Legislative Meeting - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. This is the July 20th, 2026 meeting of the Board of County Commissioners. That's our 9 a.m. strategic briefing. Please let the record reflect that we have Commissioner Jordan online. He's in his mobile office today, I see. And then in the hearing room, we have Commissioners French and Kearns. Commissioners Brooks and Waldroff are out this morning, and so we are going to lead off. with a presentation from Jeff McMorris. And we got Jason and Tessa, the whole team here to talk about sales tax update, financial update, and some budget discussions. So jump into some numbers. All right.

Good morning. Good news. Sales tax was amazing. Crushed it last month. We've been crushing it the whole year. Youth collections, which reflects the economic activity in April. for buyers. It's just shy of 7.1 million. Year-to-date collections are about 4.8% over our past rate. And year-to-date, we're about 3.5 million, or 9.4% over the same period last year. And just a reminder, we have budgeted 2.2%, so significantly older. scroll down on so our rolling 12-month average was what we used to um project the next year's budget uh right now we're at 6.9 because that's that's the highest amount that we've had since about february and 23. uh the rolling average keeps increasing So for the sectors, accommodation and food services, relatively flat. We consider that CPI, it's actually probably a little bit down. That's 1.4% growth. Construction, look and see, I consider pretty flat, about 4.8%. Retail trade, which is our largest sectors, year over year growth, that 7.1%. And that's where we generate most of our revenue collection. Just the sectors. Again, for construction, non-residential building construction, you can see this down significantly at negative 14.6%. Residential building, 1.7%. Building equipment contractors flat at 0.1%. and then foundation and structure contractors at nine.

Next slide.

We updated a little bit from the sectors that we have previously been presenting on just to get a little bit more granular. So full service restaurants, so like Klinker Daggers, they're at Churchill's. Full service restaurants are up about 6.3%. Limited service restaurants, something like a Qdoba, is up 3.4%. 13 places, 2.6%. In the sectors that's not doing well at all, the travelers' accommodations is down 14.7% year-to-date, year-over-year. Next slide. Last presentation, we should return to that, specifically about new car dealers, new car dealers. So we broke that out a little bit more, this presentation. New car dealers year to date are up 9%. Used car dealers down 2.4%. So we're a little bit surprised by that. Recreational vehicle dealers, even though there was a significant drop in April, year to date, the sector is still up 11.8%. which is a good sign, again, because it's discretionary spending. Not everybody has to go and purchase an RV. And then motor vehicles or motorcycles and ATV dealers, 6.3%. Pretty strong.

Next slide.

And then... Close this one out. So clothing retailers up 9%. Department stores are finally starting to increase a little bit. So it's probably a little more shopping inside the city core at 6.6%. Other miscellaneous retailers really saves us. That's why our revenue growth is so significantly higher than previous periods. It's up 15.3%. We're half of the super centers, 4.6%. Again, those last two sub-sectors are what we generate a lot of revenue with.

Yes, sir. On the other miscellaneous retailers, would that include like your home improvement stores, Home Depot, Lowe's, and stuff? Are they included in a different category? They're in a different sub-sector.

And at the top, I had to cancel all of this. Other miscellaneous retailers are typically like Amazon, Wayfair. And because we're destination-based, we, yeah. Thank you. And then next slide. And just to recap, year-to-date, we're at 1.9 million over what we budgeted for this year's sales tax. And then 3.5 million over what we collected last year. Sales cash growth is strong. 6.9% rolling average. So this is what we're going to use to, as one of our factors when we consider what our estimated 2027 sales cash growth actually made. And then the last slide, we just put this in. This is just to show you taxable retail sales by jurisdiction. So We just got Q4 data, but we didn't get it in time for this presentation. So we'll update it and show it for the next presentation. But going back in 2018, you can look at Q3. The date, the city in 2018 was generating about 52% of the sales. And now they're down to only 46.7%. Whereas if you look at the bottom of the county, was generating, you know, shy of 14%, is now generating 17.4%. So the county keeps increasing. The city's not doing bad as well. The growth. Oh yeah, those are just the smaller, some of the smaller jurisdictions you can see. Liberty Lake is increasing .

