City Council - Regular Meeting

We acknowledge that this meeting is being held on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish people. We pay our respects to those past and present. Tonight's invocation will be led by Pastor Matthew Erickson from the First Reformed Church. If we could all please stand for tonight's invocation and then remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you. Let us pray. Gracious God, thank you for the gift of this community and for all who have gathered tonight to serve it. Grant our mayor, council members, and city staff wisdom in their decisions, patience in their conversations, and courage to pursue what is right and what is good. As we consider the preparedness and well-being of our city, help us care for our neighbors, honor those who protect and serve us, and faithfully steward the resources entrusted to us. Guide the work of this meeting so that it strengthens our community and serves every person who calls Oak Harbor home. May we listen with humility, speak with grace, and work together with a shared commitment to the common good. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

All right, just a reminder that this will be both a physical and a virtual meeting. The meeting may be viewed on YouTube and following the meeting on Facebook. Everyone is present and accounted for. Council Member Peterson is online participating tonight. So we're going to move into approval of the agenda. Are there any suggested changes to the regular agenda as presented? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

I move to approve tonight's agenda as presented.

Second.

All right, we have a motion to approve the agenda as presented, seconded by Council Member Wittgenstein. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Hearing, seeing none, all in favor, raise your hand. All right, we passed unanimously. Thank you very much. All right, we have a presentation tonight from the National Preparedness Month Proclamation. Here to introduce that is our Fire Chief, Travis Anderson. And then the proclamation will be read aloud by Council Member Marrow.

Mayor, Council, thank you for the opportunity to stand before you. As Mayor just mentioned, September's National Preparedness Month. I think we've all seen some of the disasters that have happened across our state, in the country, and worldwide. So it kind of drives the point home in how important it is to be prepared for those emergencies when they happen. Tomorrow we'll actually be hosting our first web EOC class for our personnel. I know we've had a lot of conversation about where we go with emergency management. I'm sure you're all familiar with the EOC that is in the fire station, was in conjunction with Highland County. That is no longer going to happen going forward. They've chosen to go down a path of wanting to just be – the traditional of just request resources for us. And so we're no longer going to be partnering together in EOC. So we're in the process of rebuilding our EOC, our training, our staff, and making sure that we are the best prepared we can. So tomorrow we are going to kick off some training. So super excited about that. And I think the proclamation's here. Up here.

When it comes to the sacrifices that have been made by emergency responders and all the different capacities, I definitely remember 9-11. It's been like yesterday and the thousands of first responders that lost their lives. So we need to be prepared. And for that reason, I'm going to read this proclamation. Whereas following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, by a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001, the Congress designated September 11 of each year as Patriot Day. And by joint resolution approved April 21, 2009, the Congress requested the observance of September 11, as an annually recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance, and whereas the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, in 2004 recognized the critical need for increased emergency preparedness and launched National Preparedness Month to take place throughout September, with the theme for 2006 being Americans Stand Ready. And whereas the American Stand Ready campaign focuses on celebrating American resourcefulness, self-reliance, and civic responsibility through patriotic duty, being prepared reduces the strain on first responders during a crisis, protecting loved ones, taking charge of household and family safety plans, and community resilience, helping neighbors and local areas get ready for potential disasters. And whereas FEMA provides the following core action steps to one, know your risk, learn what natural disasters or emergencies could happen where you live. Two, make a plan, prepare emergency contact information, meeting places and medical needs. Three, build a kit. Gather essential supplies like non-perishable food, water, and medications. Four, stay informed. Download safety apps like the FEMA app or sign up for local government alerts. And whereas taking time to prepare now can provide peace of mind when the next disaster or emergency occurs, Now, therefore, we, Mayor Ronnie Wright, and the council members of the City of Oak Harbor do hereby observe and proclaim September 2026 as National Preparedness Month. In the City of Oak Harbor, we urge all residents to prepare in advance of an emergency, take a first aid class, and take proactive approach to support our families and neighbors and community. Signed this first day of September 2026, Mayor Ronnie D. Wright.

Thank you, Council Member Romero. Thank you, Chief Anderson. Next, we have a presentation from the Washington State Ferries. It's an update, and here to introduce that is John Vecina.

