day right now and we are getting very close to that max on certain days and so we know that we're going to need to grow into this new space. The nice thing about moving it from the ridge to the hub is that you will have now have all of your radiology techs there. All of your imaging, all of your lab, everything will be right there and you won't have to either go to the hospital uh proper or send labs out. So great convenience for a community. We talk about social connections. We are adding a restaurant and community space. We'll have a full service restaurant. We're going to do lunch and dinner. We'll have catering and takeout and an amazing pizza oven. Two years ago, we hired the 2019 chef of the year out of Seattle. Young guy, amazingly talented and cooks crazy good food. I think all my staff have gained 10 pounds in the last two years. But we brought him in to really innovate what does how is food part of your healthcare journey and how is food part of a healthy community and really reinventing the types of food not that we feed our patients, our staff and our community. So, we're excited to be able to offer this uh homemade pizza, homemade uh pasta, and other really amazing Chef Blake uh items on the menu. If you want to preview uh we have an app on toast and you can order uh to go from the hospital currently. So, don't be fooled. It's not actually hospital food. All right. It will have a cafe and a coffee shop. We'll have some community rooms that are connected to the restaurant so we can have space to host events that we don't currently have and

hopefully some of our community groups. And then a three-story indoor climbing wall. And this again is really thoughtful about what do we do here in this community that is important. We love to be outdoors. There's a lot of rock climbing. Uh this will not be your typical climbing gym. It'll be kind of a hybrid for those like I would say like what I would say are real climbers and those that are more recreational climbers and then hopefully uh it'll have bold bouldering as well so kiddos and families can come and feel comfortable to be in this space too. We were able to add some new healthcare services. These are the things that we plan to add. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the city of North Ben. You guys were amazing partners in getting our clinic up and going here. that was supposed to be an after the hub project, but because the city was so good and so efficient and so helpful, we were able to open it early, it allowed us to hire some of our specialists before the hub opens and get um our patients in sooner, get those panels full sooner and be able to produce revenue for that hub sooner. So, because of Northbend, we were able to add rheumatology, allergy and immunology, orthopedics, general surgery, and neurology. So we have a general surgeon specializes um in uh uh hands and or sorry general surgeon is specializes in all the stuff in your gut and orthopedics specializes in hands and shoulders and our neurologist is one of the most amazing physicians you will ever meet. He actually has a personality. So if you know anybody that needs a neurologist, he is fantastic. And then you can see the list of the other things that we're adding here. Um, I just heard yesterday, I'm not even sure it's for full press yet, but we just, um, signed an ENT, and we will be adding probably, uh, urology before the end of the year, too. So, and those two will have to wait till the hub comes because we're full. We have nowhere to put them. This is just a quick image. Uh, you asked about the basement. You can see we have the imaging and the loading dock and storage and supplies down there. Above that you have kind of your community space and then your um therapy climbing wall clinic and ambulatory

surgery with four OS on the top floor. Because of the the generous gift we got from the state and the feds with our um our funds were able to outfit all four of those um OS. Originally we're going to build two and leave two for later. Now, we're going to be able to build all four and then depending on how funds go with and budget with the project, uh we will probably just open with two and then add the uh those equipment for the other two later. All right, take another breath. Is there a cost for the climbing wall?

Most likely. Yeah, most likely there will be. uh we're we're being really thoughtful about trying to make it uh accessible to everybody and being re really reasonable but need to apparently you have to maintain these things and you have to clean them and you have to have staff and so there there is some cost to to operating that to us in front of you um I have uh one of our most amazing employees I have uh Kelly with me tonight she and her team have been doing a lot of outreach to make sure everybody knows what we're doing so she's dragging me everywhere to say tell our story she has designed this amazing flyer it's got a QR code. You can scan it. It tells you about our specialty services. On the back, we have a page on our website for the hub. It tells you all about what we're doing and keeps you updated. So, you can scan that if you need any appointments. Uh if you scan that, it'll get you to where you can go to make appointments. And it's um yeah, so leave behind for you to remember all the great stuff we're trying to do here for the community.

Thank you, Renee. Um I'm going to check the gentlemen online, Brendan and Mark. Do you have any questions for Renee? No. Okay. Thank you. Just checking. Oh, yeah. First off, Renee, thank you for coming and sharing this all with us. Um, couple quick hits. Does this facility then complete this campus, meaning you're out of land there? Is that kind of maxed at this point?

It's a really great question. We actually have about 22 acres across the parkway, but it's not within city limits. is actually in King County and uh the building codes there and the environmental is extremely complicated and so it wasn't really feasible or financially viable to build on that side of the parkway. Uh so we acquired the land that we have currently that you saw that we're putting the hub on for this project. Uh future growth potentially that acreage across the street maybe, but even today we were having to move staff cars out of our parking lot because there wasn't enough room for patients. So, we're our campus is going to be pretty tight there. Yeah.

Thanks. And then, um, you're reminding us of the clinic that was opened here in town. Great. Thank you very much. Um, are there are there others in other locations or are you considering opening similar clinics in other location? Another great question. So, we we have two clinics in Snowquami. We have one on the ridge and then we have another that's actually located within the hospital building proper. Uh and then of course Northbend and then our next clinic that we would like to be able to be able to do would be out in Carnation to support their community as well. But that's um again it's it it's a delicate balance between finding this the building and the space and being able to operate with the volume that's available from the community. And so uh we were just able to hit the sweet spot here in Northbend and we're lucky enough to get it in.

Thank you. Yeah. You have some amazing providers there by the way. They're great and they're committed to staying. So, we're not taking them when the hub opens. They're actually staying here. That's wonderful, Miss Torus. I think you had something to say.

Well, first of all, thank you so much. Um, just to give you a little background, um, when I was growing up, there was no hospital. Um, but there was actually there was one. It was really tiny one. If you go on the way to the Snow Palmy Casino and you see that piece of land and there's that little metal sign that has nothing in it, that used to be the hospital. It was a small little building and I just remember growing up my grandmother and all her friends were part of the hospital guild or whatever. They always got together and they were always trying to get money. They're always trying to get a hospital here. So I kind of became a little bit pessimistic because it seemed like they never got anywhere for years and years and years. It's like okay we still don't have a hospital. And so for me, this is like this is super exciting and there's so many options to it and it's like finally we have like I'd say a quality hospital here. So I just wanted to say thank you for that and I'm sure all of the elder folks in the community were saying thank you too because it's been a long time waiting for I mean a really long time.

Thank you. I'm I am I am super super passionate about rural healthcare. actually been a CEO at public hospital districts in Washington state for over 20 years and this by far is my favorite job I'm most passionate about. So, thank you for that. Thank you for being here and I'm sorry to be the pessimistic person in this group, but I'm wondering with the patients you get that don't have money or unhoused, will you be going after any assets that they may or may not have such as a home or mobile home or whatever they have. That's a that's a wonderful question. Um there are laws now that prevent um collections from acquiring assets for medical debt. And so we do uh try our best to collect if it's reasonable, but otherwise generally somebody that's going to be in that situation is going to qualify for charity care. We have an extremely generous charity care policy and every time you come to use our services, our uh registration clerks will ask you if you would like to apply for the program and most oftent times folks in that situation are going to be eligible for 100% ride off.

Mr. Trela, um well, thank you. We are very excited. My wife's an employee, so I've been watching this grow. Uh, and so my household knows all about this. But I guess my question for you is as this rolls out, I mean, in my opinion, the success of this is obviously for the community to use it and all the resources and everything that we you ran down, which is great. And so you're here, but what what is the plan to roll out as these services come available? Like what is the public relations plan? Also, what can we do from council to help ma, you know, magnify that and say, "Hey, these are open. Come use them. It's great. You don't have to go to Isiqua. It's right here in our valley. What can we do from that?

