Remarks by Cassie Franklin
21 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 1
“Yeah, good evening, President Schwab, Council, and community. I'm honored to deliver the 2027 City of Everett budget address. So first, happy to be here sharing. This is my ninth budget address as Everett's mayor. I want to start off by thanking our Council for remaining committed to supporting core city services, fiscal responsibility, and smart budgeting. I also want to recognize our new finance director, Chris Godwin, and thank our fantastic finance team. Developing a city budget is a tremendous amount of work, and I'm really grateful for the care and careful work our team does every year.…”
“So we can go up to nine tenths of a cent or, you know, we can go up three cents or what is it? Point three. We can go up point three cents. The chart is shows where we are currently. So this would look different if we went up, but it still. You know, doesn't keep pace with the growth that community transit can provide because community transit collects more.”
“No, balancing it prior to that is going into the reserves of the transit.”
“We do get ongoing support from Move Ahead that helps make up for the lost revenue from youth fares. We can get back to you with exactly how much that is each year. But it certainly doesn't give us enough for the ongoing operations of the entire system or the capital needs of the entire system. But it does give us that lost revenue from free youth fairs, which is outstanding. And that has actually dramatically helped transit. Transit has been helped pretty substantially by that revenue source that comes in annually for the made-up youth fairs, as well as the COVID dollars and influx of money…”
“I just want to reiterate that it's paratransit.”
“Rick and I were talking earlier today, and he has articulated quite successfully often the depth of compassion and understanding and empathy he has for the team that is facing a significant change. and that community transit's approach is really to demonstrate that compassion and understanding as they welcome Everett Transit team members to their team. And Andy and Bob have also been working with our union leadership and team members to see what else we can do to support them through the transition, and we continue to negotiate that.”
“two different project comp you know so one this consolidation is not going to impact any kind of um road access or parking yeah and no the merger doesn't do that and so i think the resident business owners is referencing another project that is related to ct but i will uh have my team follow up with uh gordon and understand the impacts and also see what solutions we can potentially work through around that. I know there's always parking concerns and with any change, there's always parking concerns. So I want to keep that separate from this because it really isn't about the murder. It's about…”
“Good evening. I am so sorry that I can't be with you in person tonight, but I'm really honored to share the following proclamation. Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is one of the most significant and cherished celebrations for millions of people around the world, including many residents of the Everett community. And in December last year, Deepavali was officially added to the UNESCO's representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognizing it as a significant social and festive tradition of India. And Diwali holds deep cultural, historical, and spiritual…”
“Yeah. Thank you, President Schwab. I am again. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there. I'm with you in spirit. And what. Thank you so much for honoring us and letting us be a part of this special festival through this proclamation. Thank you so much. And again, I'm not there this evening because I had the opportunity to join a small cohort of mayors who are also working towards a goal of bringing and keeping professional sports in their communities. And the conference ended this afternoon, but it was really inspiring to hear what's underway around the country. And it made me realize how lucky we…”
“And I'll just jump in on that too. The budget process is kind of this lengthy process that staff work on with me for several months. And so we're just almost ready to present the 2027 budget on the 21st to you. But because they've already kind of finalized it to get it ready for that presentation, We haven't incorporated any B&O reform into that. So that will have to come through with a budget amendment. So I will have a few weeks time to digest kind of what staff have recommended to me, incorporate your feedback like I often do when I work on the budget. Sometimes, especially super tight…”
“I can work with the finance director to bring it forward. as a separate item on a separate amendment so that it's like all encompassed into one thing and very clear. It's not with a bunch of grant approvals or anything like that. So we can separate it out.”
“Good evening, Council Members Arlingo and Council and community. Just a couple of comments. First, a quick shout out to our parks and facilities team who work hard to keep all our public restrooms clean and available. We have restrooms in 14 of our parks, plus the two public restroom stations downtown. These facilities get a lot of use and we need everyone's help in keeping them ready for the next person. So please clean up after yourself. Throw away your trash. Treat these shared spaces with care. I encourage parents and guardians to please remind your kids and teens to do the same. Right…”
“Council Member Zarlingo, first, I want to respond to a couple of the comments you made, and then I'll ask City Attorney Lacey Offit to make a couple comments. But first and foremost, we did review all the public records requests, and I will be very clear, I directed Dan Templeman to reach out to the Oak View group because of the emails we received from you and the skating club. We wanted to make sure that the Oakview group came before council and spoke to the issues that you've been bringing forward. And so I directed Dan Templeman and not surprised by those emails because that was at my…”
“And can you speak to any conflict of interest presented by having a staff member on the PFD board?”
“Can you share your proclamation with Jennifer Gregerson so we can bring it to our team for consideration? Thank you.”
“Just so you know, you're very welcome and encouraged to email your comments, too, to ensure that I know three minutes is short. And so please email the council for sure.”
“And just I'll take this moment. Chris has been here how many weeks now? I don't know.”
“Yes. And it feels like he's been here forever in such a good way. I don't know what we did before we had him. He's a joy to work with. And I think you guys are going to really enjoy working with him this budget season. So really grateful to have him on the team.”
“Well, he has a nice tie and I like the music.”
“But can I just add, you know, you all know from our history of dealing with the structural deficit, we've kind of frozen M&O in most departments or we've limited it to like, even when there's been growth, it's just been like a 2% growth. The cost of all the goods and services and everything we have to do has gone up exponentially as we all experience in our households. And so this is right-sizing the public works department just a tad, right? to keep up with a little bit of that growth that we're seeing in the cost of delivering these services.”
“there we go turn on my mic um first i want to thank everybody who has and continues to provide us feedback on our proposed approach to transit consolidation i encourage everyone to visit everettwa.gov backslash transit consolidation to learn more or share your thoughts the forum for that is going to be open through september 2nd and then staff will be reporting to our city council and the community transit board with all the feedback received I also want to share a couple other updates. Work has started on the Edgewater Park renovation. This park will have a new sport court, walking paths, a…”