[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] And I'd also like to read a land acknowledgement. Paul's vote is located on the ancestral lands of the
[0:06] Indigenous Aquamish people, for whom this place is known as Tathta Klutz, or the land of the
[0:11] vine maples. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside,
[0:19] every valley, every plain, and grow has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long
[0:26] vanished. Chief Seattle, 1854. Now would you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?
[0:36] Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
[0:44] which stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[0:55] On the agenda review, Council Members, first of all I'd like to welcome Council Member
[1:00] for table and is a council member, Crowe here also?
[1:05] Okay, she's on the screen.
[1:08] She's out on there now.
[1:09] Hopefully she will come back shortly.
[1:12] So under the agenda review council,
[1:15] I would like to add right after the approval
[1:19] of the agenda resolution number 20408,
[1:24] which is in your teal holder, if you'd like to get it out.
[1:27] I emailed this out to you
[1:30] and I would like to read that at the beginning of the meeting so everybody is
[1:37] aware of the position of the city of Pawsville okay. When we set the agenda has
[1:43] modified. Second we have a motion in a second Miss libdeaux libdeaux
[1:48] Stirner Nuel I McVey I Eckerduy Mr. Taber. Hey Burai. Thank you. Now with that I
[1:57] I would like to read this resolution
[1:58] and it is a resolution of the City Council.
[2:01] And so I would ask for it to be adopted
[2:04] with a motion after it is being read.
[2:07] I call it the resolution of hope.
[2:10] A resolution of the City Council of the City of Palsbo,
[2:15] Washington, affirming the City of Palsbo as a place
[2:17] which welcomes all people and respects all residents.
[2:22] Whereas the mayor exercises control over the property
[2:26] and facilities of the City of Palsbo,
[2:29] whereas the City Council has historically approved
[2:34] the raising of commemorative flags and banners,
[2:38] identified with a specific event,
[2:40] cause, theme, nation, or group of people,
[2:44] but the City chooses to honor, recognize, or commemorate,
[2:48] and whereas the City installed banners along its street
[2:52] on May 31, 2024, to commemorate Pride Month, traditionally celebrated through the month
[2:59] of June. And whereas,
[3:03] the install banners were bandalized in the early mornings of June
[3:08] 1, 2024, sliced and defaced. And whereas, a private citizen, the day after, voluntarily came
[3:18] name and sow the banners, repairing them, demonstrating resilience, love and charity
[3:25] towards all.
[3:26] And whereas, the citizens of the City of Polesbo show love, respect, and tolerance for
[3:33] one another, rejecting hate in all forms.
[3:37] And whereas, the citizens of the City of Polesbo choose love over hate, respect over intolerance,
[3:46] rejecting hate in all forms and whereas the citizens of the City of Pulseville
[3:53] excuse me now therefore be resolved by the City Council of the City of Pulseville
[3:58] as follows that we honor all citizens of our community and celebrate the City of
[4:05] Pulseville as a place of freedom of expression, identity, faith, belief, love,
[4:13] love, charity and hope for everyone.
[4:17] Resolve this day, June 5, 2024.
[4:22] With that, I'd entertain a motion for approval of resolution.
[4:26] Madam Mayor, I move to approve resolution number 2024-08.
[4:31] Second.
[4:32] There is a motion in the second.
[4:34] Is there any comments regarding this motion?
[4:37] Resolution.
[4:37] And just to express our gratitude for adopting this and making the affirmative hopeful statement
[4:44] that you are.
[4:45] Thank you on behalf of the City Councilman.
[4:48] All right.
[4:49] Yeah, I just want to say I hope everyone
[4:55] hears that and understands what it means.
[4:58] Hey.
[5:00] It is hate and hate is wrong. It does not matter who is targeting or who is targeted. We don't stand for it, not in our city. So, read it, believe it, and understand, we're not going to stand for it.
[5:17] Any other comments, council? I just want to thank you for putting those words down on our behalf. I've had some comments and questions as to why I haven't made any public statements regarding this situation.
[5:30] The defacing of the banners is an ongoing and criminal investigation, and as mayor of
[5:36] the city of Palsville, I never make comments about ongoing criminal investigations.
