Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning. I want to welcome everybody to the Stonemich County Council Public Infrastructure and Conservation Committee for Tuesday, July 1 at 10AM. We're meeting in the Jackson Boardroom and remotely this morning. Before Before we do roll call, I do want to read our public comment script. We'll take public comment beginning with in person and then remotely. In Zoom, click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If calling by phone, press 9 to raise your hand. When called upon, press 6 to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak, and please start your comment with your name and city of residence. That, we'll go ahead and do roll call.

Committee Chair Lo.

Present.

Vice Chair Dunn. Here. Here. Committee member Nearing.

Here.

Committee member Mead.

Here.

And committee member Peterson. Here. Chair, we have five members present.

All right. Next on the agenda is public comment. Anybody in person will, wishing to do public comment this morning? All right. Do we have anybody online that would like to give

No hands raised. Okay.

We'll go ahead and close public comment and move to our action items then. First on the agenda is ordinance 20 five-thirty five.

Good morning, committee chair, low and council members. For the record, Deb Eveson Bell, council staff. Proposed ordinance 20 five-thirty five amend the original franchise granted by ordinance 22 dash zero six three to Intermountain franchise excuse me. Intermountain Infrastructure Group LLC. Proposed amendment revises section 1.3 to include the geographical area of Snohomish County Public Road right away within located within the boundaries of unincorporated Snohomish County.

The proposed amendment also updates section 15, which includes franchise compensation, acceptance, and the effective date language. The request is for counsel to move the ordinance to GLS on July 2 to set time and date for public hearing with the suggested date of 07/23/2025 at the hour of 10:30AM. This concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with public work staff.

Alright. Any comments or questions from council members? Alright. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July oh, sorry. We'll go ahead and move this to GLS on July 2 to set time and date for a public hearing.

Thank you.

Objection. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do that and move to motion 25 dash two nine three.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash two nine three would approve and authorize the county executive to sign professional services agreement c c zero one Dash two five with Hillis, Clark, Martin, and Peterson, PS, for the amount not to exceed $100,000 under Snohomish County code three point zero four point two zero two. Specialized attorney services are needed to assist with the preparation and negotiation for a purchase and sale agreement for 8.5 acres of real property located north of the Snohomish County Public Works North County operations and maintenance facility in Arlington. This is a desirable acquisition due to its proximity to both the North County operations and road maintenance facility and the North County solid waste transfer station. This property would provide greater efficiency and flexibility for future redevelopment of the operation center and recycling facility.

The request requested actions for council to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration. This concludes my staff report and I'm available for any questions along with public works staff.

Right. Any comments or questions from council members? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll move that to consent and go to motion 25 dash two eight zero.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash two eight zero would approve and authorize the county executive to sign amendment number three to professional services agreement, c c zero three dash two three with Cascade Northwest Services LLC doing business as ArcPoint Labs for the amount of $250,000 for a total not to exceed $412,052 under Snohomish County code three point zero four point one four zero, paragraph 11. The amendment would extend the original contract until 12/31/2027 and continue the preemployment testing in hepatitis B vaccinations. The requested actions for council to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration. This concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with public works staff.

Are any comments or questions from council members? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's an objection. Hearing none, we'll move that to consent and go to motion 20 five-three zero two.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash three zero two would approve and authorize the county executive to sign amendment number three to agreement PDB zero one dash two three with Cornerstone General Contractors Inc. For the amount of 1,504,700 and fifth excuse me. $1,504,752 under Snohomish County code three point zero four point one four zero, paragraph 11. This is for site improvements for the temporary staging area in Granite Falls site.

The improvements will include security fencing with an automatic gate, paving stormwater mitigation, covered material storage, electrical and water utilities, and the relocation of a mobile office building from Arlington. As part of the design build for the Arlington operations center, it is necessary to temporarily move staff and equipment off of the Arlington site to facilitate the necessary improvements. Amendment three allows for that temporary site development in Granite Falls. I'd also like to mention that there are two more Arlington operations. ECAFs currently making their way through the review process, and the hope is to have them before counsel for consideration prior to the summer recess. The requested action is for counsel to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration. This concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with public works staff.