That's it, sales and tax was great. Liberty Lake is doing well because of the car dealerships. The car dealerships. Okay.

Any questions? Looks like we might have lost Chris for a second. So, okay. All right, let's keep moving.

All right, next up, a quick 2026 financial update.

Should be included in the packet. Let's see which one shows up first.

Perfect. We'll go over general funds, salary, and benefits, budget versus actuals by pay period. We have officially completed the 13th pay cycle in our new workday system. And that is half of what we expect for the year. So we expect 26 pay cycles in a year. So now at 13, we are halfway through. We are seeing a vast majority of our departments in the black, which is good. They have a positive variance. There are a few departments that we are seeing with some overspend trends, and we have sat down and discussed with almost all of these, looking at what the impacts are, trying to understand if it's the PTO bridge cash out. We are constantly tracking that, and we'll make budget amendments later this year, fall time, September, October, to adjust for any negative impacts from the PTO bridge cash out for changing our pay cycles. For other departments where they have just a continual overspend, we are working on course corrections. So we've sat down with pretrial services, specifically here on the VOCC reporting departments, and discussed with Aaron some great alternatives and options to get his budget back into black.

So it should start trending.

They should start trending the other way now.

A few weeks, a few pages.

In the lower section, these are the elected officials that are showing overages on their payroll. And we do think that there are some retirements that will come and help some of the departments. Others, we believe there might be some grant spending that just needs some accounting treatment fixes and cleanup.

Those are overspent.

Those are just overspent. That is the payroll. So we'll go ahead and skip ahead to the next one if there are no questions.

What are we going to do about the one that they're just overspending?

That one's above my pay grade. OK. At this point, we as a budget office no longer have the ability to just keep paying. So when we were under PeopleSoft, It would just keep it up when you overspent to just kept getting paid and then we would do your end. adjustments after talking with the board and going through that process at this point, we would have to override the system to actually. And then we would be the ones culpable because we have authorized spending. We'd be authorizing the spending of the board, authorizing the spending. So as we get closer to the end of the year, if some of these departments are still trending where there's going to be an overage, we're going to need to have some serious discussions. Yeah. on us. And so I would say in the next couple months, if some of these departments continue to trend the wrong direction, we will be here looking for feedback from the board.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" Right, we had discussions with each of the elected officials regarding going over budget to the memo.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" That's correct.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" So they understand their courage to reach out to budget for assistance and help if they are finding themselves in this situation.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" And you talked like you know, the assessor does have a retirement, you know, Gina's husband, we all, all of that, that one. So that will help the, they're not replacing that position. So that one will have a quick correction. District court does have enough money in M&O to cover theirs for different reasons. They have chosen not to do a transfer right now, but their rate of spending is, would show that it appears they have enough money to cover it. We do think there might be some grants in emergency management that we could put some of these costs towards. However, DEM goes through the sheriff's department and they have their own grant person. So you know I can ask other questions, but she is not going to deal with the process, the central grant process, so there could be. through our grants office i'm surprised there's as high as i mean that they're a pretty small shop percentage wise that's a big number yeah that there there's not many people in that department so i'm surprised it's that large but they do have some grants that might be able to move quite a bit of that off off and then um the last time the sheriff was here i would hear him say that they had those they They had a fairly decent sized cohort that was going to be being hired. But then, if I remember correct, he said they were going to be stopping hiring. Is there a substitute? Hopefully that will help that trend come a better direction. That's a big number to come back to. That does include that extra $900,000.

That was for the less medical retirees.

That that is in the system now. Okay, so this is a net number after that additional So, you know, overall, the vast majority of departments are on track.

So just unclear. So had we not taken the action to take care of the $900,000, that number would be over $2 million. Is that what you're saying?

We know there's $450,000 every year today. Is that right? The impact would be closer to $450,000 because that may have spread over the entire year. And since we're right at the halfway mark, it'd be more $1.6 million at this point. Okay. HAB-Masyn Moyer- At this point, I think everything.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- We haven't done a thorough analysis of their 5k cycle spend. HAB-Masyn Moyer- I would venture a guess and it was not one large event no large retro pay or settlement or anything that would have created that.

