General Legislative Session - Regular Meeting

Okay, good morning, everyone. Snohomish County Council is called to order for our administrative session. Today is Tuesday, July 7th, 2026 at 9am. We're meeting in the Jackson boardroom and also remotely. I'll read the script for public comment and then our clerk will take role. We'll take public comment beginning in person and then remotely on zoom, click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If you're calling in by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak and please start your comment with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call.

Council Chair Dunn. Here. Vice Chair Lowe. Present. Council Member Neering. Here. Council Member Mead. Here. Council Member Peterson. Here. Chair, we have five members present.

Thank you. Next is public comment. Did anyone wish to provide public comment today? Welcome. You can use the podium.

My name is Timothy McDonald. I've been east of Arlington for the last 51 years. I'm getting old and the tree farm is being sold, pieces of it are being sold. I've had a neighbor wanting to buy 15 acres of a 20-acre parcel. And so that requires a boundary line adjustment to sell them the 15. And what I have found is I am required by PDS to convey the parcel to the buyer before they buy, which if I do that and it is recorded, they have no incentive to pay for what they buy. I think it's incumbent on the county to either post bond $200,000 to assure that I get paid for the property or Your requirement to transfer property in order to get a BLA through is contingent upon the sale, and you have to recognize that. But I can't get through to BDS. It's difficult to talk to. If you want to post a bond for $200,000, I'll go through that.

Thank you for your comment. If you want a response, you can leave your email and we have cards that have our email address on it where staff can reach out.

Any other public comment? Hi, welcome. Hi, good morning. My name is Jen Pack. This is my husband, Steven Pack. Our new city of residence is Everett. I just wanted to take an opportunity to introduce ourselves. We're with the Salvation Army. So we're the new officers. If you're familiar with the kind of the movement of the Salvation Army, you'll see different leadership. But we we just wanted to introduce ourselves, make our face known. We're excited to work here in Snohomish County. My husband and myself have had the opportunity to serve in King County, Pierce County, Lewis County, and now Snohomish County. So as things come up, as we serve community in mutual. individuals we're just excited to be here and I believe that we'll be working closely as projects come up most notably the new start Center and so we are always available and so we just wanted to make an introduction as we we began our work here last week thank you so much thank you so much welcome

Other public comment? Are there any hands raised? No hands raised. Okay, so we'll close public comment and move on and the agenda. We have introduction and assignment a legislation to committees, you can see the items that have come in. I'll go ahead and read through committee the whole so item A is for moving to next week to set time and date for a public hearing. Item B is to move to tomorrow for consideration. The clerk's report on pending legislation, there's no report. reports of council committees you can see the dates and times of the upcoming committee meetings next is reports of outside committees are there outside committee reports councilmember nearing yeah thank you chair down we had an ltac meeting last week and there was an addition up to an additional five million dollars um recommended for the every stadium project out of all that okay other comments We had last week was community transit and we passed a budget amendment that would allow for a proposed purchase of adjacent property. And there was also an FAQ frequently asked questions sent out around the merger with community transit Ever Transit. There was also we also had a PSRC executive steering committee, which was just our update updating meeting for leadership.

chairperson's report there's no report chief of staff report thank you i just wanted to remind council that we are participating in family day which is july 24th and you should receive you should have received a calendar hold specifically for your time slot for that booth and staff are working really hard to prepare some fun items for it so just a reminder for that that's it okay any questions okay thank you

We have no action on full council action from items of committee. Under other business review, motion 26-264. And then next is our human services first quarter, 2026, affordable housing and behavioral health and chemical dependency and behavioral health sales tax report. So, welcome MJ and staff.

