Remarks by Amy Falcone
88 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 4
- Play at 2:08:02
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to note the memo with the subject Kirkland Culture Arts Commission recommendation for art donation of the Big Smile sculpture and thank the artist Martha Spack for that donation. And I'm looking forward to finding out the recommended location by the Culture Arts Commission. It is a beautiful piece of artwork and a really fun and bright piece of artwork. So thank you again to artist Martha Spack for that donation.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:09:59
“Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a procedural question. So for untabling, does that need to be seconded and voted on to untable, or is it just untabled and then the discussion and vote happens?”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:13:02
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate, wow, we are spending a lot of time on this one vote. And I appreciate the thoughtfulness and I appreciate Council Member Prem's thoughts on wanting to make sure we have all of the data. You know, I shared last time that, you know, in my mind, the main two goals here are to encourage smaller housing types or, in other words, to disseminate disincentivize like huge McMansions, right? And to increase revenue for low income housing. And then the reason why we had a threshold is because we want to exempt missing middle housing, right? And so regardless of what…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:24:56
“Council Mayor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I just have a clarifying question for those who are listening to the meeting tonight around that last point that dogs must be leashed on some of our non-designated swim beaches. Does that same rule apply if a dog is swimming in the water at those parks? Must the dog be on a leash if they are to enter the water?”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:25:20
“Thank you. That's helpful for those listening. Thank you.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:30:39
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to say thank you for being so responsive to both council and community input on this. I feel like you can clearly draw lines between the comments that were made and things that we've heard and the edits that were updated in this. So thank you very much for that. and also thank you to the community members we heard from, and I think a lot of us met with folks in the community who are regular users of the park, whether with their dogs, or I know I personally spoke with a lot of folks who are cyclists in our area as well to really understand the nuances of…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 2:46:04
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you both for that presentation. It was very clear and helpful. I like the visuals that took some of the heavier text in our memo to a nice visual presentation. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. I have a couple of points that I want to talk through. The first is I appreciate cleaning up, you know, a lot of the cleanup that's happening here. particularly around duplicative communication with the first class mail. That just seems to be a waste of resources, time and money for both the towing company and the Kirkland Police Department to be sending…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 3:02:36
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for that, Council Member. I agree with having that discussion, but I don't want to get lost from the discussion as well, my comments about the size of the vehicle. Because I think if it's about size as well, I really want to make sure that we don't have unintended consequences for this policy and that we really think through and make sure that, you know, because you could... have an RV that doesn't have beds in it, right? That you're just using to transport a lot of people around, but is not intended for sleeping, right? And then you would think it's an…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 3:03:44
“Yeah, that would be great, thank you, rather than replacing it, you know, striking the sleeping, you know, made for sleeping.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 3:30:03
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I first want to say, great job on this memo. I've heard from so many folks, not just in our city, but from around the region, that this was the best exploration of this topic that they've seen among folks who have been following this topic in our region. So really well done, really impressive. And to Deputy Mayor Black's comments about how the state is looking at it as well, I know other cities have done it. But like our missing middle housing policy before, I'm hoping that this could be an example for the state and for other cities in the state in the work that we do.…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 3:51:53
“Well, thank you for that Tracy. I have another suggestion that wasn't discussed already tonight and that is Adding a racer representative to the fit team you know when I see I think about the situations that we're talking about. There's so many where I can imagine behavioral health crises could be a part of it and be emerging, just like in a lot of the other situations that we have to deal with. So I think that's very appropriate to have them both at the table for these discussions, but also to bring back what they learned from the discussions to the rest of the RACER team. I know that it's…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:03:40
“Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I agree with Councilman Arnold's comments, so thank you for that. The only thing I would add to that is that, you know, the impetus to bring this before us, right? There were a lot of reasons for it, but we were having a lot of conversations over the last year and a half, right? About really, I know some of us were really asking for a lot of information, particularly around 1B and 4C. 1B is the internal policies and procedures, and 4C is the police response plans for potential unlawful action by federal law enforcement agencies. So I would…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:11:31
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with what the mayor's saying, and I think perhaps based on her response of that's it and what she's saying now, I think I may have been too soft and not clear enough maybe on what I was looking for. I was looking for the same thing, a lot more detail on all of this, right, and before quarter four, like in a recent, you know, a sooner meeting than that, whenever we can fit that in. And 1B and 4C were just my top priority for those. Because those are the ones that sparked the desire to have this LRM and to have this resolution, is really looking for answers to…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:13:32