This is one where they said we'll need to revisit it over the next month or so just for direction for us.

Yeah.

Because if the board does want to do a significant course correct, I would say having that come over several months would make more sense than we don't have any services from a particular department somewhere. Yeah.

Yeah.

All righty. And then we have a roll up of all of our general fund expenses. So this is salary benefits, M&L, capital, everything that's been allocated to a department versus expenses year to date. Percentage wise, we kept this in alignment with the pay cycle and date as well. So it's 50.8% of the year. is our magic number here to keep you in the black. We are seeing a few departments again, similar to those that have the payroll overspends are triggering in the red here. We are also seeing public defense in the red down below. They have utilized a significant portion or most all of their M&L for outside legal counsel at this point.

So they've used their annual budget in six months for the outside counsel. And so they're going to start shooting up rather quickly.

We will continue to watch closely and come back for further discussion.

Sorry to interrupt. We've talked with the assessor. I think there's plenty. public records, is that because of their technology needs?

Yes, there was a one time, or not a one, excuse me, a large technology purchase that was authorized starting in this year for an email tool through Microsoft Office 365 that was recently purchased. So that is just trending them over for this point in the year, but we don't expect them to overspend this year.

So what's going on with the assessor's office? They're overrun.

They had planned on the mid-year retirement. So this would be their worst spot because the retirement just happened in the last day cycle.

Okay.

So that level started trending the other way. They always planned on not back from that decision. Okay.

Overall, the general fund is still below the 50.8% target at 46.7 so far this year. So we'll continue to monitor and come back again in another month or so. All right, Jeff, a couple of quick notes about the 2027 budget.

Um, we did speak with the assessor in the last couple of weeks. And too early for numbers. The ballpark, he does not expect this year's new construction. Not expecting a huge downturn either, but something slightly less than the 1.4. Things could shift, but as they are, you know, kind of doing best guesstimates what's going to actually be completed in time to the rolls this year. It sounds like next year should be a. There's a lot of activity going on, but this particular year, so we might have a slight decrease. It probably would only impact our revenue in the low six figures because the $1.4 billion gave us about a million in revenue. So if it goes down to $1.2, $1.3 billion, we might be down to $900,000 now. So not a huge sales tax is more than making that difference.

I had spoken to the assessor at an event last week, and he had indicated the same thing. He said, so the reason behind that was there's a lot of stuff that is under construction, but it's not far enough along that it's going to hit the rules. So next year has the potential to be really big.

Next year could be, at this point, it appears next year might be another new record. Yeah. So long-term trajectory is good. This year, it just might be a little bit flat or stale, something. And as we talked going through the sheets and as we look for the 27 budgets that all the departments are preparing, most of the departments have come in and chatted with us, making sure our numbers are in alignment with their numbers. They're being thoughtful and intentional as they go through the process, working to prioritize within the target budget Given a few departments. Not taking that approach and so our approach will be to. To give if they, if we get a department that comes in and said, well, we just can't meet your target budget. So we're coming in higher. We will give them an extra week to correct it. And if we have to correct it in the end, we will bring them down to the target budget. And we'll be taking that from the salary benefit line as that's the largest line in could still move their budget lines around as they manage their budget throughout the year. But we will be bringing the BOCC a balanced budget September 1 when we present. So that has been our direction to date. And unless you guys change direction, that's our plan as budgets come in. This being our last week of meetings for the couple week recess. Just want to say, thank you for taking recess because it gives us more time to work on budget issues instead of preparing for weekly meetings. So we do definitely appreciate that.

So you're saying when we get out of your hair, you guys can actually get some work done?

We get more specific to the budget done versus the other specific thing. The timing is really good for the budget office. So we appreciate that. just by way of reminder randy bischoff my predecessor will be coming back um august 3 the first monday of august and he'll be with us um just indefinitely but probably at least a month or two um that will depend on scott's health. So we will have extra hands who knows the county very well as we put together budgets and talk with departments and get everything ready for September 1. So that should be very good. That's kind of our plan going forward. Any questions or comments on that? We are setting up Um, one on one meetings with each office, just to talk about the commissioner's office budget specifically and get feedback on the budget at large. From from each person kind of helps us. Put our work together in order when we just have more of a sense of what the electives are thinking. So I know you've met with already. Commissioner French, and we'll get through all of those, hopefully by the end of this week. Any other?

