[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Seven o'clock. Let's call this meeting order. Please join me for the flag salute.
[0:28] Make a motion to excuse councilmember Dede. Second, all those in favor? Aye.
[0:34] Aye.
[0:35] Opposed?
[0:37] Motion carries.
[0:38] Councillor Neillson.
[0:42] Councillor Neillson did reach out to me about an hour or two ago to let me know that she
[0:46] would not be attending tonight.
[0:48] Okay.
[0:49] They can motion to excuse.
[0:51] Councilmember Neillson.
[0:52] Second.
[0:53] Motion in favor.
[0:54] Aye.
[0:55] Opposed?
[0:57] Motion carries.
[1:17] Thank you, Chuck.
[1:22] So next we need to review and approve the agenda.
[1:25] Is there anyone wishing to make any changes at this time?
[1:32] Like a motion to approve the agenda as presented.
[1:35] Second.
[1:37] Those in favor?
[1:38] Aye.
[1:39] Aye.
[1:41] Opposed?
[1:43] Wait.
[1:44] Are we going to still leave Sarah's items on the agenda if she's not here?
[1:48] Yeah.
[1:49] Okay.
[1:56] Brenda, you're good.
[1:56] Got the vote.
[1:57] Thank you.
[1:59] So that brings us to our public comment session.
[2:01] this is for people wishing to address council regarding items of new business. You may do so at
[2:07] this time. There's a sign-up sheet over there. If you didn't get to it, no worries. Raise your hand
[2:12] to either physically or electronically online when you're called upon. Please come to the podium,
[2:18] state your name, city of residence. Please leave me your comments to three minutes.
[2:29] First up, we have Kelly Sisquayas.
[2:35] Good evening, Council and Mayor Adler.
[2:39] I thank you for the opportunity to come and address the council this evening and my fellow comment.
[2:43] My name is Kelly Sisquayas.
[2:45] I am a member of the Black Diamond City Planning Commission and a resident of the city of Black Diamond for 31 years.
[2:51] And my public comment tonight is about the strategic plan.
[2:55] When I was reading through the strategic plan as it's written, I found a couple of things
[3:00] that seem a little bit out of character with the way I believe we want the City of
[3:06] Black Diamond to develop.
[3:08] In the plan, it does not provide specifically for public comment or public input to guide
[3:16] the themes of the plan.
[3:18] It says that the city staff will select themes that the city council might select themes but no place in the plan does it show public participation in guiding the themes of the plan.
[3:34] I believe this is out of character with the type of city that I choose to live in and I feel it's out of character with some of the other
[3:43] are things that the city has implemented lately to not allow the public participation.
[3:51] That's one of the things that we have been working very hard on at the Planning Commission.
[3:56] And there have been hundreds of public comments that have been turned in.
[4:01] In the four years that I have been on the Planning Commission, I believe that needs to be
[4:07] a larger part of this plan for public participation and that there needs to be actions taken on the
[4:14] comments that are turned in, not just decisions made by the staff. My recommendation is that
[4:21] this plan could be tweaked and maybe account for public participation in a broader way.
[4:28] And there were other things in the plan that hit me as not quite consistent.
[4:33] It makes mention of the Lake Sur regional park as being potentially a future asset to the region.
[4:42] I can tell you that when I was participating in the development of the pros plan,
[4:47] the Lake Sur regional park already is a major asset to the region and there were dozens of people
[4:56] who came out to speak on behalf of the Lake Sur regional park and how they like it pretty much the
[5:02] way that it is. And there's a there should be a strong curb on development planned for lakes or
[5:09] a regional park. It is one of very few places where you can go and walk your horse, ride your
[5:16] horse, ride your little battery powered dirt bike, go fishing, go and have a picnic and hike over five
[5:24] miles of trails that are within the city limits of black diamond. Please consider that. Thank you.
[5:30] Thank you.
[5:31] Thank you.
[5:34] Next up, I have Stacey Lyons.
[5:42] Hi there.
[5:42] My name is Stacey Lyons.
[5:44] I am a resident of Black Diamond, and I'm here tonight to raise publicly an issue that
[5:50] I think is a traffic safety issue in the city of Black Diamond, and it's regarding the intersection
[5:56] of 216th and 288th.
[5:59] As you probably know, there has been a very extended period of time of building traffic
[6:09] signals at that location for what was really a, I think, a traffic issue and safety issue
[6:15] at the time.
[6:15] So, I acknowledge the need to do something, but now we are fast forwarding several years,
[6:21] and there has been a lot of infrastructure built there, including several mechanical boxes
[6:31] on the northeast corner of that intersection, which from a line of sight perspective offers
[6:37] no ability for a driver to be able to assess if there's somebody coming up that hill before
[6:42] having to check in their way into the intersection and hope that they can make it through and still
[6:48] manage what's happening on the left hand side of that intersection. So I did reach out to
[6:53] public works today and while I understand what the long-term agenda is at getting those
[7:00] operational and I even understand what the concerns or the issues have been that have slowed
[7:05] that construction, there has to be an interim solution to make that a safe place. I go through
[7:11] there every day to and from and frankly I feel like I sometimes put my life in the hands of
[7:17] someone not coming up too fast on that hill. And I have had several close calls and I've seen
[7:23] several close calls. And I think that we need to ask the engineers within the Black Diamond
[7:33] city to figure out what an interim solution could be until we get those operational.
[7:38] It's been years that we've been waiting. And frankly now they're sitting at a state where some of
[7:43] those signals, the covers are starting to wear off.
[7:48] And if you're a new person driving there,
[7:50] you're not sure if you're supposed to stop,
[7:52] not supposed to stop, the person behind you
[7:54] doesn't know whether they should stop or not stop.
[7:56] And I just think it would be neglectful
[7:59] to not have a solution
[8:01] before some kind of casualty happens at that spot.
[8:04] So as just a resident, I felt like I was implored
[8:07] to ask you for your guidance
[8:11] and leadership in this situation. So thank you.
[8:15] Thank you.
[8:19] Next up, we have Kristen Bryant.
[8:31] Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Kristen Bryant.
[8:33] I live in Bellevue and I grew up in Black Diamond.
[8:36] I have comments on your strategic plan.
[8:39] I'll go kind of fast and I want to comment on three areas.
[8:42] Item one, the first element is basically about land use.
[8:48] It has a, it divides Black Diamond into seven opportunity areas.
[8:53] One concern, an opportunity area has a more specific legal definition is used in King
[9:00] County.
[9:00] Even from a common use perspective, it's a term that invites and assumes significant
[9:06] growth in each area, which is really a comprehensive plan decision.
[9:10] Not a thing to put lightly in this short, you know, strategic plan.
[9:16] This, it also, item one, talks about developing a vision and land use plan for those areas of the city for each of the seven.
[9:26] That belongs in a comprehensive plan process. It's a vision in land use. That's what a comprehensive plan mainly deals with.
[9:33] How do you decide a vision without the traffic evaluation, the environmental impact evaluation and the capital needs evaluation that come specifically with comprehensive planning?
[9:43] I noticed in that section there was also a change from your August draft to tonight's draft that's not noted, but there's a bullet about commercial and light industrial use.
[9:55] It used to be two bullets between commercial and space for small manufacturing and light industrial, but tonight it's all lumped into commercial development that blah, blah, blah and provide space for small scale light industrial.
[10:08] I notice you had taken anonymous comments on this and one of those seemed to be really
[10:14] clearly from a developer who might own some light industrial land and be seeking a
[10:19] reason to commercial because they use words like highest and best use that developers tend
[10:25] to use not your everyday resident, but we don't know because those were anonymous comments.
[10:29] Your item 2 in the plan, Lake Sawyer Park, from the beginning it was the goal of some people
[10:36] that Oak points ball fields would be developed at the regional park and that's
[10:41] really why that became a priority and ended up in this strategic plan even if
[10:45] it doesn't say ball fields. I think you should consider that that shouldn't be
[10:48] there at all. And then strategic plan item four talks about enhancing city
[10:53] capacity but if you lock yourself into three-year funding commitment for a civic
[10:58] campus now you're artificially restricting other options that you might want to
[11:03] fun with city money. And there's a lot of examples I know you can think of them. One thing is the
[11:08] always postponed fish passage projects. You've got blocked fish passage all the way from lake
[11:13] soil you're on up to where wash dots finally going to make the fish be able to get under 169. But
[11:19] where's the money going to come from to help the environment there? You may want to put money
[11:24] towards new staff. You haven't had a city engineer for the better part of a decade. You may need
[11:28] experience planning staff because you're doing a comp plan. I know you've got how he seems great,
[11:33] but you can, you know, look at other funding because you can pass a government facilities fee
[11:39] on new development. I know that you can get money from other places for a civic campus. You
[11:48] may be cutting that off by committing it now through this process. Thank you.