Obvious a fabulous question as well. So, number one, thank you for not going somewhere else and using our services. That helps a ton. Part of our strategic plan does also include recruiting from the Isiqua and surrounding areas. So, we can there's so many patients there that are waiting months and weeks for appointments, especially for specialties, that this access will be will be wonderful. And so, I'm let Kelly tell you about the outreach plan because that is her entire job. That is exactly what I get to do is thank you is help uh share out this amazing team that we have and the access that we have available which is I think unique of I come from another system where it was 6 months to a year to see a specialist and the fact that we have same week next week access is amazing. So we want everybody to know go home share with your neighbors share with your family share with your friends. Um, we're keeping Renee really busy on a road show. Um, bunch of events around the city and then, um, I have an amazing marketing team that we're doing a ton of outreach. So, you'll see me at a ton of community events throughout the next year with our team. Uh, we're trying to get to the schools. We're trying to get to any and all community organizations that we can to share this information. Um, and then also with referring providers. um in our community.

So, Kelly is actually taking our our physicians out to other uh clinics and introducing them and and try, you know, like saying, "Hey, we're open. We can get your referrals." But also, if you if you want to help, if you can just follow our Facebook page and uh like it and share it and send it out when you see, you know, the new physicians or the new specialties, that is great awareness and really does help us. So, thank you. Any additional ideas that you have to share out with the community, I'd love to hear. uh all years. That's great. Did I get everybody? Thank you guys so much for all of your support and for just welcoming us to Northbed and letting us provide care to you and your families. We really appreciate it and look forward to continuing to serve you in the future.

Thank you, Renee and Kelly. Always a pleasure to see you both. Uh thank you for all that you're doing. We welcomed you with open arms here in Northbend for the clinic and our expectation is a longevity and a long long time and great things happening at the hub for all the people. So, thank you Greg. Thank you so much you guys.

Great presentation. Okay, lights up. Thank you. Uh, moving on to commission committee reports. Let's go with uh Miss Toruson, community and economic development, please. I today uh we met um it was me by myself and then these two guys online. Um that was interesting, but actually thank god we have the technology because it worked just fine. Um first we talked about the um the the ballerette plaza and we received an update um just looking at uh initial design options and discussed different scenarios there. Um then we talked about the Snowqualami Valley Food B site um they're asking for a permit fever a fever waiver. Guess I got hospital on my mind. Um, and so, uh, we discussed that for so few of minutes because we saw it was such a great idea, we're just going to put it on to the, um, uh, April 7th council meeting. Then, um, we discussed a little bit about, um, some zoning and definition amendments, which will be on the 21st, April 21st council agenda. And then um we touched on um potential funding options for um 20 uh 2030 Maine. And um that's pretty much it for the CED. Thank you, Susan. Um actually, I'm going to have you completely do uh public health and safety. Uh Brennan, you're online, but I think you agreed.

All right. Okay. So, if you would continue, that would be wonderful. And thanks.

Certainly. All right. So on March 3rd, uh we had the public health and safety committee meeting. Uh first we had an update. We had um we had the chief Aaho there as well as um Justin Walker that went over all the updates that are going on. Learned a lot. Um I won't give anything away in case Chris wants to share stuff. Um but that they're always interesting to hear what's going on with them. Uh we had a police update from Chief Inman, Chief Gary. Um and uh again learned a lot more there. We also have uh the upcoming chief hall was there as well. So we had live lively conversations. We talked about um a regional fire authority possibility which is um actually pretty interesting. Um and actually Epher was talking about it as well in another meeting. But um that's more to come on the regional fire authority. Um it's got a lot of positives to it. So, it'll be kind of fun to talk about that in the future. Um, and then that's pretty much it. I think we were a little bit over in that meeting because we had so much interesting things to say. But anyways, that's it for our public health and safety.

Boy, boy, thank you. Uh, finance administration council member Rustic, please.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, finance and administration committee met on Tuesday, March 3rd. Um the first item on the agenda is also on tonight's council agenda and that was the conversation about the Clark Nubber uh contract. So I know we will have more discussion there. Um we also on tonight's agenda we talked about the uh ordinance 2025 2026 budget amendment. We'll get more into that. Um, we had an update about the uh King County uh um police transition as it related to the annex and the uh outlet mall. We also had a conversation about the ordinance imposing the.1% criminal uh justice sales tax. Um there was no uh no action, just just an update on that. And then uh we also had a conversation about the regional fire authority. It was the same presentation that uh was at public health and safety. So there will be for the for for the rest of the council members. We'll get a chance I'm sure to have more conversation about that in the future. And then uh a walk-on item for the agenda uh was a conversation about related Northwest uh briefing from staff also on the uh 230 main project and no decisions were made. Um we just talked about funding options. So that was it for finance.

Thank you very much. Uh transportation public works. Uh council member Coen you would mind.

As usual we had a very large agenda. Uh, number one on our list was we did the monthly update number seven on the Metobrook sewer ulid project. There's a lot going into that. Um, number two, we talked about the monthly update number three of SR202 shared use trail project. Number three, we talked about a capital project status discussion. And number four, we talked about a capital project grant discussion and is a list of grants staff are currently pursuing and projects that best fit the grant criteria. Staff will provide an update on the grants and answer any questions. That's it. Thank you. Not as long as I thought. Thank you so much. Excellent. Uh mayor prom council member Konada

work study February 24th. Uh we discussed a few different items. One was the 230 main update with related northwest and the development agreement. Um does seem like things are changing on that front. Um and I think we will have more updates to follow. But um we then discussed uh zoning definitions and had various uh opinions on how to move forward on that. So more to come through uh I believe CED eventually through there and then uh discuss regional committee liaison and assigned assignments as needed. Excellent. Thank you very much. Um East Side Fire and Rescue Council member Rust.

Yes. East Side Fire and Rescue Board met on Thursday, March 12th um in Isqua and it was a two and a half hour uh training session. Um half of that time was spent just with the board orientation. Um most of the board members actually are new. Um we had an I had a number that uh either uh were no longer a comm uh city part of their um city councils or um have moved on to um other assignments. So uh pretty extensive orientation and then the second half was um a presentation by uh an attorney Eric Quinn regarding the regional fire authority. So it was uh yeah it's a popular topic of conversation but it was a little more uh from a legal perspective in depth and u Martin I know you were there. I was uh hoping to get a copy of the presentation and I will share it with the the rest of the council when I do because it was actually um very good information. So that's that was it. That's all I have. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you again. Um let's see. Planning Parks and Economic Development Commission. Mr. Your honor. Oops. Yes. May I report on regional committees? Um, you certainly can. Of course. I'm sorry. I I hope I'm not out of order and I don't mean to step on staff. I welcome your thoughts, please.

Yes. Thank you. Uh, the Sound Cities Association had a networking event that was well attended member Hoy Faloy. I guess that's us. um as well as lots of folks throughout the region. There was a presentation from the uh World Cup 2026 hosting committee for Seattle where within 100 days of the World Cup kicking off as folks are well aware and folks are keeping very busy. they're anxious are soon to be provided with uh ticket information as to where folks who have purchased tickets will be coming from and that will help guide uh further planning and outreach efforts. On March 11th, uh there was a virtual meeting of the Sound Cities Association Public Issues Committee. Uh it also was well attended. I will note it was virtual and it was as we might remember during the windstorm. So folks like me once in a while uh dropped out and came back because uh power was fluctuating. Uh the primary focus uh was uh the King County Transportation District is moving forward with a proposal to assess a onetenth of 1% sales tax to help fund uh roads and unincorporated King County. The roads division of King County is severely strapped for funds uh as annexations continue and yet demand and use of unincorporated roads uh increases. Of course, North Ben are surrounded by roads uh maintained and uh you know maintained by the King County Transportation District and the roads department including the road up the middle fork much of which runs across federal land but it still falls to the county to maintain that. Uh the public issues committee did decide to take an emergency action and drafted a letter to the King County

Transportation District which is simply advisory. We don't have a vote on this matter. The King County I'm sorry the Sound Cities Association Board of Directors is meeting on Thursday. uh and were they to approve the action adopted by the public issues committee that uh letter would get passed on to the King County Transportation District. It has two primary areas of focus. One is uh that the cities be given a seat at the table in uh prioritizing projects and how the monies are allocated and that if the transportation district does adopt a onetenth of 1% increase in sales tax countywide that there be a 25% pass through of those funds to cities. Uh of course it has no standing and the King County Transportation District which is a standalone entity. It is the same con uh the King County Council members make up the King County Transportation District, but it is an independent body that does not need this would be a council matic uh tax increase requiring no further action uh nor a vote of the public uh to be implemented. Uh it's estimated to raise about $100 million a year and would be enforced over the next 10 years. Uh the next meeting of the public issues committee will occur on April 8th. Thank you, your honor.

Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, M Council Member.

I would like to add to the um TPW committee request. We are having flood warnings coming our way. And so I am hopeful that we can work on our storm water drainage and that also the citizens will work on keeping their drainage clean so the water can flow through. And then I just want to give a good kudos to the snow event and the plowing. They did an excellent job. I was very happy to see my road done in the morning. shocked out of my mind and the arterials looked great, the roundabouts looked great and they did a fabulous job. So, thank you TPW.

Thank you very much. Anyone else from regional commissions or reports to give Miss Torres?

I have two reports. Um, first of all, the regional law, this is from S, you know, the sound cities association SCA. Uh I'm part of the regional law, safety, and justice committee and um we're finally going to be having some meetings. Apparently they had a lot of employee change over with the new executive. So we have our new schedule um starting next week as our first meetings. Um, but I have some some kind of exciting news because last year when I was on the committee um I had asked uh if we could think about doing some sort of advocacy for addiction um situations in our communities and I was surprised that they said let's look into that. So um I had was tasked the uh the job of finding maybe a couple of speakers for that. So I've given some names to um Sound Cities Association. So I'm excited. Hopefully, we'll get some traction and we can do something positive in that arena. Um, and then my other report has to do with the Snowqual Me Valley Chamber. There was a um a uh gayla. I think it was it was a fe I think that was the end of February. Feels like it was March, but it was February. And um at the gayla there were um we we acknowledged the nonprofit um organization Evergreen Mountain Bike. And um they've just done a ton of lot a ton of things for our community. So that was pretty exciting how they got recognized at the gala. And then also our own Ken Hearing, he received the Fitz uh Fritz uh Ryberry Award for his years of service to the community. So another one of our North Bends groups, you know, so that was exciting. Um they also wanted me to let you guys all know that this week they're starting the coffee passport program, which there'll be 30 coffee houses in Snowquami Valley. um you go around and you get your passport punched and then after you got all of them punched then you can turn it in for a drawing and potentially win a a

twoight stay at a hotel. So for all you coffee lovers, jump on in. And that concludes my two reports. Thank you so much. Um I think I'll now go to Mr. Henderson for parks planning and economic development commissions, please. And thank you.

Y great good uh good evening, mayor and council members. Uh the planning commission met on March 4 and were briefed about a content neutrality Supreme Court case law pertaining to sign regulations. They also received a briefing on the adopted 2026 planning commission work program and elected chair and vice chair positions for 2026. The planning commission will next meet tomorrow evening, March 18th, and will hold a public hearing on the amendments to the city's permitting time frames for consistency with state law. Uh the parks commission did not meet in February. Uh they will meet next on Wednesday, March 25th, and discuss draft amendments to the parks element, including perspective amendments to the park's capital facilities plan. Uh comments received from the Snowqualami tribe and amendments needed for an update to the park's impact fee rate study, which is being performed by the city's consultant, Bowman. The parks commission will also discuss their initial findings to identify wayfinding signage around the city to prepare recommendations for future pedestrian and bicycle wayfinding signage improvements. And finally, the city of Snowqualami and the city of Northbend held an joint economic development commission meeting on February 18th to identify mutual priorities for economic growth and opportunities for partnership and collaboration on mutual goals. The commissioners coalesed around five common prior priorities which included mountain town character, business and entrepreneur support, family friendly, familyfriendly communities, city beautifification, and affordable housing. Uh the Northband Economic Development Commission will meet on March 26 to review the priorities and discuss next steps. Thank you very much. Uh let's move on to introductions. Item number five, ordinance amending NBMC chapter 1720, uh, binding site plans. Mr. McCartney, would you take it away?

Yeah, thank you, mayor. So, I'm bringing you the planning commission's recommendation on amendments to the city's binding site plan regulations in chapter 1720 of our municipal code. So, binding site plans are a alternative form of land division that's authorized by the state subdivision statute. Um, they provide a somewhat simpler alternative to a conventional subdivision. Uh and historically they've been used principally just for dividing land for commercial and industrial zoned land as well as for mobile home parks and condominiums. Um the state legislature in recent years though has really focused on trying to make housing more um easy to develop and they passed Senate Bill 5611 which amended uh the state uh subdivision regulations to expand the availability of the use of binding site plans also now to multifamily residential uses as well. So this will provide greater flexibility for dividing land for these multif family residential development projects. So staff have prepared amendments to our binding site plan regulations. They're fairly straightforward amendments um in chapter 1720 for consistency with the state legislation. Planning commission held a public hearing on February 4th. They did not receive any comments and they provided a recommendation of approval. So staff recommend approval as well to make sure that our regulations are consistent with state law.

Thank you very much. Okay. Any clarifying questions from council? Um, Miss Rustic, um, yes, I read I read through all of it and, uh, it it was relatively straightforward. Um, but at a higher level, and if you don't have a good example, can you give an example of something that somebody couldn't subdivide before, but maybe can now, just to put to context the the change of the words.

U, sure. If it's a a multif family project like apartments as opposed to condominiums and it were located in a multifamily zone, previously they would not be able to use the binding site plan process to create um division of the lots. Um they can do that now through this amendment. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions from council? This is Colen. If you are adding to your property, how do you ensure that there is enough water or sewage capacity?

So, the city has concurrency regulations which is a test of municipal services and that's required for any development project regardless of whether it's multifamily, commercial, etc. And there's a concurrency test that evaluates capacity for water service against our water level of service standards and sewer service against our sewer level of service standards. And if a development cannot pass those level of service standards with the added impact of the development, we cannot approve that development because it would fail the concurrency test. You sure can.

Sorry. In alignment with that question, what about um parking and and roadways? Does that fall under that same category? Uh streets, yes, we have street level of service standards that evaluates impacts to our intersections um and traffic flow as well as uh certain uh standards concerning uh bicycles. Um not for parking. We have do have separate parking regulations though that developments are required to comply with. Anybody else from council have any clarifying questions to ask Mr. Ricardi?

No. Okay. I believe this came through CED. Miss Toruson, would you like to make the motion? Certainly. Oh, I'm on the right page. All right. Um, motion to approve AB26-025, an ordinance amending Northbend Municipal Code Chapter 17.20 binding site plans as a first and final reading. Do we have a second? Second.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McFarland. Uh, Miss Torus, do you would you like to add anything else or comment? it. This is just seems to be a logical step in keeping our code nice and clean. It just seems to be practical. Thank you very much. Mr. McFarland, do you have anything you'd like to add? Nothing to add. Thank you, sir. Anybody else on council have any comments to make? No. Seeing none. Okay. Uh motion. Let's go on. Motion to approve AB26-025, an ordinance amending North Bend Municipal Code Chapter 17.20 20 binding set site plans as a first and final reading. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion. Okay. Uh motion passes unanimously. Thank you. One and all. Okay. Moving on to item number six, another ordinance amending NBMC chapter 2008, comprehensive plan and development regulation amendment procedures. Back to you, Mr. McCarti. All right.