[5:43] It would be inappropriate and actually could impede or interrupt the investigation.
[5:50] So that is why I have not made any comments.
[5:53] All right.
[5:53] Okay. We have a motion in a second. Any further discussion?
[5:58] Ms. Libdall. Libdall aye.
[6:00] Mr. Nye.
[6:01] No, aye.
[6:03] McVeigh aye.
[6:04] Deckard aye.
[6:05] Mr. Taber.
[6:06] Taber aye.
[6:07] Thank you, Council.
[6:09] Now, with that, we are going to move on to comments from citizens.
[6:17] Any comments from citizens to see?
[6:34] I stand before you with a full heart of pride and sorrow.
[6:38] As I drove through downtown Palso this morning, there was the first time I had done it since the flags were raised.
[6:43] I was overwhelmed by a sense of pride to live in a town that celebrates inclusivity and belonging.
[6:49] Yet this pride was marred by the sadness of seeing our pride flags, symbols of love and acceptance,
[6:57] slashed less than 24 hours after they were raised.
[7:01] This act of vandalism is a stark reminder that while we breathe life into our community,
[7:05] with acts of unity and inclusiveness.
[7:08] There are those who breathe hurt and hate.
[7:12] In moments like these, I think of Dr. Masuri, Masudo, Masu Masaru, and also a researcher
[7:20] who studied the impact of worth and intention on water.
[7:24] His experiments showed that water molecules respond positively to kind words and negatively
[7:29] to harsh ones.
[7:30] When spoken with, when spoken to with love, water formed beautiful harmonious crystals.
[7:36] When exposed to hate, it became disordered and chaotic.
[7:40] This concept resonates deeply with me as a Hawaiian because of our word, ha, which means
[7:46] breath, ha is more than just the act of breathing, it is the breath of life, a spiritual force
[7:53] that connects us all.
[7:57] Our words, actions and intentions shape the world around us, just as the shape, just as they
[8:02] shape the water in Dr. Imolta's studies. When we breathe life with kindness, understanding
[8:08] and acceptance, we create a community that flourishes and thrives. When we breathe
[8:13] life with hate and harm, we just start the harmony and hurt the very fabric of our society.
[8:22] I invite you all to reflect on the life you breathe into our community. How do your words
[8:27] and actions shape the world around you? Do they create beauty and harmony or do they contribute
[8:34] to chaos and discord. As we stand together in the face of this hurtful act, let us
[8:40] choose to breathe life with love and compassion. What is the life you want to breathe? Thank
[8:45] you. Ma'am, I didn't get your name. I'm Angelina Swerver. Thank you very much.
[9:04] Good evening,
[9:05] Council Mayor, citizens. My name is Emory Talon. I'm a longtime community member here. I've been
[9:11] involved with Pulse Book Pride since the beginning. I've involved more organizations.
[9:16] As much as we can
[9:17] come to this room and agree that Paul's bow is a beautiful place to live. It is not a safe place
[9:23] to live. It is not a welcoming place to live. It is not a inviting place to live. There are
[9:29] people in this room who have had their very livelihoods threatened by individuals and group
[9:33] actions in this town, including the bringing in of hate speech or Joseph back home by Gateway
[9:38] Fellowship. The Kitsap County Republican Party had in their party platform that marriage was between
[9:44] a man and a woman until last fall. These are not beliefs held by radical extremists. These are
[9:50] beliefs held by our neighbors, by our parents, by our in-laws, and by our friends. It is on us
[9:56] to quench this hate while I admire and uphold.
[10:00] The city for making a firm statement tonight and for rising the flags, it's going to take much more than that. Hate consistently needs to be aggressively admonished and put out. That can only be done with love and the support of our law enforcement and protectors. We request the city would identify itself as a victim to bring this to the necessary level to acknowledge it as a hate crime. Property damage is important
[10:29] and serious to be dealt with, but it is oftentimes a misdemeanor.
[10:33] A hate crime allows this to be given much more resources from a state level and a federal
[10:37] level.
[10:38] There are discussions going on locally here in our community as recent as two weeks from
[10:43] this coming Monday or week from this Monday held by the NAACP.
[10:47] It will have representatives from the state as well as the FBI and it's a specific discussion
[10:52] towards hate speech.