No other shocking news.

Please continue to be thankful sales tax is strong. That helps. It helps a lot. We do have a closed session at the end of this meeting today. To talk about some payroll type issues to get some some direction that that will also possibly.

Great work. If if.

Keep spending, guys. Go out to the stores. Go out to restaurants. If you need a new car, get out there.

Or a used car. Those are below.

Or a used car. Get those up there.

We have a lot of Amazon boxes. Oh, yes. We're doing our part.

All right. Thank you both. Thank you, Jeff. Next up is Scott, and he is online. There you go. Okay. We were ahead of schedule, so I wasn't sure if he'd be on yet.

Good morning.

Hello, Scott.

I'm trying to find my controls here. There we are. There you are. Thanks for the time we're following up. This briefing is 1 from the 1st of the month. We want to go over a little bit of what's transpired. Give you a chance to ask any questions you may have about the process and where that is ultimately going. We do have some slides for you. We'll go over the first parts of these pretty quickly. They are slides you have seen before, but they provide a little bit of context for our audience. Next, please. And importantly, as we're putting together the most important part of the upcoming comprehensive plan update, it really is the future land use map. And it's based to a large extent on these eight criteria, all of which Touch the map, all of which bring a whole series of elements into play. Some are within our control and your control to provide directions. Some of the housing unit allocations are shared with the steering committee and others. But ultimately, you can see this group of criteria that all start to paint that map. And then most importantly, from our perspective, the last one, market factors. And that's important because we can plan all we want based on formulas and other things. The market has a way of doing what the market chooses to do. And we have to be responsive to that. We have to reflect how that was done in the past and give ourselves enough chance to be nimble and react to that market quickly so that we can capture growth and not have it go elsewhere. Next, please. The DEIS really has kind of the basics. It was issued on the 7th, the comment period ended on the 11th. We have been gathering those comments together and pulling information into a matrix that we'll be sharing in the coming areas. We use an example at the bottom on how critical areas, because we're also updating the critical area ordinance, they have a way of shaping where things are going in a fairly significant way. Next, please. So the EIS... Right now, we're not seeing anything other than places seem to be struggling to understand the alternative one and alternative two model that was being put into the DEIS. I think some were more used to a more fractured, more discreet model. version where Alt 1 stood on its own, Alt 2 stood on its own, and we started blending that to try to get a more realistic picture from the very beginning. That seems to have caused a little bit of confusion. The only other thing is the one you might expect, transportation. DOT has had a number of comments, notably about things along 195 and some other areas, but so far nothing out of the ordinary.

Thank you.

So these, these bullet points are sort of the guiding part of how the EIS is put together. And it's fairly straightforward in that sense, in terms of what are possible fixes or mitigations to development. Are there any unavoidable adverse impacts? Those are help guide where we're going next, please. And then we will be considering these, and you can kind of see the range of comments. Excuse me. This is how we take value from those comments, both from agencies, from individuals, property owners, and others. It gives them a chance to perhaps give us information that we may not have yet had, and it provides some enlightening information. attributes that we can bring along in that further analysis and recommendation for you. Next, please. So as we get through these things, kind of that summary, we'll be making these comments and edits and turning that into a final EIS. And that will be through this period and then really into August and September. Next, please. So these are some of the options that are coming down the road that we'll be looking at and providing that in draft form for our planning commission and ultimately back for you. We anticipate coming back before you next month. But efficient growth patterns, affordable housing, and levels of service, cost of parks, Just as you were talking about budgets earlier, those levels of service are based on budgeted investments in everything from law enforcement to park service to transportation levels and how they're managed. This is where the capital facilities plan and the comprehensive plan come together so that we're all drawing from the same information. And importantly, one of the things we're working with this comprehensive plan update that hasn't been done to the same degree in the past is working with our other departments to link efforts that are going on back to the comprehensive plan so that really every effort from another, especially the outside facing, public facing departments can point to goals and policies in the comprehensive plan that support what they're doing. And that provides both the rationale as well as the link to capital facilities. Next, please.

