Good evening. Welcome to the inter-court of city council meeting of September 3rd, 2024.
I'd like to call the meeting to order. Mr. Franciac, would you take the roll please?
Mr. Fantini. Here. Mr. Young. Here. Mr. Walters. Here. Ms. Klee Lemongrat. Here. Ms. Moulton. Here.
Mr. McDougal.
Ms. Hubek. Here. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I saw Mr. McDougal on there.
Maybe we just didn't get as verbal. Here. Yeah, I missed the mute button. All right.
All right, there we go. Thank you, Mr. McDougal.
All right, would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?
Okay, announcements and committee reports, just a couple of announcements for me.
Just a reminder, back to school time.
So the Anacorda School District is back tomorrow, September 4th.
So there will be lots of kids crossing the streets and lots of parents and drop-off lines.
So please be mindful and cautious and especially in school zones.
And because sometimes the kids might not be and the parents also as they're getting back into the routine.
So please everybody pay attention and have a great school year.
The city and the Samish Indian nation met last Thursday.
It's a quarterly meeting that we do with a good number of both our staffs.
Of course, Chairman Wooten and myself and then again staff representing multiple departments.
The highlights, Fadago Bay Road, Fadago Bay Lift Station, Early Learning Center, 16th Street,
some dark fiber work, and the state grant that the nation received for looking at their Summit Park property and sewer.
So that's timely with our sewer master plan that the city is working on.
So we'll be working closely with them.
Additionally, we're continuing the cooperation on the Trestle replacement study.
And we continue to work with the Samish Nation on that project as well.
But probably the big thing I wanted to highlight, especially for council,
is in the coming weeks council will see what is known as the MSA,
municipal service agreement.
So the city had signed one of these previously and since expired.
But essentially it is a fee in lieu of property taxes as the land goes into trust.
So again, the staff has been working with the Samish Nation as we look to continue to provide those municipal services.
but as those lands go into trust, they get removed from the property tax rolls.
So, again, we're always happy that we have a cooperative relationship as we work through
some of those municipal services.
Next up, the public is invited to Naval Air Station Woodby Island Open House.
This Saturday, September 7th, 9 to 3, the open house will include a 5K run around
the flight line.
With gates open at 7 a.m. for registration for the 5K, the flight line opens at
at 9 a.m. for static displays of the airplanes that make a lot of noise, growlers, and P-8s,
search and rescue, and K-9 demonstrations as well.
I highlight this one, of course, some of you know I may have worked there for a couple
years, but also it is a top five, and the Navy is a top five employer in the state of
Washington, so it's a good opportunity to see where your tax dollars are going.
And then finally, just a reminder, open for public comment.
The City of Antiquitous has prepared an Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan for the public right of way to guide the city in removing accessibility barriers at curb ramps and pedestrian crossings.
Public comment on the draft plan is open through September 15 and the plan is available for review on the city's website.
So that's all from me and committee reports.
I don't think the Housing Affordability Community Service Committee met.
They did not.
But there might be another report because it was an ad hoc meeting earlier.
Mayor Miller.
Mr. Walters.
The Public Works Committee met right before this meeting.
We discussed proposed ordinance that would build on our 2014 and 2018 pavement management resolutions.
This ordinance would create a pavement maintenance fund in our accounting system with the objective
of making it easier to save the amount of money annually that we need to spend to maintain
our pavement condition and to make it easier for council to see how much we're spending
on pavement maintenance, socking away for a project maybe that is larger than the
annual allocation.
It would reset our annual budget for pavement maintenance based on the new pavement condition
index report that we saw at this meeting on August 12th, and it would set the allowed
uses for that money.
For instance, would we allow design work and sidewalks, staff time, but not we expect
new street construction because the intent of the ordinance and the intent of our
payment management work is preservation of the assets that we already have.
Preservation and repair of the assets that we already have rather than construction
of new.
Any questions? Any other announcements or committee reports I may have missed?
Okay, next up is agenda item 3B. This is Housing Authority Board
appointment and this is an announcement. So I'm pleased to announce that I had
three applicants for this position, but I have pointed Jim English to replace Amanda
Hubek and this term will be effective through December 31st, 2025, so completing Ms. Hubek's
time on the board and I appreciate her service to that board as well.
All right, next up is item four, public comment.
And I do have somebody signed up, but I think that's MJB or is it MJB?
Okay, and I'll wait until we get to the public hearing for MJB.
But any other member of the public wish to address the council on anything that's not on our agenda tonight?
Okay, I will move on to our consent agenda items five, A and B. Council.
I move to approve consent agenda items 5A and B.
Second.
Motion by Ms. Moulton, second by Mr. Young to approve consent agenda items A and B.
All in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
All right.
We're on to item six, which is public hearings.
We have two public hearings tonight.
The first one, 6A.
This is resolution 3163.
increasing solid waste rates, and this is a discussion item with possible action.
And Ms. Peck, I know you're, I can't drag it out that long,
but I appreciate you being here and stepping up for Mr. Hogan.
So, I know we saw all this last week and I think we have kind of some better news.
We did. We've seen this for a couple of weeks now.
I'm going to do just a quick review just for any new folks who might be joining us tonight.
This resolution is to increase rates for solid waste based on the fact that the county is
raising their rates accordingly.
This table shows the rate changes outlined from September of this year through 2028.
So the rates go from 131 up to 149 at the end of the rate increase period.
Now into what I consider to be a little bit of new things.
Upon further review of the rates, it turned out that the tipping portion of our rate fee structure
was only encompassed for approximately 20% of the rate.
So what we did is we went back and we looked at our rates and applying the increase that
we needed to do in order to meet the increase from the county, we're going to propose an
8% increase across the board for folks.
What this does for us is it holds in place the current, I guess I'll call it a discount
count for folks who have that smaller garbage tote, so the 21 gallon, this keeps that discount
of roughly 18% if you think of a proportion pricing in place for them. And it essentially
just, it makes for a much lower increase for folks at this point in time.
So that's what we have. Again, it came down to, we just, we had a little bit of
a miss on looking at what was in our rates and we think that this is a great item to go
ahead and take forward for signature at this point. We're 100% confident we're right now.
All right. Before I turn over to Council, any member that this is a public hearing and
any member of the public wish to address the Council on this one? It wasn't intentional
to show that we were going to really raise it high and then dial it back just to
Make us look good, but it is a lot less painful to look at how I will admit
All right counsel
Mellor mr. Walters
Maybe a quick question on the table here the first item is labeled
21 gallon
service with discount you also have
three
21
32 64
or service items with discount down below.
I'm assuming the ones down below are low income discount.
Yeah, Mr. Walters, that is correct.
Those are the low income.
The top one is just representing
that we did hold in that proportion
charge discount in there.
Okay, and that, so they appear to be the same
on this chart, but they're not the same
in the resolution, right?
I'm assuming you have to show them
as the discount in the accounting system
them because that's how Eden works to actually build people.
We do.
There's billing codes that are behind these.
These are simply just labels.
But there's actual codes that are behind the magic so that
folks who are actually eligible for the discount rate get
the actual discounted rate.