[11:53] Is there anyone else online or in person wishing to address council last
[12:05] call.
[12:08] Seeing no one, I will close this public comment session.
[12:12] It brings us to appointments and answers, proclamations and presentations.
[12:17] First up, committee reports. Is anybody have any committee reports they'd like to share?
[12:28] Okay.
[12:31] I see no department reports. Shout out to Chief Judd Kim this first. Any
[12:37] verse in today? You haven't seen that. It's in your email.
[12:43] And then we have Mr.
[12:46] Mason with the second quarter financial report.
[13:10] Good evening mayor. Good evening
[13:11] council.
[13:14] Excuse me. I set up.
[13:52] After seeing you like to talk to you all about the
[13:54] second quarter financial report for the City of Black Diamond. That's a real
[13:59] brief report. However, in your packing material to see the actual report, it's
[14:04] about 44 pages long. The summary I'll provide this evening probably close
[14:12] here to five minutes. I went over it last Tuesday during the budget finance and
[14:20] administration to meeting.
[14:24] I would say there's nothing too out of the norm. However, there are
[14:27] some important developments that occurred during the second quarter. The second quarter report
[14:34] goes up until the end of June 30th. I'll be going over the actuals for the operational funds,
[14:41] the investments and
[14:45] the fund balance classifications for each of the funds for the entirety of the
[14:52] city action. First, general fund, the general fund has reached a surplus as a
[15:00] June, a good portion of the reason, a good reason for that is because it has strong revenues and property taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes, and investment earnings. So you see a surplus of about $100,000 there. We weren't, of course, anticipating a budget deficit, however, seeing that we do are very concerted when it comes to our revenues and also concerted when it comes to our expenditures.
[15:30] I'll say this, this deficit in the surplus is very welcome.
[15:36] Looking at the percentage of where we are in terms of revenues in terms of the percentage.
[15:42] We have 48% where we're budgeted for the year and 46% where we budgeted for the year as well for expenditures.
[15:49] So we're right in target in terms of we're expecting to be halfway through the year.
[15:54] Again, revenues are bit stronger due to those revenue streams I mentioned earlier.
[16:01] And part of the reason is because utility taxes in particular, we see a rise in those
[16:06] during the third quarter months due to usage of different utilities.
[16:13] For the street fund, this fund is heavily supplemented by the General Fund, which we made a budget
[16:19] amendment at the end of $26 to provide, I believe $200,000 to keep that fund afloat in addition
[16:26] to your REIT funds and TBD funds. So, you're looking at a deficit of about $336,000. That is
[16:33] there because we have yet to make those transfers. This fund will still end at it with a deficit,
[16:39] however, it would not be as big as you're seeing this evening.
[16:46] The water fund,
[16:46] Historically, as I said since 2024, since we've paid off that debt in May, this has been
[16:54] our strongest utility fund, and as you'll see, there is a large surplus, 253,000, what
[17:01] you'll see as a year progresses is that surplus will continue to grow.
[17:05] What will happen at the end of the year, that surplus will drop significantly because we'll
[17:10] be transferring a good portion of that amount towards capital expenditures, which are budgeted.
[17:17] And going towards the other one sewer and storm water, you'll see a slightly different
[17:26] story that you do want to hone in a little bit on this evening with anticipation of
[17:33] upcoming meetings regarding the budget and the utility race setting.
[17:38] So you do see a surplus for the sewer fund, you'll also see a sewer plus and a storm
[17:43] water fund.
[17:44] The difference between this and the water fund is that these sewer pluses are not, say,
[17:51] large.
[17:52] Large in the sense of that, we cannot transfer funds from these different utility funds towards
[18:00] our capital funds because the funds that are the surplus that they're building up are
[18:05] are needed to keep their operating fund afloat.
[18:09] Councilmember Peterson already called you,
[18:11] email me about a year ago.
[18:13] As a question regarding,
[18:14] why do we not have a set percentage amount
[18:17] of our revenues going towards capital funds?
[18:20] And that's part of the reason.
[18:22] Nearly 100% of the revenues that these two funds
[18:25] generate are used to keep the operating fund stable.
[18:30] The storm mark on the other hand is not very stable.
[18:36] As an enterprise fund, you need to fund the operations as well as capital.
[18:40] And for about two years now, we've been, I don't say neglecting,
[18:43] but strategically holding off on those transfers that can keep their operating fund afloat.
[18:49] So, so as an sewer, you see a surplus here, 708,000,
[18:54] which of course makes the operating fund stronger.
[18:57] However, it's not enough to keep up with the capital expenditures that requires this fund to operate.
[19:05] A storm mark, you see the same thing.
[19:08] For those who have mentioned or heard me speak before, storm marks the plan that I put a lot of attention on just because of,
[19:16] first, it's very limited in terms of revenue generation.
[19:18] expenditures are growing and some revenues like the
[19:22] grant, the certain water capacity grant, $120,000 is good for
[19:27] operating however, it's not an annual grant, it happens
[19:30] on an 18 month cycle and next year we're not expecting
[19:35] $120,000 and so you'll see that we discussed the
[19:39] budget in the coming weeks and so that again affects
[19:43] this fund's ability to
[19:46] to provide income for capital expenditures,
[19:50] which makes capital planning a bit harder to do.
[19:54] Cash investment balances overall season pretty good.
[20:00] There's been an increase from the December 25 to the June 30th,
[20:06] about 1.2 million overall, good 100,000 in the general fund,
[20:13] about 300,000 or so in the reach. So rough, pretty good, pretty good. Everything is in the black.
[20:20] Here's a quick chart detailing how the funds have grown throughout the years between 18th and present.
[20:28] A lot of growth, a lot of growth is good because you never know when you need those funds for a rainy day.
[20:36] Back then, I mean the best one for folio. As I mentioned earlier, we were doing very well
[20:40] in comparison to what we were expecting during the budget process last year.
[20:45] A big part of that reason is we were expecting the fed rate to decrease.
[20:50] As you may have watched the news lately, they have not decreased, in fact,
[20:54] since expecting a hike tomorrow.
[20:56] So that may, our interest rates may be a little bit better in the near future.
[21:03] Here's just a chart detailing interest rates or interest investments or
[21:08] investment earnings over the years from 2020 to present,
[21:15] and conclusion, fund balanced
[21:20] classifications, looking about 4.6 restricted, about 1.1 in committed, about 6.3 in assigned,
[21:30] and unassigned, which is primarily the general fund 9.145, and it's all 21.2 million has
[21:38] end of last year.
[21:43] Are there any questions regarding the second quarter financial report?
[21:47] I do have a question. I was just trying to get right my head around this.
[21:53] We can't stand that the storm and sewer on are in a positive fund, but you can't transfer to
[22:00] the capital expenditure. What does that mean? Where's that money going? What's the capital expenditure?
[22:06] Okay, so good question. So there's different, there's a, there's a water fungal within the water fun, I don't say sewer fun within the sewer fun, there's two points, the sewer reserve and capital and the sewer operational.
[22:22] So the sewer operational point is what generates the revenue and most of the expenditures and what happens is that over time or maybe on annual basis, you'll see this through the budget process.
[22:34] We may not see it because we want to not make a transfer is that a portion of the reserves
[22:41] within that operating fund are transferred to the capital fund, from which it's expanded
[22:47] towards capital projects.
[22:49] And when the reserve or the fund balance of the operating fund is so low, let's say for
[22:55] example, I believe around February and March, the storm market fund was near $20,000.
[23:02] dollars, you can't make a transfer to capital without making that fun go underwater.
[23:10] But we're really talking about a bigger problem.
[23:12] Our rates are not set properly, right?
[23:15] Because we're not factoring in our capital needs, and we're not setting aside enough money.
[23:21] So help me understand in how far we are on our rate study and how that's been included
[23:27] this time around.
[23:28] Yeah, the rate study, they're progressing along very well.
[23:32] I think they're near completion and almost ready to present the council.
