City Council - Special Meeting

I'm calling this meeting to order. This is a Redmond City Council special meeting held on Tuesday, September 8th, 2026, commencing at 640 p.m. Council members in attendance are Council President Stewart, Council Vice President Nueva Camino, Council Members Forsyth, Kritzer, and I will announce Councilmember Soni when she arrives. Tonight we are having a special meeting to interview our Library Board of Trustees and supposed to be Human Services Commission candidates, but she is not here yet. So we're just going to start with the Library Board of Trustees. Navin Yajaman, Vice Chair for the Library Board of Trustees, will introduce the Library Board of Trustees candidate, Jenny Lisk, if you would like to go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor Burney. I'm pleased to introduce Jenny Lisk as a candidate for the position on the Redmond Library Board. Jenny is a longtime Redmond resident who brings together deep expertise in book publishing, education, and community building. She's an award-winning author and adjunct faculty member at Bellevue College, where she teaches aspiring nonfiction writers, and she's built a growing literary community here in Redmond through author circles and author salons in partnership with the Redmond Library. Earlier in her career, Jenny spent 20 years leading complex global transformation initiatives at IBM. She brings that combination of professional expertise, community commitment, and proven ability to turn ideas into action to our interest in serving on the Redmond Library Board. Please take it away.

Yeah, Jenny, if you wanna just say a few words of introduction. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then I'll ask council members the questions for you.

And you push the button.

Right, there you go.

It's working now? Okay, great. Thank you Naveen for that lovely introduction and thank you Mayor Burnie for nominating me for this and thank you council for considering my nomination. As Naveen said, I'm a long time Redmond resident. I grew up here and I've been back here for almost 15 years now. And I'm an author and I work with other authors and books and publishing. And so when I saw this opportunity, I thought this would be right up my alley for a bunch of reasons. One of which is that, and it sounds a little idealistic, but I really believe in the power of books and stories to change the world and build community. Of course, libraries, the original mission is books, and after Mary Comstock's update last week, I'd say the library here is doing a pretty good job with books. We heard about the fabulous new sorter that's processing zillions of books per hour, and the second busiest, I think, library system in the country. And Redmond, I don't know if she mentioned this last week, is the busiest branch in our system. which is crazy. So I'd say that libraries are doing a pretty good job of books. But also, I think it's really important to note that libraries today are about so much more than books, the community aspects. I'm not going to repeat. Mary gave tons of great updates last week. But as one example, I went recently to community court across the parking lot, which, of course, is a partnership with the library, the city, and the district court. And I went there because one of my lawyer friends mentioned that the Redmond community court is the gold standard of community courts. I think that's really special and something you guys should all be proud of for your partnership on that. One more thing I wanted to mention. I was reading recently the KCLS annual report and there was a statistic in there that jumped out at me that 95% of people surveyed think that libraries are a trusted source of information. And that was really, like 95% of people don't agree on anything these days at all, much less what is and isn't a trusted source of information. And so I think that's a huge asset we have here in our community. And I hope that it's something that you guys might be able to think about as you, you know, working on the comp plan and all the other important elements, but whether there's something there that we can leverage. And I loved Council Member Soni's question last week about, you know, what unmet needs Mary might be seeing. And I love, you know, that question I think is really important as we think about the community aspect of the library. So with that, I would love to hear any of your questions.

Well, thank you so much. Do we have our, is this our human services candidate as well? Oh, please join us. And Alaric here.

Please start.

That's all right. And we have a human service candidate as well. Allora, could you please introduce her? Sure.

I'm happy to introduce our newest candidate, Hannah Pressinger. She comes to us. She has a wide-ranging background, but she's been involved in theater for a lot and is currently managing, actually just wrapped up a production, comes with us comes to us with a lot of lived experience, which is really fantastic. And she's actually helping a very close relative right now, help trying to navigate the system. And she's just really passionate about ensuring that everyone in our community is cared for in these really unstable times.

Great, thank you. And Hannah, if you'd like to say a couple of words.

Sure, absolutely. Thank you so much for that introduction and for your help getting me to this point. Glad to be here. Good to meet you all. Apologies for my lateness. Yeah, as Lark said, I am very much coming from both someone who has navigated human services in Redmond and beyond, and I also have quite a bit of high level training in things like project management, just making sure things are flowing properly. So when the email went out, it seemed like the perfect fit potentially. And I would be very, very excited to join you guys helping, yeah, make things better for everyone in Redmond.

Thank you. So we have two candidates for two different boards, but I know you guys are brilliant. So you'll be able to maneuver through this. Council Member Forsythe.

Thank you. Question for both. Given the instability in the times we're facing right now, how do you see your role playing a part of keeping stability and what will you in particular focus on for that?