For example, for the 21 gallon, that's the
adjusted rate of 864.
Whereas folks who are not part of the official discount
program, they will be billed for the 21 gallon tote at the 1234 percent.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I think I think I understand how you're represented
in here. And I think it's, in some ways, clear in the resolution. So it makes sense to me.
Thank you.
Of course.
Any other questions,
comments?
Mr. Young.
Thank you. You know, I'm in agreement. I really am. I just thought,
that given the number of phone calls I've got about trying to push back on any
rate increase I would acknowledge that but I do believe that this is just a
necessary part of who we are what we've got to do as a city. So yes thank you
just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you Mr. Young.
All right this is a
possible action if council wants to take action you're welcome to do so.
I move to close the public hearing and approve resolution 3163, updating the unified fee schedule with increased solid waste rates.
Motion by Mr. Young and a second by Mr. Walters.
I will close the public hearing at this time and any additional discussion council.
Fantastic. Thank you all.
All right, so no additional discussion, so a motion by Mr. Young, second by Mr. Walters to approve resolution 3163.
Mr. Franciac, vote please.
Mr. Young, yes.
Mr. Walters.
Yes.
Ms. Cleveland McGrath.
Yes.
Ms. Moulton.
Yes.
Mr. McDougal.
Yes.
Ms. Hubek.
Yes.
Mr. Pantini.
Yes.
Motion carries.
Okay, thank you. We're on to item 6b. This is also a public hearing and I do have somebody
City signed up, so I will not forget. Ordinance 4087, MJB properties, vacation application for
streets, rights of way. This is a discussion item with possible action and again it is a
public hearing. And Ms. Sweatnam will introduce.
Thank you, Mayor Miller, members of council, members of the audience. So tonight I am
I'm introducing a petition submitted by MJB Properties LLC to vacate some portions of our
Avenue and 20th Street.
So to provide the standards for vacation, AMC section 125050 requires a public hearing
before a petition for vacation can be granted.
And following the hearing, Council then makes a decision about whether to vacate
the street or alley or not.
And in evaluating that application, Council must consider the factors that are outlined
in the Code Act section 1250-060.
So those factors are whether a change of use or vacation of the street will provide a significant
benefit to the public, whether the street is neither currently required for public
public use or access nor anticipated to be needed in the future, whether the substitution
of a new and different public way would be more useful to the public, whether possible
future public uses may require the right-of-way, and whether there were objections to the
proposed vacation.
Also required in the code is compensation, which is laid out at section 1250-100.
That requires full fair market value of the area to be vacated, to be paid to the city,
for those public streets that have been in existence for 25 years or more,
which is almost all of them, I think, in Anacordis.
There is a provision in the code that allows for alternative compensation.
That's not on the table in this particular petition.
So MJB has submitted a proposal,
and the overview of that proposal is they have requested the vacation
of three portions of our Avenue and 20th Street,
and this would require relocation of a city-owned restroom
that's located in that area.
So the three areas that are contiguous are colored here.
Area A, which is in yellow, consists of 8,000 square feet.
Area B, which is this portion in green, consists of 49,114 square feet.
This is the section of right-of-way that the bathroom that's funded by an RCO grant is currently located on.
And then Area C is 9,246 square feet.
In exchange for the vacation of these areas of right-of-way,
MJB has proposed to pay the city the sum of one million dollars and that would compensate
the city for the value of the area to be vacated and also cover the costs of relocating the
existing restroom to a new location.
So I know we like maps.
Here's an aerial map of the area to be vacated.
you can see this area here within our Avenue is the parking area that serves
the bathroom that's located right here and the as I mentioned and put in the
ordinance and in the white paper in your packet this bathroom was constructed
with funds from the RCO office the Recreation Conservation Office of the
State of Washington and so because it was grant funded the city will need to
move it to a different location and by move I don't mean actually move the
building but demolish and build a new one and the new location that staff have
proposed is along the Tommy Thompson trail between the Ben Rootscape Park and
the trail itself.
So the compensation piece, so as I mentioned the area to be
vacated is 66,360 square feet in the CM zone and the applicant
provided an appraisal that meets all the criteria in the code that sets that value at $730,000.
In addition to that amount that they're proposing to pay, the $1 million,
MJB has also offered to grant to the city a temporary easement for up to two years.
So either two years or as soon as the new restroom gets constructed
to allow the public to continue to have that public restroom available.
They've also offered to cover the costs and take whatever actions are necessary
to demolish the old restroom once the easement is expired.
And I want to just mention I had a conversation shortly before this meeting
with Mr. Blaise, who represents MJB,
And he pointed out a discrepancy in the ordinance as proposed.
So I just want to mention Section 4 is the section of the ordinance.
And I apologize I didn't put the language in the slide.
It's happened right before the council meeting.
But Section 4 talks about that old restroom demolition.
And as it is drafted in the ordinance,
it says that MJB will demolish the existing city restroom
and adjacent parking lot. Once the city has completed construction of the new restroom
and parking lot, that restroom and parking lot are open and the temporary easement granted
to the city pursuant to the temporary easement paragraph is extinguished. And Mr. Blaise
made a good point that that easement is only good for up to two years. So theoretically
if the city did not move forward in that two-year period with the demolition of
I'm sorry, with the construction of the new restroom,
the public would no longer have access to the old restroom.
So that makes sense, and I appreciated him
bringing that up as a clarification.
So what I'm proposing is that in the draft
that's presented, we strike the reference
to the city having completed construction
of the new city restroom and parking lot,
the new restroom and parking lot are opened
and so that that section would read,
MJB will demolish the existing city restroom
and adjacent parking lot once the temporary easement
granted to the city pursuant to paragraph 3.2 above
is extinguished.
And that makes a lot more sense to me
and seems to align with what they've offered
in their proposal.
So staff recommendations.
Staff have reviewed the application
and recommend approval.
The public will benefit through the development of a public esplanade on the MJB property,
which can proceed once this vacation is granted.
The area to be vacated is not needed now nor anticipated to be needed in the future.
A new and improved street alignment will serve the public's needs and the proposed compensation
by MJB meets the requirements in the code.
I wanted to point out that while we're vacating those areas, there's also a plan that I'm
not going to talk about in the long-plat application to rededicate public streets in that area
in a different alignment.
But that will be coming with the upcoming long-plat application.
Mayor Miller.
Mr. Walters.
Back up one slide there, your second bullet about the public esplanade, is it correct to
say that that is really linked to this vacation?
I don't think it's correct to say that that's linked to this vacation.
It's a logical thing.
It's a factor that staff evaluated in communication with the applicant based on proposed future
plans for the project, but not a requirement of this vacation ordinance as drafted.
And do you have text you can put on the screen for a replacement section for, maybe later
even, or do we even need section for?
Because if we proceed with the vacation and we build new bathrooms with the money they
give us, do we care what they do with the old bathrooms?
It's a fair point. I think it is a benefit to the city because if the city, I mean, I guess that's true once it's vacated.
It would resolve the question about whether the city needed to remove the improvements from that area.