Thank you. Um, chapter 208 contains the procedures by which the city considers amendments to both the comprehensive plan and our development regulations. And within that, there are certain criteria that guide the decision-making process or the uh recommending body from the planning commission and ultimately the city council. Um, one of the things that we considered with the work plan for the year ahead is how can we increase efficiency? So, we're having to do more with less staff or more more constantly more permitting with not necessarily greater staff. And so efficiency is a really important factor. So as a part of that, we wanted to add a criteria um for efficiency specifically to this evaluation process. And opening that up, we also found that there were other criteria that we wanted to consider uh specifically um fiscal impacts. when an amendment to the comprehensive plan or development regulations come forward, how does that impact the city's long-term financial picture? Um, and then uh there were additional impacts uh through that process that we wanted to elaborate on. What were the adjacency impacts when an amendment comes forward? How does that impact adjacent properties or neighborhoods? Um how does it also impact uh the environmental quality? um how does it impact impact equity or how those impacts might um have an impact on those that are economically or socially disadvantaged and then also what are cultural impacts how revisions might impact cultural resources. So we've added these criteria to that process and the planning commission provided a hearing on February 4th. They considered comment received from the Stocomi tribe which the amendments have incorporated and following that public hearing the planning commission recommended approval. So staff also recommend approval. We believe this provides a more comprehensive and well-rounded basis for making recommendations and

ultimately decisions on code amendments and comp plan amendments. Thank you, Mr. McCartney. Any clarifying questions for Mr. McCarti? No. Seeing none. Okay. believe this came through CED again. So, Miss Torres, please make the motion. Sure. Uh motion to approve AB26-026, an ordinance amending Northbend Municipal Code Chapter 20.08, Comprehensive Plan and Development Regulation Amendment Procedures as a first and final reading. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second.

Thank you. Um Miss Torus, would you like to comment to your motion? Uh yeah, I think this is a nice first step of um as we're trying to make things easier for um our staff and and making decision- making. Uh I think this is a great thing to do. So I agree with it. Wonderful. Uh Miss Rustic comment. Um I appreciate the uh efficiency improvements and I also appreciate the Snowcomi tribe taking the time to make their comments. um they always contribute things that I know I wouldn't have thought of and I I do appreciate that and I appreciate that we've uh take those into consideration and make some adjustments. So,

thank you very much. Anybody from from council who wish to have a comment, Mr. McFarland? Um no real comments on on the AB itself, but I'll take the opportunity to again thank the planning commission for their work. This is an example of one of the tough kind of an issues that comes through and they have to wade through so much uh to get there and it's always a good feeling for me at this level to be able to say I agree with the planning commission's recommendation. Thank you sir. Um Mr. Joselyn I think I see your hand on there.

Yes. Thank you your honor. I just wanted to echo uh all the previous comments in particular council member Rustica and reaching out to the tribe. Uh clearly the feedback provided on this particular uh agenda bill is indicative of their willingness uh and thoroughess and in engaging with the city and being responsive and I think helping us uh do better. And similarly, council member McFarland identifying staff and the planning commission both as uh doing their due diligence, being forwardlooking and inclusive in their in their work and efforts and I uh am in support. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Did I get everybody? Okay. Motion to approve AB26-025, an ordinance amending Northbend Municipal Code Chapter 17.20 binding site plans as a first and final reading. All in favor of clarification.

Oh yeah. Um it's 26. What? AB26. Thank you so much. Do you want me to read that over because it's quite There's 20 de Let's do it again. My apologies. Uh motion to approve AB26-026, an ordinance amending MBMC chapter 20.08 comprehensive plan and development regulation amendment procedures as a first and final reading. All in favor? I I

Any opposed? Uh thank you all. Uh that passes unanimously and thank you for bringing that up, Susan. Appreciate it. Okay, moving on to item number seven, another ordinance amending 2025 to 2026 budget. Mr. Chaw, love to hear from you tonight and thank you. Thank you, mayor. Uh, for the record, Martin Shaw, finance director. Uh, council members, this is item number six on your agenda packet. Uh, this is the um an ordinance amending the 2526 budget um BA number four. Uh, I have a slide up on screen. Let me pull this up. Um this uh ordinance council uh makes several amendments to the um uh to the bal budget. Uh first of all, it amends the fund balances for 2025. Um this reflects technical adjustments that were made uh following the 2023 audit that just concluded as well as the 2026 beginning fund balance which reflect actual financial performance at the end of 2025. Uh also included in this budget amendment are carry forward budgeted grants uh which we had budgeted in 2025 but um at the end of the year were not received. So therefore we we are simply rebudgeting those into 2026. Uh this uh budget amendment also amends uh 2026 interfund transfers for the uh timing of uh CIP expenditures. Um and then lastly, it amends the 2026 expected utility rate revenues uh to reflect the recent um utility rate adjustments that the council approved um uh in under ordinances 1849 and 1850 and that those include the water and sea rate um ordinances. Uh this item was reviewed by the FNA

committee on March 3rd as uh council member Rustik uh referenced earlier with a due pass recommendation. And that concludes my my remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chaw. Any clarifying questions from Mr. Cha? Oh, sure. Mr. Trumala, can you um explain the carry forward budgeted grants expected but not received? How many those were? Why why we didn't receive?

Yes. Uh these primarily reflect um the uh the uh grants uh that we budgeted for the uh railroad project. Um because of timing of expenditures uh those reimbursements did not come in yet in 2025 and therefore we're carrying forward those to 2026. Thank you. Any other further clarifying questions from council, Mr. Cha? Nope. Okay. Um, let's flip over to Okay, I think this is you, Miss Rustic, is it not? Yes. Okay. Would you mind making the motion? I will. Thank you.

Perfect. A motion to approve AB26-027, an ordinance amending the 2025 2026 budget as adopted in ordinance number 1823 and as amended by ordinance 1826, 1837, and 1847 as a first and final reading. Do I have a second? Oh, thank you, Mr. McFarland. Uh, Miss Rustic, would you like to speak to your motion? I have nothing really to add for it. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. McFarland. Anything you'd like to add? Uh, just note thank you for reading that motion. Yeah.

And, uh, I just note to the rest of the council, there were a couple items um, originally in this budget amendment that came to FNA that we chose to, uh, defer to a later time. So, they are not in there. Um, and I just want to make sure you're aware of that and you might call those out, Martin. Thank you.

Oh, you bet, Councilman. Um, so there were two items that were included uh in the original ordinance. Uh, council members, uh, the first one was creation of a public arts fund. Um this fund would be funded through seed monies as part of a um as part of development revenues that were received over and above uh expectations. Uh during discussion with FNA, uh the um the committee recommended that instead of creating that new fund as part of this budget amendment that we should take it up as part of the budgeting process for 2027 and 28 and and that and that works fine. Uh the second item is a um uh was a identification of a uh contract for uh the um uh for economic development uh for the 230 main project. And uh through that discussion, the uh committee recommended that we uh also defer that uh for further discussion with um during work study with uh with council and then we bring that forward once council approves.

Martin, can I add to that too? There will also be an amendment for um Pedigrew Consulting, the lobbyist that we've hired for project 34. So that was going to be called out separate when we bring his contract forward for that budget amendment as well. So that was also removed. Thank you for that. Thank you. Y any other council members have a comment to make? Anybody online? Gentlemen? Nope. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh motion to approve AB26-027, an ordinance amending the 2025 2026 budget as adopted in ordinance number 1823 and as amended by ordinances 1826, 1837, and 1847. as a first and final reading. All in favor? I I

Any opposed? Thank you all, your honor. I I couldn't get to mute in time. I was an I on the Thank you. Yep. Thank you so much. I love the clarity. Most appreciated. Uh that passes unanimously. Thank you again. Um our final inter uh let's see final item is a a motion authorizing contract with Clark Nubber for federal grant advisory services. Back to you, Mr. Chaw.