“Yes, which is why 1B and 4C are my top priority. For sure. But this is important, you know, and like I said, I have been waiting over a year and a half for these answers to these, so I think we've had time for that. And I also, you know, unlike the criminal justice, which is also very timely, it's very real and impacting people's lives every day, this is something that's even more time sensitive to that, right? That we cannot wait to continue to have answers to these questions, because there may be things that we need to be preparing for, that we would identify in a discussion with the…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:37:16
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I have to say, when I heard about the results of your work, I was proud that we already had this on the books, right? Like many other things, we're ahead of the game on some things. So that's good news to hear, and I am really proud of that. Essentially, I'm in favor still of doing a moratorium. I agree with Councilmember Arnold of doing a moratorium and also potentially looking at additional targeted code amendments that would help. If we can have extra layers of protection here, we should. And also want to be really clear on where we stand…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:41:54
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to clarify, because we've talked about both targeted code amendments as well as a moratorium. My comments on time sensitivity was on the moratorium, which would give us time to do the targeted code amendment. So I just wanted to see if that's what we were discussing, since that wasn't part of your comments.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:44:34
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. Because I feel so strongly about the community input that we've heard specifically from the immigrant community, I am still, just so that it's on the record, going to make a motion for us to ask staff to bring back a moratorium on immigration detention centers and offices in the city of Kirkland.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:48:03
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to be clear that I support both, and I think I was clear on that. So my motion is not in opposition or as an alternative to Tardio Code amendments. It's addressing and responding to the community request, as well as I don't, I think it's optimistic to think this is going to be quick, but that would be great if it was. I think that this is something that is going to require some community engagement and some other work, which is another reason why I support the moratorium in addition to the Targeted Code Amendment. Thank you.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:51:19
“Um, also have a question. Is your intent that it includes immigration detention centers and immigration offices or just immigration detention centers or options for both?”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:51:46
“I have a question then, probably for city attorney related to that. If a situation does arise, like what happened in Tukwila where there is an immigration office and they are detaining people that are sleeping there, how would we know that and how would we enforce? Would we just shut them down immediately? With these targeted code amendments, it's saying we're not going to allow it if it's used that way, but we won't know that it's used that way until it's actually already cited, permitted, built, and then they're using it that way. And then what do we do? Can we shut them down immediately?…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 4:55:31
“Okay. As long as you're not cutting Jen off. No, no. We chatted about it briefly at break. So I'm happy to take our first stab at answering that as TDC chair. I just want to clarify, you had mentioned that it's a staff recommendation. This is actually a recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee. And so it was a unanimous vote for us to recommend this. And just a little bit of context around that. The primary purpose of the Tourism Development Committee is to put more, what we call put more heads in beds, right? Like it's to help promote tourism and events so that we can have more…”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 5:02:07
“Thank you. Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee to spend $8,000 of TDC funds on membership for the Seattle Sports Commission.”
City Council · Jul 21, 2026
- Play at 33:02
“Thank you, Madam Mayor. I like going last because I like hearing other people's questions and crossing them off my list. Well, thank you for this. This is really informative and I really appreciated so much of the work we do as a city, the person-centered approach to this, right? As the community, like you said, keeping the community safe, but also helping improve the lives of inmates so that they can be more stable and be more contributing members to our society and healthy. So thank you for that. So I have a couple questions related to that. You talked a lot, which I appreciate again, in…”
City Council · Jul 7, 2026
- Play at 35:41
“Thank you. I appreciate that. And then do we have a mechanism for understanding? I know you mentioned there's open communication, right? The ability to share concerns and feedback while they're inmates. Do we have any sort of data collection on ideas they have for... helping support them better? Like, do we ask them either qualitatively or quantitatively, you know, what would make it so that you were able to be more rehabilitated while you're here? Perhaps, you know, I know that could, depending on where people are in life, could be challenging for folks to answer to give us practical advice…”
City Council · Jul 7, 2026
- Play at 38:57
“Thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the invitation to tour as well. I would like to take you up on that, as some of my colleagues may as well. And in speaking with the city manager earlier today, I was asking, what is the end result of all this information and things that we're learning, right? And in my mind, I would love to think through, what can we do as a council to support the work of our criminal justice system? Are there things that we can do to help support you? The phone calls was one example of that, right? but would love to have a follow-up conversation more about some…”
City Council · Jul 7, 2026