All right. Any comments or questions from council members? All right. We'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move that to consent and go to motion 25 dash two nine two.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash two nine two would authorize the critical area protection on county property tax ID number 27050900206200 as shown on the critical area site plan as attached and incorporated by reference to the motion and authorizes the county executive to execute the same under Snohomish County charter 2.2. In 2018, the army corps of engineer approved construction of 35th Avenue Southeast from a 108 88th Street to a Hundred And 52nd Street Southeast with improvements of phase one. This was RC1628 under permit number NWS2017Dash766DashWRD. As part of the construction permit process, a critical area study was prepared in March 2017.

The study required an area for compens compensatory wetland mitigation and is a designated protection site that would be left permanently undisturbed in substantially natural state. Earning protection of the site requires approval by the Stomach County Council and the recording of the critical area site plan with the county auditor. The requested actions for council to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration. This concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with public work staff.

Any comments or questions from council members? All right. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll move that to consent and move to motion 20 five-two 91.

Thank you. Proposed motion 20 five-two 91 would approve and authorize the county executive to execute amendment 11 and any change orders and amendments to the software license agreement between the county and jury systems incorporated that are associated with the upgrade of and continued use of Jury Plus under Snohomish County Code three point zero four point one four zero, paragraph 11. Proposed amendment allows for the purchase of two new modules allowing for the expansion of capabilities of the existing Jury Plus Jury Management software. The total estimated cost of the two modules is approximately $36,660 for the next two years. The requested action is for counsel to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration.

This concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with IT staff.

Any comments or questions from council members? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll move that to consent and go to motion 25 dash two nine zero.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash two nine zero would approve and authorize the county executive to execute an interlocal agreement for information technology services as associated work orders and amendments between Snohomish County and the city of Lake Stevens under Snohomish County code three point zero four point two one zero and three point zero one point one four zero, paragraph 11. The county and the city of Lake Stevens have had a negotiated agreement for IT services since 2015, and this allows for the city to use the county's technology infrastructure and expertise. The proposed agreement allows for a continuation of that existing agreement with a not to exceed amount of $50,000 for the next five years. The requested actions for council to move the motion to GLS on July 9 for consideration, and this concludes my staff report.

I'm available for any questions along with IT staff.

All Alright. Any comments or questions from council members? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 9 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll move that to consent and move to motion 25 dash three one one.

Thank you. Proposed motion 25 dash three one one would authorize and approve the county executive to execute amendment one to the web software as a service agreement under Snohomish County code three point zero four point one four zero, paragraph 11. Facilities uses specialized software to manage the equipment rental and revolving program, assets inventory, preventative maintenance work, work order scheduling, technical interface, reporting and customer billing interface. The two parties wish to continue the master agreement for the duration of the county's use. There is an annual 3% increase that has been added for the life of the contract.

The requested actions for council to move the motion to GLS on July 2 for consideration. The request is to expedite given the current contract expiration date. And this concludes my staff report. I'm available for any questions along with IT and facilities and fleet staff.

Alright. Any comments or questions from council members? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move this to consent on July 2 unless there's objection. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move that to consent. Yes.

I think that has to be an action item.

Yeah. Since it's a motion.

Okay. It's a motion. Sorry.

Alright. So we'll keep that on consent for tomorrow unless there's objection other than staff objecting. All right. We'll go ahead and move to our discussion item. And, on our discussion item, we have the UWise Capstone 2025 project pause for the polls, our second place winner presentation. And, with us, we have Garth Fell, our Snowmish County Auditor. And, take it away, Garth.

Well, thank you. I think we're going to start with, Deputy Director, Lisa Hillman, with IT and some opening comments first. But, yes, it's nice to be here. Welcome, Lisa.

Thank you, everybody. Apologies for not being able

to be there in person.