I can start with that. Go ahead. I would say that drawing on the theater experience that was mentioned, I also have a lot of training in communications of all kinds. And the importance of the narrative, capital N, I think can never be understated. So I would say one of the most challenging parts about the unsettled times we're currently dealing with is just the sense of uh hope or lack thereof among people and i think that trying to present an alternative narrative that is more hopeful and is more focused on you know we are a community and we are all here for each other and there are resources available uh since that can very easily get drowned out by uh all the doom scrolling so i'd say yeah the the storytelling of it all would be my answer thank you and jenny

Your question was about the instability. So the library, I think, has potentially some interesting roles to play in that. Like I mentioned, the community court and the resource center, which has resources from all kinds of local and state agencies available one of the things I would like to do first is learn more about all the different things the library is doing I know there's a ton of things with like tax assistance and English language learners and youth things and adult things and senior things and refugees and a million different things and I know that the library board had some maybe last year I don't know what they called it but a bunch of different presentations from a whole bunch of different people on all the different roles of the library and I'm hoping there may be some documentation of that or recordings of that that I can go back and catch up on as a new potential board member, what I missed to learn what kind of role the library can play. And that I don't have the answers yet, but I think that it is potentially, like I said, a really important resource and the community asset that we have to make sure, first of all, we don't squander that trust in the library. And then secondly, that we think about how we can use it.

Thank you, great question. Council Member Percy.

A question for both of you. Imagining that you're at the end of your term, what would you like to step back and look back and think this is the mark I left on the city?

Jenny, would you like to go first?

Sure. I understand there's been a proposal from one of the other board members, library board members, to start a community publishing imprint. And I know that there was some discussion before council a few months back earlier this year about that. It seemed like there was quite a lot of interest. As I read about that, and I think the idea is it would be modeled potentially on some other things in Michigan and other places. And I think it's a fantastic idea. As I understand that It maybe started here, but I think at the KCLS level, there's some additional interest in maybe doing some things. And I think that somebody who works in the publishing space and with authors and things, this would be really exciting. I think lots of people would be really excited. It's not just about letting people publish books, but it's about how it can... How can we build community with that and all the spinoff things? And so I think that should that be something the library was interested in pursuing, I'd love to have a hand in helping see that come out.

I also love that idea for the record. I think that a specific factor that I'd love to focus on is housing stability and homelessness. That is something that is just at the core of stability and all other problems feel a lot less easier to deal with when you know where you're living the next month.

whatever our um i don't know the current statistics exactly on that but uh you know a measurable improvement in that would uh certainly make me feel good about things thank you council president uh yes thank you and i'll acknowledge that council member sony has arrived thank you so yeah um well thank you both so much uh you're wildly impressive and wildly qualified for the roles um that we are uh seeking to fill here um through this process so It's been a true honor to get to meet you both. I previously served on the library board and I know several of us have served on other commissions. One of the roles that we haven't spoken about yet tonight is actually the role of commissioners as ambassadors to help in your own circles, in your own networks to be able to be a trusted resource that folks can go to to learn more about what is going on in their city or for you to be able to offer perspective as just you're going about your daily lives. So I was wondering, Jenny, actually, maybe both of you could find a way to answer, but I was wondering how by appointing you to serve on these commissions, how we're also helping to inform and reach a broader network and where else, basically, I'm kind of asking, where else might you spend your time that is going to have the benefit of also of learning about your service?

Great question. You know, one of the things that I surprised myself by getting involved in over the past year or so has been the Poetry and Prose Network, which is formerly the Redmond Association of Spoken Word, which has been here for 30 years, which is a really long time. And because they are heavily poetry focused, I had sort of Poetry is not my favorite topic, and so I had sort of stayed away. But they're actually really interested in incorporating prose as well, and so I've become involved in that and on the board. And it's, to your point, giving me sort of forays into a new community of all different ages that I hadn't previously had a window into. And it's been bringing me downtown in the evening when I'm like, there's people out here. Like I grew up here, there were no people out here at 10 p.m. on a whatever night of the week. There's people downtown, which is super cool. But back to your question, also another delightful thing which has plugged me into other communities is the improv scene here in Redmond, Eastside Improv. I'm taking my third class starting next week. In fact, I'm going to have to come across the parking lot for next week's council vote, should that happen, and then run back there for that. Also, the gym that I go to is in Redmond, and both of those are communities of a whole cross-section of people. A high school girl at the gym who's telling me, I hang out at the library on Saturdays with my friends. And it's just like plugging me into all these places that I think is really useful potentially to be eyes and ears on the ground.

I love thinking of it as the commissioner as an ambassador. I hadn't heard that before. That's really exciting to me. I love talking to people and people seem to like talking to me in terms of existing networks. The first thing I think of is I'm very tapped into the greater Seattle area theater scene and the starving artists label exists for a reason, so that's always helpful. Also, my current job that I am phasing out of right now is assistant manager at an apartment complex. I'm managing a couple of them actually, so I know immediately folks there who would always be glad to have resources and information and sense that the city that they are living in is actually caring about them and wanting them to be well. shoot. Yeah. I mean, I, whoever would like to talk, I'm always happy to talk and share information. That's like my whole, that's my favorite thing to do. So right on.