So, Scott, before we move on, that second whole point, support for more efficient growth patterns, what does that mean?

In the simplest sense, it means the growth, the patterns of growth We try to follow those rather than create whole new areas, for example, in an urban growth area, potential modification or expansion. Places that are adjacent and are already generally well supported by infrastructure, by schools, by fire, water, sewer, are going to have a better, more efficient environment. development pattern than those that have to start with either more or newer capital facilities or perhaps school districts that aren't quite ready to absorb 20 years of growth. And it does also involve some infill. As we've talked about with this new neighborhood zoning concept, it gives us a chance to Robert Forrant, Allow those areas that have been evolving already from lower density to middle to higher densities to plan for that in the market based fashion, rather than a regulatory fashion, so the market can react to the. Robert Forrant, Well, the developers can react to the market and be able to put a housing product in place without having to go through repeated comprehensive plan amendments so there's both an infill and an edge version of these more efficient patterns.

Thank you.

So here's where we're getting into the details as this is coming together. You've seen these numbers in a couple of places, but it's important to bring them back here, particularly because we must now plan for housing in these income bands. This has been a very challenging process, as certainly both of you know. And we're at the end of that process to move this forward. What it shows is we have a deficit of availability or capacity in those lower bands from 80% of area median income on down and a possible surplus in those larger bands going out. One of the things that is helpful here is this gives us a chance to plan notably for both the infill zoning, as well as in trying to prevent creating areas of concentrated lower incomes also use these abilities to scatter that out and make that more part of blended neighborhoods. Next, please. So a couple of the interesting parts here, we do have that deficit, we have to include capacities in our preferred alternative for zero to 80 a mi. And then if we try to increase density beyond what you've seen in Alt 1 and the neighborhood zoning concepts, we hit a limit. We hit something, as we say here, outside of the bookend and won't align then with our work and would have to go back and do that. That's kind of a break or a check. against the idea that everything can be accomplished by continually increasing the density. We've defined and the DEIS has a limit on that. And that means we have to look beyond simply trying to have capacities that everything can be absorbed on. And then the all two looks at Where can we potentially add lands, again, Kushner French, back in that efficient pattern, but pattern of growth where we need new lands to provide new housing? Next, please. So we'll be looking at these expansion parcels that you've seen in the study areas. Again, they're being prioritized based on comments, on the WAC requirements, on the analysis, so that what we show you ultimately for a preferred alternative will be defensible. And then we'll be looking at these capacities. And as we say, there is no single zoning capacity that in itself can provide everything necessary in that zero to 80%. So that will be a spread, or you can see in this last point, a combination of these that provides both the compliance with GMA, as well as the idea of building these blended neighborhoods where you have a variety of housing products, a variety of incomes, And the intention now is small shops and some small things to make them truly more neighborhood than subdivision. Next please, excuse me. I'd like to go through a little bit of how these are going to look a little in terms of the actual capacities. This is the first new zone, neighborhood residential one. This is for the most part, the replacement of LDR and MDR. So it is generally speaking designed to reinforce those patterns for people that have built their homes from decades ago to contemporary times and not have a more radical zoning imposed on them. This is to a large degree, it preserves those development patterns. However, it does so where we're still mandated by recent growth or recent legislative mandates to add various densities. Certainly, we've done duplexes, dot triplexes, fourplexes, and we're anticipating that the sixplex will come back in the upcoming legislature. So those things are now going to be allowed in what used to be LDR. And so this zone tries to add some standards and design capacities so that they blend in. They don't look like anomalies. Next, please.

So, Scott, before you move on, so what are you thinking for the NR1 zone? What are you thinking the lot size is going to be for that zone?

Ron, if you go one slide, I'll show you. We're currently at a 4,000 in LDR. We're thinking as a standard to make it three, but there will also be a caveat that for either cottage housing or something else, it would be as little as either a no minimum lot size or back to that 1,500 square foot. We're In every case, we're recommending minimum lot sizes lower than where we are today.

So... As part of that, then are you reducing the setbacks then on all four sides? And I noticed that on the lot coverage, you still got 65%. So even though the slot got smaller, we're not being able to build anything more on it other than the 65% threshold.