Good evening. Thank you. The way most people feel about WSF, I'm always pleased when I walk in and there's a prayer and law enforcement to my right. So I'm appreciative as we move forward. I also appreciate the opportunity to talk with you all tonight and just give you an update on how we're doing. It's nice to see Jack here, the past chair of the Ferry Advisory Committee here and other friendly faces who I see at lots of meetings here. So There's some good news. Last year, about a year ago, we went back to 18 boat service. As you know, that is restoring a second boat on Port Towns in Coopville. We've done about 15,000 additional sailings in the last fiscal year over the previous. and we've maintained 98 of reliability of our sailing so obviously any cancelled sailing is impactful for our customers but knowing that we have older vessels and that we have staffing challenges we have been very honest with the public pre-covered our reliability rate number of sailings are completed that's not on time performance which i know is a separate and challenging issue was to complete 99% of our scheduled sailings. We now aim for 95, and we're routinely at 98% of those sailings being completed. We are going to, again, I'll talk about vessels, we are going to, eight days earlier than we planned, go back to one boat service on Port Towns and Coupeville because we just simply don't have enough boats. To that, in 2015 we had 25 vessels in our fleet. We need 19 to complete a full domestic and the boat that used to go to from Anacortes to Sydney. So in those days we had six extra boats that we could be doing maintenance and preservation work. We only have two shipyards currently who are doing work for us, so we need boats to be out. Since 2015, we have retired four boats. We currently have a fleet of 21. It's very challenging to run an 18-boat schedule with 21 boats and do the maintenance and reservation work you need on the three that are out. There's some work you can only do in the summer, but just with the lack of shipyard capacity, it is challenging. I also want to be honest and say that if you run a cruise line, if you run the Coast Guard, other maritime agencies, you keep your boat for 20, 25 years. We're directed by the legislature to keep ours for 60. That means that we have to do life, midterm, midlife work on this propulsion system. You can imagine if you had a 60-year-old car and you were trying to get parts for it. Some of my most, the gratitude I have for most for our employees is the people at our Eagle Harbor maintenance facility who are constantly manufacturing parts to keep older boats going because the manufacturer either no longer exists themselves or no longer makes parts. Our vessel director told me a day that the Tilikum, our oldest boat, it's in the San Juan Islands. It's 67 years old. I always joke it's the only thing older than me in Washington, which is not far from the truth. The engines in it are from World War II battleships. That's how old some of our, and we continue to work on them. They've been upgraded, but the infrastructure there. We need to keep that boat going for another four years until we get new boats. So it'll be 71, and then if we retire it, we never catch up. In the past, the legislature has retired a boat as soon as we get a new one, and that means we never catch up. And I'll talk about that in a minute. So is there someone who's advancing slides? This is dangerous with someone my age, but we'll see what happens. Okay, thank you. So coming out of the pandemic, crewing was our biggest issue. We have known, I've been in this job for 10 years in previous roles, talking to legislators, I would be very honest about the fact that more than 50% of our workforce could retire in the next five years. And we talked about the need for workforce development. But when Wenatchee needs a road and Yakima needs a bridge, we're always competing and that seems like five years down the road, we need this now. So we didn't get the funding we needed. After COVID, when people retired, some people left because of the vaccine mandate, we no longer had the capacity to do what we needed to do. So my now boss, then peer, came from Holland America. He was our vessels director. He created new programs to help unlicensed deck. So in the engine room and on the deck, we have unlicensed, entry level, and licensed. I think it's more difficult for people to think about the need for the training and credentials our licensed folk needs. If you get on an airplane, you know that pilot has gone through training and needs to have credentialing. Are the captains and the mates on our vessels and the folks in the engine room, the chief engineers, they're often responsible for thousands of people's lives as well. So it takes a significant amount of time. But as you'll see on this chart, since 2022, since we instituted these new programs, the legislature has been terrific in giving us the resources we need. In the past, if you were going to become a licensed deck officer, you had to do that all on your own time. One of the things that's most attractive to Washington State Ferries to Mariners is that they can go home at night. A lot of mariners, they go out to sea for three, four months at a time, but then happily they fall in love, and they start having children, and they no longer want to go to sea for four months at a time, so they come to work for us. And that means they can go home every night, but until recently, if they wanted to move up, they had to do it at their own time and their own expense. So my boss worked with the legislature and created new programs that we actually take them out of the fleet and we pay them to do the classwork they need to move forward. Some of the most moving meetings I've been to are the graduations of these folks where people There was a woman in tears who said, I'm a single parent. I didn't think I could possibly do this until my boys went to college. But now, because of this, I'm going to become a licensed deck officer while my younger boy is still in school. There was a man, a big working class guy, and he said, I tried so many times to do this on my own. And my wife would take the kids away, and there'd be a football game on. Or I'd get distracted with something else. But now, you're taking me out of the fleet and paying me. So you see the results. We have, both for engine room and deck, we have exponentially increased our number of employees, which is why, frankly, Governor Ferguson was able to direct us to delay some work on vessels and really focus on crewing and restoring service. So we've gone from, as I said, just after COVID, about half of our licensed deck officers, our captains, could retire in the next five years. That's down to 40%. Still super scary from my position. It's something we're working on all the time. and then chief engineers again. And one of the things I'd like to leave with you is that the captains get a lot of attention, right? You see those folks walking on the passenger deck. What you don't see is what's happening below the car deck. And that's a group of men and women who are highly skilled, who are working on the boats all the time. And in fact, We assign deck crew by the route. They need to know how you load, unload, how that route works. The engine room crew are assigned to the boat, because they need to understand how those engines are running. And they are key to what we do. And the chief engineers are on both 12-hour shifts. So they're on 12 hours for a week. They have a week off, 12 hours back and forth. Deck crew has a different schedule. So we are really focused on supporting the engine room folks because they don't get enough attention and they're the people, they can go to work at power plants, they can go to work at utility companies, they can go to work at many places. Our deck crew who are very, you know, they have pilotage, they're very trained and credentialed, but they don't have the same opportunities that the engine room crew does to go to other places. So, you know, this is a good sign and we still obviously have work to do. Just raw numbers for you to look at of the crew has increased exponentially in the last four years. We have more crew overall. We have more licensed crew. It is important to say, however, that as you see alerts for canceled sailings, we are funded to crew at the Coast Guard required minimum. If you're a captain or an engineer or an able-bodied sailor or an oiler and you wake up and you have a sick child or you get a flat tire on the way to work, we cannot sail until we crew that boat. We won't do it, we can't do it legally. If you're in the Seattle area, we can usually get, not that people who work for us can afford to live in Seattle, but if you're in that area, we can usually fill that relief request fairly quickly. If you're in the San Juans or you're in Port Townsend, Coopville, it can take a while, once we get it covered, for that crew member to get there and get that boat back in service. But again, we are doing better. Before I switch to start talking about boats, I don't know, Mayor, how you want to do this. If you want to wait till the end or if people have questions about crewing or...