I'm Lisa Hillman, the deputy director for the Department of Information Technology. Vigo Ford is out of town and very disappointed he isn't able to be here. This is a annual passion project, an effort for him, and this year is certainly no exception. I had the honor of stepping in and introducing this discussion item, and you get to hear from these amazing students. And I see that they're starting to join, which is great.

We're back again this year to report on our budget investment that the executive office and you all approved. And this partnership with the UW and specifically the industrial systems engineering department or Capstone has reached another successful result. And, candidly, I blame Garth for the success and and the students and all their effort. Garth, what do got for us?

Yeah. Well, thank you council members for the opportunity to to share this this great story. For the record, I'm Snohomish County auditor Garth Bell. And today, you're gonna hear from some talented students and now recent graduates of the University of Washington's College of Engineering. They will be sharing with you the results of a capstone they recently completed in collaboration with the elections division of the auditor's office and the county's IT department.

And I wanna take a quick, quick minute just to thank deputy or director Vigo Ford for, including us in this, collaboration with the University of Washington. These types of partnerships provide a unique opportunity to, get a new and fresh perspective on the work we do every day and to innovate, in ways we typically don't have the bandwidth for. And so over the last six months, experts in our elections and IT teams have met regularly with the Capstone team members. And I just wanna thank, those folks that have been dedicating that time, to the Capstone team. I think what you'll see is, time well spent in in the results that the Capstone team is gonna present to you today.

And, with that, I'm just gonna turn it over to our team. And and, again, thank you, thank them for their their many contributions. So, you know, capstone team pause for the polls. I think we're ready for the presentation.

Well, thank you very much, Garth. We are the University of Washington's Industrial and Systems Engineering Capstone group pause for the polls. This quarter, we partnered with Stonemich County's elections team to assist in identifying and implementing improvements to their election process. For the record, I am Ethan Radford.

I'm Bea Gira. I'm Laura Anderig.

At the start of the quarter, we had the opportunity to tour the Snohomish County Elections Campus in Everett and observe, the entire life cycle of a ballot starting from when the county takes possession of it through the final stages of processing. After this detailed walk through, our team concluded that the general ballot handling process was already highly optimized and well managed with minimal room for significant improvement. However, through further conversations with the county elections team, we identified one area that could benefit from enhancement, which was the ballot collection process. Specifically, the ballot collection system currently lacked real time visibility. The elections team noted two recurring issues.

First, that there was no reliable way of knowing when a Dropbox had reached capacity and needed to be emptied. And second, during the past presidential elections, several dropboxes had become overfilled during past presidential during that that past election. These problems can cause delays, inefficiencies, and pose risks to ballot integrity. With this in mind, we set out to improve the ballot collection process by designing and implementing a system that uses a smart scale placed inside ballot drop boxes. These smart scales would collect real time data on fill levels and transmit that information to a centralized monitoring tool.

Our solution is structured in two parts, a physical component and a digital infrastructure to support, data capture, routing, and dispatch. The proposed system works as follows. As voters drop off their ballots, the smart scale inside the Dropbox, which is highlighted in blue here on screen, will as it reaches a threshold of 25% increments, it will trigger a transmission via a device called a super tag that the county already uses. From there, the collections lead can process the data in ArcGIS, which is a geographic information system used for mapping and operations planning. GIS offers a visual dashboard that shows Dropbox fill levels across the county, and the dashboard is also integrated with two additional ArcGIS tools, workforce and survey one two three, that helps schedule collection routes and coordinate team assist assignments.

This combination creates a digital ecosystem that allows the elections office to prioritize collections, reduce unnecessary trips, and prevent overflows by responding to real time conditions on the ground.

K. Now I'll take us through some of our deliverables. So starting with the smart scale, as Ethan mentioned, this was designed using four load cells and some wires that connect to a microcontroller, and it takes constant measurements of the weight on the platform. So it's gonna constantly measure the weight of the ballots as they're collected in the box. And then on a tier system of 25% increments, it will send a message to the super tag that will then be sent out externally back to Snohomish County Campus.