And so I think for the point of clarity, we just make it clear that that is additional value added to the city to not have to cover the cost of demolition.
So my recommendation would be to leave it in and I apologize that I don't have language to put up.
I can try to find the ordinance in the packet while you're discussing.
Thank you.
All right.
So this is a public hearing and I'll give the applicant an opportunity if the applicant wants to come up
and say anything or have the public go first.
It's up to you.
All right, so I do have somebody signed up, so if you sign up, you always get to go first.
Theresa Baker, come on up,
and you can say your name again in city.
Theresa Baker, Anna Cordes.
Thank you.
I have one question.
My first point was answered already in that I was thinking that this is a good idea.
I would like the bathroom move to the skate park, which sounds like that's where it's going to go,
But I'm a little confused by the language in terms of you're going to be compensated a million dollars.
Does that include building the new bathroom?
Or are they paying for the new bathroom on top of that million dollars?
That was not clear to me.
The second thing I wanted to mention was that this million dollars is a kind of a windfall for the city,
and it will get spent a million times over, I'm sure, before it gets spent actually,
and I would like to just put in a plug for putting it in the road repair fund,
especially for old town roads which could get top, you know,
at the top of the list, K and M and 6 are beginning to look third world.
And I guess that's all I have to ask. Thanks.
Thank you.
It is the position of the expert staff is that that money would be enough
to compensate for the value of the property as well as moving the bathrooms
and rebuilding the bathrooms.
That's why the staff has recommended approval.
All right, anybody else wish to comment?
Yeah, come on up.
I know you know the drill.
Brian Wetscher, Anacortis.
In the end of last year, I had the opportunity to review some of the permit requests
and Complan changes that ostensibly MJB was requesting on this property,
including, and I mostly spent my time reviewing the JARPA permit,
permit, which I'm not sure whether the JARPA permit has been issued.
At that time, when
I reviewed the JARPA permit, some of the paperwork indicated that in their calculation of the
site for JARPA numbers, basically, they had incorporated this, the request of vacation
as a part of the property in whole.
Several other places in the Jarpa permit request,
they did not include those numbers.
Their conclusive numbers on the end, though,
did include that as part of the whole permit plan.
I wondered about that
and whether that had been approved through Jarpa,
because when they speak of the Esplanade,
If they're speaking of the Esplanade that is on the eastern shoreline of this property,
that is a very questionable part of the Jarpa permit.
In reviewing the maps of the Jarpa permit, this was up to 30 feet wide, up to paved,
and in numerous places, it ran on their own map over the ordinary high watermark,
which is almost impossible.
So when we're looking at this vacation as a part of this whole package,
I would like to at least reflect on whether or not their JARPA is completed
and whether or not they're going to get that JARPA permit
because it seems that this vacation is an integral part of the JARPA permit request.
And I believe a number of other of the permit requests.
So it seems, I don't want to say bait and switch, but, you know, were the numbers calculated
before the vacation, assuming that the vacation would happen, and do we have an alternative
plan for instance, if you turn down this vacation tonight, would that invalidate the
existing JARPA permit application?
So I have a lot of questions about it, and I would in the future like to review
quite extensively the JARPA permit with the Council for some of what I found is glaring
details and I had, I did register those comments at the end of last year so I would have, like
to have a further conversation about that to begin with but also just to reflect on when
we're approving or disapproving this vacation.
How is this going to fit in?
Okay.
I think I can probably help a little bit on that. And Ms. Swetnam can correct me if
I'm wrong, but it does have two other permits in work with the city. One is a long plaid application
in the other is a substantial shoreline permit.
I think I got those.
Shrille and substantial development permit.
Yeah, and I don't know the status of MJB's JARPA process,
but I do know that when an applicant is doing environmental analysis,
whether it's under CIPA or JARPA as they're moving forward with a project like this,
it is they should put in that any potential environmental impact
that could come up from the development.
So it would be appropriate to put in the vacation area, even though there's some uncertainty
at that point about whether it actually will be granted by the city.
But that's what allows the full evaluation of potential impacts under that evaluation.
Can I try to finish up with the public, or did you have something to explain?
I think it's relevant because I don't remember what Jarpa stands for.
and I'm not sure everyone else is there.
Joint aquatic resources permit application.
I would have guessed poorly.
Another one of those acronyms.
Okay, thank you.
Sorry to interrupt.
No, that's good.
I just want to make sure I want to get the public hearing and any other members of the
public.
Okay.
Does the applicant want to come on up?
Hi, council members.
My name is Jimmy Blaze, Kirkland, Washington.
I represent MJB properties and want to first of all thank staff and the Mayor for the couple changes and tweaks to the language here of the ordinance.
As Ms. Swetnam mentioned, did discuss that section four with her before and we agree with the suggested language of stopping after once done and then again picking up at temporary easement and striking the language in between.
We believe that this is a fair proposal for the city.
As Ms. Whitman also mentioned, the alternative compensation on top of just the million dollars of the temporary construction easement for two years of using that property.
We didn't actually put a value on that, but certainly there is an intrinsic value to that.
And then obviously our own cost for demolishing and getting rid of the existing bathroom and pavement and everything else.
We believe this also leads to a better bathroom location for the city's future use
for the skateboard park and any facilities that may be built around there in the future.
And I look forward to this moving forward and this being the first of many steps in the actual permit process
for our overall project is we have to kind of get through this vacation request to move on to the long plat,
which will then lead into the in-water SIPA JARPA applications
and there'll be much more discussion on that in the future here.
So, appreciate consideration of this and the approval.
And just for the public's knowledge, you know, the staff has been working with MJB for a long time to try to figure out what is the most logical process when it comes to permitting and when to bring it to council.
So, we're trying to be as transparent as possible as we move forward.
All right. Anybody else want to comment on this?
All right, council. All right, now it's your time. Council.
Mayor Miller.
Ms. Moulton.
So, in the original agreement, there was a restroom access easement that's, well, first
of all, I do want to say that I think that this does have great public benefit of moving
the restroom and pretty much what Mr. Blaze said about it, I agree.
My question is about a restroom access easement that was in the original agreement that
has since been taken out, and it was about a permanent easement
to allow access to the relocated restroom and parking lot
for construction, ongoing maintenance,
and public access to the restroom and parking area.
It's since been taken out, but I'm confused about that.
And so I'd love some clarity.
Great, yeah, thanks for asking that.
As the mayor said, there's been a lot of discussions
both internal and with MJB representatives
about this vacation and what should happen with the restroom.
And so there really wasn't a meeting of the minds with NJB and the city on that permanent easement.
I think there's still some uncertainty about how they're parking lot locations for city access to the skate park.
And the kind of the takeaway from staff was, you know, if NJB didn't intend to offer that easement as part of their application,
And they're still fairly compensating the city with the other with the other things that they're offering. And you know, it'll be a curb cut for the city to put a new access in there to get to the new location, which is which is something that that can be
accomplished reasonably.
Okay, thank you. So the restrooms a new location. There's MJB property surrounding that is that we're there's MJB property immediately to the south.
of the skate park property.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
And I think to follow up on that, the original request was kind of as a convenience, but it's
not necessary that we'll be able to curb cut and access our property without that.