They'll ask if they have them, but you can just keep going.

All right. So... We have 21 vessels. The last one was built in 2018. The legislature has to both direct us to build boats and fund us to build boats. In the last 26 years, it will be 30. The state of Washington, after the passage of I-695, we lost our dedicated funding. We have only built seven vessels, and what's now 26 will be 30 years. You can't maintain a fleet that should have 24 vessels and not be building boats. And again, they're expensive. The state transportation budget is not where it needs to be. billions of dollars short, we have $1.3 billion to build three boats. People can argue this. I'm not going to argue it. The past governor directed us and the legislature followed suit and directed us to build hybrid electric vessels. That's the way the world is going. Our vessels are in service for 60 years. So the boats we're building now will be in service until long after I'm gone, 2080s, 2090s. The way we are doing it is the way, again, of the world. And with fuel prices currently, I was in a meeting today with the Secretary of Transportation. We were talking about our current fuel budget, given world events and other things. We are millions of dollars behind on what the legislature appropriated us. And we have a fuel hedging program where we can hedge and get cheaper prices. We're still struggling. So we have been directed by the legislature. I know this is a sensitive subject on Whidbey Island. The legislature passed a law a couple years ago and funded us to build three vessels. They authorized us to build up to five hybrid electric vessels, and they changed the state law so that there was no longer a build in Washington direction. They said, you can go out of state, and we're going to change what was a 5% incentive for in-state to 13%. So if you're an in-state builder, you're going to get a 13% kind of bonus incentive on top. They did not tell us where to build. They just told us we want boats faster and we want them cheaper. We had 12 shipyards originally interested, but most shipyards want a contract for eight or 12 boats. And so when they realized we only had funding for three, we ended up with two bidders, one Great shipyard here on Whidbey Island, who we do good work with. Another one in Florida. The bid in Florida was significantly, 30% less than the Washington bid. Following the law, this wasn't, it's not that we don't like Whidbey Island, it's not that we don't like that ship builder, but following the law, we were able to build three boats with one bid, and we would have been able to bid two with another. It is frustrating and I am very respectful of elected officials. My prior role here was as a government relations director. I am very direct with legislators when they stand up and blame us for this that they passed the law. It was unanimous in the Senate and all but three voted for it in the House. They didn't say you can only build in blue states. They didn't say you can only build in places with good labor laws. They didn't say you can only build in places with good environmental laws. They told us go build boats as quickly and cheaply as possible and that's what we're doing following the law. I believe that Governor Ferguson has said publicly that his next budget, tight as it will be, he will propose funding for new vessels as well. We will see what the legislature does next year. They could change it and come back to in-state. They can obviously do whatever they want in conjunction with the governor. So we'll see. What we know is if they choose not to continue building boats, wherever that may be, it is unlikely we can maintain our current level of service. And then I'll switch to electrification with this. The other decision in the next couple of years the legislature has to make is in the past when we get a new boat, we retire a boat. You never get ahead. So are you going to keep the 71-year-old Tilikum running? The Tilikum, the Yakima, and the Cleeton are three oldest boats. We've asked for $50 million for each of them to keep them going so that we can add service and improve. So electrification, you'll see here that we converted one boat already, the Wenatchee. There are three largest boats, the Jumbo Mark IIs, 202 vehicles each. They are at that 25, 30-year mark. We need to give the new propulsion system for those. They have some propulsion control cards. There are three left in the world, and we hang on to them carefully. Given that, we will have to upgrade their propulsion systems, but Governor Ferguson said, you've done the first one, let's see how that goes. You can do the propulsion upgrade, but let's wait on hybridization until we get new boats. So they won't be hybrid as the Wenatchee is, but we will build it. And then we just executed the contract for a third new boat. The Florida shipyard will build three. The legislature and the government will decide from January till April next year if they fund this to build more, and if so, what the guidelines are for that. If you ride the Port Townsend, or not the Port Townsend, if you ride Clint and Uncle Tio, It might have been on the Tokatay or the Suquamish that I was just on. Those are 144. It's a rough. We couldn't just build those again because the manufacturer, the propulsion system, is no longer in business. But the new boats will be roughly like those. We elongated them because of the weight of batteries. So instead of 140 vehicle, they'll be 160 with that extra length. We expect the first one to arrive in August of 2030 and then the next two the following two years. My boss and I went down to Florida beginning of August. I recommend you do not go to the panhandle of Florida in the beginning of August. It was horribly hot. And we were on the ground for all of 22 hours and the steel cutting for the first boat took place. Actually a week early. They're ahead of schedule. They have a $5 million incentive to complete the boat six months early. So far this is a family-owned business. There's 10 kids. Number 6 runs the place. Number 8 is the accountant. Number 10. It's 6, 8, and 10 are there every day running it. And so far, we've had good work with them. They're not... trying to nickel and dime us to death, they seem to be good partners. So