[10:53] I would hope to see all of you there.
[10:55] It's a Monday night, I'm going to be there, I'm going to stay at home, dad, that struggles
[10:59] to make ends meet.
[11:01] I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some of our elected officials and paid officials
[11:04] to be there.
[11:05] Thank you for our community for coming out tonight.
[11:08] But I think it's important that we don't skin over the fact that there is violence and hate
[11:13] being actively perpetuated on our community as we speak.
[11:17] If we do not stand up against it and acknowledge that it happens, it will continue to happen.
[11:22] Thank you.
[11:36] Good evening, Mayor and Council, my name is Pam Keeley.
[11:41] Less than a week ago, pride flags were joyfully raised outside these chambers and pride banners
[11:48] installed along Front Street.
[11:51] Thank you.
[11:53] Thank you for saying to our community that Poles vote is trying to become a truly welcoming
[11:59] place for all, where the existence, dignity, and human rights of every human is really
[12:06] perspective and protected.
[12:10] Within a day though, someone tried to destroy that step forward with a premeditated violent
[12:15] act.
[12:17] It was a shock, but not a surprise.
[12:21] Vigitrian hate, often calling for violence these days, is commonplace.
[12:27] It blurs from TV, social media, and even churches.
[12:32] Ignoring it,
[12:34] Validates it,
[12:35] Ignoring it,
[12:37] Feeds it.
[12:39] This is what we want
[12:40] and want to know.
[12:43] Identification of the attack on the banners
[12:45] as is defined by the state of Washington
[12:48] and the United States Department of Justice
[12:51] as a hate crime.
[12:54] A full proper and active investigation
[12:57] not a passive request on Facebook
[12:59] for the public to bring information to the police.
[13:04] Officers doing their job and going into the community.
[13:07] As of last evening, several businesses, including one
[13:11] with the security camera at eye level on the street,
[13:14] had not been reached out to by Paul's book PD.
[13:17] Why weren't they contacted on Saturday before crucial evidence
[13:21] may have been lost?
[13:23] This is not Seattle.
[13:25] We're talking about two dozen interactions at most
[13:28] that could have begun at 7 a.m. when the slashed banners were discovered.
[13:34] Why did chief Harding not respond over the weekend to request from the media for information?
[13:40] Why has there been no press release from the mayor?
[13:43] Updates on progress of an investigation, not details,
[13:48] but that an investigation is underway,
[13:51] that the city is paying attention and wants to reassure the community.
[13:56] Why
[13:59] has there been no formal statement on measures being taken now to assure community
[14:04] safety?
[14:06] What education and training have the police had regarding hate crimes, including training
[14:11] mandated by the state of Washington?
[14:14] We want the City Council to activate the GARA program, which the City joined over two years
[14:19] ago, Restoration of the Police Advisory Board, which was disbanded by Mayor Erickson ten
[14:26] years ago.
[14:26] We want real packed meetings with participants that are not solely hand-picked by the mayor and police chief and that are well publicized to the entire city.
[14:39] Last point, we do not want this incident used as justification for six more cups when the existing force is operating under dysfunctional leadership.
[14:48] We do want effective leadership that sees accountability not as an effort to their authority but a professional responsibility and means of building trust.
[15:00] We want leadership that models honesty, transparency, and the courage to grow.
[15:25] Good evening. My name is Rory Janssen. I'm a paulso citizen, a mother, and use shaker pronouns.
[15:32] A couple of facts off the bat. The LGBTQIA plus community are nine times more likely to be the victims of violent crimes.
[15:42] LGBTQIIA youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
[15:49] This is not because they're an inherently more violent or depressed group.
[15:53] This is because of societal biases.
[15:56] Societal biases that are allowed to grow when you don't include them in your community
[16:04] and treat them as equal citizens.
[16:06] When we put those banners up, we were here on Friday,
[16:09] it was a wonderful ceremony.
[16:11] My heart was so full.
[16:13] We invited members of our community to be the authentic selves.
[16:17] We celebrated them for their contributions to our community,
[16:20] and we created a safe and welcoming space for them.
[16:24] Sleshing those banners was very much an act of violence.