Mr. Wolters.
I'm supportive of moving this forward.
I think we have a pretty simple request here.
Bizarre bit of right-of-way that by historical accident we end up with here.
Assuming Mr. Wetcher is right about the other permits applications that are out there, yes,
maybe MJB might have to amend other permit applications if they didn't get the vacation,
or maybe even if they did get the vacation.
But I don't think that affects whether the vacation should go forward.
The vacation is happening first, the other is coming second.
We'll have to conform to whatever the facts are on the ground.
I agree with Ms. Moulton that very clearly we will benefit from this change.
We benefit not at all from this weird piece of right-of-way
We will benefit from a better set of bathrooms
There has been some talk of constructing new bathrooms. I would like us to look at purchasing
New bathrooms specifically Portland Lou style bathrooms
They've got those at Windjammer Park in Oak Harbor
They've got those down on the Vancouver waterfront the Vancouver waterfront potentially being a pretty good model for what we could
accomplished on our waterfront here. I was in Vancouver a couple months ago for a conference
and I saw they were adding more of these. They're single stalls. They're $120,000 apiece.
They're gender-neutral obviously because they're single occupancy. So if we have four stalls
here, if we replaced them with single occupancy stalls, maybe we could do fewer stalls and
have the same amount of capacity. Most importantly, they recognize the new reality that we are
in, especially with fentanyl and homelessness, and they are designed to prevent people from
camping in a restroom and from hiding in a restroom because they are sort of open at
at the bottom, and you can tell if somebody's passed out on the floor, and that's simply
the reality we're living in. And so I just want to be an advocate for that right now
at this stage while it's on our radar. I think it also potentially could be cheaper than
building a standalone structure. I am very hopeful that we will set aside any additional
money we have left over after moving the bathrooms, because there's going to be
a lot of additional work that we're going to need to accomplish as the new development
goes in there. And for other beautification efforts, you know, there's that. I think maybe
you had a slide of the kind of sad art at the north end, north of the skate park. There's
more that we can do there.
Section, yeah, that's the one.
At a minimum, you know,
Being able to mow around that would be great.
But I definitely think that moving this forward
and getting going with this development is something that's in the best interest of the city.
I would ask if I have the Section 4 language right.
I've said it a couple of times, but you wanted...
you wanted to strike after the word once?
Correct.
Until we get to the temporary easement?
Correct.
And leave the rest?
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's 3.2.
Right.
Also remove that reference to sub point A, which I did in the draft that will get
executed if it's adopted.
Okay.
Perfect.
All right.
Well, then I think I'm clear on what the language is that you want, and I'd
be supportive of moving this forward now.
You know, overall I'm very much in support. I think we've hashed out a lot of stuff and clarity comes as we've continued to communicate and work around the things that needed to be done.
So I'm pretty much interested in moving this forward. But, you know, I've got a question.
The property, there was some discussion of a pizza property by the skate park.
Is that discussion very separate from this?
I think it was owned by MJB and there was some discussion of maybe some type of center,
Boys and Girls Club or something like that.
And that's a separate discussion from this.
Is that still on the table?
I guess what I'm just trying to get to is see where we are on that and still move that forward.
I think that is a separate discussion.
Okay. All right. I'm happy. Thank you.
All
right, anybody else can I add one thing? Yeah, because this is an ordinance if council wants to take action on it tonight
I'd recommend waiving the to read rule. Otherwise, we can bring it back next week, and I also have to close the public hearing
It gets head nods from the people who know how to run here Miller
Mr. Fantini, so I'm also very much in favor of this and excited that it's a step towards
more happening down there, hopefully, which is a great thing,
as I think that a lot of us in the community have kind of watched
and waited anxiously, so this is a good step forward.
I would just, and maybe I'll be the lone voice on that,
and this is fine, but I would caution against waiting the to read rule
tonight, unless there's an urgency to execute this tonight,
only because I feel like when anything comes along that is
is MJB. Everybody gets very excited about it. And I just think holding to that to read
rule, if it's not going to hurt anything. And again, I'm in support of doing this, but
I'm also in support of the public having time to come forward and comment as well. So that's
just my two cents on that.
I think that means you'd like me to keep the public hearing open. And, well, that's
step one. It's up to council to waive the to read rule, but I will have to close
the public hearing if council wants to waive the two-year rule?
Mr. Walters?
I appreciate Mr. Fantini's desire to keep the public hearing open, although I tend to think
this is just really straightforward.
So I would also be supportive of moving it forward tonight without waiting for another
meeting.
And one of the reasons is because, yeah, it is only a week.
I don't think that the week is significant.
The problem is the weak compounds with the multiple years MJB's permit processes are laying around.
So I think we actually owe it to them to move these things forward in a timely manner.
If there were any controversy about it, I would think differently, but I think it's just quite straightforward.
forward.
Mayor Miller.
Ms. Malton.
I also, the sense I'm getting is that we all see the public benefit and we all feel comfortable
in moving it forward.
So I would be in support of waving a two-read rule in this instance.
And I do agree that if there were any controversy or we had any outstanding questions among
us that that would be a that would be a keep the two read for sure but I'm fine
with waving it and and I will remind the public there will be more times where
mgb will be here and talking to council about this project so this is not far
from the last time all right so it seems like I'm looking for a motion then
from council there
Miller mr. Walters I move that we close the public
public hearing you want to take it separately close the public hearing wave
the two re-rule and approve the ordinance as presented with the amendment
that Ms. Swetnam articulated.
Second. All right motion by Mr. Walters and a second
by Ms. Cleveland McGrath to waive the two re-rule and approve ordinance 4087
seven
with the amendments as uh...
discussed
any additional discussion
miller mister young thank you
no just uh... you know i'm ready to move it forward but i wanted to acknowledge
mister fentini's issue of
waving the two-read rule and we don't want
I want to sort of for it to happen frequently as necessary and I hear that caution, but I do agree that now we should move it forward.
Okay, close the public hearing at this point before the take it to a vote. I guess I need to take it to a vote first since there was a motion to close the public hearing.
So, any additional discussion?
Okay.
Mr. Franciac, take the vote, please.
Mr. Walters?
Yes.
Ms. Cleveland McGrath?
Yes.
Ms. Moulton?
Yes.
Mr. McDougal?
Yes.
Ms. Hubek?
Yes.
Mr. Vantini?
Yes.
Mr. Young?
Yes.
Motion carries.
Thank you.
All right.
Just for the record, the public hearing is closed, and thank you for that.
All right, next is Other Business, Item 7A, and this is Partnering with the Port of Anacortis to Rebuild Second Street and O Avenue Intersection.
This is an action item. Mr. Rahm.
Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you tonight, this is kind of an odd one.
It's not asking for your confirmation of the amount, really.
it's more of a blessing for us to move forward with the interlocal agreement with the port
of Anacortis. We signed this interlocal agreement in 2023 that allows reciprocal property access
to conduct public works activities on each other's property. The L.A. contemplates
financially partnering on projects if mutually beneficial. The interlocal is not exactly
clear about the authority to approve compensating the other party for requested work.