that work is underway. And in about 10 months, they will start cutting steel for the next vessel. So they'll be 10 to 12 months behind each other. So again, we'll get one in August 2031, August 2032. It takes a long time to build new boats. This is something I think President Trump put out a few months ago, a shipbuilding plan. This country does not build boats well. China is doing incredibly well. We are not. I know there's a lot of conversations going in the state about Puget Sound should be a place where ships are built. That's a conversation for people other than me. But as you see here, it takes about a year to get the procurement, the contracting done. It takes a year to design. We went to the shipbuilder with the design almost done, but it takes a year of working with that shipbuilder to make a design that they can build. One of the things that concerns me, and again, not my decision, if the legislature and the state decide to build boats somewhere else, we can't just take the design for the first three and move it over there. We will have to work with the new shipyard to make it work for their shipyard, and that means that those boats will never be identical. There will always be some difference in them. And it would be great to have boats that, you know, as they come in and out, we can substitute. Construction takes about three years. We are right there just starting that three-year phase. And then the commissioning process where you have to do sea trials and dock trials, all the things the Coast Guard require to make sure that the vessels are safe for the public. We actually have five Washingtonians who have moved their families I was interested to hear one say that he has a third grader who he hopes graduates from high school there. We'll see how long these boats take and if that happens. But they will make sure that these boats are built to our specification. They'll be trialing and tests all along the way. But I'm glad we're on the better side of that. So Clinton, a place that's familiar to all of you. So the first two new boats, 2030, 2031, will be on the Clinton-Muckleteo route. So in order to get the most out of them, we need to electrify the terminal there. So we're talking to PSE. I know there's some concerns in that community, and we're talking to folks. But they are confident they can deliver the electricity we need to power the boats. That's such a short route that they'll just charge on the Clinton side and then they should be able to run on battery power. I have assured the local residents there who are concerned that when we plug in, their lights will not dim. There will be plenty of power for both the boat and for them. But it's new and it's scary and there's concerns reasonably about the power source and will it be noisy and how it's going to work. And so we'll keep working with the community on that. But it is exciting to think that that route will have the first two new boats. And then we're working on putting overhead loading in at Clinton so that it matches Mukilteo. And like I was waiting to get off the boat tonight, you have to wait, obviously, for people to walk off on the car deck. There were some not very happy people because just as everyone got off, a man who just decided to take his time got off after everyone else had already cleared. So everyone in their cars waited for him to get off. It's not just a timing thing. It helps us keep on-time performance when we separate. It's also a safety thing just to separate pedestrians from cars. And then terminal construction. We recently redid the parking and the transfer span at Coopville. And then we're going to replace the electrical systems there, powering the transfer span. So it's getting some work. And then looking at, again, the future of doing overhead loading at Clinton. It is unbelievably, it's about $20 million to do overhead loading. So it's not inexpensive. And then before I just say a couple of last words, one of the complaints we hear a lot is that we don't have Wi-Fi on the vessels. This is a little bit more of a Seattle thing because people want to work going back and forth. So we have failed miserably in the past. Those of you who have been around a while may remember when we had a contract with Boingo. And Boingo left because they Boingoed right out of us and it never really worked well. And so with Starlink and other things, we are now trialing Wi-Fi at the Bremerton terminal and on the Chimicum. It seems to be going well. And then once that's complete, we go to the legislature when they meet in January and they'll decide if they want to fund an expansion and make it. There is an expectation now that if you get on transportation, light rail and Seattle bus, whatever it is that you can communicate with people. I will conclude with and happy to take questions. I am proud to be the Deputy Director of Washington State Ferries and represent 2200 women and men who get up every day doing their best to provide a service that for many years we have not been adequately funded to provide. It is tough to see colleagues in tears, to see people who are doing their best and aren't always given the tools they need to provide the service they want to. I am particularly happy and appreciate Bremerton started a Don't Squawk on the Dock campaign. Vashon, which is tough because they're an island and they rely on us. They have started a campaign of like, basically I think it's yell at John, don't yell at the people who are showing up at work, which is fine. It's pretty counterproductive to yell at the people who are there when you're frustrated because they are obviously the ones showing up to make sure you can get where you need to go. but at the moment we don't have a service relief vessel so our goal is to always have a vessel out of service so that we can if we if one comes out we can replace it we currently in our plan don't have a service release vessel till next June everything's either being worked on or is in service and that's going to you know inevitably which is why we're going to Port Townsend Coupeville to one boat service eight days early because we just don't have any other choices as these vessels age So that's a lot of words from me. I'm happy to take questions or suggestions. Thank you.