[16:28] And it reminded us that the bias is still very much alive
[16:31] in Paul's vote, and it made members of our community
[16:34] that pay their taxes, that participate as citizens feel unsafe in our community.
[16:41] We cannot continue to build housing tracks and invite people to live into this community,
[16:46] telling them that it is safe and they are welcome here, as long as they or their children are not queer.
[16:54] In addition to that beautiful resolution upholding the values of love in our community,
[16:58] I would like to see a strong condemnation of that violence by everyone in our
[17:03] government. And I'd like to see a strong condemnation of the actions that were
[17:08] taken this weekend. I want to unequivocally know that you have our backs so
[17:14] that we can have yours. Thank you.
[17:28] Good evening. My name is Linda Hope. I am the
[17:31] proud mother of gay daughter. The lives here in Paul's Bow. And I want to say that
[17:37] The slashing of the pride flags is disturbing to say the least.
[17:43] It was an act of violence.
[17:45] It wasn't just a mere slashing.
[17:47] It was a sign of violence in our community.
[17:50] If a symbol representing our LGBTQIA community isn't safe,
[17:55] how can that community itself feel safe?
[17:59] How can those of us who are allies feel safe on the streets
[18:02] of Paul's phone?
[18:03] If we are ever to feel safe, you must make it clear that any attempt to intimidate and silence us will be treated as a hate crime, and every resource will be used to see that that person is identified and prosecuted.
[18:22] It's easy to sit here and read a statement that you're committed to being a diverse community.
[18:28] If you are indeed committed to that, show us.
[18:32] Take some action.
[18:34] Let us know that you've got all our backs.
[18:37] Thank you.
[18:48] Anyone else?
[18:52] Okay.
[18:53] I'm not seeing any other public comments.
[18:55] I want to thank you all for being here tonight.
[18:58] We hear you.
[18:59] We feel you.
[19:00] You
[19:03] know, no hate zones, everyone quit hating one another.
[19:09] That's not who we are as people.
[19:11] I mean, I keep thinking about Logan coming back and sewing those flags up.
[19:15] That's who Paul's bow is.
[19:18] That's who Paul's bow is.
[19:21] And it is infuriating to me that we try so hard to be open and gracious
[19:30] and loving in this community, and yet we have these kind of things occur, so okay, with
[19:36] that, we are going to go on to Mayor's Reports and Council comments, Ms. Liftole.
[19:47] I can very easily, unequivocally condemn the actions of this individual that happened
[19:55] and on Saturday morning.
[20:03] It's disgusting. And I want to acknowledge that for the LGBTQ community, the distance between
[20:12] slashed banners and physical violence to themselves feels like a very short distance.
[20:24] I don't live
[20:24] that experience. So it might be, you know, challenging for me to try to put myself in
[20:32] in that place, but I want to acknowledge that it was violent assault on our city property
[20:40] that represents much more than just property to
[20:50] the LGBTQ community you're seen and loved
[20:56] and valued, and for myself, the actions of this last weekend don't deter me, they will
[21:07] stand in the way of the progress that we need to make and
[21:16] I promise that I will work
[21:21] towards holding the rest of this body and this government accountable to try and find
[21:30] out who did this and to prevent it from happening in the future and
[21:39] I think you all said a lot
[21:41] a lot of things that I agree with, so I'm going to let the rest of council speak.
[21:44] Thanks.
[21:47] I would ask the clerk's office if you have that one slide to put up while that's coming
[21:53] up.
[21:54] I'd like to say that the city made a joyful statement last weekend in putting those banners
[22:03] up and trying to celebrate the diversity and respect and opinions of all our citizens.
[22:12] and it certainly was a very disturbing, sad moment Saturday morning.
[22:20] I do think not to be disheartened, not to be discounted, but it's certainly an opportunity.
[22:29] I think, for further self-examination, individually, as a community, as people.
[22:38] so I think there's real opportunity here. I was struck by this on Saturday when I woke up and
[22:47] learned about the banners we had so joyously celebrated on Friday morning. And what you see here,
[22:58] this was posted, and I was struck by the difference, and this is with their permission. This is Mayor
[23:04] Greg Wheeler of Bremerton with his wife, Sonny Wheeler, at the Mariner baseball game
[23:11] at T-Mobile Field on Saturday, where the Mariner organization, as part of Major League
[23:18] baseball, passed out to almost all the attendees, tens of thousands, these pride caps for Seattle
[23:26] mariners. How would one go about cutting up 20 or 30,000 baseball camps to make a statement?