Right. Thank you, Mayor. Again, for the record, Martin Shaw, finance director. Um, also online, council members, is uh Jen Keller. Uh, she's principal uh uh in charge of the study from Clark Nubber. She's available to answer help answer any questions if you do have any. Uh, this is agenda item number seven in your packets, council members, AB26-028. Uh again, as the mayor mentioned, this would be a um we're seeking a motion to authorize an agreement with Clark Nubber for federal grant advisory services. In terms of uh background council, uh grant revenues is a large part or large segment of our city business. Um in your agenda bill on page um 73 uh we have a graphic showing that over the past 10 years we've received about $16 million of grant funding uh primarily for the CIP. Um city does a great job in terms of soliciting or seeking grants and and um and uh getting those awarded. However, the management of grants uh is just as important as receiving those grants. Uh many grants comes with conditions of award. Uh and uh grants do also come uh particularly federal grants uh comes with requirements to comply with the uniform guidance which is uh the code of federal regulations to CFR uh 200. The public policy objectives of this proposal uh council is to uh focus on reducing and mitigate mitigating audit risks and again those goes back to uh the conditions of the award and compliance with uh federal regulations. Uh the proposal here is also consistent with industry best practices uh as recommended by the uh governmental

finance officers association as well as the m municipal research services center. Uh this next slide um is just a detail of the uh um of past grant awards uh won as well as lost in 2026 and 25 and then going back several years prior to that. So as you can see on this chart um for example in 2026 uh we won four awards um totaling about uh $3 million. Uh those include uh sidewalk gaps project, complete streets and over as well as a street overlay project. Um and in 2025 uh there were five grants that were uh one uh the largest of which was for the railroad crossing project and that's the project that I just referenced earlier for council member uh Tremolada as well as the North Benway Bridge uh replacement project. And then as you can see towards the bottom bottom half of this worksheet a large grant that we won uh several years ago was for about 10.2 million. This was for the South Fork um extension. So again the purpose of this was just to show you how uh number one how robust our program is and then number two uh the uh the uh value of uh these grants. So the proposed goal before council uh includes two phases. The first one uh is for Clark Nubber to perform a a review of our current processes, procedures and tools that are used to govern the day-to-day management of grants. And this review would be uh would be an endto-end review from grant inception to closeout. And then based upon the uh knowledge

gained from phase one, uh the second phase would include uh recommended strategies to strengthen uh streamline uh our existing processes with recommended recommendations for uh process procedures and uh tools improvement. again focused on risk mitigation and um uh uh risk um risk avoidance. Uh total cost of this project is $40,000. Um it'll take approximately four months to complete. Um our plan is to spread this cost out amongst um the five major funds that receive grants throughout the city. that includes the general fund, transportation, and the three utility programs, water, sewer, and storm water. Uh, this item was reviewed by FNA on March 3rd uh with a due pass recommendation to um uh to council. That concludes my remarks. Um again, myself and uh Jen Keller, who's online, would be available to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chaw. Um anybody in council have any questions? Mr. trim. Um when well I should actually say have we ever uh had a study like this or uh and if so when was the last time we did this? Oh we've never had a study like this. Thank you.

Yes, Miss Torus. So, I'm going to try and summarize how I think what I think this is and um what I'm gathering is that we're going to have consultants come in and look at the processes on how after we've applied for grants that we go through the stages of tracking the grants and the the requirements that are required by the city to complete as a result of said grants because everybody's got different rules. rules and regs. Um, so that so what this is saying is that the the consultants are going to come out and take a look at how we're doing business now and then try to give us recommendations on how to do it better or maybe to do some sort of additions to it. Is there I I I feel like there's a lot of time being done. I feel like this could be done quicker. So, I'm I'm wondering why it one it costs so much and two, how come it takes so long? Like, it seems like it's a very specialized focus kind of deal. So, um I guess I'm looking for a little bit more clarity on all of that.

Sure. Um Jen, are you online? Are you able to answer the timeline question?

Yeah. Um so, it's a two-phed approach. The first phase takes about two months and that's where we get all of your documents that we need to review. We review the documents. We also like to interview staff and just between all of the reviews and people's schedules and getting everyone interviewed. That takes about two months. And then the second process um is that we provide you then with the recommendations um to make improvements uh and highlight things that are going well um and things that need maybe to be tweaked and things that need to be started. Um and we provide you then templates as well for policies and procedures to help you on that journey and to help you implement uh and address those recommendations. That then goes to your staff. um to amend. And that time frame I gave two months for because it really depends on capacity internally and how fast they're able to turn them around. But then once all of those are addressed and turned around, they come back to us for a final review just to make sure that any of the edits don't edit out the required requirements and that they're still compliant once it they've been tweaked to fit the city's needs. And so that part can take anywhere from well it just depends on the capacity and availability of the the staff to amend those policies but the part that we're actively working on is about two months. Miss Colen,

um I'm struggling with us always needing consultants for everything and I'm wondering is there not a way that we can do this inhouse and figure it out ourself where we have a dictionary that looks up all the different grants that says this is where you need to dot your eyes and cross your keys and can we not do this ourselves and save $40,000?

Yep. Councilwoman um Colon Certainly that's a certainly that's a very legitimate question and we could attempt to prepare this type of review inhouse. Um I'm not a grants expert. Uh neither is Elaine. However, that doesn't mean that we couldn't do it. Uh we could um I have I have a little bit of familiar familiarity with two CFR 200 guidelines. Uh the part that we really depend on uh from the grant writer. So staff that actually writes the grants is their familiarity and their and their role and responsibility for ensuring that accurate records are kept and that those records are submitted on time and accurately to the grtor. Uh so there's a partnership involved uh that's that's required. Um, and this type of review has not ever been done before at the city. Uh, we are um, uh, getting to a size where the grant awards that we're receiving are getting to a value where they're triggering um, uh, what's called a single audit. And this was discussed uh, this morning uh, with council member Rustic as well as the mayor as part of our exit interview with the state auditor's office. Um, so in short answer to your question, um, Councilwoman Colin, uh, yes, you know, if, um, if council wishes, uh, you can direct staff to prepare this in-house. Um, uh, we, uh, we will, you know, we can do that. Uh the risk that we have is um again Elaine and I aren't grant experts and you know to the extent that something gets missed or or falls

through the cracks as part of our um you know u you know what you know we don't know what we don't know. So, so that's the risk, Mr. Tremlot.

Um, so the way I'm thinking about this in my experience is we would do this every day of the week in the private sector, right? We'd hire Accenture, Mckenzie, BCG, whoever, optimize, we're not doing, we're doing great, we want to do better, we're not doing great, we need to fix the problems. um is the intent and the intent here is right it's a study with best practices so that we it's not like we're hiring Grant Newber and definitely it's for the best practices that we then bring in house and provide our staff and our team a way to do this better internally and I think for me I mean grant writing especially in the public sector I mean it's a revenue stream right like that's we should in my opinion I'm looking at this as I would um you know economic development and so if there's a way to ensure we're getting the grants at the pace that we're getting them now and additionally find a way to increase that in the future. Um, am I looking at that the way staff's looking at this is like how do we optimize and get better? Okay.

Right. And if I could add to that, uh, for example, on the previous slide, let me pull that up. uh 2020 uh six um we were award we won four awards totaling about uh $2 million or um guess almost three million excuse me and you know one way to look at that councilman is the uh is the cost benefit right right an investment of 40 $40,000 uh four months of effort uh for protection against um uh about almost $3 million worth of outsight funding. Yeah. Thank you.

If I could add just one more thing, at the last TBW meeting, I brought forward to the committee a list of grants we're going after right now, and it's in the 14 to 15 different, you know, different types of grants we're going after. They all have different requirements for reporting, reimbursements, uh, throughout the length of the contract. Um, it's just a lot. In the last 3 to four years, we were getting $200,000 grants from a few agencies that were pretty easy to work with, and now we're just we're going after so much funding now. That's that's kind of the onus on my end of this. M uh Mr. Torson,

just a quick question. Do we have any sort of tracking system to track these grants? Like I don't know, is it an Excel spreadsheet or a software program that we're tracking so we know when we need to do the next milestone? As of right now, it's just a simple I mean using Excel sheets, tracking it through our um project management system. Uh we do have a with our IWorks asset management system. There is a grants module attached to that that we're not using right now. Um we want to potentially go through this contract to see how we can use that. So that would be this contract would help us figure out how we would use that grants module.