Good morning. For the record, Mary Jane Vrelvojevic, Director of Human Services. And while Mike is getting the PowerPoint up, Mike Litico, who is our Division Manager for Administrative Services. So once a quarter, we provide a report, as Council has requested, on three separate sales taxes, sales and use taxes. Ordinarily, we do every other month that we do this in person. So this is off month. We're coming in in person this quarter. So great. So the three different taxes are the first is the longstanding chemical dependency and mental health sales tax that has been in existence since 2008. And programming began in 2009 and 2010. The second and third are combined to form the affordable housing and behavior Housing and Behavioral Health Sales Tax Fund, and that is the fund that was created under House Bill 1406. That was a sales tax that's actually remitted back to the county. It's not an additional one that the county approved, and the second was the House Bill 1590 fund as amended a few different times, and that is a one-tenth of one percent councilmanic sales tax, specifically for the creation of affordable housing and behavioral health facilities. So the fiscal report, first one for the chemical dependency mental health sales tax. First, we have all the human services expenses in this. We are basically 15 months into a 24-month period. So if we were like exactly on expenditures, it would be 62.5% of the expenditures. As you can see for the Human Services Department internally, we're extremely close to that, and our subcontractor and direct service a little behind, which is okay because we oftentimes, as we get into the winter, spend more rapidly out of that fund. So nothing here to really suggest anything that is off plan for all of this on the Human Services side. On the other departments, we're also a little bit behind, but again, not anything to be concerned about because we still have several months, about seven months left in the, nine months left, excuse me, in the period. I keep going like we're actually giving a report for the first quarter of 2026. So a lot has happened since then that isn't in this report that will be in the next two quarterly reports. So as you can see, all of the other departments are spending their funds as well in this fund. Then we move on to the Affordable Housing and Behavioral Health Sales Tax Fund. And as you can see, $13 million was obligated for construction of the two new start centers. $12 million was expended on construction through $12.5 million through 331, both of those projects since. have the construction portion has completed, and they're both coming in at budget. $5.2 million was obligated, committed for the new START Center's operating and maintenance costs through December 31st of 2026. Some of those funds are being expended. There are still funds available there that goes into the facilities department. The council approved site operator contracts, $2.6 million, $6, $8 million for Salvation Army, and so excited to have our new leadership here on that, and $2.1 million for the YWCA's facility, for the, operate the facility in Edmonds. And $3 million was obligated via an interlocal agreement. It's actually, with the City of Linwood, it was actually with North Sound Behavioral Health Organization on behalf of the City of Linwood, for the startup costs of the Linwood Crisis Care Facility, which is now operational. Then additionally, other capital projects for which we've had obligations, 1590 funds, 11 million were obligated for the CMAR Community Health Centers, 2.5 million for the Compass Health Broadway redevelopment, and nearly all of which had been expended by 331. 1.7 million for Hasco and 6.2 for Housing Hope properties at the redevelopment of the property where the Everett United Church was originally located. 1406 funds, $5 million with 3.25 for the Integra property. Still of Guamish, two apartments. These were originally part of the Still of Guamish Senior Center and have since separated out from that. And all of that has been fully expended. $1.35 million for the Catholic Housing Services Monte Cristo Apartments and $391,000 for Hasco. So additionally, $3 million was appropriated for the administration evaluation of which we have not spent all of that and we're not going to spend all of that. because the longer startup time for this fund than originally anticipated. Once both these, all of these properties, well, once the two new start centers are in operation, we'll see that cost go up. And of course, costs associated with now that we have appropriations for capital projects. But any funds that are not expended just return to the fund balance for future appropriation. They don't get held back in any way. The Policy Advisory Board recommendations, and again, all of these have since been approved by Council, but this is a report through 331. So Council took action after that date. $3 million in 1590 funds were set aside for Grandview Homes, and that was for the Home and Recovery Center Freedom Bridge housing project. So major, and this is a behavioral health facility project. as opposed to a housing facility that also offers recovery services. And $20 million was set aside for 1406 and 1590 funds. And that includes $4.2 million for the Helping Hands Organization for Supportive Housing, $5.8 million for Everett Gospel Mission Bridge Housing, $4 million for Housing Hope Properties. Again, that is the Everett United Church of Christ Redevelopment. And $2.9 million for Everett Station District Alliance, That is for them to do transit-oriented development, and $2.9 million for HASCO for redevelopment of senior housing. And again, all of these have since been approved by council, but as of this date, they had only been approved by the PAD. And so this then shows just where all of these funds are within the Affordable Housing Fund and how many units of housing that would cover. I'll note, too, the ARPA New Start Centers, there's $25 million spent there. That's a high-level overview of where we were financially with all of these projects. Evaluation report. Again, as of this period, we will not see starting to see evaluation numbers until the third quarter report. But the things we will see in that are the efficacy of investment, number, type, and location of housing units development, the cost per household by year, by type of unit and target population, I think that's really important because those can vary substantially depending on who it is that's being served and what is the full volume of service that we're looking at providing there. The number and type behavioral health facilities and the extent to which needs are being addressed by the location. And then are they having systemic impacts? Are there changes in the point in time count? We've already seen that with the way we've been expanding capacity within shelters. Most recently, the literal street homelessness count went down and the number of people being sheltered went up so that we've already started seeing from investments the county has been making in this arena. Changes in the housing inventory count, where do we have housing and what income levels are they serving? Changes in the community needs assessment and that would also include the community health assessment because those two are working together very closely now on behavioral health indicators. So those are the kinds of impacts we expect to see from these investments that are being made for these two funds. And again, last chart, we don't yet have numbers, but we will have, as you know, there was a ribbon cutting for the New Start Center in Edmonds at the tail end of June, and they started accepting referrals the 1st of July. So for the report, for the third quarter report, we'll start seeing numbers of who's being served. And again, for the two new start centers, the real intent has been a rolling startup. So you don't open the doors and just have the full capacity build up, but that there would be basically over the course of four months, they take in referrals with all of the criteria that have been established so that we're at full capacity four months out. And that's largely to just make sure that things are shaking out. Facilities did an excellent job of getting the new start center at Linwood or Edmonds ready. And now, of course, they're doing the kind of identifying the punch lifts, the final touches that need to be done. And we are in conversation with facilities about doing that now. So with that, that is the update as of first quarter. And again, we'll have more updates. We're working on the second quarter report right now, which will probably be ready earlier than needs be. And then, of course, the third quarter report where we'll start seeing actual updates.