Yeah, so before I turn it over to Council, I just want to say, again, thank you for being here. It was important to have you come and share everything with Council. After you presented at Council of Governments, I wanted them to hear the same message. So thank you for being here. You have questions, comments for John at all? No? No? Council Member Arms, yes.

I have a question. People have been talking about a mosquito fleet. Is there anything like that coming along? Or is that private? Or how is that going to work?

So there was legislation last year from a representative from Kitsap County who, for those of you who don't know, the mosquito fleet was something that was prior to WSF that the state ran that was smaller. He is frustrated, reasonably, with our past reliability and how things have been going. And right now, Kitsap County and King County, who have the tax base to do so, their voters have voted to tax themselves for passenger only service. So not every county can do that. So there was a movement to look at ways that we could augment our service with a mosquito fleet that the state would pay for. We are agnostic about what people decide to do with that. Our only concern would be at a time when we know we don't get the funding we need to operate our service to start a new service that might take those funds. But there are other ways to look at it of the state supporting counties to raise revenue or how we might do it. It didn't pass the legislature. I'm fairly sure it'll come back up again next year. But there is always a thirst for other ways to use maritime travel beyond our vessel vehicles. We are precluded by law. to from operating passenger only we can only operate vehicle um ferries so i don't think we would be part of it but we work very closely with king and kitsap counties on theirs and we they use our dock at some places we're very collaborative okay thank you very much you're welcome anybody else questions comments right well thank you very much thank you for your appreciation yes

All right, we're going to move into the public comment section. Comment on consent agenda items or subjects of interest not listed on the agenda at this time. Opportunity to comment on the remaining agenda items during the meeting as appropriate. Please note comments regarding public hearing items will be heard during that portion of the agenda. We have no public hearing items for today's meeting. Visit our website for methods to submit public comments. Public comments sent anonymously or from a non-verifiable address will be shared with the mayor and council but will not be displayed. At this time, we will accept public comments on items not listed on the agenda or on the consent agenda. The clerk will call your name and the order in which you signed in to speak. Please step forward to the microphone and state your name and address. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Thank you. Yep, go ahead.

I was going to say, thank you, Mayor. We have four people who have signed in to speak this evening. The first is Denise Marion, speaking on preparedness. Okay.

Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I want to start off by thanking our emergency responders.

So, Denise, could you state your name and address, please?

Oh, I am Denise Marion. I live in Oak Harbor proper, 19th Court, which is by Highway 20 and Scenic Heights Road.

Great. Thank you.

courage and dedication and I love it and I want to thank the council for passing this resolution I want to talk tonight about preparedness for the dramatic weather events that may disrupt our lives in the very near future we've heard I mean you may have heard that we have a super El Nino building now. These are like four year events and this one started in 2025. It's going to reach a peak this winter, but you might not know why it's called a super El Nino. And the reason is the base of this El Nino, the temperature is the same as the peak. of the last El Niño, which was the one that killed all of the mussels in Penn Cove. So when we're talking super El Niño, we're talking super havoc. And this is something that I think we need to prepare for. When I was a child, and some of you may remember this, it was unthinkable that the polar ice caps would melt. Clearly that we are in a different climate situation now. And that climate... from back then, 50 years ago, 20 years ago. Even 20 years ago is not a reliable baseline for what we're prepared for now. Now we need to look at the catastrophic events that have been happening elsewhere. Lahaina. Los Angeles, the Midwest, practically the whole northern hemisphere on fire last year. We have to assume that we are going to have a catastrophic event and prepare for that. It's not crazy to prepare for seemingly crazy events. Imagine a great downpour bringing a great amount of sediment from the Skagit River, which ends up in our harbor, clogging it up, whether we dredge or not. Storms that tear up our walkways along the waterfront. Ms. Marion? Yes. Thank you.