When the port design went to bid for the, it was their Curtis Worf project, which ends
at O in second. We agreed that it would be great to do the intersection there at O
in second at the same time. So they included that in their design. They came back with
a separate bid tab so when you get a bid from a contractor, you'll get a full bid.
And their lowest bidder for that piece of work for a second I know is $116,780.48.
By going this route and replacing this intersection, the city saves on design, mobilization,
demobilization, project management, just to name a few.
The intersection is in poor shape and it needs to be reconstructed.
Let's see, what else?
Just for a last statement, it's been nice working with the port.
It's been super helpful and it's nice to work together on mutually beneficial projects.
So Brenda Tribble, she's the other person that's in there local.
It says, I have the authority just to approve these things, which I don't think.
and I'm not very comfortable doing that without you,
so, but Brenna's the other side of the coin on that,
and so she's here.
If you guys have any questions for the Port.
Yeah, and I think Council probably remembers
when we did this ILA, it realized that,
well, the Mayor doesn't have the authority at that number,
so that's why it's in front of Council, so.
But before I turn it over, Councilor,
questions, any member of the public
wish to address this item?
All right, Council, questions.
this came up at our meeting earlier and I was just curious. First of all, it sounds really good and very reasonably priced.
Especially the cement concrete curb ramps at only $5,000 each. I don't want to get too much into the weeds,
but I feel like I've seen other contracts where they've been like $16,000 each. Is that right?
It depends on the location. So you can have an ADA curb ramp for $15,000 alone. But these are pretty basic.
Will they be ADA compliant then?
Oh, yeah.
Okay. So this is just the way they are. And, I mean, if we can get – it seems like this would be nice if we could do it for this price other places.
It would be. Yeah, we did – we recently did a study for the ADA compliance project, which we'll bring into council later.
We had to average at $7,500 for an ADA ramp in Anacortis and down south it's $15,000.
Good to know.
Mayor Miller.
Mr. Walters.
To delve a little further into that, is that because in this scope of work I think there's
four ADA ramps, but in some intersections maybe there might be more than that because
has assumedly how the stormwater is handled around the curb.
So you end up with two ramps and a weird little curb
that connecting them.
Is that some of the detail that goes into different pricing?
I think the big thing is you're doing four or not just,
so those price quotes I was throwing around,
those are just for one.
Okay.
Like if you just were gonna,
like I'm gonna replace that 180 ramp alone,
it's $7,500 here and down south it's 15 grand.
Okay.
Mr. Young.
Unless there's any further discussion and given that these price points can rise.
Look, Tonya, Jake.
I moved that city council author as the mayor to sign contract 24-215-TRN-001 with Lakeside Industries Inc. in the amount of 508,200.
Mr. Young.
I'm moving pretty fast, okay, gotcha, all right.
I'm sure Mr. Ray and we'll take it.
Yeah, that's fine, we can do both of them.
Then you're ready for that one.
Sorry, I apologize for that.
Doing it is quickly.
Mr. Fantini.
I moved to authorize the mayor to utilize ILA-23-184-IDS-001 to partner with the Port of Antiquitous to rebuild the intersection of O Avenue.
and second street. Second. Motion by Mr. Fantini and second by Mr. Young to
authorize the ILA in the amount of 116-780-48. Any additional discussion?
Mr. Frantziatic Bo please. Ms. Cleo McGrath. Yes. Ms. Moulton. Yes. Mr. McDougall. Yes. Ms. Hubek. Yes. Mr. Fantini.
Yes.
Mr. Young.
Yes.
Mr. Walters.
Yes.
Motion carries.
All right.
Thank you.
And we continue to look forward to working with the port on various projects.
Okay.
Next up is 7B.
This is a contract award.
2024, a non-arterial roadway project.
And probably should be an S on that, but it's a discussion item with possible action
and Mr. Rayham.
All right.
is a contract with Lakeside Industries Incorporated in the amount of $508,208 to overlay K-Way,
San Juan Avenue, Guamus View, and O Avenue. And the maps are right here. These are abutting
or nice and convenient to do. You guys just passed a contract with Lakeside Industries to
do a bunch of other paving. So between this project, that project, and a couple other
our little ones were over the $1.8 million target for the year.
So there's that part of it.
But these roads were all in pretty poor condition there
on our PCI index to be replaced in prior years or this year.
So we tagged them on there and added them to,
this was not an add-on contract.
This was that we went back out to bid
and we had two bids and Lakeside was the lowest bidder.
That's all I got.
All right.
I can't help myself.
I got to read the history because I'm so excited
as being the broken record on council where did we already replace everything underneath
the ground? I was so happy to read access fiber system has been completed in this area
and the water mains in this area have also been updated. So we're not going to dig them
up again is the idea. Anyway, all right, council, sorry for that.
Over to you.
Hey, Mr. Walters.
So we also talked about this a little bit in the context of our proposed ordinance
at our Public Works Committee meeting earlier. And one of the questions that came up
is, are you going to be bringing to us a program for what streets we'll be going after
for pavement management in future years?
Yeah.
So one thing that I believe you saw when I was on vacation, the consultant that actually
does the pavement management plan, they created that.
That's one tool.
But then we have the transportation master plan is also another tool that we're developing
now.
Those combined will have a better on-layup for the next 10 plus years of where we think we're going to go year by year.
And of course these things change kind of around the edges, but for the kind of the meat of it.
My goal is to make sure you can see 10 years out like what's going to get done.
Instead of being the way we've done it since I've been here so far,
when we are picking roads that do need to be, that asphalt needs to be replaced, there's no doubt about it.
But like how those ones get selected is a bit of a mystery even to me at this point.
So that's why it's like that's why we need a longer term plan
So we all can see eyes wide open. This is kind of the progression of the roads and why we're doing them in that order and these roads are very
Disconnected, you know, they're not near each other
I assume that we could obtain some economies of scale by doing more roads that are closer together
Well, the first lakeside industries contract that these are adjacent to those projects
I think one of them is kind of an odd ball of myself.
Yeah, Kingsway.
Yeah, it's right by Kingsway.
This is an example of where it didn't have a plan, but it's a good plan to piggyback on top of Lakeside's mobilization.
So Kingsway is being done as well.
I think that's why their bid came on.
Exactly why their bid came on.
Yeah, $500,000 less than the other person because they're already here.
They're mobilized.
Is that?
It is very supportive of my point then.
And I imagine that the transportation master plan
is going to be more focused on capacity projects.
Is it also going to integrate
the pavement management preservation projects?
Yes, it will help.
It's more kind of like where are the routes?
Like where do we envision people to take freight
or ride their bikes
or what are the good pedestrian pathways
and stuff like that where then we can start planning out
how many years is it gonna take us to fix
those things into the corridors that we envision?
And are we currently thinking that we're going to get that draft plan in 2025?
Early 2025, early 2024.
Yeah, they're almost, they're getting close.
Okay.
And it informs the comprehensive plan, so I'm trying to get it done ahead of that schedule.
Will you bring us a list of proposed road preservation, street pavement preservation projects for the 2025 budget or just the amount?