[23:37] Will you be including these rates in next year's budget?
[23:41] Or does it have to go through us first before you can even contemplate it or what?
[23:47] So during this budget process, I have worked with them to
[23:51] help determine the revenues and they have similar expenditures so that you know,
[23:58] like, no, be apples to apples.
[24:00] So during the budget process,
[24:01] I'll be presenting to you all rates as they are
[24:05] because they've not been approved by council.
[24:07] However, during the stand-tox presentation,
[24:10] they'll have the status quo at rates as they are,
[24:13] as well as rates as they can,
[24:14] as they are suggesting them to be,
[24:17] if any at all, any changes at all.
[24:20] And then what will happen is,
[24:24] depending on council's decision,
[24:26] and it also depends on how fast that process is
[24:30] because the budget and stand deck are not necessary
[24:33] on the steam voting time table.
[24:37] But ensure it will deal with the update,
[24:39] rates to reflect whatever council decides something to be.
[24:44] And then I know because we've all read through
[24:47] our planning documents that we have a six year
[24:50] and a 20 year capital improvement plan
[24:52] for each one of these funds.
[24:54] So and I'm assuming that all of those things are being factored in and it's been my experience that a body like this might determine maybe a percentage of the rates that they want to go to capital. That's how my board does it or maybe it's the amount of projects we want to complete or however we do it.
[25:18] but that's where during this budget process we want to be informed.
[25:25] Okay.
[25:31] Thank you.
[25:35] Very next up is the consent agenda.
[25:40] We'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.
[25:43] I answer. All those in favor?
[25:48] Opposed? Motion carries, no public hearings, no unfinished business,
[25:55] This brings us to item 7, which is the hometown hero's banner program presented by Councillor
[26:04] Nielsen, Proxy by Mr. Nielsen, for Mr. O'Neil.
[26:09] Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and if it's all right with Council, I'm just going to kind of combine
[26:14] these two items, the Purple Heart City item as well as the banner.
[26:20] There's no action requested, just mostly information, not mostly.
[26:24] it is informational. So, first, since we have it on the screen, I'll start with the banner
[26:30] program. Chief Councilmember Nielsen has been working with Mr. Glenn Boji, who, if I said
[26:36] that correctly, I'm sorry, if I didn't, to kick off this program. What's been, this has come
[26:43] before Council before and what they've decided to do as just an initial trial is two banners.
[26:50] They cost about $100 each. So very, very low cost and we will put them on
[26:59] Roberts on two of the light poles there just as a trial run for this year.
[27:04] The two people we would like to honor this year are is Mr.
[27:07] Boji as well as the purple heart recipient that we are honoring on the next item
[27:14] the purple heart city. So those will be the two that we start with and then
[27:18] We'll, from there, we'll have to figure out a process in terms of, you know, we have limited light poles.
[27:23] How do we select the number of people? What's the nomination process? You know, how do we handle the cost? All of that kind of stuff.
[27:30] But at this point, I'm just kind of looking for a head nod. This is generally sound okay, and we'll move forward with purchasing them and try to have a small little ceremony.
[27:41] Where we can, we can get them installed in before veterans.
[27:45] What's that before veterans that we're going to try to yeah, and then how long do we think we'll leave them up? I mean
[27:54] I'm kind of a trial to see how they look see how it goes. I
[27:58] Maybe I don't know exactly. I think that we'll kind of have to see how they how they stand the weather
[28:03] Yeah, we certainly you know
[28:05] We start to do do the the
[28:08] Individuals disservice when they're up there and they're weathered and they're that's what I'm wondering. Yeah
[28:12] So, you know, we don't have any experience with the vendor, so maybe they'll look great for a month, maybe they'll look great for two years, I don't know.
[28:21] But certainly it'll be something we'll be coming back to council on as we build out the program.
[28:29] And then on the purple heart side of things, we have ordered the signs.
[28:34] We have determined where they will go generally, rather than trying to have them at each entry point to the city.
[28:40] We want to focus on the northbound entrance on 169 as well as the southbound entrance on 169
[28:47] just on both ends of the city that the two most traveled areas somewhere around the cool cars.
[28:53] You know, we don't want the cool cars are so cool that we don't want it to track from them,
[28:56] but with the same time we want the purple heart recipient to get their due attention as well.
[29:04] So it will be somewhere along there.
[29:06] The idea at this point is to do a small ceremony.
[29:15] that will likely happen on October 3rd, a Saturday, I'll send a confirmation.
[29:21] And what we're thinking we'll do is we'll have a small ceremony here.
[29:25] And then bring him out to where one of the signs will already be installed
[29:29] and just do a quick little photo op and little danger is on the side of the road.
[29:34] Thankfully, the southern quote card, there's some good area there.
[29:38] so it shouldn't be too bad. But certainly, all council will be invited to that and then
[29:46] we'll get the second sign installed on the north and north of the city. So that's
[29:51] for those two items.
[29:56] Do you have a time on the third?
[29:59] I'm not yet.
[30:00] That he, Mr. Sakato's family is coming in like the first through the fifth or something, something along those lines, we'll be working with them to make sure that they can attend. I think if I had. I don't know, we'll still have to see either morning or afternoon. Okay, that's. Safe way opening. Oh, I said, let me report. We will work around the safe way.
[30:23] I that that I that didn't connect that dot. So yeah, we'll figure out a good time. Or maybe we'll all just.
[30:29] carful from one to the other. There you go.
[30:32] I'm going to have the bus.
[30:34] Yeah.
[30:34] Reckons.
[30:37] Or cones.
[30:39] Silence.
[30:40] I'm a question too. I sure
[30:41] I'm Scott Sandle that that for
[30:43] the hometown hero banner sounds like
[30:45] Robert Stry.
[30:46] Is where we are going to place those.
[30:49] We do have a grant.
[30:51] To reconstruct Robert Stry.
[30:53] The section of it with the sidewalk.
[30:55] I'm sure this can be street lights.
[30:57] And that are those poles.
[30:58] So we're going to make sure the polls are adequate with the banners.
[31:02] Yeah, yeah, the polls will work.
[31:04] The banners themselves have basically brackets of straps that go around them.
[31:08] So, okay, they don't have the arm like we did down at the bakery.
[31:13] So there's straps and arms on them.
[31:15] These are the, okay, so for those of you online who couldn't hear Mr.
[31:19] Hannes, he basically said there shouldn't be an issue that, yeah, should be an issue.
[31:25] And are you happy with the design?
[31:27] Yeah. Yeah, Councilmember Nielsen took the lead on the design. I think she's done a fantastic job on both of these two initiatives. It's really exciting to see the process start and now get to the point where we've had the meetings. We've made the decisions and now we're getting it over the finish line.
[31:46] So excited to see that happening. So Kudos to her.
[31:50] That's
[31:53] it, Mr. Mayor.
[31:54] Thank you.
[31:56] You're back up again for maybe 26-118.
[32:00] Resolution adopting city strategic plan.
[32:04] Thank you again, Mr. Mayor.
[32:06] So I am going to share a quick PowerPoint.
[32:10] And then handed over to Brian Murphy,
[32:14] who's been the one of the consultants that's been helping us
[32:17] through this process.
[32:18] I'm excited to be here at this meeting and I'll just add before I hand the microphone
[32:26] over.
[32:27] You know, we have received a lot of comments the last few days, you know, we've had
[32:30] people come up and speak and Brian and I have touch base.
[32:34] If there are tweaks we want to make tonight, we can do that on the fly.
[32:37] He's prepared to pull it up and we can kind of do some wordsmithing and if there's some items
[32:42] that are not quite you're not quite comfortable with so that is an option
[32:46] just want to lay that out first. So with that said Brian.
[32:56] Yeah good evening
[32:57] council. Mr. Mayor thank you so much for letting me join you and I do which I
[33:02] was there on person given the interest in the strategic plan but I would join
[33:06] them. Can you hear me okay?
[33:12] Yeah it's a little low volume Brian we're trying to
[33:15] I'll make some tweaks here, maybe.
[33:18] I'll bring my mic just a little bit closer. Is that better?
[33:21] Yeah, that's a lot better.
[33:23] Oh, good. So it was error on my end. So hopefully you can hear me now.
[33:27] I just want to say good evening.
[33:29] I'm really glad to be with you all.
[33:31] And which I was there in person, actually.
[33:33] But I'm up in our Seattle office and glad to connect with you
[33:38] about this strategic plan.