[23:37] Who would do that? Who would attempt to equate that kind of reactionary response to something
[23:48] like baseball? I mean, what's more American than baseball? And here is Major League Baseball
[23:56] and our team in the Seattle Mariners and our Mayor of
[24:00] Bremerton and his wife proudly displaying that.
[24:05] I'm also reminded by my councilman fellow councilman
[24:08] and military Rick Eckert that the military celebrates pride
[24:15] and actually changes up some of the uniform representation
[24:20] for that day and week.
[24:21] How would one go about ripping up the uniforms and emblems
[24:26] of our military. So I'm left wondering where we draw the line that we were radical
[24:32] somehow in putting up those banners as a community and that it needed to be pushed
[24:38] back against. I guess with that same individual or people want to push back on baseball
[24:43] or the military, I know that change comes hard and I'm not discounting that. But I just
[24:50] It was just so struck on Saturday that balance, so I'll just conclude, mayor, by saying.
[25:00] I appreciate the pride community suggestion that we leave the slashed banners that were sown together by Logan up and not replace them with the banners that we have to make them whole because, again, it's an opportunity for self-examination and introspection for a community, for a people, for us. Thank you, Mayor. There
[25:30] is much to be thankful for.
[25:33] as we are on this journey of life and what all brought us here to the city of
[25:38] Pulsbow on a sunny day like today and we're here or joyous and we're celebrating
[25:44] all of the individuals that make up our community and the uniqueness of it. We
[25:51] need to work together to as many of my colleagues up here in the mayor
[25:55] stated to not focus on hate, to not tolerate hate, but to look to ways to engage and
[26:05] love one another. I'm also a retired military as many of you know. I had the honor of serving
[26:13] 28 years and I saw the journey and the military change from what it was in the 80s to where
[26:19] is today, or the chief of naval operations remains a four-star admiral, but she is in charge
[26:27] of our Navy. We have women in charge of our aircraft carriers. We'll soon have a woman
[26:35] in charge of a submarine. That is a journey that didn't happen like this. It happened over time.
[26:42] I know that when I retired from the Navy about a decade ago, my command had the honor
[26:48] have been a commanded officer, as Ed and Rick have pointed out, you know, we celebrate
[26:56] pride at our command.
[26:59] This is something that is not unique to us, it is, but it is a journey and we need to
[27:06] look for ways to engage everyone and sit them down at the table and go, how do we sort
[27:11] through this and how do we move together holding hands and understanding our differences
[27:17] is in getting people to say yes, we all belong.
[27:22] Unfortunately, we still have work to do.
[27:25] I think our kids will be working on various problems in this standpoint
[27:29] from the standpoint of how do we find joy in each other and not find differences.
[27:36] Thank you, Mr. Miller, Mr. McVeigh.
[27:41] Thank you, Mayor.
[27:45] Some of you are connected with me on Facebook, I will repeat some of the things I posted immediately
[27:54] on Saturday afterwards that condemning the act of this individual and supporting what
[28:04] we have done in the city of Paul's Pope to make it a welcoming community, including for
[28:09] LGBTQ people.
[28:14] I also will do everything I can, and I know my colleagues up here in
[28:19] our police department will do everything they can to hold the individual accountable,
[28:24] including the consideration of hate crime charges. I think we've made considerable progress
[28:31] in the city, in the five years that I've been on city council. Are we all the way, we
[28:36] do you want to be? No.
[28:39] It's the elimination of hate within a geographic region is not
[28:51] an easy thing to accomplish. I think we're doing our part and we'll continue to do more.
[28:56] I'm committed to that and I think my colleagues are committed to that.
[29:01] I was among the leaders
[29:02] on this council in posting Pride vanners the last two years, I still celebrate that.
[29:10] And while I was saddened by the acts of this one individual, I have been uplifted by
[29:16] the response of our community.
