City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm calling this meeting to order. This is a Redmond City Council special meeting held on Tuesday, July 21st, 2026, commencing at 6.45 p.m. Council members, all council members are in attendance. This special meeting is being held to interview the Human Services Commission candidate, Austin Ashenbrenner. Alaric Bien, Senior Planner, will introduce this candidate.

Thank you, Mayor. So this is Senior Pastor at Redmond Presbyterian Church, Austin Ashenbrenner, and we're just so happy to have him potentially join the commission. He is not a resident. He lives outside of the city limits, but the ordinance that established the Human Services Commission allows for up to two seats for non-residents, as long as they work in the city, and he works in the city. He's been really interested in helping community members in need with just basic needs services. He's been working very closely with the Redmond United Methodist Church Redmond School Break Food Box Program for many years. And he's also worked with other members of the faith community, other leaders on homelessness and housing, which is a particular interest of his as well. And so this is Pastor Ashenbrenner.

Thank you very much for that introduction and good evening to you all. It's a pleasure to be here. And I think you all have questions for me, but I don't know. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Yeah. I'll ask, open it up to the council for questions. And I see council president Stewart has a question.

Thank you so much for being with us. I wonder if we could hear a little bit, it sounds like you're very involved in the community. Could you talk to us a little bit about why you're interested specifically in commission service and, and why now that makes the most sense for you?

I appreciate that question. A lot of the work that I do as a leader of a faith community and with our particular congregation is asking the question, how do we be good neighbors to those in our community? And while, as he mentioned, I don't live in Redmond, I work with the vast majority of my congregation that does. And so we want to be committed to our neighbors and our neighborhoods and these communities that we live in and work in and play in. And I think one of the best ways that we can be good neighbors and good supporters to our community is to know the stories and the struggles and the victories of our neighbors. And we do some of that work as a church, or at least we try. But I think the Human Services Commission is very much on the front edge of learning those stories, especially of our community members here in Redmond who are perhaps struggling or who are perhaps not often heard. And so as I've interfaced with this commission in doing other work, it just felt like I would love the opportunity to participate and to bring any amount of help I can bring to the commission, but also to learn through this work what's going on in our community and how we can continue to serve all of our neighbors.

Thank you. Council Member Kritzer.

Well, thank you so much for applying to serve in this role. This commission does a lot of work in an all-volunteer capacity, so appreciate that. I'm curious, and actually I'll note, I'm really a big fan of the Food Box program. I've been myself volunteering with it since the pandemic started in 2020, and just see what an impact that makes for hundreds of families and people across our community. So, I really appreciate that work. I'm curious, since it does seem like the work that you've done has allowed you, I imagine, to get a sense of the needs in our community. So I'm just curious to hear, what do you think are some of the most pressing needs that you're seeing that you think that the city should be prioritizing in terms of funding and support for those in need in our community?

That's a great question. I'll give it a shot, and I also will completely admit that I think, I suspect there are plenty of those needs that fly below the radar, but the ones that I have been able to see, like you mentioned, through the Food Box program and others, is certainly food insecurity, and all of the other pieces of the family life that that touches. And so when a family is, is struggling with food insecurity, how that also impacts, um, childcare and, and housing security and, and, and, and all of those kind of down the line impacts. Um, I certainly think affordable housing is an issue. It's another one of those ones in Redmond that can be a bit invisible because we don't have a large homelessness population, but certainly a population that is in need of affordable housing. And I know I was just here months ago congratulating you all and thanking you all for the work that you guys have been doing, pushing forward supportive housing through Plymouth Housing and other groups like that. So I think that's a big priority. The third one that I would mention would be, and it's a bit more nebulous, but somewhere in the neighbourhood of the loneliness epidemic and the need for connection and community. And I saw that on, I believe, the strategic plan for the Human Services Commission. And I say nebulous because that one, you know, doesn't present itself immediately. And so it's one that takes time to build relationships and connections and be thoughtful about. And so I think those would be the ones that I would put my finger on. I appreciate the question though. I like that.