[33:41] So I'm happy to just give a recap of kind of the planning process
[33:45] and where we are tonight. Just a few high-level remarks about the strategic plan as it sits in
[33:51] front of council. And then as Kevin said, very glad to take feedback and final refinements and hopefully,
[33:58] you know, see council adopt tonight. Can you go to the next slide please?
[34:06] Yes, one second.
[34:13] Thank you. So just a brief recap of the journey we've been on. We started the process in April,
[34:19] April 17th with Council retreat.
[34:23] We then met with staff to take some of the ideas that have been talked about,
[34:27] a vision that have been talked about, that Council retreat, and workshoped that a bit and came back and spoke with
[34:33] Council again in person on June 8th.
[34:35] Went back to staff, so kind of use staff as a sounding board for some of the ideas that council raised.
[34:42] Then did a very brief, you know, public review process and some additional staff engagement.
[34:47] And then my colleague, Maddie Immel and I were down with council on August 18th and had a version of the plan that was fairly close to the version that's in front of you this evening.
[35:00] I'm happy to recap the changes that we've made some wordsmithing and also some I think that it's a bit more substantive.
[35:07] Next slide please.
[35:12] I'm not going to talk through the whole plan.
[35:13] I know everyone's had a chance to kind of review that and look at it. I will say it's a high level
[35:19] document. It's all of 10 pages, so it's got a high level direction to it. It is not nearly as long
[35:29] as comprehensive or as technical as a comprehensive plan will be for you. I will say it does talk about
[35:36] growth, but it does not establish a growth target, and it is not meant at all to preempt
[35:43] any of the land use decisions that would be made in a comprehensive planning process.
[35:49] So it talks about the need for visions and land use designations for areas of your community
[35:57] that are subject to change, that you all want to shape.
[36:01] To be a particular thing, it talks about the idea of a walkable downtown.
[36:05] for example, but it does not presume to say where that downtown should be or how
[36:10] that exactly should function. That's clearly, you know, something that should be
[36:14] developed in the comprehensive plan. In addition to groves, it talks about other
[36:19] things like enhancing communication with the public. It talks about a fair bit
[36:24] actually about internal city capacity and operations in the fourth priority and
[36:30] And helping you map out as your community does continue to grow,
[36:36] how do you make sure you provide in quality services,
[36:39] and how are you staffing appropriately, not getting over your skills,
[36:44] but also not under capacity to the demands that are placed on staff.
[36:49] It talks about other things like a community brand or community identity.
[36:53] So quite a lot here, but it's meant to be a flexible document
[36:58] that gives council and staff some direction,
[37:01] but constant process of engaging with the community
[37:05] and with one another to set that annual implementation plan.
[37:09] So it's so high level, it's not meant to lock you in.
[37:13] Just to recap, some of the changes
[37:15] that we made prior to this final version,
[37:19] we removed a projection of population
[37:22] that we had pulled from the comprehensive plan
[37:24] that has since been put on hold.
[37:28] And we added just some brief narrative to say
[37:30] that Black Diamond is very likely to continue to grow
[37:33] but we don't know and the purpose of this document
[37:37] is not to say how quickly or how much.
[37:41] We generalize the approach to Lake Sawyer Regional Park.
[37:45] Under priority four, we added a focus on developing strong
[37:49] internal systems and processes
[37:51] as well as being a learning organization.
[37:54] Having the chance to sit with staff,
[37:56] we see that there's a real need to invest
[37:59] in city services, city systems rather and processes
[38:03] so that they're more robust and more stable
[38:06] and more resilient to increase demand for services.
[38:11] And then the last thing we did was at Request of Council,
[38:14] we really fleshed out the annual implementation cycle.
[38:17] So if you could go to the very last slide here, I'm happy to sort of walk through that.
[38:26] There we go.
[38:27] It looks better in the plan itself as it's more portrait orientation.
[38:32] But the idea here is that the strategic plan is very high level.
[38:37] It should be updated every two years.
[38:40] So every two years council would look at the strategic plan and identify where there should be a focus.
[38:48] us in the coming two years. As with all things that are driven by council, that would be with
[38:53] like a strong public process. So we're showing down in the green area ongoing public communications
[39:00] and town hall events so that you as council elected officials are getting input from the community
[39:06] about how you are going to govern in the coming two years. So the strategic plan would be the focus
[39:14] of the strategic plan would be updated every two years and then of course your budget would be
[39:19] updated every year and we're trying to make the connection between the strategic plan and the
[39:24] budget to make sure that the budget is a good representation of your overall strategy and where
[39:30] where you want to go with the city and the priority investments that you want to make in the coming
[39:35] years. But I'll just close by saying the strategic plan doesn't commit you to any budget decisions
[39:41] and similarly, it doesn't come to you to any land use decisions or capital facility decisions for that matter.
[39:48] So, it's putting in front of Council and staff priority items for additional discussion as you go forward.
[39:57] So, that's all I would hope to share with you. Happy to take questions.
[40:01] Of course, happy to take suggested revisions and would love to hear Council's interest in whether you'd like to adopt this plan.
[40:09] questions.
[40:27] I'll start you know we were in the meeting we could go we want to
[40:37] express how we want to listen to the public we need to get more public
[40:42] involvement but we got a lot of public involvement on this topic and no one
[40:47] supported us adopting this plan tonight not one and I don't know what the
[40:52] urgency is adopted. I know it doesn't lock us into anything. It's a high-level plan but without
[40:58] the concrete plan being done, I think you got the wagon before the horse on this plan. I just
[41:04] don't see why we would want to adopt this now until we have the concrete plan done. It, to me,
[41:10] it doesn't make any sense. So we look at the wagon three times already. Nobody brought up any objections
[41:17] until today.
[41:20] And that's true.
[41:21] And there was a lot of objections.
[41:23] And I don't see why it would hurt to just wait until the
[41:27] conc plan is done.
[41:28] Make most of the table that's saying,
[41:30] until we get the conc plan done.
[41:32] And then we can address any issues that come up out of this.
[41:36] And, you know, a lot of the comment was done on the civic plan.
[41:41] You know, there was that document.
[41:42] There was a study done by the makers on the facilities
[41:45] and what we should be charging, and previous counsel,
[41:50] previous, previous brief, decided not to adopt that plan
[41:56] in all over the fees, which we would already have
[41:59] like 10 million, 12 million in the fund
[42:02] or city hall right now.
[42:03] It estimated that we should be charged in some place
[42:06] about if the 800 per housing unit in $2.86 per square foot,
[42:13] but so we can start addressing our needs of city all in that.
[42:17] And tell we start doing some of this stuff.
[42:20] I don't see why we need the street and land now
[42:22] and the dock that we get to Conkland.
[42:25] I think that's my opinion.
[42:29] Councilmember source, you see your every end up online,
[42:31] Nick?
[42:32] Yeah, I do.
[42:33] I come, you know, have the same concerns
[42:37] that Mr. Dalsano has.
[42:41] We're going down the road without a comprehensive plan and the makers put together and it's unfortunate
[42:48] that the council away back when didn't adopt it because I believe we should have show that
[42:56] we need facility funding which can come within the comp plan.
[43:00] We do adopt facility fees, 5,800, you know, 6,000.
[43:07] We still have a lot of houses that are going to be built in 10 trails as well as the rest
[43:11] of the city.
[43:13] That will generate a capital facility fund for us so that we can build the capital facilities.
[43:20] Cash that we currently have in our reserves can be used for other things within the city
[43:26] to improve that. Everywhere from streets to water quality to fish, as you heard, we need
[43:33] to re-prioritize and look at where our money is going to come from. I believe capital
[43:38] facilities should be funded from growth because that's what's driving this and we need the
[43:45] comp plan so that we can adopt a capital facilities plan. So I don't think we should adopt this.
[43:52] I think it's good work. We can keep it on our back pocket, you know, and look at it.
[43:56] But I think we need to get working on the comprehensive plan and get that done so we can start generating
[44:01] revenue for capital facilities.
[44:07] Mr. Mayor. Yeah. So maybe I think what might be helpful is
[44:13] if I remind it, I just kind of brought up some of the context of what led us to this plan.
[44:19] And I freely admit that this plan was a bit of a selfish project for myself because
[44:28] if you recall at the beginning of the year, we had two new council members on the
[44:34] dius.