There's a balance to be sure on this. Yes, we would be adjusting or proposing to adjust setbacks to be proportional with the lot sizes and also provide as much building footprint as possible. For example, part of this would also eliminate minimum frontage sizes. The 65%, we're trying to use that rather than a density factor to allow for some more flexibility. But if we get more feedback that that should either be perhaps 70% or some other figure for higher lot coverage, we think that would be reasonable. And the other part, you see the asterisk up on the top. If a small lot project was proposed, say there was an existing quarter acre or half acre lot in these infill areas, and that was proposed as a smaller lot project, the cottage housing provisions would allow that to go down to essentially a no minimum lot size. So there is still quite a lot of flexibility being built into this. But the balance, as I mentioned, is it's also trying to protect nearby homes. NR1 is really meant as a as an infill to existing subdivisions that have a handful or so of vacant lots left. It's not so much the broader 10 acre and up size parcel.

Thank you. Commissioner Jordan.

Just piggybacking on that question, would the cottage rules have a different lot coverage percentage or not?

Um, yes, in a sense they could, because 1 of the options under cottage housing is that the sale of the land that is purchased with the house could be. Coincident with the footprint of the house itself in other words, common areas and a very, very small lot with essentially no. Setbacks whatsoever from. On the legal lot itself. So in that sense, yes, it could change a little bit. And I don't mean to sound like you could jam these up next to each other. There would still be fire code separations in every case. And even in a cottage housing, there's a desire for a 15 foot or 20 foot front yard to have some sort of private open space along with the structure itself.

So I just like a little more information about that because I have a similar question to Commissioner French that if we're opening up some additional housing types in these areas, but we're still restricting the ability to, you know, you can't build over a certain size facility relative to the overall lot size. It just could be a barrier. So I'd like to learn more about that.

Okay, I will. i'll get you a separate kind of memo because we're putting all of that in in great detail into the draft zoning amendment itself, this is obviously a really. High level shortcut that we've just put on the slide here the the intention, though, is, as I said, both it's two part for nr one it's it's to protect. the character of the neighborhood as it was built to begin with. So that's why we're recommending lot coverage is roughly similar to what we've got, but providing a little more flexibility. And at the same time, trying to reflect or trying to accurately install, if you will, the levels of architecture that the state has now mandated for these units. So it's a balance between protecting all of the neighbors that are on that street with a one or two infill lots and reflecting the new requirements that we have to provide multiplex housing on former single family detached lots.

On those cottage stall homes, are you then eliminating the requirement for off-street parking?

Yes. Yes, there will be no off-street requirements. That tends to get probably more attention than it deserves. By eliminating the requirements doesn't mean there won't be off-street parking. It means it leaves it up to the builder And the market that they're trying to rent or sell their product to to say what do I need to provide that fits my market, you know, is it is it a garage with a. 20 foot driveway that can stack another vehicle or is it doesn't need to have any other parking whatsoever it doesn't mean there won't be parking it means it's it's market driven okay.

Scott, can you speak to ADUs? I remember, I think when I had asked you about a year ago or so, and you said they're I think that the way our code was written, we sort of followed at the time what the state had as far as square footage or size, or maybe it wasn't that it followed. And had it followed, there would be more flexibility. But could you speak to the kind of the square footage limitations or flexibility that will be gained with this plan update? Yeah.