[29:18] People coming out, supporting the movement, people repairing the flags, postbow pride I think
[29:26] because raised that maybe we'll get an update later,
[29:29] thousands of dollars from dozens of supporters
[29:33] to fund other inclusivity efforts, their events,
[29:37] which I think is wonderful.
[29:39] And that's sort of the,
[29:40] perhaps one of the silver lines coming out of this.
[29:44] I disagree that our police department is dysfunctional.
[29:47] I think that's a ridiculous accusation.
[29:52] I disagree that Paulisville is not a welcoming community.
[29:55] It is a welcoming community.
[29:57] It's everyone who comes in and out of our borders.
[30:00] It's perfect and have a clean heart? No, unfortunately, they don't. We will continue to do what we can within our control to change that. I look forward to continue working with my colleagues on these efforts. We will, we have, we will continue. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McVeigh. Mr. Record.
[30:21] Yes, and the end of May is always an important time of year for me.
[30:27] It's a moral day where we honor those that have given our lives for our country.
[30:36] And so coming into this week, I won't say I was on a high because we're not celebrating
[30:42] anything positive, but two weeks ago I had the honor of attending a screening over on
[30:49] Bambered Island of a film called To What Remains, this is by their biological student.
[30:54] The film was a documentary about a group called Project Recovery who goes out, finds and
[31:02] recovers the remains of MIA service members.
[31:08] This group has been active for 30 years.
[31:12] They have identified over 300 missing Americans.
[31:15] They've repatriated the remains of almost 30 to have funerals with family members who
[31:21] never met the family members that were missing.
[31:24] it and had fair funerals for that. They've identified almost another 30 and declared them
[31:30] grave sites. Then we went into Memorial Day and we had our ceremony down in front of
[31:37] the Waterfront Park, which I participated. And we honored those individuals that they'll
[31:44] come out.
[31:47] And then when we came, we had Pets Walk. It's always a great event. You know,
[31:54] You can see the dogs, it's a great ceremony, you know, costume contest.
[31:58] I'm leaving getting ready to go to the farmers market, because that's what I do in most
[32:03] Saturdays.
[32:04] And I come on the front street, and I see one of the banners, and I thought, hi, the banners
[32:09] ripped.
[32:10] I can't believe a banner ripped already.
[32:12] They've only been up a couple days.
[32:13] I know they were heavyweight vinyl, Bert and I, you know, we talked about, huh, make sure
[32:19] we got heavyweight vinyl that we last, and then I drove a little further and saw another
[32:23] another one, and another one, and another one.
[32:27] And I went to RIT because I couldn't conceive.
[32:31] That's what would have done that on purpose.
[32:34] Excuse me.
[32:36] And so I went to the farmer's market,
[32:38] pulled in and called bread.
[32:40] Of course, she already knew, and we talked,
[32:43] and we knew things were going.
[32:46] Things were already in works.
[32:48] I want folks to know what could be done
[32:55] was done as soon as it could be done.
[32:57] I know there were people who said,
[32:59] why did you immediately say something?
[33:01] Why was there not proclamations?
[33:03] Why were there not?
[33:04] Why were you didn't have a meeting?
[33:06] Know that we did what we could do
[33:08] within the bounds of once legal as quick as we could.
[33:11] If we would start calling each other and say,
[33:14] we need to do this, that is a violation of the law.
[33:18] Now we've broken law.
[33:19] So what we did is what we could do to get to this point tonight
[33:23] so that we can make a clear definition of statement that we do not, we do not, we will not
[33:28] support what happened. The person that did this is wrong, they should be prosecuted as fully
[33:35] as possible, as I'll say, because it is not the investigation. And we won't stand for it.
[33:43] Not here, not now and not ever. So, I understand folks want things to happen quick.
[33:50] I do too often, but government needs to move the speed of government.
[33:54] It's frustrating a lot.
[33:56] It's frustrating to those of us in government.
[34:00] I'd love to be able to do things quickly.
[34:02] When I first started working with the school district,
[34:05] I had school administrators that kept saying to me,
[34:07] all the time, they kept throwing out there,
[34:09] well, you can't turn an aircraft carrier fast.