[44:35] I think three additional council members who had just been re-elected when we kicked
[44:40] off this process at the retreat, even our now council member read was even there.
[44:45] And the reason I was, I really wanted to do this plan is because it's not just the document,
[44:53] it's the process in which all of you worked on this.
[44:57] We saw a lot of great synergy between...
[45:00] In the 7 of you, a lot of excellent conversations back and forths that have led up to this meeting
[45:08] where you're considering adoption. And, you know, the process is almost as valuable as the
[45:16] document itself. But the other big reason that I felt this was important was because on
[45:23] the staff side, we have a 20-year comprehensive plan and we have a one-year budget.
[45:32] And there's a six-year TIP, a six-year CIP, but even those for the most part, they're
[45:36] just parking lots for projects because we don't have the funds to do very much.
[45:41] And so what the vision for this was that it would help us bridge that gap between the two
[45:47] big documents.
[45:48] And I completely recognize that the situation has drastically changed with the repeal of the comp plan.
[45:57] However, I, from a staff perspective, I almost see this as being even more important at this time.
[46:05] And the reason for that is because we will likely not have a comp plan, a new comp plan.
[46:09] We do technically have a comp plan, it's the one from 2019, that we, I don't even know, you know, council member D.
[46:15] He's certainly the only one on council that was that on council at that time, and I don't
[46:20] know how many other times your seats have turned over since then, but we're at least
[46:25] probably a year away from adopting another comp plan.
[46:29] And we are deep into the budget process this year.
[46:34] We're excited to present that budget to you, but by doing this exercise, by adopting a
[46:41] strategic plan, it helps give me that stop gap from the 2019 plan to whatever this new plan is going to be, because it comes from the seven of you.
[46:53] The 2019 comp plan came from one seventh of you and the next comp plan, it might not even come from all seven of you.
[47:02] you know, we're going to have an election in a little over a year where I think if I can't
[47:08] remember, I haven't looked at the date. I think four seats are up for reelection or not reelection,
[47:13] but for grabs.
[47:17] And so I would just ask you to consider it from from that lens. The resolution
[47:24] even says such, you know, nothing in here is binding every item that we budget for or we come
[47:32] approval will come before council and like every document it's a living document we know it's
[47:37] going to change it it's just part of the part of the cycle of things so I also want to add that
[47:42] little bit of perspective because you know we find ourselves in uncharted territory with repealed
[47:49] a comprehensive plan I don't think there's a single city or county in the state that is operating
[47:53] off of a 2019 comp plan so I see this has been a help not a hindrance but again that's just my
[48:00] I respect them on the on the matter.
[48:07] Question.
[48:09] Kills me.
[48:10] So I know that a lot of the public comment was about the phrasing of the.
[48:17] Shared vision and investing in lakes or regional park to establishes a meter asset to the community and region.
[48:26] I think a lot of the concern was that I've read in my email. So surround ball fields.
[48:31] It would be, and this is a more directional statement.
[48:38] It would seem that maybe a planning committee or future council decision could decide what
[48:45] happens there, but it's not locked into ball field.
[48:48] So a potential outcome would be to enhance the trails that are already there, or as I think
[48:56] one of the people said last time here is asking about a gist golf course out there. So I just want
[49:05] to caution that I think those are also potential outcomes. And I don't necessarily think this
[49:14] locks us into any sort of ball field or any sort of point agreement or it really kind of gives us
[49:22] the, you know, as a community, we want to do something there. And we don't have that necessary,
[49:28] necessary, that plan necessarily lined out right now. But it does through parts of the other
[49:35] plan say that we should work together as a community and figure out what that plan is. So,
[49:41] I mean, from that standpoint, I'm thinking about, you know, optimism of my community. I think
[49:47] that it makes sense to lean into that and work with everybody because we could have a really cool
[49:53] orstrial out there. We could have a really cool electric turbine back out there.
[49:58] You know what I mean? I just want to caution that saying no to this, are we saying no to those other things too?
[50:07] Right. And that I guess less of a question, but maybe confirm my assumption that that is a potential outcome.
[50:14] Um,
[50:16] this was really my question, but yeah, my thoughts.
[50:20] We did the council was selling up this work on it.
[50:23] It is a working document that we all sat down and meetings
[50:26] and meetings and meetings on this.
[50:31] We're not walked into anything, but there's no public comment
[50:35] on any of that what we decided either.
[50:38] Sure, you know, it was what we thought of as a whole would
[50:42] be good for that community.
[50:44] And I know we're elected and we represent the people,
[50:46] But we never got to really hear the people of what they not.
[50:49] It was our vision of what we think the population of people on.
[50:55] Now, we're learning that a lot of them don't want
[50:59] with ball fields at the park, but you know,
[51:01] how do we say, okay, that we won't do that?
[51:03] But we might do this.
[51:05] How do we have
[51:08] a public comment on every issue
[51:10] we're going to decide on?
[51:11] This is, I mean, you know, that's why I think,
[51:14] I think we should just table this till the comp lands done and make sure we're all in the line and everything lines up and then I'm not saying our work goes away.
[51:26] I'm just saying we table it till we get some key issues addressed.
[51:38] So I have a lot of feelings about this and I think that we're in a unique position as a city where we've been a little city for a long time and we're trying to grow up and become a bigger city and trying to plan for the city of not today but 20 years from today.
[51:55] And what what will we need then and just as you guys brought up why didn't we do it and adopt that plan those years ago and we would have had the impact fees.
[52:04] You know by doing nothing and by saying we have to have all this other stuff done all we do is stagnate.
[52:12] The problem is we have so many choices and so many priorities that we could focus on but we don't know where to start.
[52:19] We, the point of this was to say, what steps do we need to take to grow up as a city?
[52:28] Because we got to start somewhere because there's a plethora of complications and challenges
[52:34] out there.
[52:35] So this is a planning document that says, okay, we're going to pick these five things to
[52:42] start with.
[52:43] And it doesn't mean that we are committing to ball fields.
[52:48] In fact, it says develop a shared vision for the park, which inherently includes public
[52:53] comment.
[52:54] It doesn't change the studies that are required, the public meetings that are required, the
[53:00] capital budget process that you have to go through.
[53:03] It doesn't change any of that.
[53:06] It gives us a framework to say, we know in 20 years, 15 years, whatever, we're going to need
[53:13] a proper campus.
[53:14] And a lot of us are tired of paying rent, a very high rent.
[53:19] And for that amount of money, we could have something with, you know, adjacent to a park or maybe there's ball fields there or who knows.
[53:27] But the point is we want to start to focus our energy so that we can create something so that we can have something that we're proud of.
[53:39] A strategic plan is not a comp plan.
[53:45] It does not require that there be a comp plan.
[53:48] We can do both things at once.
[53:50] A lot of these things, we're not making development decisions, we're not making land-to-use
[53:55] decisions.
[53:56] We're talking about where do we focus our energy?
[53:59] Where are we going to have discussions about the future?
[54:03] We want to talk about these things.
[54:06] We said we want to walk a little park.
[54:07] Well, how do we make that happen?
[54:09] would make that happen with making it a goal.
[54:12] And then every two years you review that goal and you tweak it.
[54:16] So I think it would be a shame to set this work aside.
[54:22] I think that the public has had input.
[54:26] I have some language I think that we could change about the park specifically.
[54:31] But it would be a shame to set this aside and continue to be the rudderless city that
[54:37] we have been for a while and I would hope that we would honor Kevin's request really begging for us
[54:46] to give him some direction and the staff some direction and that's what we're trying to do with
[54:51] this document.
[54:55] Yeah I see this as trying to write a term paper and I've done both things I've written
[55:07] an outline, so then write a very long, you know, 15, 20 page paper. I've also winged it.
[55:15] And I'll tell you what, working off an outline allows you to have a focus through way through
[55:22] it. Things can change. You can change the ending. You can change different things. You can put
[55:25] different things into it. But having that through line, an outline to be able to follow it
[55:30] and change it as you want to is so much beneficial than just like winging it and like I'm just going
[55:37] to start writing and also you go on a tangent and you're going this way, you're going that way
[55:41] and you've wasted so much time and effort and money, you know, if you want to get a quick list of
[55:48] things that's not necessary not necessary for this. So the fact that this is like a strategic plan
[55:57] that's not beholden it literally just gives us a little bit of focus now there's things that we
[56:04] can potentially improve on this great but there's other things that we can give city staff
[56:08] a direction so start going down the road and then they come back to us and we talk we do public
[56:13] comment we do town halls all these things we're gonna have our retreat probably in February or March
[56:25] We're going to have that retreat sooner than later.