Great. Thank you. We have a council member Procrea online and we do have about six minutes left just so everyone knows.

Great. Well, first of all, thank you so much for being willing to step up and volunteer to help serve this city that we all love. I have a question for Jenny and Not to quote Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, but a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone. And I'm really of the opinion that the reason why we are all living in this world that we are living in today is because of books. It's because of the written language. 800 years ago, people thought that 95% of people weren't capable of reading books. Now we know that almost everybody is capable of reading. But I bring that up because I am very worried about this next generation of students who are growing up and just simply as a fact not reading as much. They aren't reading books. uh what what do you want to do specifically for the next generation of students in redmond to make sure they're engaged with the libraries um that they're that they're reading because i i i truly believe in the power of the written word to help to help shape a mind

Yeah, thank you. That's a good question. I'm also a big fan of the power of the written word to make all kinds of difference. And it's a good question that I see that issue as well in my kids' generation. Honestly, I don't know what the answer is. But I think it might start with bringing people in. Somebody who doesn't want to read, you're not going to say, you have to read. And they're going to say, oh, good idea. Right? This girl I mentioned in my gym who hangs out at the library on the weekends, that seems like an entry point. If kids can go there and get tutoring or there's cool programming, I think that's another good entry point. I know that for the Redmond Reads this summer, the book was a graphic novel, and I know that that can be another good entry point. In fact, in some of my daughter's classes at the University of Washington, they've assigned graphic novel books instead of book books, which I suppose because it's a good entry point. I don't know what the answer is, but I agree with you that it is very much of importance, and I hope that I can learn more and help solve that, or contribute. I'm obviously not going to solve it myself, but make a difference.

Thank you. Council Vice President Nueva Camino, we'll try to get to our other question, too.

Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues for asking really great questions. I had to kind of dig deep, but One that I would be remiss if I did not ask, so thank you, is for both of you and keeping it as concise as we can. One of the things that I believe deeply to my core is the power of diversity. With that in mind, what do you believe that you personally bring to the table that might be missing from the conversation?

I can go ahead and rattle off being of a younger generation. I'm a millennial, but just barely. So for example, it is becoming cool to unplug again for the younger kids. So there's some hope there for sure for the books. I identify as LGBTQ. Those are the first things that come to mind. This seems like a very interesting and diverse group already. So yeah, whatever I can bring is my answer. Thank you. Lisa?

It's something as a person who's white and grew up white that I try to be conscious of as much as I can and learn as much as I can and both of my children are people of color. They were born in Korea and adopted and so I've learned a tremendous amount by seeing the world through their eyes and I'm constantly trying to learn and not think I know all the answers and be in tune to that. I don't know if I, I'm trying to be concise as well here.

Thank you. Council Member Kritzer, would you like to wrap us up tonight?

Yeah, thank you, and I'll wrap up actually by asking a question to Hannah, but if it feels relevant, Jenny, feel free to answer as well. So in particular, the Human Services Commission, they do us an incredible service of doing a lot of work to sort through a really important set of applications for funding, and there's always a difference between the amount of money we have available to spend and the amount of requests. And so have to spend a lot of time figuring out, you know, what the prioritization is there and making hard choices. So I'm curious to hear your perspective on how you'd approach making those hard choices. And yeah, I guess how you'd think about that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you in advance for doing it.

Of course, my pleasure. Let's see. In terms of prioritization, I immediately go back to my time working at Bungie. It's a video game company. That was also a lot of... rapid fire, sometimes emergent issues and needing to very quickly sort of triage what is most important. So in the interest of being concise, I won't go into all my fun little tricks of like, oh, you draw a box and you split it into four quadrants. But like, yeah, there's very much methods to fall back on there. And I'd say also from the lens of directing in theater, film, that sort of thing, being able to see each option that is there and assess both for the needs of the greater project, in this case, you know, meeting the budget and meeting the needs of the community, as well as taking into account the unique perspective and experience of those different applicants. So not treating them as, you know, sheets of paper or numbers on a line, but organizations and real people that are on the same team as us and trying to accomplish the same goal. And definitely that is a challenging task, I'm sure. But yeah, I'd love to help if I can. Thank you.

All right. All right. Well, thank you all very much for the questions. Thank you to both of our impressive candidates. Seeing smiles. So both of these candidates will be on next week's consent agenda. If you would like to come with family, friends, or whomever, if you can be in person after the consent agenda is passed, you will be sworn in. If the timing doesn't work for you, we'll make sure we work with you and get you sworn in at a different time if that's the case. But once again, so thank you. And thank you, Naveen, for coming as well. Thank you, Alaric. And thank you, counsel, for your great questions. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.