Council Member Soni. First of all, thank you so much for coming forward to volunteer and be on the commission. How would you ensure that whatever recommendations you are making, they are taking care of our diverse and underserved populations, yet to ensure that the commission is not being unfair to the rest of the community?

Certainly. I know, again, from what little homework I've done on the front end, that that's a big priority for the commission. And my first instinct would be to say, you know, I know in Redmond we are fortunate to have... a fantastic and robust nonprofit sector that is doing great work and some great organizations, many of whom I think for good reason have pretty big profiles. And so I think the work of the commission in addition to supporting that good work would be to pay really close attention to what are those groups that are perhaps new or serving niche audiences that perhaps would otherwise go unnoticed. And I think it would be, I know, again, one of the priorities is inclusivity and paying attention to those sorts of things. So I think it's being intentional about having an eye trained towards what you know, it's easy to see the big successes and the things that we're doing right, but where are those groups that perhaps we're overlooking? And so I think that's a relational process. It's one of listening. It's one of paying close attention to who are some of these other voices that are asking for help. And so I fear that that's a bit of a roundabout answer, but I think it's just a slow process of paying attention to all those other groups.

Council Member Prakria.

Thank you so much, Austin, for applying and being willing to serve on this commission. Before joining council, I was previously the youth advisor on this commission. So I'm sad to see David go, but thank you for your willingness to step up. I see that some of your first experience after moving to Seattle was working at a full-time youth ministry. So I was wondering if you could speak to that experience and how that shaped your perspective on the needs of youth in this community and the greater area.

Yeah, thank you. I love that question. My new youth ministry is my teenage children, but I did get the opportunity, gosh, almost 20 years ago now to work with students in Seattle and then subsequently after that in Sammamish. And You know, that particular population is fascinating and eye-opening. Easy to make assumptions about, oh, kids are like this. But, you know, I think... I'm hesitating because I think some of my information is, because it's 20 years old, I think what kids are facing these days is radically different. However, I think some of the themes that are still there is that young people more than ever need to know that they're seen and that they're heard and that they're valued, not for who they will become, but for who they are, right? And to listen to their voices now. So I think... There's, you know, I would love to hear more of your stories of serving on this commission as a youth advisor, but I think that's a great example of how, and we often say this at our church, that the children of our church are not the future of our church. They're the present of our church. And so we want to pay close attention to what we have to learn from them today and not just, you know, put them over in the corner and wait to listen to them in 20 years. So I think we have a lot to learn from our students. I think they're oftentimes the first indicators of the issues that we're seeing in our community around things like loneliness and around things like any number of things. I think oftentimes the youth population is kind of our first indicator or leading indicator of where we should be paying attention. So love that question.

Thank you. Council Vice President Nueva Camino. Thank you, Mayor.

Wonderful to meet you. Yeah, thank you. When you're faced with competing priorities and limited resources, what are the principles that guide your decision-making, and how would those principles show up in your work as a Human Services Commissioner?

That's a great question. Can you say the first part of it again? Limited resources and competing...

Competing priorities.

Thank you. I think that's the moment when I'm grateful that I'm a part of a commission and not doing this alone, and so I would lean heavy on the wisdom of the group. I would, I think, look for... certain set of kind of best practices in terms of what are we aiming for, what are our goals, but then beyond that to say, you know, is there something that we've missed, is that, you know, and to slow down, I think that's kind of my guiding principle in a situation like that where we feel stuck or we feel kind of at an impasse would be to not rush those sorts of decisions, to slow down and take the time necessary, but again, I would would find that to be a very important time to lean on the process of the commission doing its work together.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you. We're running at the end. Any last two? Oh, you're all good? All right, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Members, for the wonderful questions. Thank you, Austin, for sharing your thoughts with us. I think this is scheduled for next week, perhaps, next business meeting. Then we hope to see you there, bring your family, and we look forward to having you join our commission. I'm seeing nods and smiles, which is great.

Thank you all again for your time and for your support of this commission. I look forward to being a part of it.

Thank you, and looking forward to the hard work ahead in this budget year, too. Thank you for being willing to take your time with that. And with that, this concludes our agenda, and this meeting is adjourned.