In the county's current code for detached ADUs, there's roughly, generally speaking, an 800 square foot floor plate limit. An ADU can be two-story, so you can have 1,200 or so square feet total. But the floor plate is is limited state changes have moved that to roughly a 1000 square foot limit for that. And so we'll, we'll be adjusting accordingly in neighborhood residential. 1 would still be permitted either attached or detached. So that would still allow that to happen. In the NR2, there could, in fact, be an attached and a detached ADU. So there's some added flexibility where you've got the bigger parcels to plan with. But we're adjusting a little bit with the ADUs in our urban areas. We have also ADUs allowed in our rural areas that the state has tried to discourage, but doesn't change, doesn't force existing rules to change. So they will be changing a little bit in terms of square footage, but their ability to be constructed will be enhanced.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Sure. Next, please. And this is really a narrative summary. You've seen all of this before. It's the idea of fully integrating a range of housing types when you have a chance to plan for that from the very beginning. as opposed to an infill side. And this allows, unlike NR1, which is designed to have maybe no more than an eight unit building that's blended into something, this would allow 12 unit, especially 12, which is the moment that borderline condominium allowance. And so we want to make sure that we have that accounted for. Next, please. And you can see here some of the parameters compared to high density residential. We're looking at, as we said, up to the 12 units per building. You could have multiple buildings on a common lot, for example. And in some cases, in the neighborhood business, for example, you could also have the larger style apartments. Here we have recommended totally eliminating the minimum lot areas. All the dimensional standards are adjusted proportionally. And it allows it allows for an ally served product if that would be feasible, which we don't do in our subdivisions now. So this is this is the chance to be truly neighborhood building for areas, particularly where we are able. To add land to an urban growth area or on some of the larger parcels that might remain in the existing urban growth area, although, to be sure, there are not very many parcels 10 acres or up that are in our current area that are available and feasible for building. Next, please. Neighborhood business, we've shared before, this is kind of flips the argument a little bit from NR2, which is a residential zone that allows, encourages, and will have some expectations of small non-residential uses in it. As much as 15 or 20% of the land area is going to be set aside for businesses, whether small employment, professional offices, shops, and so on. The neighborhood business side is where you already have those businesses, including some areas that have large parking lots that are really no longer needed in their original configuration. Whereas, you know, everybody is the famous retail parking lot planning of you, you build your parking lot for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Well, that doesn't work anymore, and it takes an enormous amount of land to make those things happen, which we see all over the place. This is a new zone that lets us infill multifamily housing within a business zone, try to lay in a new grid for walking and support and let this exist, not just in retail areas with parking lots, but in general business areas, institutional settings, with the idea of truly providing a workforce housing model for those that could work and be able to walk to their back and forth between their residence and the job. It also implies where it's possible to be on high-capacity transit services, again, to try to provide, if you think all the way back to that gap in the zero to 80 AMI level that we have to build for, here's where a lot of that will happen because you can You can provide a rental product that is in their price range, without having to also for them to own a car, for example, so this is that chance to move in that direction so next please. And you can see, again, the matrix here compared to our existing zones. Again, there's no minimum lot area, and here it wouldn't really make any sense because we're talking about trying to put residential within an existing business use. We don't anticipate this being suitable for single-family detached products or densities, but rows of townhomes and other houses could fit in here as much as a walk-up. garden-style apartment. And so you've got no maximum density. You've got at least a 75-foot height limit. Provides a great big massing envelope to put residential within this factor. So thoughts on that? Next, please. And then kind of summarizing where we're going, and this is starting to inform parameters for that urban growth area. We're looking at this overall working ratio in our NR2 or our neighborhood concept, half being single family and then roughly 20% into community. That apartment style townhomes at 15 duplexes at 15 so multiplex is taking up 30% and truly apartments taking up the remainder of that. So we've studied about 800 acres for this NR2 capacity that could provide, as you see here, 6,000 new units. And then the 1,000 units to develop in the zero to 80, this is all based on the all two approach. This is not looking at existing infill projects. So this is seeing where can we build in a way That may provide those opportunities for growth on the edges of the community. Next, please this last last slide is just. getting down one more level of detail. So in what will likely be the preferred alternative, we're looking at about 800 and perhaps 800 to 900 units in that zero to 80% remaining. And then an additional And our 2 acreage to meet the 0 to 80% is about 540 acres. And so that's in a sense that's going to be 1 of the minimum benchmarks that we're going to look at and balance that against the comments for the, for the study areas. And so we'll be looking at these next steps, narrowing those parcels down, looking at feedback from the agencies, and then bringing that back to you in an FEIS for your consideration. And with that, Mr. Vice Chair, happy to take any questions. Next steps are really in this capacity. We'll be pulling together the DEI separation and be ready to produce, I would suggest, the first map showing where this is going to look like in the next three to four weeks or so, which will be one of the big milestones of the plan, for sure.