In the past, we've just gotten the amount and we don't see the project.
For this year, unfortunately, I can't inform the CFP like I want to with the Transportation
Master Plan.
We are using the PCI, you know, the plan from the consultant that just kind of looks at the
numbers and tells you these are the treatments that you need for each type of road.
Okay.
And they give you a schedule too, but that's not always, you usually don't just follow
that.
There's other factors you take into consideration.
Sure.
But yeah, my goal is to make sure you guys aren't going just every year you look
six years out.
you need to look further with these planning efforts so you kind of get a
bigger picture of what you're after. Okay, thank you, yeah. Mayor Miller. Mr.
Pantini. Yes, it'd be great I agree to have like a plan of how we do it but I
would point out that a lot of these roads they're in the war in my ward and
they are what I would call patchwork roads where a lot of the roads around
them have already been done and resurfaced in the last couple years
Whereas these are kind of some outlayers and some very obvious outlayers if you go through that.
So I do appreciate that there seems to be a plan to kind of, for lack of a better term, finish the neighborhood
rather than have a road here that's blank and a road here that's blank.
So I do appreciate that.
Mr. Miller.
Mr. Young.
Thank you.
You know, I'm looking forward to moving this forward.
And, you know, I know you've done a tremendous amount of work in order to make this happen.
When the consultant was here last time, I asked him about, we were looking at the PTI of roads
and in his diagrams he had all of the roads in overlaid.
I requested a, you know, a map of the roads that are poor or less
and he was indicating he was going to get that to us.
I'm not sure if we've got it, maybe I've missed it, but I just wanted to bring that
up to you so make possible you can remind him or her at some point to send that to us
so we can see it.
The benefit of that is also we begin to have discussions about where we want to go,
how we're sort of approaching some of these things.
It also make it clear to us some of those roads that are just simply not up to par
and what can we do, whether it's, you know, part of, you know, having machinery we do in
house, but just trying to figure out how we get there and it would be very helpful.
Thank you.
All right. Any other questions about this contract?
Mayor Miller?
Ms. Moulton.
I move that the City Council authorize you to sign contract 24215 TRN001 with Lakeside
industries and the amount of $508,280 to perform the 2024 non-arterial roadway project.
Second.
Motion by Ms. Moulton and a second by Ms. Hubek to approve the contract as presented.
Any additional discussion?
Mr. Franciag, vote, please.
Ms. Moulton.
Yes.
Mr. McDougal.
Yes.
Ms. Hubek.
Yes.
Mr. Fantini.
Yes.
Mr. Young?
Yes.
Mr. Walters?
Yes.
Ms. Clare McGrath?
Yes.
Motion carries.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next up.
Next up is 7 Charlie, 7C, interlocal agreement with Skagit County for Public Safety Technology
Services, better known as Spillman, discussion item, possible action, Chief Floyd presenting.
Good evening, Mayor Miller, members of council. I'm here before you tonight requesting approval
of an interlocal agreement between City of Antiquartus and Skagit County for the Spillman
system. The Spillman system is the primary system used by public safety entities in the
city of Antiquitous. And speaking on behalf of the police department, it is our records
management system that we rely on. It is also the basic platform used by our 911 center
to input and dispatch calls. The system is owned by Skagit County and maintained
by Skagit County and we have been using that system
as other law enforcement agencies have
since the mid-1990s. This interlocal agreement
would continue our use of that system through the end of 2027.
And I believe you have a copy of that
that's been provided to you in the packet. This system is
based on the number of users and is built with the agency quarterly.
I've reviewed that, it's been through Ms. Sweatnam and also the input of our IT management staff
to make sure that the city's IT firewalls are maintained as far as their integrity with
the use of the system.
So there's no further risk to the city as far as any potential hazards from using
the Spelman system.
Can you talk about the cost over time of using the system?
So the Spilman system, as I mentioned, is the fees are outstructured with a few matrix,
one of the main ones being the number of users.
They tally the number of users county-wide and then divide that by the number of users
for the agency.
So, our use would be based upon how many Spilman users we have.
They also have the cost of maintaining that system and enhanced security features like
double factor authentication now requires us to use not only usernames and passwords
but a dongle basically to boot the program up.
So the cost of maintaining that is burdened by the county.
Our contributions to that are fairly small as far as what that cost is.
I know that the 9-1-1 Center recently upgraded their portion
to make the call taking more efficient.
But all those costs have gone back to the county
and it's divided up amongst the user agencies.
I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, Mr. Walters.
Yeah, I was wondering, has it increased significantly over time?
But then also, and I think that's not necessarily a bad way
to do it as you've described, how
to allocate the cost among the restrictions.
I wonder if you get any insight into the components
of that cost.
There are some modules that we can add to enhance the efficiency or operability of the
system, and those modules naturally have a cost to them.
The system has a user group that meets monthly to determine the needs of additional modules
in weighing the cost versus benefits of those and brings that forward to the individuals
that have that decision-making power as a recommendation to proceed forward or not based
upon the needs of the user agencies.
So we do have a representative on that, would be our records manager, and so the cost
would be dependent on what modules we choose to use. Currently, there hasn't been any major
changes that would increase the cost of that.
We are looking at the possibility of integrating
that with mobile phone devices if the security features align with the city's IT security
needs. That would be a benefit to our detective and command staff that don't have a full-size
laptop in their patrol vehicle and have the need for accessing that system out in the field
at an incident command post, for example.
Mayor Miller.
Mr. Fantina.
I'm not sure if this is what Mr. Walters is asking, but I would I'm curious to know so we've had agreements with them dating back to
2008 what for example was our cost last year or I?
Believe it was eighty eight thousand eighty eight thousand, and so we're anticipating eighty one ish this year
Is what it said I think that's the number, okay?
That was more my question is just like are we seeing like it gradually go up and up and up or it?
It appears to be relatively stable.
Okay.
Thank you.
Mayor Miller.
Ms. Malton.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chief.
It's nice to see a system that's long-term and consistent and is working for the agencies,
and we don't need some kind of new, fancy, expensive thing that everyone needs to have
to learn how to use and ends up hating it.
Not that that ever happens.
So, in the absence of any other comments, I move that the City Council authorize the
Mayor to execute interlocal agreement 24234 APD001 between the city and Skagit County.
Second.
Okay.
A motion by Ms. Moulton, a second by Mr. Young to approve the interlocal agreement
as presented.
Any additional discussion?
Mr. Franciotic vote, please.
Mr. McDougal.
Yes.
Ms. Hibik.
Yes.
Mr. Fantini?
Yes.
Mr. Young?
Yes.
Mr. Walters?
Yes.
Ms. Cleo McGrath?
Yes.
Ms. Moulton?
Yes.
Motion carries.
Okay.
Thanks.
Next up is Item 7D.
This is Resolution 3164, use of lodging tag funds for Schedule Valley Tool of Festival.
Discussion item, possible action.
And Mr. Coleman is at a planning conference and our other staff is not available.
Well, Mr. Walters, the LTCH chair will get to take this one.
Mr. Walters.