[56:28] It's not a year from now.
[56:29] We could even potentially say, hey, you know what?
[56:31] We've had a few months.
[56:33] We've had people reach out to us.
[56:34] Instead of waiting two years, let's tackle some of these things now.
[56:39] It gives us and it gives the city staff an outline to work from.
[56:43] Because right now, we don't have.
[56:46] We've submitted our paper and we retracted it.
[56:50] And so I feel like that's the right way for us to go because otherwise, we're just going
[56:55] to be going down the road and not having a direction to go.
[57:00] And if we want to campus and we want impact fees, how do we start the study to know what
[57:06] those should be?
[57:07] They did the study.
[57:08] We probably spent 20,000 for the way the city spends money.
[57:12] We did a study.
[57:13] And then nothing happened just like today.
[57:16] It did happen, and the council voted not to, I mean, the prices there, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the whole thing. What's that? How old is it?
[57:26] 2014.
[57:28] And it was adopted and everything, but then they decided not to.
[57:32] to implement in copies.
[57:37] Sounds very simple.
[57:38] General government facility plan, which they said at the time they looked at city hall,
[57:45] police, up fire and public works and said, you're going to have to be a minimum of $40 million
[57:51] guys, a minimum.
[57:53] You guys going to have to have that, you know, and it was all done.
[57:57] and then for some reason, I won't mention names, Orston decided not to do it.
[58:04] That sounds eerily similar to wanting to table an item that the city's already spent $36,000 on.
[58:11] I don't think so, not even guess.
[58:16] Council Member Sorcery, I see you have your hand on phone line.
[58:19] Yeah, just want to comment. My greatest fear, if we want to go back to the term paper,
[58:25] is this council has created the outline and as we go forward I read this as
[58:33] we're telling the comp plan and the citizens this is the direction we want to
[58:38] go that you guys fall in line I don't like to work that way I think it was a
[58:46] good exercise we spent the money we have some direction we don't necessarily
[58:52] have to adopt this but there's no reason why it can't be a working document on the side where
[58:59] you can take the pieces you need but you adopt something like this we're basically telling the
[59:04] planning commission this is how you're going to deal when you're working with updating the comp
[59:09] plan and citizens of Black Diamond this is what you're going to have to fall in line with I just don't
[59:14] like that.
[59:18] I'm not sure actually says any of that. No.
[59:22] Councilmember Peterson you said you had
[59:24] some suggested language for. Yeah, of course I was going to ask David if you can confirm
[59:29] for the record that adopting the strategic plan does not replace or amend the comprehensive plan
[59:35] and that any actions requiring formal planning, environmental review, public process or council
[59:41] approval will still have to go through those processes. Yeah, there's an extensive process that you
[59:46] went through to adopt the comp plan, you're going to be going through that same process
[59:49] this time, perhaps even a little bit more elaborate process than you went through, or at
[59:54] least, more focused process.
[1:00:01] So, even if something you adopted in a strategic plan, turned out to be 180 degrees from what you eventually want to put in the comp plan. It doesn't stop you from putting in the comp plan what you want to put in the comp plan. The strategic document, I think, is Mr. O'Neil was saying, staff needs some direction to do something to know that they're not wasting their efforts when they're sitting in city hall trying to figure out how they're going to spend their day. If they're doing things that the council is not going to support, I think this helps give this, give this,
[1:00:30] staff, some confidence that when they're spending, you know, they're, they're, they're,
[1:00:34] they're weekly schedule.
[1:00:37] They know they're working on something that actually has counsel backing.
[1:00:42] Thank you.
[1:00:45] Yes, I do have some potential language.
[1:00:48] I, I think, you know, we learned very clearly that the park is a sensitive spot and that
[1:00:53] of course, nobody wants to carve up their paradise.
[1:00:57] I think there is a section of the text that says, right now, it says, develop a shared
[1:01:02] vision and invest in lakes or a regional park to establish it as a major asset to the community
[1:01:08] and region. And I think that that's a little bit of the hesitation is that it feels like we're
[1:01:13] opening it up to everybody and people are going to come in groves and we're going to get overwhelmed
[1:01:17] and traffic is going to be crazy. And I think the intent is more that you know the city has grown
[1:01:25] and the people in 10 trails have as much right to enjoy this wonderful asset as the rest of us do
[1:01:31] and there are things that maybe will make that easier, safer, whatever we consider,
[1:01:37] but those things need to be planned and discussed and public hearings need to be held all of that.
[1:01:43] But I think that we can soften that language and change it to develop a shared community vision
[1:01:50] for Lakesore Regional Park that balances recreation, public access, access, environmental stewardship,
[1:01:57] and preservation of the park's natural character.
[1:02:03] and I have that written if you'd like to have it.
[1:02:07] Did you get that, Brian?
[1:02:10] I got some of it and I'm happy to share my screen
[1:02:13] if it's helpful to see the edits
[1:02:14] and I can capture them here.
[1:02:16] I think that'd be helpful.
[1:02:17] Great.
[1:02:21] Let's see if I can do that.
[1:02:31] So develop a shared community vision
[1:02:33] and invest in Lake Sawyer Regional Park.
[1:02:35] Sorry.
[1:02:37] For Lake Sawyer Regional Park, yeah.
[1:02:40] That balances recreation,
[1:02:42] public
[1:02:46] access,
[1:02:51] environmental stewardship,
[1:02:54] and preservation of the park's natural character was
[1:03:26] that the only suggestion you had come from Peterson.
[1:03:29] So maybe before we move on to the rest of council, do you agree with this modification?
[1:03:38] Would you prefer what was originally there something different?
[1:03:44] Should I do it as a motion or doesn't matter?
[1:03:48] I think motion was just as amended motion if when we get to the adoption piece just to do the motion to adopt.
[1:03:58] So the other thing that I would consider is that we're missing two council people.
[1:04:05] So rather than being forced into a no decision tonight, I would rather wait till we have all seven of us.
[1:04:16] So that would be a motion to table until the next that would be a motion to table until
[1:04:21] the next meeting. All
[1:04:29] those in favor?
[1:04:30] Aye. Opposed?
[1:04:35] Motion carries.
[1:04:46] Yeah. David, I just heard speech about adding fees to new development of houses and
[1:04:55] handrails. Is that something that can be done or are we to go part of the development
[1:05:01] agreement for those houses to be built. I would be happy to send you a confidential attorney
[1:05:07] client memo or email on that subject. Thank you. For to discuss it in an executive session if
[1:05:12] you prefer. Yeah, I got him to answer my question. To be clear, it wasn't just an ask-to-plan.
[1:05:18] It was throughout the city. Yeah, no, I just heard the trails on that was processed. That's why
[1:05:32] I'd like to make that quick comment is that we can't be specific to 10 trails or loss and hills, but we can be specific to citywide adding this, which means every house built anywhere within the city limits of black diamond.
[1:05:47] and would get a facility's charge.
[1:05:51] So there would be nothing exempt
[1:05:52] within the city limits of Black Diamond.
[1:05:55] And I think if the city attorney
[1:05:58] would probably confirm that that is correct
[1:06:00] that we can charge everyone,
[1:06:02] we can't be selective on who we charge.
[1:06:09] What's that, little signals?
[1:06:19] So next item on the agenda is the mayor report.
[1:06:24] I'd like to invite everyone out
[1:06:26] to the Black Diamond Museum this Thursday at 12.30.
[1:06:31] The daughters of the American Revolution will be hosting
[1:06:37] a ringing of the bells ceremony in order to honor the 239th anniversary
[1:06:43] of the draft as a Constitution.
[1:06:48] I'll be reading a proclamation.
[1:06:51] And so it would be great to see a number of residents out there.
[1:06:53] couple two weekends ago. I attended the Labor days. I just want to give a shout out to all of the residents, the vendors, all the participants. They came down.
[1:07:07] It's good to meet so many people out there. I'd really like to give a big shout out to Hal Hart, who manned the city booth for the entirety of the weekend, met with dozens and dozens of residents.
[1:07:23] also want to give a big shout out to the public works teams, a lot of people don't realize that when we have these booths set up, these community events, all the tear down and set up and everything goes is done by the public works guys.