numbers and projects being finished and people being served so you've been busy thank you so much it's been very busy questions any questions are online you mentioned the policy board recommendations is that the PAB yes the policy advisory board

So per the interlocal agreement between the county and all the jurisdictions involved, all proposals that come in for these capital projects start by being reviewed by the TAC, which has representatives from all of the different jurisdictions. The PAB has got a smaller group. They review the TAC recommendations and make final recommendations to the county council, which makes final decisions about where the dollars get spent. So originally, for this last round of funding, the TAC had said, well, we have $10 million to spend in 2025. And so their recommendations were for that amount of money. And then the Policy Advisory Board said, but we can also leverage more low-income housing tax credits if we fund more so. And we do have a biennial appropriation. The money had been collected. And so they approved spending that money more quickly. and obligating it to projects more quickly so those projects could be fully funded and move more rapidly.

Female Speaker 1 And then what are the guiding documents for expending those funds, aside from the RCW and state law? What would you say?

Female Speaker 2 The guiding documents are the investment plan. So, the investment plan was originally done for the first five years to go out, I believe, through 2030. And then each biennium, when we come forth to council, council then makes adjustments to that investment plan. And so those become then the drivers of what is the expenditure authority and in what categories that drive what is being done. And so a few changes have been made since that original investment plan. We'll start the process, the community engagement process in 2027. For a new investment plan moving forward for the next rolling five years Thank you.

Thank you Any other questions? Okay, then that we have no executive session that concludes our agenda and councils and recess until our 10 o'clock committee meeting