Thank you, Mayor Miller.
We did have an out-of-cycle request
from the Tulip Festival for some additional LTCH dollars
for support of their operation.
Their request was for $10,000, which
is consistent with some of the requests
that they have made of the other jurisdictions that
benefit from the Tulip Festival. Our recommendation from the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee was
to fund the Tulip Festival in this out-of-cycle request at $7,500. That motion passed unanimously.
And the director of the Tulip Festival, Nicole Ruzin, is here at the podium, and
she can provide some additional background. Council has in their packet the resolution
authorizing the request but not the other materials that you had provided to the
lodging tax advisor committee. Well nice to see you again and you're welcome to
say a few words and make sure the microphone is on and you can pull it
towards you and you can state your name for the record also and I don't think
the microphone's on. Hello. There you go. Hi I'm Nicole Ruzin I'm the
the Executive Director of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.
And as Mr. Walters pointed out,
I have already presented this to the LTCH committee.
It is a special request for the $10,000
specifically for a project
to basically enhance our sponsorship opportunities.
So if I can just kind of give a little bit
of additional background.
The Tulip Festival is something
that I think most people know about it is we are in our 41st year as a festival
so it's been around for a long time but I think it's important to note that I
actually started in my role last September so I've been in this role for
about a year and the budget that was set for this current year was already
determined and all of the LTCH requests had been submitted prior to me
starting in this role. As we've kind of dug into some of our financials we have
kind of uncovered the fact that we had a budget deficit for this year. It's also
important to note that our fiscal runs from October 1st so we're approaching
our year end. And when we dug in to some of our financials, there's kind of a myriad of reasons
as to why we are at this deficit. I think as many business owners and nonprofits know, and
we were able to survive COVID through the relief of Triple P and one-time grants. And I think
those funds actually masks some of the deficits that we are seeing today.
And I think it's
also just important to note that the Tulip Festival, we were able to partner with the
Skagit Tourism Bureau this year to get our hands on some really compelling data. So
we know that the Tulip Festival brings in approximately 450 to 600,000 people in the
The data also showed that we have data that illustrates credit card spend, and that credit
card spend is approximately $186 per person.
So if you take that by the 450,000 people that we know come here, that's $83 million
of revenue that's spent throughout Skagit County.
me. I think it's also important to note that the Tulip Festival, in my time here, I think
two main things have kind of bubbled up to the surface. One, that the Tulip Festival
just magically happens, which it doesn't. And two, that there's just confusion around
what the Tulip Festival as a non-profit organization actually does. And so the three
kind of buckets of what we do can be centered around promotion, advocacy,
coordination, and community. Another big part of this past year was investing
pretty heavily in a media campaign. It was the first time we'd ever put about
$50,000 of paid media towards basically showcasing all there is to do
across Skagit County.
Of course the tulips are kind of the hero
of why people come here,
but our job is really to talk about all of the various places
that you can stay at, eat at, shop at, et cetera.
So I really think of us as being that kind of promotional
arm, that marketing arm of Skagit County.
The other big thing that we do is we really serve
is the trusted voice and authority of the Tulip Festival. We actively engage with all
of the media and we support visitors. I have calls pretty regularly, even this week, asking,
well, when can I come and see the Tulips? People don't understand necessarily that
they're a seasonal blooming of flower and they're only available to see in the spring
time. So just the amount of work that we do in fielding questions and providing guidance
on where to go is pretty remarkable. And we help mitigate the confusion around the Tulip
Festival. Again, it's not a very clear entity. When you think of a festival, you think,
oh, I get one single ticket and it gets me admission into the thing, which is not
the case here, we have multiple different tulip gardens that participate in the tulip festival.
We do not ourselves sell the tickets, each of those gardens do, so explaining that is
essential part of what we do.
And the tulip fields actually rotate every year, so explaining that to people is also a big
part of what we do.
And as I said, a big part of what we do is also just the coordination.
We're working with all of the appropriate folks across public works, the Sheriff's Department,
Washington State Department of Transportation to ensure that we're all locked and loaded
for traffic control. We pay for the overtime of sheriffs to support flagging and traffic control.
We also have multiple community events sprinkled throughout the year, so one of those events
is the Ambassador Program, which I'm really proud of.
It's the way that we engage with our youth.
It's for fifth and sixth graders,
fourth and fifth graders actually,
to basically audition to become a Tulip Ambassador
and represent the Tulip Festival across different.
I think it's a good idea to do that.
So just getting back to the request, it was for that $10,000.
It's to supplement the fact
that some of these critical needs were not factored into our original budgeting. And it's
to basically develop a sponsorship or revamp. So LTCH dollars make up a substantial part
of our budget, about half of our budget actually comes from sponsorship dollars.
It's critical to our financial success, but unfortunately those offerings have also remained
pretty stagnant over the years, and so this particular project is meant to focus on revamping
sponsorship, diving into understanding what sponsors are looking for, ensuring that
we're providing value. We invested heavily this year into revamping our website. It's
now mobile friendly and really beautiful personally I think. And so there are a lot more opportunities
for sponsors to gain visibility through our website. And this project is basically really
diving into what those various placements can be, what the offerings can be for sponsors,
developing a go-to-market strategy, how we reach out to those sponsors, also incorporating
systems. Frankly, we are lacking in that area of technology to help us track our sponsorships,
communication with our sponsors,
incorporating QuickBooks and using that for invoicing that type of stuff.
So thank you for the opportunity to talk about the project.
I surely appreciate it.
And with that, I'll leave it to any questions.
Well, thank you for that. And I know I was fortunate to see some of the numbers, pretty
impressive numbers that people don't think about that the tool of festival brings in
that critical shoulder season, at least for us who are very focused on the summertime,
but very critical shoulder season. So I know LTCH also got to see those numbers. So again,
appreciate the work you're doing there. Mr. Walters?
So, to summarize the position of the committee, I think we would like to discourage out-of-cycle
requests but also allow them when it makes sense and there's a compelling need.
The Tulip Festival's ask this year is indicative of what their ask will be going forward.
In the past, it's been about $2,400.
their award for 2024 was $2,500. In the past years, it's been $2,400, which doesn't really account for inflation.
But it also doesn't account for the apparent impact that the Tulip Festival has on tourism generation in
Anacortis. And so there are numbers of like 44,000 people that apparently, according to
this cell phone location data, go to the festival and then their next stop is Anacortis. And
that's the ferry landing, some of it's deception pass, some of it's downtown. But those are
pretty compelling numbers. One of the things that the Login Tax Advisory Committee is
supposed to do under our code is provide you some metrics. And so, number one,
and analysis of the extent to which the proposal will provide activities for tourists or increase
tourism in Anacortes, those are the compelling 44,000 visitors to Anacortes who seem to arrive
as a result of the Tulip Festival. Number two, the extent to which the recommended
funding will affect the long-term stability of the lodging tax fund. This amount of
money is not going to affect the long-term stability of the lodging tax fund now considered
as a complete cycle, that would have more import.
So I leave that to council.
But certainly, Mr. Hoagland had no qualms with an award
or not based on that criteria.