That is your three minutes. It is. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you. Mayor, next on our list that signed up is Jeremy Bartlett speaking in regards to the pool.

Good evening. My name is Jeremy Bartlett, 1950 Furwoods Place, Oak Harbor. I wasn't really supposed to be speaking here tonight, but I was kind of voluntold now. Our Oak Harbor swim coach was not able to make it. It's been brought to our attention that the The Carpet Girls swim team will be sharing the private time that they have at lockdown with our local homeless people so that they may be able to use that facility to shower and take care of themselves. I'm greatly concerned about that. I don't think it's the place or the time for our young teenage girls to have to be sharing the locker room with homeless people. Not that it's a bad thing. They do need to be clean. But the sanitary part of it, the safety part of it, is a great concern of mine. I don't know if any of you are aware of this or if there's something that can be done about it, but I'd just like to bring it to your all attention. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, next who signed up is Vanessa Bartlett, also speaking in regards to the pool.

Good evening. My name is Vanessa Bartlett, and I'm the other half of Jeremy Bartlett, live in the same address. I'm here also to speak about the same issue. Really, I was not aware of this. I don't think the community is aware of this. And I think the issue here is the time where the facility is being used. The facility is being used when it's actually close to the public. So only the school district is using it, which is the time where the girls are practicing. So there is no other people coming in and out of that locker. There is no supervision. There is nothing. So that is really the bigger concern. So it elevates the concern to a different level. It's not just that they are going in there, but when they are going in there, when there is nobody else there. First of all. Second of all, I think obviously the sanitation part is a problem. In general, I believe they should be using the facility, but they also should be taking care of other things before our girls or our boys, because I know the boys swim team also use the facilities when the patrons of Spin Cafe were using it, and there were some issues last season. I just found out last week. But it's been happening for a little while. So now that it's our turn, because our girl is a senior this year and is swimming and is there, I really don't want to have to deal with the consequence. I want to be not reactive, but proactive. So let's take an action now and not wait for something else to happen. Maybe find a better time or a better facility for these people to use it. Because I agree, they need to. be provided with these services totally 100 agree but when where and how i think we need to answer those questions before we just open the doors to everybody all right thank you very much

So I just wanted to say to both of you, I have your information. I would like to collect your email, though, before you leave. Did you put that on the information sheet? Because I would like to send you both a follow-up email. I'm going to send an email to the superintendent of schools. But this is something that we need to bring to the attention of the Northwest Pool Park and Rec Board because they are the body responsible for this. We don't have any... Okay, I'm just saying we don't have any jurisdiction over them, but I am going to raise your concern to them and let them know. But I would like to also carbon copy you on that message so that you have that too. So, okay. Yeah, you bet.

Thank you, Mayor. Last to sign up this evening is Jack Schwab speaking in regards to the ferries.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Leadership Team. I'm Jack Schwab. I live at 2057 West Beach Road. Nearly three years ago, the Island County Commissioners appointed me to the Coopville Ferry Advisory Committee. Shortly thereafter, the committee selected me as its chair. Additionally, for the last two years, I've been the chair of the executive committee that coordinates all of the ferry advisory committees. There are FACs, as we call the ferry advisory committees, there are FACs representing most ferry terminals. Here on Whidbey, we have two FACs, one for Clinton, one for Coopville. The FACs exist because of a specific RCW which outlines their duties. Sadly, there are many structural issues with the FACs, not the least of which is that the FACs are unfunded, unstaffed, and in many counties like ours, the FACs are wholly unsupported by any other public entity. Thus, the would-be FACs are each three-person public entities with no support, yet are required to follow OPMA and PRA. That is just the start of the structural issues. During my nearly three years leading the Kupfel Ferry Advisory Committee and my two years leading the FAC Executive Committee, I tried many tactics to drive improvements to both the FACs and, more importantly, to Washington State ferries. Alas, I failed. As such, last week I resigned entirely from the Ferry Advisory Committee. That said, I have two recommendations for you. One, at my request a few months ago, Commissioner Bacon joined the Kufel Ferry Advisory Committee. I recommend that you ask the Island County Commissioners to appoint one of you to fill my spot in the Kufel FAC. Maybe with both a county commissioner and a city council member on the committee, you can equip the would-be FACs with the heft needed to be heard and to drive some improvements to the Washington State Ferries. John Vazina, who's just here, ably shared with you lots of great information about Washington State Ferries, though I suspect some of what he said felt unsatisfying. Mostly, the unsatisfaction is not John's fault. It's not really Washington State Ferry's fault. It is primarily due to the long-term underinvestment by the legislature. A second recommendation for you is that you ask our three state legislators to get aligned on the criticality of Ferries to Whidbey, on the sorry state of our ferry fleet, and the need for all three of them to actively advocate in lockstep on how to improve Washington State Ferries. Sadly, our three legislators have very different perspectives on what they individually can do to improve Washington State Ferries. If legislators from an island with two ferry terminals aren't marching in lockstep to improve Washington State ferries, how do we expect the entire legislature to ever agree to do what is necessary? Thank you for your consideration. If you're interested in improving Washington State ferries, doing so will take a significant effort by many.