[1:07:36] And so I also guilty when I get done at the end and I collapse the tables and the chairs and then just walk away from the pile of stuff.
[1:07:43] know in the public works, guys are going to go and clean up after us. So big shout out to them.
[1:07:50] Thank you to all the volunteers that helped make the Labor Day event possible and really did just
[1:07:56] kind of read a little bit of a call to action. You know, Mr. O'Neill and I were there breaking down
[1:08:06] the tents and everything at the end of it and I think we were probably the only people under the age
[1:08:12] of 75 that were there.
[1:08:15] No comment, just doing manual labor.
[1:08:18] So if we could get some more volunteers out there
[1:08:20] to help keep this tradition going, it would be amazing.
[1:08:25] And that might have been an exaggeration.
[1:08:27] Sorry if I just called anybody over 75.
[1:08:29] That's not.
[1:08:33] And then another thing that's been out and about there
[1:08:39] Is the commons area, the food truck area within the 10 trails community has opened up and is being occupied by a number of food trucks.
[1:08:49] If you haven't been down there yet, I would highly suggest it. Is that just certain days?
[1:08:55] No, there's always seven days a week. Yeah, there's a couple of
[1:08:59] four and a whole tables set up there and ladder golf in a nice
[1:09:03] curved area. It's awesome. Swing down there late one evening and get some ice cream
[1:09:09] or and wanted to talk a little bit more. I think that's going to become even more of a
[1:09:18] visited area with the opening of the Safeway coming. I've got a semi-formal invitation to an opening
[1:09:27] on October 3rd at 9 a.m., they asked me to be there and speak and I will send it formally in an email, but wanted to invite all the council members and all the members of the public to come on down and join the say pretty big milestone. I feel within the city with the opening the safe way coming.
[1:09:47] So yeah, that's my mayor report.
[1:09:52] Moving on to the council report, council member Young.
[1:09:55] Thank you, mayor.
[1:09:56] I have to, fortunately, last meeting,
[1:10:00] I did not have my notes stop from my commissioners meeting
[1:10:04] with Mountain View Fire.
[1:10:06] My wife and I have swapped cars,
[1:10:07] and my notes were in the other car.
[1:10:09] So I will be giving my report tonight.
[1:10:13] So at the end of August, we met call volume
[1:10:17] through July from January. So basically it's 1,645 calls, which is up 1% from 2025.
[1:10:24] It's roughly a district-wide, 71.4% EMS and 28.6% fire. Black Diamond is still right around 1.5
[1:10:33] calls per day. This year we've had 324 incidents, 74% as EMS, and total for the year of ambulance
[1:10:44] We had some incidents on the green river with the rescue and some brush fires.
[1:10:50] We wanted to recognize Lieutenant Nick Faust of 10 years.
[1:10:54] Matt Cleveland of five years.
[1:10:56] Awesome.
[1:10:56] Godwin of five years.
[1:10:57] And then Chapman beer was there at the meeting.
[1:11:01] And we were celebrating five years.
[1:11:02] And he just really wanted to say that much of you fire and rescue.
[1:11:05] Has great small town feel and six around and puts in the effort.
[1:11:10] During public comment, the union representative reported that by unanimous approval by the union members, they would like to start contract services with Puget Soundfire and Mountain View Fire and Rescue.
[1:11:24] She's got Juckins stated before that that they are now working on the transfer of fire services after the yes vote for annexation.
[1:11:32] and she said that we will be keeping everyone
[1:11:35] and there will be no layoffs due to that vote.
[1:11:38] I wanted to remind everybody that we are at a stage two
[1:11:42] fire safety burn van, which that does include
[1:11:48] that any outdoor fires including recreational
[1:11:51] and ceremonial fires are not allowed.
[1:11:54] So you can't have the little campfire in your backyard
[1:11:56] or anything like that.
[1:11:58] So you can still do gas and charcoal.
[1:12:01] You can have your natural gas and propane patio heater, but unfortunately right now no outdoor fires as always I just wanted to say thank you for the help of Mountain View Fire and Rescue and for keeping us safe.
[1:12:14] They were actually just down the street for me last night helping one of my close neighbors so it's nice to have that support from them, so thank you.
[1:12:23] That's it.
[1:12:24] Thank you.
[1:12:26] Councilmember Del Santel.
[1:12:27] Yeah, we're just like to address Stacey Lins.
[1:12:31] Concerns about 288th.
[1:12:33] I've heard a couple of citizens talk about 288.
[1:12:37] And I was going to ask you, Scott,
[1:12:41] that I know it was a requirement of a massive land development.
[1:12:45] And they engineer it.
[1:12:47] It is a very nervous.
[1:12:48] Her metrics review.
[1:12:50] Their designs because.
[1:12:52] because that intersection is pretty inadequate for trucks and especially since it's going
[1:12:58] to be a detour.
[1:12:59] If you look at the curves that are all laid up, it's going to be a making that might never
[1:13:02] funny city.
[1:13:03] It just doesn't look like a major arterial that is engineered correctly.
[1:13:10] So I don't know if there are metrics or engineer reviews those or it's mainly just a sure-look
[1:13:19] tight.
[1:13:19] And if you look at the curb, and now it's chewed up, it is, you can tell it's not adequate for the traffic that's going to be going next year for months.
[1:13:32] Councilmember.
[1:13:33] I can answer that.
[1:13:34] I mean, it's possible able to as well.
[1:13:37] But I don't know if it's for sure.
[1:13:39] Parametrics, but we do have one of our consultants review the plans as does the county, you know, through the permitting process.
[1:13:46] So in this instance it was reviewed. I don't they would have been a while ago at this point before my time, but that is the process is we don't just, you know, take their word for it.
[1:13:59] Then being a point.
[1:14:01] Yeah, I just.
[1:14:03] Yeah.
[1:14:04] It is a weird intersection like why is all that equipment right there and it didn't for a second there was a term lane.
[1:14:14] I mean, it just doesn't look as a major
[1:14:17] arterial to 88 to 16th radiuses.
[1:14:23] Do we have any solutions?
[1:14:25] I mean, I don't know if we're prepared to do an interim solution like she suggested
[1:14:29] but are we at least honing in on a solution?
[1:14:31] Yeah, in terms of the electrification problem, which was the last hurdle, the county requested
[1:14:40] the shop drawings for the solution. The solution is essentially putting composite poles that don't
[1:14:45] conduct electricity. We looked at grounding and some other solutions, but that's what they ended
[1:14:50] up finding was the best solution. And so the county needed to review it again. They requested shop
[1:14:59] Drines we provide.
[1:15:00] That those and we are now in standby mode yet again. Does that mean they have to rip everything out.
[1:15:08] I don't think that, well, I guess it depends. I think the existing polls are not the ones that are causing the problem, but I don't know if they're just going to replace all of them with composite just to be safe. So I don't know. It's going to be another bunch of years. No, I don't think it's I think we're talking a matter of weeks to
[1:15:29] a couple months, not years. Okay, yeah. I don't want to at this point with that intersection,
[1:15:35] I'd never make a promise when it comes to timing at this point, but I can't fingers crossed sooner or
[1:15:42] later. So essentially we're just waiting on King County to give us the green light. Yes. Yeah,
[1:15:48] the for those that don't know the intersection is partially in the county. So we have to rely on them,
[1:15:54] or we have to go through their process as well since it doesn't all belong in the city.
[1:15:58] the county party only reviews their section not ready to just go on on 218 to 216 that's in black
[1:16:05] diamond, they probably only review what's in King County. I doubt they comment on what's black diamonds.
[1:16:13] I believe they look at it I believe they do look at it holistically as do we because we need to make
[1:16:17] sure that their sections drive with our sections and vice versa.
[1:16:23] But I couldn't say for sure how
[1:16:25] They're not the, they're all of a job they do.
[1:16:29] Okay. Yeah, I just followed a truck the other day.
[1:16:31] I popped in that and you didn't go in the other lane,
[1:16:35] but his trailer was completely over the curb and on the sidewalk.
[1:16:39] I'm like, just doesn't look like the engineer in this.
[1:16:44] Quite up to any standard that should be.
[1:16:52] Council Member E.
[1:16:54] Your report, Mayor.
[1:16:56] Thank you. Council Member Fearson.
[1:16:58] And I was going to say I enjoyed Labor Day as well.
[1:17:03] I wish that Sunday had or Monday had been as nice as Sunday.