Number three, we're supposed to calculate the ratio
of the recommended funding amount to the number of tourists
that are estimated.
And if you take this $7,500 figure,
that's $0.17 of tourists.
if you take the full 10,000 that we would have allocated for 2025, it's 22 cents.
Again, that would make more sense if you look at it in comparison with an entire funding cycle,
but it seems to me and to the committee to be a relatively good deal for Anacortis.
Number four, we're supposed to evaluate the consistency of the application
with the statutory requirements. The festival itself is clearly a compliant activity,
and basically all of their activity is promotion of the festival.
And then number five, a history of their compliance with requirements to report on the actual tourism
generated.
I understand from staff that the Tulip Festival has always been compliant.
This request has also generated some interesting conversations around what else we could
be doing with the Tulip Festival.
The Tulip Festival has indicated that they would potentially be very interested in
having their kickoff dinner here at our new event facility
that we have been talking about.
Their gala could be part of the opening ceremonies
and those could be held around the county
but it could help draw Anacortis into the festival.
We have talked about other ways to better integrate
Anacortis into the tool of festival.
Try to do some more strategic thinking
about how we can accomplish that
rather than just responding to groups
that show up with their hands out for money.
So, I think we're interested in all of that and interested in support of the festival and having a better integration of anti-courtists with it. Thank you.
Mayor Miller?
Ms. Malton.
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ruzin, for taking the time to come here. And I feel like I got a great primer on the Tulip Festival. I learned a lot that I had no idea about.
So thank you for that and also for your candor and why you're back and kind of the back story of that that context
I think is really important for us to know and I'm definitely in favor of this
And I appreciate the context that mr. Walters provided about LTCH in general and this
Specifically and it's exciting to think about what we can do going forward and more partnership
And the last thing I want to say is the how I'm impressed with the coordination
It's almost like the Tulip Festival acts as a de facto chamber of commerce for the entire
county when you're working with all the different agencies and that level of coordination I think
at the granular level would be astounding really to make it all come off so well so I applaud
you for that.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Yell.
Thank you.
Well first of all, it's a pleasure to meet you.
of, you know, your predecessors I've known as well, and your last name is Ruzin.
I have married into the family, so I have to preference that.
Yeah, I think, you know, your father-in-law pretty well, I was on a board with him, so
anyway, this is a wonderful thing.
What I'm really appreciative of as past chair of the LTAC and, you know, what I really
appreciate is the expansion of possibilities for all of the cities. You know, even though
just a few miles is not far from where I come from, we used to drive about, you know, 45
minutes to an hour to go to the movies. Here 15 minutes is sometimes too much for some.
But I love the idea of sort of spreading out the festivities of that. I think that's
a wonderful thing. And also, you know, I think I'm hoping that under your leadership and your
board and everything else that it continues to sort of expand beyond the entities where
you have to come in. There's a lot of people that drive on the side of the road and, you
know, about to roll over into the cow pasture, but they try to get the tulip picture.
It would be great if we could sort of expand the way for them to just sort of scoot through and out.
I'm sure that's long term, but I'm very much in support.
I think this is a wonderful thing for our county.
It's a wonderful thing that we do and lots of people hear about it, you know.
So I love the idea of figuring out now how do we use that to further the advantage of the whole county.
And so I'm looking forward to it.
So I'm very much in support.
Thank you very much.
Mayor Miller.
Mr. Fantini.
Thank you.
I'm also in support of taking the recommendation of the LTAC.
And thank you for coming and talking about this today.
I've done a lot of work with nonprofits before in the past.
And I know what a time we are in for change.
And I just, I wanted to wish you luck and applaud you because I'm sure it is not easy to kind of blaze a new trail and kind of go in a slightly different direction.
looking for new opportunities. So I just wanted to wish you luck and thanks for
coming and sharing with us. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Mayor Miller. Miss Hubick. Hi, thank you. I wanted to also extend my appreciation for this as someone that's done tourism in the past.
I understand how difficult it is to actually get festival participants to self-report.
And so being able to get cell phone data from people is absolutely fantastic.
It helps you target people.
It helps us understand where people end up, how long they stay there, and 90% of the population
has a smartphone.
So congratulations on that.
Thank you for actually giving us good solid data back.
And so if there are no further questions or comments, I would be thrilled to move
to approve the use of lodging tax grants funds for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival
is recommended by the lodging tax advisory committee in the amount of $7,500.
Second.
Okay, a motion by Ms. Hubek and a second by Mr. Young to approve a resolution 3164 use
of lodging tax funds for Skagit Valley Tool of Festival.
Any additional discussion?
Mr. Franciatic, vote please.
Ms. Hubek.
Yes.
Ms. Kefantini.
Yes.
Mr. Young.
Yes.
Mr. Walters.
Yes.
Ms. Cleveland McGrath.
Yes.
Ms. Moulton.
Yes.
Mr. McDougall.
Yes.
Motion carries.
Okay.
Our last item on the agenda is Item 7E.
This is Resolution 3166, authorizing a noise variance for the wastewater treatment
plant outfall relocation project.
This is a discussion item with possible action.
Mr. Rayo.
Thank you, Mayor.
Before he is a resolution of the City Council to authorize After Hours Noise for the wastewater
treatment plant outfall project, we were just here, I don't know, maybe a month ago to talk
about this for the marine side of the project. That is now done and complete. Now we're
on the shore. And so the tide is still playing a role in our situation, so we need to...
We don't think we are going to need to work at night. They almost had me pull
this thing back off the agenda because we think we can do it without working after hours
but just in case. So we're not holding up the contractor. We are asking the council
to allow us to work in the evenings. There's specific dates. That's part of the WAC that
we have adopted locally by Municipal Code 1969-020. So we're looking for the dates
of September 9th through September 13th to allow them to work outside the noise
hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mayor Miller, Mr. Frantini appreciate the fact that we're
planning for possible having to go over but also glad to hear that we might not
have to is there a plan to like note is there an email that goes out to folks
that are involved and they'll all be notified of this change just in case
you would happen to utilize it we certainly do we just discovered to
some people don't use email in the neighborhood. So we are actually doing text messages now
and I'm actually planning to go door to door. I think you guys all know I've been doorbelling
quite a bit in my history. So I'm going to go meet all the neighbors too just to make
sure we've got good contact information. We did have one of the residents that's literally
next door that doesn't do email. And so she called us and was like, why aren't you
talking to us? So yes, we will be notifying anybody if we are going to plan to work
After hours that day immediately great. Thank you for that extra effort. I know it is super appreciated. Any
other questions?
Notions,
Mr. Walters approval of resolution 3166 as presented
Motion by Mr. Walters second by Miss you big to approve resolution 3166 any additional discussion
Mr.. Francia I go please
Mr.. Vantini
Yes, mr. Young. Yes
Mr. Walters. Yes. Ms. Cleveland McGrath. Yes. Ms. Moulton. Yes. Mr. McDougal. Yes. Ms. Hubek. Yes. Motion carries.
Okay. Thank you. No further business for the council. I'll adjourn tonight's meeting. Have a good night.
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