Thank you, Jack.

Mayor, that concludes those who signed up in advance to speak.

All right, and is there anybody that didn't have an opportunity to sign up that would like to step forward and make public comment at this time? All right, not hearing or seeing anyone else, we will then review the one public comment that we received since our last meeting. All right. With that, I will close public comments. Sabrina, if you could, with that comment and as well as Mr. Jack Schwab's comment, if you could include those to IRTPO and COG for me to address in the upcoming meeting, I will follow up on both of those items with county commissioners. I think we also need to forward that last comment to WSDOT and Washington State Patrol. We were going to move on to a consent agenda. Are there any objections or other changes to the consent agenda at this time? If none, I would entertain a motion to approve. All right, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Hearing, seeing none, all in favor, raise your right hand. We passed unanimously. Thank you, Sandy. I see you. All right, we're gonna move on to comments. We have lots of them, sorry, bear with me. I wanna start by saying what a great weekend it was to be out in our community. First, the Military Appreciation Picnic on Saturday. I had the opportunity to attend the city staff With city staff, and it was wonderful to see so many members of our military community and their families come together. As a veteran, this is an event that means a lot to me personally, so I want to thank the Navy League for all the work they do throughout the year to support our military community, as well as the Chamber, our local businesses, sponsors, and everyone who donated their time. And, of course, thank you to the volunteers who make an event like this possible. It really does take a community to put something like this together, and I appreciate everyone who showed up to make it a great day. We also had a couple of opportunities to bring our city staff together. We had our owl staff picnic last week, followed by a family barbecue that evening. Even with the windy weather, it was great to see everyone having fun, showing some team spirit, and taking a little time away from the day to day work. We also had an opportunity to recognize employees who received awards. Congratulations again to Wendy Horn, Grayson Clements, and Sarah Briggs for being nominated by colleagues for inspirational awards. Thank you again to Ryan Kinker for coordinating the staff events and everyone who helped in one way or another. Thank you to Councilmember Stuckey and Arms for attending. I especially enjoyed the family barbecue because our employees have been asking for an opportunity like that for quite some time, so it was nice to see staff with their families, meet spouses, kids, and those who brought their fur babies too. To our city staff, thank you. I know how busy things have been across the organization, and I appreciate the work everyone continues to put in for our community. I hope everyone had a chance to relax, have some fun, and enjoy the events last week. I look forward to more of these kinds of events for staff. Looking ahead, we have a big Labor Day weekend coming up with the Oak Harbor Music Festival. If you're out there, please come say hello. I look forward to seeing and talking to people at the festival myself. And with Labor Day coming up, a reminder that city offices will be closed Monday, September 7th. That will also affect solid waste collection, which will be delayed by one day. It's been a very busy stretch here at City Hall, and I know many of our departments have been working hard. So my message to our staff is please take the break, enjoy the holiday, and spend some time with your family and friends. You've earned it. I also want to make sure our community knows about an important September 11th remembrance event. This year marks the 25th anniversary of September 11th, 2001. Following the community remembrance ceremony at Windjammer Park, local first responders will carry a special 9-11 remembrance flag across Whidbey Island, concluding at South Whidbey Fire. You'll see firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMS personnel, and other first responders participating in the run in remembrance of the people who lost their lives, their families, and the heroes who answered the call that day. I encourage everyone who is able to participate, whether that's attending the ceremony, supporting the run along the route, or wearing a shirt in remembrance. It's an important opportunity for our community to come together and remember. School started today, so welcome back to all of our students, teachers, and school staff. I hope everyone has a safe and successful school years. I had a great time at Broadview Elementary welcoming all the little ones back at school this morning, so that was quite fun for me. I also want to recognize our public works and engineering teams for the work at Olympic View Elementary. We heard from parents and school families about the need for a safer pedestrian crossing and the city worked to address that need. I appreciate our staff finding a practical way to make the crossing safer and for working with our schools and community partners. This is exactly the kind of work that may not always get much attention, but it makes a real difference in people's everyday lives. And congratulations are in order for our clean water facility, which received the 2025 Outstanding Performance Award from the Washington State Department of Ecology in recognition of its exemplary efforts in protecting and keeping Washington's water clean. That is a tremendous accomplishment for the team, and I want to thank everyone at the facility for the professionalism and hard work that goes into maintaining those standards every day. It's something our community should be proud of. And here to accept the plaque and their award is Jack Robinson and Sandra Place from our wastewater treatment plant. So please give them a round of applause. All right. Now, with that, I will turn it over to council for their comments. Council Member Stuckey.