The reason we use 25% increments was to preserve the battery life of the super tag So it's not constantly taking in that information and transmitting it. It's really based on the state change. So we can still know when a problem is occurring. There's some other features of the scale, like a tear button that helps you reset every time and a long lasting battery to last through the length of an election. Yeah.

I'll take over. The false floor is what is supporting part of the scale. So they're built together, essentially. So you can see that s shaped load cell is what's measuring the weight. And there's a platform on top that fits flush with the sides of a ballot box along with a clear vinyl around the edges so that no ballots are falling through, and it's clear so you can see if any do happen to fall through.

There's also a handle so we can easily lift up and see if anything fell underneath as well as feet that allow for the false floor to be completely flush with the lip of the ballot box so that nobody's tripping over that lip when you open the door anymore. We opted to build our own scale due to cost reasons. Prevane scales were very expensive, and it was, still a question of how it would be able to communicate with the supertype. So building it ourselves with our own load cells and microcontroller gave us that freedom, to have it built exactly the way we want it. Going into the route tool, this was built in ArcGIS notebooks using Python, and it was designed to be used by a user that has never really coded before.

So each chunk of code is explained thoroughly as well as the mod And the idea is that there's some user input. It runs a route, and then the user has some decisions about how they wanna use the information. So starting with the inputs, there's a connection to workforce, which is the workforce, like, management system. So it's an a desktop app as well as a mobile app, that the collection lead can use to take out like, to send out assignments to their team, and then the collection teams can see all those assignments, on their mobile app and complete them. So connecting to that is the first step and then selecting which ballot boxes need to be scheduled for pickup, which workers should be assigned to those routes.

And then there's some routing parameters such as constraints for the number of stops, route duration, how many routes should be created, all that kind of stuff. And then it takes all this and using plan routes from ArcGIS, it creates optimal routes and visualizes them for the user. And then the user can decide whether or not they wanna use them. So the first step, if they decide they like the routes and want to use them, instead of creating manual routes in workforce, which they can do, they can batch assign them into workforce. So send all 35 ballot box assignments immediately into workforce.

It saves a lot of time. They can also send the routes to the dashboard for visualization and then also export them as a CSV. The dashboard is also built in ArcGIS, and it is kind of a visualization of workforce as well as what the route tool created. So you can see that those routes are visualized. There's a list of all the assignments as well as their swap information, which route they're on, a list of all the workers, and then some information about how the assignments are getting completed.

And then there is a meter showing that ballot box fullness for the one scale we have, but this could easily be modified to accommodate multiple scales if that was the case. And then the idea is that this is used in conjunction with workforce and survey one two three. So the collection lead is able to visualize everything in the dashboard, kind of get a a real time view of what's going on with their teams in the field, and then also see that fullness of the ballot box and make educated decisions at the time about, if a ball if a box is full, who's closest to finishing their route, who maybe is closest on the way that could add it to their route. So it just helps to make real time decisions. And then the collection teams, you can see on the right, there's a screenshot of what their phone or iPad would look like.

So they can complete assignments, start them, like, set them as in progress. They can give directions to their next route. They can launch into the survey, which they are required to fill out every time they empty a ballot box, sort of operates as a checklist. So it's all in one app for them now. And then moving into our outcomes.

Most of our outcomes were focused on a qualitative impact. So starting with one integrated system, we really wanted to make sure that everything was in one platform. So everything is built in ArcGIS and can work together very nicely. There's also real time visibility, being able to see exactly what's happening in the moment, and then making informed decisions based on that. A human centered design in the false floor to reduce the strain and improve safety for the workers, and then making sure that our scale was, scalable for the future.

So it's low cost. It can be customized even further, and it can grow as the county needs it to. And then there were some small wins quantitatively. So the route tool found some minor wins with the, optimization for all 35 ballot boxes. So a 122 miles saved for a general election, about six gallons of fuel.