Yeah. Um, Heather, I think Brennan's a little bit before you. I apologize. Brendan,

thank you, your honor. Yeah, I I'll echo um Council Member Chalada's point of view on this. I I see this as an investment, quite frankly, and being involved in nonprofits and, you know, everybody's got their day jobs and we're doing everything to try to get, you know, keep the keep the business going. um bringing in an expert consultant that can help you just become better and is is a good thing especially when money's involved and I saw on that slide that you had up previously Martin I mean there's a lot of lost revenue there too and if you start adding those dollars and cents up that's a meaningful loss right so yes we've been successful there's been some meaningful gains but when I when I consider this particular item as it's coming before us I see it as is is it an enrichment and investment in our staff to become even better at what they do and it'll be kind of like a leave behind best practices type of things. They're always a good things. I think the $40,000 when you're looking at the relative scale of the grant revenues we're trying to get is a drop in the bucket from my personal opinion. So, uh I I I applaud staff to say, "Hey, look, we know what we know and we we know that there's a lot that we don't know. So, let's get some experts in here to really help us to become even more efficient and and streamline our processes and actually increase our odds at securing some more funding. So, I I will be supporting this. Thank you, your honor.

Just a point of order, your honor. I believe we're on clarifying questions. Oh, thank you. Sorry, Mark.

Yes. Thank you. Um, this council member Colen, I believe that if we did it in house and it would be hard, we would learn the hard way but the right way and we could essentially get a dictionary that said, "Oh, this grant you need to do blah blah blah and this grant you need to do blah blah blah and we don't need to pay $40,000 to tell someone what to do and then we still don't know what they're telling us in my opinion.

Mayor, can I add something real quick to I just wanted to clarify something that um council member Elwood said is we're looking at this. We have three people in our whole entire city that write grants. So we have someone on the capital side, someone that does it for CD, and it's very limited. Then you have the back half of that. And to to your point of bringing someone in that can say from pre-awward to award to the contract to who's managing the contract to all those A, B, CD, DE, how do we deploy staff to help those only three people that we have? And a lot of that is um someone in our, you know, capital side going out for these projects. And quite frankly what Tom said we were going after lowerhanging fruit of of agencies we'd worked with before to bring in that revenue stream to get these projects completed. We have to be a lot more aggressive and with aggressive we need to have effective practices from start to finish. So that's a piece of this as we're looking at that as that opportunity to be able to capture more of these funds and do it efficiently.

Thank you very much. Any other additional clarifying clarifying? Oh

thank you. Um, I got I'm conflicted on this one. First off, this is a drop in the bucket in most regards. 40 grand. I mean, in the scheme of things, yes. And so, I don't disagree with uh Council Member Tremolada and and Elwood's comments in that regard. Uh, I but I am also troubled by a couple of things. And so, um, part of it comes out of the high regard of which I hold the finance department. Um, so I've got two perhaps three questions. So first one, Martin, in the proposal for phase one, it speaks to the need to review the city's current grants, management systems, including staffing, technology, processes, procedures, tools, funding, uh, you know, and includes a focus on the day-to-day management of grants, including procedures for building and reimbursements, current processes from grant intake to closeout. Question is, Isn't that a fundamental responsibility of your department? My answer to that is um uh no. The fun fundamental responsibility for ensuring the management the compliance and the um and the um the compliance with grant requirements is with the grant writer. Okay, that I think that leads me immediately to a different question because I thought I did hear earlier you you make a reference that this perhaps was oriented towards uh asking the grants manager or whatever the appropriate title would be uh to be the primary lead on tracking and submitting these accounting reports. Is that correct? Is that what this is oriented?

Yes, that's correct and that is what's happening now. So for example, Dan Meno who's our grant writer who secures many of these grants uh he is the one that u maintains the paper records again it's all on Excel uh and he submits the reimbursement requests to the grant uh u to the grant granting agency including if there's I'm assuming that different agencies probably have different forms that are required to be filled out as part of that that includes that absolutely Okay. And is responsible for tracking the actual accounting.

The actual accounting is tracked uh by finance.

By finance. Okay. Um so my first question related to the the first phase or first task in there. Uh my second or third I guess question is paraphrasing contract goes on to speak to uh Clark Nubber deliverables to provide recommendations templates to strengthen and streamline city's grants program and management um uh to align with industry best practices policies and procedures and provide the technical guidance to ensure organizational resources are properly aligned. I presume those will largely be based on federal grant policies andor others that um may be involved there and they note that it's uh going to be heavily relying on their procedure library that they maintain. Would you agree that that level of specific knowledge is outside of your typical scope of city finance department?

Yes, I would agree. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I again I I'm I'm torn between feeling that maybe we need a little rescoping here and saying it's 40 grand. Let's move on. So, thank you. Anybody else or clarifying questions? Seeing none. Okay. Um I think this is back to you, Mr. Rustik. Make the motion.

Okay. Yes. Yeah. Motion to approve AB26-028. Authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Clark Nubber for federal grant advisory services in a form and content acceptable to the city attorney in an amount not to exceed 40,000. Can I get a second? Second.

Mr. Johnson, we go with Mr. Johnson on there. Thank you very much. Second by Mr. Johnson. Um Mr. Rustic, would you like to add or add to your comment? Well, I appreciate the council's uh questions and conversation about, you know, utilizing what limited resources we have. You know, there's no I I keep saying there's no stone that we want to leave unturned and really understand where our money is going. Um with that said, um this is a risk mitigation um contract that we are ensuring that we aren't spending $40,000 in penalties down the road that we're able to continue to get grants. And so I think this is uh perhaps uh a good a better way to use it proactively. Um, I like the the templates that will be provided because we have an excellent staff, but we know that you're not going to be wanting to be here forever. Some of you uh, you know, might have other things you want to do. And this will give us an opportunity to have a standard practice where somebody else comes into the role, they can just pick up these standardized templates and process and be able to keep keep the train going, shall we say. So, for that reason, I will support this tonight. Thank you so much. Uh Mr. Mr. Jocelyn, would you like

Yes, thank you. I want to echo e echo council member Rustik's assessment. You know, one of the primary duties that we were assigned as a council is fiduciary uh oversight and management. Uh this is a risk mitigation issue and and protecting the city from liability going forward. I have during my time on council been so impressed with uh staff's continuous and so often successful efforts to bring in grant funding. We were just told the slide that was on the screen $3 million in grants are close to that is anticipated. That's 25 to 30% of the city's general fund in a given year. uh the other information that was provided in the council packet and don't quote me precisely on this cited you know 2015 to 2025 um 15.6 million uh in grants. Well, if you take the $40,000 that we're being asked to uh provide here and spread it over just a single year, that's 2.8% of the grant amount. If you spread it over the 11 years that that money came in in the past, that's less than 20 one quarter of 1% per year that we're allocating to uh you know mitigate risk. Um, and if if you take the $40,000 and spread it over the single year of $3 million worth of grant funding, that's just over one that our staff works hard to bring in. Save our taxpayers money and or improve the quality of life because we're able to build more things and provide better service and provide higher levels of service without uh burdening our taxpayers. And so while $40,000 is not an insignificant amount of money, uh I believe it's money well spent and I will be supporting this this evening. Thank you, your honor.

Thank you very much. Anybody else from council wish to come? Mr. Torus, then Mr. Trimmla. Oh yeah,

it's me. It's me. Okay. Um yeah. No, I'm in support of this. Um I think it's important that we have our ducks in a row. I think it's important that we understand the games of the rules of the games and and um I think by having um a consultant I mean we probably could learn it on our own but that would take time and we could lose deals in the in the process. So having consult consultant um giving us advice, giving us tool um tools for our our toolbox um can help us uh get there faster and win more deals and and I think it's a win-win in in the long run. So that's why I'm going to support it. Thank you, Mr. Tremolan.