[1:17:07] And I'm looking forward to a tour with Public Works as Friday.
[1:17:12] And so we're going to be at the spring source.
[1:17:16] It's really good.
[1:17:19] That's true.
[1:17:20] It's on board.
[1:17:22] Council Member Source.
[1:17:23] Steve.
[1:17:24] Yeah.
[1:17:24] Now, this is personal. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
[1:17:34] After all
[1:17:35] the scans and everything, I selected a radical prostatectomy surgery and the cancer was
[1:17:44] confined within my prostate so the prognosis looks good. However, I am now dealing with
[1:17:56] other issues associated with this surgery and that's why I'm online and I will be online
[1:18:03] for quite a while as I won't be able to for the next 12 to 16 weeks or more.
[1:18:11] I have to relearn how to control my bladder, so I want to make that personal.
[1:18:18] But I also want to let every male and every woman that loves their father, husband, whatever.
[1:18:28] Get your prostate checked.
[1:18:30] I followed my prostate.
[1:18:34] I was fortunate because I did it constantly.
[1:18:38] I was able to see that the prostate PSA number was rising.
[1:18:45] As you know, medicine moves very slowly.
[1:18:50] And then I had my doctor tell me,
[1:18:53] because at 75 Medicare tells all their men
[1:18:57] you no longer need to get your PSA checked,
[1:18:59] because if you get cancer, it'll be very slow and you won't die.
[1:19:03] That's not the case.
[1:19:04] This answers grow very quickly and the thought of dying of cancer should be at warrant to
[1:19:11] anyone.
[1:19:12] So, please, if you're a male, get your PSA test, watch the numbers, never miss a year,
[1:19:20] and if you see the PSA rising, be like me, follow it up, push your physician, make sure
[1:19:28] you get the scans necessary and save your life.
[1:19:33] Thanks.
[1:19:34] Thanks for sharing that.
[1:19:36] Yeah, thank you for being vulnerable.
[1:19:37] I appreciate that.
[1:19:41] Do we have a city administrator report?
[1:19:44] Very brief.
[1:19:44] So just a reminder, we have the in-emclod joint meeting next week, next Wednesday between
[1:19:51] our city, the city of In-emclod and the in-emclod school district.
[1:19:55] And then I also just wanted to thank council for your patience with the budget item.
[1:20:02] We didn't feel like the material was ready for today and we wanted to make sure that it
[1:20:07] was ready for prime time and we didn't want to rush anything.
[1:20:13] We either, I or Brenda, will be reaching out to each of you to a schedule, a special
[1:20:18] meeting either next week or the following week.
[1:20:22] So please keep an eye on your phones or emails because we'll be giving you a call to make
[1:20:26] sure we can find something that everybody can attend.
[1:20:29] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[1:20:30] Thank you.
[1:20:31] Okay. I'm an attorney report. Not tonight there. Well, that's a first like to keep on your toes.
[1:20:39] That brings us to our second public comment session. This is for anyone wishing to
[1:20:46] dress council, finish final thoughts, anything that came up along the way you want to make comment on.
[1:20:52] May do so at this time. Again, raise your hand physically or electronically. You will be called
[1:21:00] All the bond.
[1:21:03] Mr. Eckbert.
[1:21:09] It's mostly a curiosity.
[1:21:11] It's something that's changed.
[1:21:11] It's fallen off the platform.
[1:21:16] That is about the pipeline road.
[1:21:20] It's been nice to have a status report on that.
[1:21:23] Some future council meeting.
[1:21:35] My name is Jack.
[1:21:37] I live in Black Diamond.
[1:21:38] Darcy.
[1:21:38] Thank you.
[1:21:39] The language that you changed in the strategic plan, I think, will help.
[1:21:44] He is a lot of people's minds. It was very clear from the Lake Sort of Community Clubs research
[1:21:50] this week that people feel very strongly about maintaining the park as it is. Other aside from
[1:21:57] small changes like bathrooms and a disc golf. So thank you so much. We recognize how important that
[1:22:10] and we really appreciate you standing with like residents on that topic. Have a great night.
[1:22:16] Thank you. Andre, I see you have your hand up online there.
[1:22:29] Hello, can you hear me?
[1:22:31] Yep. Yep. All right, good evening council members. My name is Andre Cook. I'm the resident of Black
[1:22:36] Diamond. I would like to take a moment to express gratitude to council member Drede and Peterson
[1:22:41] for their insightful comments regarding the strategic plan. In my professional experience,
[1:22:46] I have seen firsthand how essential strategic plans are, they provide critical direction
[1:22:51] for staff and help foster your coherence and high expectations within teams.
[1:22:58] Review industry's plan, I agree with the goals of the city.
[1:23:03] I think it's going to empower staff to pursue purposeful work aligned with those priorities.
[1:23:09] So I encourage moving forward with that action and item.
[1:23:13] Um, um, it's clear that the last comprehensive plan, it took years to create and being rescinded,
[1:23:20] um, it just looks like you're going to be starting from scratch.
[1:23:23] And this council will probably not be the council that votes on passing that next comprehensive plan.
[1:23:29] So this strategic plan will give the city direction and the interim.
[1:23:34] Um, I, I value the comments about the Lake Sawyer, um, regional park.
[1:23:41] I am an advocate, but I also have ears and heart, so I think, you know, being wise on that resource and having a lot of voices, provide input in the direction.
[1:23:55] My number one thing would love to see a drop off at the end of the road there so people could actually get resources down to the lake to enjoy with their families.
[1:24:06] Also, thank you, Council Member Sorcey, for sharing that really powerful story about
[1:24:14] your cancer experience.
[1:24:16] Just causes me to definitely reflect.
[1:24:20] So, thank you very much.
[1:24:21] Thank you, Council.
[1:24:23] Thank you.
[1:24:29] Thank you.
[1:24:29] Yeah.
[1:24:29] He's great.
[1:24:37] Council and Kristen Bryant.
[1:24:38] I wanted to just add something earlier, I was bringing up examples that you know you have
[1:24:45] a lot of important things that you could be spending the city's budget on, and I mentioned
[1:24:54] fish passage and, you know, if you were to start making a list, you could come up with,
[1:25:01] you know, dozens of things and what the priority is is, you know, it is a council vote and
[1:25:06] a council decision. I wanted to just mention fish passage because you can't pass an impact
[1:25:11] fee to really fix some of those issues that were created so many decades ago.
[1:25:19] It's very hard to get the money for that and it's very hard to get the money for parks,
[1:25:22] because parks, you know, don't really generate a lot of revenue, but everybody wants them.
[1:25:28] So I recognize a difficulty with decisions.
[1:25:30] A fish passage has been put off many times, many years.
[1:25:33] There is, you know, grant funding.
[1:25:35] I know the city may be looking up at next year and I think I want to just express support
[1:25:39] for that.
[1:25:39] and also the tell you that I did see baby salmon in the stream on Ginder Creek on Roberts
[1:25:45] last weekend. I tried to get a video but you can't film these things like they're this long and
[1:25:52] I mean no matter you know how hard the road projects have tried to kill them off they're still there
[1:25:57] so that's encouraging and they may actually make it you know one day under the future fish passages
[1:26:05] is that wash thought is improving on Highway 169.
[1:26:10] If you want to see them, you park your car on Roberts
[1:26:12] about at Diamond Village and then go across
[1:26:14] and like, look over them.
[1:26:17] When they see your shadow, they'll all wiggle around
[1:26:19] in the water.
[1:26:21] Haven't seen any adults there in a while.
[1:26:23] So you could, you know, the lakes are your weir,
[1:26:25] the Abrams Avenue Causeway.
[1:26:29] And then there's one under Roberts that's
[1:26:31] up closer to the roundabout.
[1:26:33] You can go look at these and you can see
[1:26:34] by the adult salmon can't get through and just wanted to bring some attention to that.
[1:26:40] Thank you.
[1:26:41] Thank you.
[1:26:42] It's going to be your new honey hole, right?
[1:26:48] Is there anyone else wishing to address council?
[1:26:54] Okay.
[1:26:54] Seeing no one I will close this public comment session.
[1:26:57] We have no executive session listed.
[1:27:01] I'll make a motion to adjourn.
[1:27:03] Second.
[1:27:04] All those in favor?
[1:27:05] Aye.
[1:27:06] Opposed?
[1:27:07] Meeting adjourned.
[1:27:08] You