It's possible you could see bigger wins with this as some ballot boxes are taken out of the equation, and the problem of how to manually create those routes becomes a little bit more difficult. And then another big win was that our scale that we created is about a thousand dollars cheaper than using any prebuilt scale.

On to our next steps. While the system was successfully designed and prepared for testing, we encountered a delay involving the super tag. Specifically, the super tag is provided by a third party and required a software update to be able to handle the actual Bluetooth signals being transmitted by the smart scale, and, that was not rolled out by the end of our project. Looking forward, we recommend that the county continue coordination with the supertag vendor to ensure, the Bluetooth integration is finalized. Once that is complete, the full potential of the system, can be realized.

In addition, we suggest that the county explore the development of a priority based routing in which drop boxes with higher fill levels are automatically prioritized in daily collection routes. We also recommend that the entire system, both hardware and software, be pilot tested in a live election scenario. Finally, conducting further usability testings, especially focused on optimizing the dashboard's integration with the ArcGIS routing tools will help ensure that the system is user friendly and effective for the collections lead and the entire, elections team staff. Thank you. Any questions?

Well, thank you, everyone. I know you had three other people on your team, I guess, that couldn't make it today. Did you wanna introduce those other three team members?

Yes. There's four others. I think I can't go back. Oh, I can't. So I can show you their names on the front. Yeah. So Veia was here. She I think the computer crashed, so she wasn't able to present. But Veia Aguirre, Josiah Rule worked a lot on the false floor and scale together. Victoria Tan was very helpful with the ArcGIS component, and Gabe Theo was as well.

Well, thank you everyone for your work. I'll turn it over to council members for questions. Council member Neri?

Yeah. No questions, but just wanted to say great job. This is really cool to hear about, and and I appreciate all of your work, congratulations.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

I'll I'll just add. It's it's hard to understate the thoughtfulness of what they've done. They looked at tools that were already in existence here at the county and utilized those tools rather than adding some sort of additional cost items. So ArcGIS is the standard platform we use, for GIS work, and they utilize that tool that that required some, quick learning on their part to how to code in in ArcGIS. As far as the scales, the the scale work was something that we certainly couldn't have developed internally and required, the engineering background to understand, you know, when you clear out that scale, what sort of devices do you need to reset the the loads on the scale?

How do you balance that scale to make sure that it can, properly identify that ballots are hitting that platform? And, and so I just, thank thank the team for for really considering, you know, the real world impacts of their solutions, and, and I think they did a great job. We actually have already installed the scale in one of our boxes, and we're continuing to work with the, vendor of the super tag to, try to get that communication piece worked out so that, we can test it in either the upcoming primary or general election to see will it will it send us those alerts, in a timely manner as it fills up. And so, so, yeah, I think, what they've developed is something that is is something we can implement and is a practical solution to help us understand the status of, boxes, in real time and and how they're filling up, and and we can prioritize our work that way. So, again, thanks thanks, Capstone team, for for an excellent job and, certainly appreciated by, the auditor's office, our IT department, and the staff here.

So I I attended a Smart Cities conference, I think, back in 2015, and they talked about cities using the same model for trash collection and parks in different places and having the weighted scale and knowing, you know, how full the trash cans were before they would send out workers to pick up trash in in different places. So I think this is phenomenal. I think the other, thing too is last year during, the election in Vancouver, we had a drop box that that, was firebombed, and some didn't know how many ballots were in there. And I think one of the people on the ballot said, oh, there was thousands of ballots in there, it cost them their election. And I think by knowing by weight how many approximate ballots could definitely help in if there's ever potential situations where you can say, yeah, this only had a, you know, a fourth of the way full or it's only halfway full, and that equates to x amount of ballots.

So I think that could help in the future if we see damage too. So I think it's pretty incredible. I wanna thank all the students for their work. Lisa, thank you for all your work too. I know it's really important for you and Vigo, and so incredible all the way around. Any other closing thoughts? Alright. I think we're off the hook then. Thank you, everyone. And with that, we'll go ahead and be in recess until our 11:00 planning and community development meeting. Thank you, everyone.