Yeah. Uh I'm definitely going to support this. And I think to put it in better context maybe for the rest of the group, I think a less sophisticated staff or city government would have put up those slides and could have easily made the same argument to us and said, "We need another FTE, right? We we're we're doing so well, but look, we lost all these grants. We just don't have the time. The there's 45 different papers to fill out. We can only focus on 20% of them." Um, but they didn't, right? They tried to come. They're bringing us an opportunity to optimize the staff that they had, which I also include that they're hearing us as a council as we've been talking about budget and how we want to be as nimble and frugal as we can as we're planning ahead and I and you know trying to get the best out of the folks that we have and and train and maybe get better at that. So, I think this is actually holistically um exactly what I would have asked for right six months ago when we talked about budget and where we want to go because of course I want to seek more funding. I want to get better at what we're at, what we're doing, but I think this is actually um very comprehensive and a strategic approach listening to council and what we've been saying and also um trying to achieve what we want, which is more revenue, more grants, more opportunities for our city. So, I appreciate the fact that you're bringing this to us and and not necessarily uh hey, we need more help cuz I mean I know at least in my world, everyone needs an extra set of hands if we could get them. Um but I think this makes sense. Um, this is certainly a step in the right direction. Um, and I would support this and hope we we we all can and then we'll evaluate where we're at at the end of that and and and next year and see where we've gone. So, I appreciate that.

Excellent. Anybody else I might have missed? Mr. McFarland, of course.

Thank you. Um, this is exactly the conversation that I was hoping that we would have tonight. Um, and that was, I think, the committee's, um, uh, feeling on why we wanted it on the main agenda. And so, uh, I appreciate the conversation. Following up on, uh, Council Member Termolada's comments there, exactly right, that if and to be clear with staff, this isn't this isn't saying, hey, you're not doing your job. It's making sure that we understand what's going on and how you're approaching it. Um, I I will say I'm going to remain concerned um because it seems to be more oriented towards our grant writer than I had understood it to be. Um, so it seems a little odd to be in finance. So, I'm still in my mind a little bit with that. Um, but to particularly do the comment about, hey, it's not coming forward saying we need more staff. Yes, that's a good one. Um, but I'm also concerned for existing uh staff and grant writer that uh that this study comes out putting more expectations uh on what I think is already a loaded position. I would be concerned with that. So, I look forward to seeing the the recommendations that that come out of this study and and so yes, of course, I'll I'll support the effort to figure it out. Very good. Did I catch everybody? I think I did. Well, okay. All right. With that, uh, motion to approve AB26-028, authorizing the mayor to enter into agreement with Clark for federal grant advisory services in a form and content acceptable to the city attorney in an amount not to exceed $40,000. Uh, all in favor?

I. Any. So, that was all. Heather, did you vote? I didn't hear. I'll answer as an I. What was that? I'm sorry. You don't answer. It's an I. Okay. Okay. That's motion passes unanimously. I think we got it all. Okay. Thank you everybody. That wraps up our introductions. We're going to move on to mayor council administrative concerns and initiatives. And just let it be known that we have an executive session uh right after. So uh let's start with our gentleman online. First and foremost, Mr. Jocelyn, if you have anything to mention or say tonight.

Uh, sure. This is going to be a funny one, but it does bring it home to the our daily lives and things thing things we experience. Uh, I'm a dog owner. Uh, she so wants to be good. She needs a herd of sheep. She We did not buy a dog that matches our lifestyle. I walk her regularly on a regular route. I cross these days Side View Park and the and the path south of the apartments there on Orchard Drive. And I have been so severely disappointed recently at the failure of some members of our community to pick up after their dogs. I will not go into specifics about the amount of other people's dog poop that I have removed out of the park. and and part of it they they put laid new electrical lines over the new park district headquarter building and put in wood chips and somehow that empowered any number of people to decide that that was a good place to take their dogs and fail to pick up after them. And I just got to say that you know with being a dog owner comes a civic responsibility to police your pets. And so please folks uh I would encourage you to do so. And picking up off that thread, I just wanted to share this piece that was in today's Seattle Times and I'm just going to read it real briefly because I it really hit home to me and it's on a a similar uh train of thought. Uh the Department of Ecology for the state of Washington said, and the Washington State Department of Transportation spent more than $17 million cleaning up litter across our state in 2025. Crews picked up more than 6.2 million pounds of litter over 19,000 miles of roadway in 2024, the most recent year with finalized totals. The pickup numbers are big, but they're still just

a fraction of the 38 million pounds that gets littered each year along roads and in public areas. Ecology said that's about five pounds of litter for every single resident in our state. So, I just want to leave us all with that thought and we can all do our own part of putting little trash cans in our cars and making sure that things that we do dispose of end up in the waist stream and not on the landscape. Uh, and with that, I will pass it along. Thank you, your honor. Thank you so much. Uh, Mr. Elwood, thank you. And nothing tonight. Okay. Thank you very much, Miss Torus.

Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, I just wanted to uh I have three comments um or ideas, items, whatever you want to call it to share tonight. Um, first I wanted to talk about um this last week our windstorms, snow removal, um power outages for me, generator that didn't work. Um, and I want to give a huge thank you to all the people that were out there taking care of us. Um, first our public works team out there clearing the debris and removing snow. And then, um, kudos to the PSE and Tanner Electric. They were out there, you know, pretty dangerous conditions, trees down and, you know, live wires, etc. And then they're restoring our power. Um, and then our first responders, they were super busy, too. Um, especially Battalion Chief Cody Ramstad from East Side Fire and Rescue, a mother to be on Mount Side Road, went into active labor. Because of the fallen trees, the road was completely blocked. Uh, no emergency vehicles could come to her assistance. So, uh, he parked his vehicle and walked in and, um, they continued to walk down the road going through trees. uh Tanner Electric came and cleared some trees for them and made sure the electrical wires weren't live in front of them and um they met up with them and then they walked back to his car and then he drove them to the hospital and they had a little baby boy. So that was pretty exciting. Um very proud of Chief uh a battalion chief uh Ramstead. Um and I think it's pretty cool the very heart touching little uh story there. Um, and also I want to say kudos to our own uh, Chief Gary as this is his last uh, meeting with us and uh, thank you for your service. Um, really enjoyed having you at all of our public uh, health and safety meetings and um, uh, you've been

a super help in so many ways. I can't even say it all. So I just want to give you a good kudos on that. Um my second uh item is um I wanted to talk about like we were talking about grants tonight and um you know Mark um or Dan Marino has done an excellent job of grant writing for us. You know so so appreciative of what he's done for us. Um, and I just wanted to say, um, last year, the session just closed on March 11th, right? Last year, um, I learned that there were some opportunities and Dan wrote up, um, one of the the funding requests for the Cedar Falls sidewalk lighting project and unfortunately, we didn't get it. And then the city, I guess, applied for it again this year, and again, we didn't get it. So, um, it wasn't because of Dan, but it was just bummer. We just didn't get on the list. Um, but what I did last year is, uh, I went to Olympia to advocate for it. And the way you do that is you, you make appointments with all the reps. Um, you get exactly 15 minutes, that's it, and then you're out. And so, you got to advocate for for what you want. Um, I'm I'm thinking that maybe as a group we might want to do more of that, both the city as well as council members going forward because there's a lot of money there that we potentially could pick up besides grant writing that um we're doing in other areas. And um I I learned that Carnation was granted funds for their roundabout, which is very cool because they really needed it. But I also learned that they were constant they were the squeaky wheel. They were calling, they were going there, and that's maybe that's something that we all can do as well. Um, and uh, who else? I think there was another organiz Oh, kudos to James because he got our feasibility study, $200,000. I won't go into the details. That'll be at the work study, but that's awesome. We're going to have that for project 34. Um, so anyways, that was my point is I just

think that maybe we should be able to as a group maybe get more involved in that. And then my last topic um because this is you know we have these open meeting laws as council members we don't really get a chance to talk to each other right so I think this is a a great forum in which to do that and so um at our last uh council meeting back in December um I requested a budget um versus actual report for personal expenses and I thought it was really helpful for us to take a look at that. Um, so what I would like to do is build on that and going in the future is to to see if we can get um a report like that every month because that would be really helpful to all of us since that's our fiduciary responsibility is to look at the numbers and by having it monthly it'll give us an opportunity just to really be knowing what's going on and we can act on something sooner if we if we need to. So, um I'm requesting that we have this report and I'm making that quest to our city chair um um chair Rustic on the finance administration committee. My hope is that they'll talk about it and maybe they can work with the finance director to do something with that starting with um all the funds on the general fund and um looking for feedback from the rest of council if they like this idea. And um with that, that is concluding my concerns and initiatives for this evening. Wonderful. Uh, Miss Cohen, do you have anything you'd like to say?

