General Legislative Session - Regular Meeting

John Potter, Or I want to call everybody to work just so much County Council administrative session for Tuesday September 15 2026 at six we have. John Potter, A meeting at the lake Stevens boys and girls club here on lake shore drive and remotely today. John Potter, Before we do our call of order and introductions I do want to read our public comments script will take public comment beginning with in person and then remotely and zoom click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If calling by phone, press star 9 to raise your hand. When called upon, press star 6 to unmute. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. And please start your comment with your name and city of residence. And for roll call, we'll do introductions since we're in a new place today. I'm Sam Low, Council District 5, which is Lake Stevens and Highway 2 communities. And it's good to be back in my district. I'm strong. Can you send her up Senate, uh, Edmunds Woodway and Megan Dunn district two or who's I make Everett, uncle Tio and Talayla and Jared need district four. Do we have anybody online?

Yeah, this is Nate bearing district one, North of the homeless County.

All right. So we have all five members present today. Uh, next to special reports. I don't believe there is one tonight. Now that brings us to public comments. Anybody wishing to do public comment today? Don't all rush up at once. All right. Welcome. I think we know you.

Where do we do comment? You can do it from right there. Oh, great. Thank you very much. My name is Tom Teigen. For the record, I'm a resident of Lake Stevens, Washington. I'm actually mostly a lifelong resident of Snohomish County. I don't know what in 1962. So I've seen lots of changes in our county over the year. I wanted to come tonight just as a resident of Lake Stevens. Thank you, House Member Lowe, for hosting the council here. And I have my tax bill here. And I want to read what I pay in taxes. I'm lucky enough to have bought a house with kids who live on Lake Stevens on the water. That's an amazing opportunity. But I hear a lot from residents and folks in the county about how high our taxes are and where those taxes go. The county takes all the money and lots of different things. The fact is, I'm just going to read this off right here, and then you can together figure out the portion of this in three minutes, correct?

Okay.

Okay. So, Ohio Regional Library, $509.92. So, county, $810.40. City of Lake Stephen $1,160.82. Sonoma's Regional Fire and Rescue, $2,740.64. State of Washington, $3,766.62. And the Lake Stephen School District, number four, $5,890.01. And then I also have two little assessments. One is for the Conservation District. Some kind of Conservation District is not part of the county, They go through this file and it's a $10.02 and then there's a surface water utility charge. So 473. So my property taxes are $15,360 a year. Okay. But of that, if you go back and look at what actually goes to the county, what actually goes to the county that's one of the major service providers across all their, it's all of our nodes, the work that we do across the environment, keeping lakes clean, everything else is amazing. And what I find when I add all these things together is I spend about 7% of my total tax tax. 7% goes to the camera. That's it. So when this council is debating things to do like passing transportation benefit district, which is very important for our public works, very important for our road systems, $30 a car tax fee, 30 minutes minimum, compared to my $15,000, $200, whatever I'm paying the taxes. And I started looking down here, and the county accounts for such a small portion, and it provides so much. So I would ask every resident of Sonoma County to go to their real estate tax bill, get your two parts, how much you're going to pay in the first half and the second half, look at that, and then you will understand that this county is lean and efficient, provides great services. And to get those great services, you do have to invest. And I like making investments in Sonoma County, and I appreciate you all. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mister try again for speaking your personal capacity, yes, 30. All right, if they also in person for public comment today. All right, we have anybody online for public comments. All right, we're going to post public comment and move on in our agenda that says that letter the introduction and assignment of legislation to committees, make sure you check that out. Item number 6 is media the whole and I'll turn.

Council considers budget motion 26-375, approving the six-year OVU and settler dollar spending plan 2027 through 2032. This item is for assignment to the whole proposed action. Is this set time and date for a public hearing? Suggested time and date is Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 at the hours of 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. to consider along with the 2027-2028 annual budget items.

All right. So do we have a motion for letter A?

I have to set time and date for public hearing for a budget motion 26 dash 3, 7, 5, 4, Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 at 10 30 AM and 6 PM.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Passes unanimous. Item B is for assignment to committee to fold. I don't see motion 26 that's 3, 0, we consider tomorrow.

September 16 the G. L. S. A crack pressure that's actually just for some of the whole.

I mean the city was seen as the best thing to be no to G. L. S. to us for 60 for consideration of the record.

You should have been the right on this is me. Any questions and more. Corrections on that. Any concerns with that. All right. Items D through F will be considered also on September 16th. That brings us to letter F, the clerks report on pending legislation. There is no report. Reports of outside, or excuse me, reports of council committees, letter G, committees are suspended. and are expected to resume November 24, 2026. Reports of outside committees. Chair Dunn.

Yes, thank you. Tuesday, we had our Board of Health meeting. The notes were sent out. We had an email from staff. Friday, we had our Tri-County check-in, and those meetings will be monthly and then bimonthly during the legislative session as we gear up for that. Monday we also have the OSJ cabinet meeting where there was a presentation on the budget and then this Thursday is the Association of counties for being an LLC meetings and elsewhere that I'll be attending. I can there's one by law change and we're going to go about it. I've been sent a packet out to our chief staff.

And that's all all right and you know the reports of outside committees and some of them are married.

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Lowe. Appreciate it. We had our Lodging Tax Advisory Committee joint board retreat with the TPA this past Monday, yesterday. And we talked about transitioning the DMO to the TPA. And then in turn, that'll free up capital funds for LTAC to use. And so there was an unanimous agreement across the two boards to do that. And then next Wednesday evening, just as a reminder, is the Somerset County Memorial General Assembly.

All right, thank you for your words. I did attend. I was about to team over yesterday my county capacity so I to her team over yesterday and I would encourage all the other council members get opportunity to do that very inviting to see all the different stuff that they're doing around around security night to work. Let's see chairpersons report there is no reports. Chief of Staff's report.

Thank you. So tonight's in-district meeting concludes our five in-district meetings as required by charter. So they will resume again in 2027. And related to the council's budget deliberations, council analysts are actively working on preparing their analysis of their departmental budgets, and they should be prepared and peer-reviewed by the very first couple of days of October so that you have time to review them in advance of the department presentations.

All right, I just want to add that we do have a public hearing following this meeting a special meeting. Other business make sure you check your packet for that. Executive sessions there is not so I believe that brings us to the conclusion of this particular meeting. You know it's never very is there some else want to share your hand is left over.

Just let go thanks.

All right. So that will put us in recess and close this meeting so that we can switch into our public hearing. And that will be held here in a couple of minutes, chaired by Roberta. So with that, we're in recess. Roger, recess.