piggyback on your comments there a little bit. What a busy weekend with Church for the City, Rotary Challenge Series, the picnic. So also very heartfelt thank you to our staff who works on weekends over time after hours to make all those things happen. A special thanks to all the volunteers. I mean, it's really cool to see community members coming out, donating their time. It's much appreciated. One request unrelated. Can we bring back the meetings on social media? Not necessarily the comments, but it's been a couple weeks since they've been on. I didn't know if that was... We haven't had a meeting on our Facebook since the planning commission on the 11th of August. There was a link last time, but not that I'm seeing them on there.

Are you saying, like, noticing the meetings on social media?

No, no, no, no, no. It was said that the meetings would be available on Facebook and YouTube, and they haven't been on Facebook since the fourth.

I mean, some of them have been on there, some of them haven't. It depends on if they're having a meeting. Some have canceled this summer due to social media.

Well, I mean, I'm looking at, like, our last two council meetings and our last workshop. And that's a change. I just was confused with the statements.

Yeah, there's been a glitch with Facebook going live and also with not having comments on at the same time. So we're working with Facebook and also Tim has been looking into it as well so that we could keep doing them live stream. But right now, all live streams are on YouTube. So what we're going to do is just share them. We're looking into trying to share them on our home page so that way all live streams will be going on our home page moving forward. So we're working on it.

Can they be posted after the fact?

Yeah, we can post them after the fact. So the only thing that we could do is post them after the fact, and then they will link to YouTube. So we can't live stream on Facebook right now because of the comments.

So you can't have the video embedded right on, okay.

Correct. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, thanks.

Yeah, sorry, I don't know. I don't look at that garbage. Anyone else? Yes, Council Member Arntz.

Yeah, I like to say I enjoyed the rock-a-thon they had up at Regency. So that was really nice to participate in that. And then down at the Windjammer, that was really great. And today I went to the Navy League, which was very informative. And so it was really quite a busy weekend. But I enjoyed all that. And it was nice to see everybody.

Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Wigginson.

Yes, thank you to all first responders and everybody that has always put their lives out for the rest of us and our safety. And with that, there's North Whidbey Pool Park and Rack. I'm going to just kind of throw a little history lesson out here. This program for the homeless to get showered has been going on for over a decade. roughly at the same time. So if there's concerns, if things have happened, then definitely go to the board of Northwood Beach Pool Park and Rec. They're the ones that oversee that piece of it. And if that's any challenging, I'm willing to visit with you too if you need to. Thank you for coming and talking about the advisory committees for the ferries. So that's all I got. Thanks.

Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Well, then we're going to move on to other items for consideration. We have an accounts payable voucher approval. Chamber of Commerce, this voucher list contains a payment or payments to the greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce, of which Council Member Marshall is the executive director. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, Council Member Marshall has stated he will refuse himself from a vote on such payments, which are now a separate agenda item. Are there any comments that we received on this issue?

No, Mayor. No comments were received.

And is there anyone here with us tonight that would like to step forward and make comments on this issue? All right. Hearing none, then I will call upon council for their comments or entertain a motion for approval. Yes, Council Member Wittgenstein.

I move to approve the accounts payable vouchers. Second.

All right, we have a motion to approve the accounts payable vouchers as presented by Council Member Wittgenstein, seconded by Council Member Marrow. Is there any further discussion before I call for a vote? Hearing, seeing none, all in favor, raise your right hand. All right, we have, what is that, six for and one abstention. Okay, perfect, thank you. All right, next we are going into executive session per revised code of Washington, RCW 4230, 110, parent one, parent I. At this time, council will move into executive session to discuss with legal counsel litigation or potential litigation. Anticipated duration is 15 minutes. Action may or may not be taken upon return to the open session of the meeting. Executive sessions are not open to the public.

The council has announced that they will increase the length of the executive session to 7 p.m. They will increase it by 15 minutes to 7 p.m. Thank you. The council has announced that they will extend the executive session by an additional 10 minutes to 7.10 p.m. Thank you. The council has announced they will extend the executive session for an additional 10 minutes to 7.20 PM. Thank you. The council has announced that they will extend the executive session additional 10 minutes to 7.30 p.m. Thank you.

We have now come out of executive session. We'll resume the open session of the regular meeting. No action will be taken at this time. Council Member Peterson, you have your hand up. Council Member Peterson, you have your hand up.

I did because it looked like you were speaking and I couldn't hear you until just now.

Oh, perfect. Okay, I said we have now come out of executive session. We will resume the open session of the regular meeting. No action is taken at this time. Yes, Council Member Wittgenstein.

A motion to adjourn.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor, raise your right hand. We are adjourned at 7.30.