This is kind of silly, but I'm just going to add on to Council Member Joselyn's poop talk. Um, there is you can use a used Pringles can, put a string through it and put your poop bags in it and then close the lid and carry your poop home until you get ready to dispose of it. And I thought that was a very useful idea. And that's what I have for tonight. And thank you TPW.

Well, a lot of thinking out of the box. Almost literally there. Good job. Um, let's see, Miss Rustic, thank you. I can't top that and I because I don't have a dog, so I wouldn't have had that idea. But anyway, um, so, uh, thank you, Councilman Bird Torus, and we will, uh, put that on the finance committee agenda, uh, your recommendation for that and have more discussion about it. Um, I just wanted to thank uh, yes, public works, uh, snow removal, tree limbs down. It's been kind of a crazy, uh, a week. Um, who would think it was spring? Who would think it was baseball season, right? Um, and a thank you to uh, Chief Heracy for all of your support, and we still look forward to seeing you around town. Okay. Um and then finally um there's been quite a bit of uh public conversation about a battery storage facility that is proposed for um it's in King County um closer to the city of Snowqualami but when a project like that is proposed um it's it's impacts Snowqualami and Northbend residents alike and so there was something posted tonight I guess they were having a meeting up at the club at Nocomi ridge earlier unfortunately due to this meeting uh were not able to attend but they do recommend uh if you want to provide feedback or get more information uh there is a uh the King County Department of Local Services which oversees permitting in unincorporated King County a L Richardson at kingcount.gov gov. Um, that's where you should send your comments or uh definitely encourage people to uh send comments to council member Sarah Perry, King County Council member. So anyway, as we get more information, uh happy we'll share it, but I think it's something that I know a

lot of residents are are thinking about right now. That's all I had. Very good. Okay, Mr. Trill, thank you.

Yeah. Uh I will just piggyback on that item. Jupiter Power um is proposing to build and operate the Cascadia resilience resiliency energy storage facility. Um you should check it out. You should uh understand it. Um there are neighbors in Snowqualamy. And I think more importantly uh what happened tonight from what I understand was a good showing of residents that are concerned. And I think in when you live in King County and you're a small town in King County um sometimes decisions are made that you may not agree with. So, I think it's it's behooves Snowqualami and and us as a small town to understand those sort of risks and support um the louder voices uh who may not being being heard uh by the larger King County. Um I I I think I'm it's a little bit troubling uh for for the valley to see something like this. So, I hope you will check it out. Um I do want to add uh an item on mental health as I have been um throughout the year. Um nearly one in five American adults will have a diagnosible mental health condition in any given year of their life. 46% of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosible mental health condition sometime in their life. And half of those people will develop conditions by the age of 14. Um so once again uh call your friends, check on your family, check on your loved ones. Mental health matters. And if you're struggling, make sure that you don't let the hard days win. Thank you so much, Mr. McFarland.

Thank you. Um, yeah. Uh, some duplication here. Definitely. Thank you, Chief, and and all the patrol officers for their service and safety to our community. As you were walking in tonight, I thought, "This is about the last night." And there you were saying, "Yes, it was." So, I'm glad I got that opportunity. Um, shout out to organization that fellow council members involved with. He didn't speak to it tonight, but uh I went to see McBTH. My goodness, he's a McBth. He's It was did a great job. Uh Valley Center Stage continues to do awesome stuff. So, I'm giving them a shout out tonight since he didn't. Um, on a downer note, I was I was I both appreciated and was a bit appalled by uh the story from the gentleman tonight about his struggle with water metering issues in Timber Ridge and to hear how long that's been going on and particularly that he felt that he had to come here to get attention. Uh I'm I know that there's always more than one part of the story, but um uh that was a that was a little disturbing. Uh and we seem to be having a rash of of issues around water metering. And by that I mean I know of two, but they're both big. They're both big. So that that was a little worrisome. Um, way to go public works crew as always. Effective snow control uh and now general storm cleanup including what I will call the uh Mark Prey uh memorial pathway here at city hall. Very pleased that we're attending to our own frontage. Um and and thinking again that um when these snow events are coming, we need to be more mindful of reminding the public of their responsibility. That

homeowners have a responsibility for the sidewalk in front of their house. That businesses have the responsibility for the sidewalk in front of their business. And businesses generally do a better job. Uh but over the years I've been I've been very disappointed in the attentiveness of u local residents. I was one that was had the father who said get out there and start shuffling and oh by the way go to the your neighbor because he needs help. I would love love it if our community responded better there. And uh and then related to the power outage and all. Yeah. a big big shout out in many ways for uh that it wasn't as impactful as it could have been, but a major plug for the power of EVs. If every EV vehicle could power a house the way mine did, the silence in the neighborhood would be awesome. So, I give you that. Um, moving on to my regular that I've uh uh said I'm going to share with you. If you didn't happen to hear or perhaps believe my comments from our last council meeting, uh first I encourage you to go back and listen to that. Uh this week the US Senate's taking up Trump's bill to restrict your right to vote. restrict or remove it. It appears that as the attack on Americans in our city streets was becoming more negative, a war was started in its place. I don't know. Is the goal there to distract you from what is happening here at home? You you'll have to decide that. So my song for this week, this meeting

is Monster Suicide America by Stephenwolf, 1969. I continue to be trapped in the 60s. Yes. Couple of lines. Cuz the people grew fat and got lazy. Now their vote is a meaningless joke. They babble about law and order, but it's all just an echo of what they've been told. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Emory. No updates for me tonight, Mayor. Okay. Thank you very much. Sure.

Uh, one item I forgot to mention, which I would like to, is uh a big thank you and unfortunate news from Nick and Andy Springer of Bread and Bone. they announced that they are shutting the doors on their business. Um, and just reiterate to everybody that um, do your best to support our small businesses. Um, they obviously did it for a couple different reasons. Um, but we appreciate their efforts. They're a great community family. Uh, and we all loved going there. So, um, support any and all of the businesses that you can in town. Wonderful. Yeah, I was sad to hear that, too.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, good. Okay. Um, thank you Gary. We all thank you for you and all the police officers for your efforts over the last many years. So, thank you and we look forward to hearing more about your future and what you're up to and staying close. So, thank you so much. Uh, incoming police chief Ed Hall invites residents to join him in community conversation about local public safety and the city's new police department. They'll begin serving North Ben on April 1st, April Fool's Day. Um, of course, please stop by for two opportunities to connect next Wednesday, March 25th at Red Coffee from 9:00 to 10:00 or Blackwater Brewing from 5 to 6. Additional meetups are scheduled. If you were unable to attend, please check with the city's calendar and on our website. Um, please join me for a meetup mayor series uh tomorrow night. Um, that starts at 5 and goes to 6 at the Swirl Snack Shop. Uh, looking forward to seeing people and answering and helping you in any way we can. uh citizen academy is still going strong. It's been a wonderful um opportunity to have people get involved and really hear the stories and learn about our city and all everybody and all the comm community all the um efforts that we're making and all the people behind the scenes. Um anyway, that reception event will be held before our next council meeting on April 7th starting at 6:15. Please join us if you can. Recognition will occur at the beginning of the council meeting that starts at 7:00. I think that's it for tonight. We are going to go into an executive session right now to discuss potential litigation pursuant to RCW4230 uh 11101 I and to review performance of a public employee pursuant to RCW4230101G. Um, let's see. Kendra Rosenberg, our council, will be joining us tonight. And we expect to be um at least 10 minutes for each um item. And we wish you all, we'll be back, but we'll wish you all well. Okay. Thank you.