When you say map, is that – so one of the previous maps we looked at had the different areas around the current UGA. Some were highlighted in green. Some were highlighted in pink, showing the different study areas. So when you say map, is it the one that will designate sort of which of those green areas that are being studied are kind of – I guess you could say a step closer to possibly being brought in. Is that what you mean?

Yes. The next map will identify specific parcels with specific capacities assigned to them. And then that When you see the entire map, it's kind of back to the, do we need all of this? And the answer will almost certainly be no. But once we get those assignments to that, then we look at levels of service, capital facilities, and other things and start to narrow them down to give you a chance to provide some guidance and direction on those patterns of growth. But yes, the next map will have specific parcels.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Certainly.

Any questions? Okay. I think that's it. You've answered all of our questions.

Well, for today anyway, there'll be more. Thank you, Commissioners.

Thank you. Okay. That brings us to miscellaneous items.

I want to bring up one more thing. It's part of budget. I forgot to mention during that time. You probably all received this article from WASAC. It came out last week. And it's focused on liability costs. And it's something we probably should be considering for legislative agenda. It's making the point Our state allows for very large payouts at jury trials. And as a result, insurance liability premiums on average have climbed 380% since 2018. Claims against the risk pool have increased by 60% since 2021. This is a quote from the loss act paper. Either we pay out of control litigation or we keep our jails open and our roads safe. And this, you know, we've talked about the sum, but you know, last year our liability was about 8 million. This year it's 12. So we're looking at a 50% increase ourself this year. You know, we're looking 4 million of our roughly $30 million deficit, and this is just a general fund portion, is liability insurance.

Can you get us a graph or a spreadsheet that shows kind of how it's increased over the last several years? Because I know it's, I mean, yeah, it's 50% increase, but what was it the year before? What was it the year before? I think this was significant. Yeah, I remember it being big. I don't remember if it was...

I think it was in the 30 that I want to say last year.

If you could get us a, I don't know, a table or a spreadsheet that shows kind of how that's increased over the last several years, I think that'd be important. So...

One I wanted to highlight both from a legislative agenda and just every once in a while I'll have people ask, well, what is this $30 million deficit? Big chunk of his liability. The other chunk is, you know, 90% of the remaining is going to be patients. And I know the board knows that with the people who ask, we have, we have union contracts and those are predetermined amounts. And so we can calculate it. And just to remind people again, our. Sales tax is up. Yay. That's one-third of our revenue stream. Our other two-thirds is relatively flat. And so if our revenue is going up by 3%, but salaries are going up by 8%, 9% depending on contracts, that's the math shows itself. So I just wanted to bring that up. We do have one closed session today.

um speaking before we move on you i think that's a great idea to consider that as part of a legislative agenda legislative ask can i ask where are we as far as um i know that i think do we do rfqs or rfps for um lobby services

For the lobby, we did an RFQ. Okay. Heather's usually listening, so she can correct me if I'm wrong. But it was an RFQ. We had – it went out two weeks ago, I want to say. It went out last Monday. So we're still in the open period. We open for generally three weeks. Got it. And we've talked with both of our current lobbyists to let them know it's open and just make sure there's awareness there. And so once it closes, either way, it's going to close during the recess. So we will have those, whatever comes in scored and feedback for you when you're back early August. Sounds good.

Thank you. just think because that'll be something whoever our lobbyist is we all want to get them up to speed on that yeah on that uh on that item as well connect them with wassack and make sure they're well versed on that uh any other miscellaneous items anything the media reaching out on any issues oh uh smoke

Pets in smoke, people in smoke, fire safety.

Okay.

So I anticipate that tomorrow we'll be getting a lot of media attention.

Okay.

So. All right. That's really it.

Okay. All right.

One session.

Yeah. Oh, it looks like we got Amber on here as well. Okay. All right. So yeah, if you want to queue us up for executive session and I think I had heard Mary wanted us to let her know. Okay.

Perfect.

Perfect. Okay. Well, if you, somebody would like to set us up for executive session.

No execs today. Just closed labor under RCW 4230-140 section.

Okay. So then we will adjourn for the morning. and then go into a closed session. So we will adjourn at 10.04, and then we'll be going into a closed session. Okay.