[34:11] And finally, one day, I said,
[34:13] well, hey, having served on an aircraft carrier, let me tell you,
[34:16] you can absolutely turn an aircraft carrier fast.
[34:18] You just lose a few planes off the deck when you do it.
[34:22] It's called accepting the risk.
[34:24] If you choose to turn fast, you accept the risk.
[34:28] We don't turn fast because most of the time,
[34:30] there's no risk involved.
[34:32] But when the risk is high enough,
[34:34] you take the risk you do it.
[34:36] Fortunately, that's not how government works most of the time.
[34:39] So we condemn it, we're going to
[34:44] the chief will get to the bottom of it, we will keep supporting, we will support, continue
[34:51] to support other members of our community as we ought to do, and it's not, let's not
[34:59] I'm glad.
[35:00] I do want to meet two other comments that are less serious before we go on. Do you want to remind everyone the high school graduations are this weekend? So please be aware. It's always more traffic around the schools. And I did go back and watch the last meeting of the kids at regional council. And I just wanted to say that Josh and Heather did outstanding jobs, presenting to the council. And I just wanted to say good job to the two of them. Thank you.
[35:29] Thank you, Mr. Tucker. Mr. Taper, where are you?
[35:35] Hello, everybody. I am in Skagway, Alaska, a town with a population of less than 1,500,
[35:42] but that serves over, I believe, over 20,000 tourists every single day during the season
[35:49] I'm here. Do you have any public comments this evening?
[35:54] Yeah, I just want to express a lot of gratitude for all the community members who came up and spoke each of the council members who just said some beautiful and excellent things I just 100%
[36:10] I'm just I'm just proud to be a part of this council and I got to spend my time here in Skagway at their pride celebration this weekend and this is it
[36:20] You know a town that I don't know if you can see that has the last of flag and fried flags flying
[36:29] from
[36:30] you know many corners of the of the town and
[36:36] Yeah, it's shocked to hear the news of what happened and
[36:42] It's it's it's a it's unfortunately something that's been going on a long time. Just you know light versus darkade versus love and
[36:49] And I really believe that our city is very heavily leaning towards the light.
[36:57] And I'm proud to work with everybody on this council and in the city to do the good work and to bring the light as much as we can.
[37:06] And bring the people who feel the need to do these acts into the light and make space for people who are angry or hateful and confused or untrusting.
[37:18] trusting and trying to make everyone's lives as rich as they can be.
[37:24] And I'll just end up the quote from the late great Martin Luther King Jr.
[37:29] Darkness cannot drive out darkness.
[37:31] Only light can do that.
[37:33] Hate cannot drive out hate.
[37:34] Only love can do that.
[37:36] And thank you all.
[37:38] Thank you, Mr. Taver.
[37:41] Pam, Pam texted me and she said her power went out.
[37:44] She was on the screen and there was no power.
[37:46] three strikes throughout Pam. Do you have any public comments? It was important for me to be present
[37:53] either virtually or in person. You know I do have a little one that I'm overseeing the care of
[38:00] which makes it a challenge sometimes to be in person. So Raleigh some support and I wanted to be here
[38:06] And I was saddened to see what occurred and, you know, just lighting community know that
[38:16] you are seeing.
[38:17] I love you.
[38:18] And what a beautiful remedy to who applied the application to turn something that was
[38:25] meant to be a glee mark into something I thought was beautiful.
[38:31] Some things stick together like our communities,
[38:34] stick together in strength.
[38:37] So, Ms. McKay, you have a couple of other quickings.
[38:40] You know what?
[38:41] I don't want to get lost here, how beautiful the banners are.
[38:48] And to thank Britt and the designer for the design and production,
[38:54] they look fabulous and to thank our public works department
[38:58] for their work hanging them.
[39:00] I watched some of those go up and they were, some of them were not easy to get on those poles.
[39:06] And thank you to Mike and the public works crew for doing that.
[39:11] And then I just, I heads up during our questions and concerns of council during the workshop.
[39:18] I do want to talk a little bit about downtown safety and security going forward.
[39:23] I think that would be appropriate tonight.
[39:24] Thank you.
[39:25] Thank you.
[39:25] Okay, so any more comments from the council?
[39:29] Okay, how about Boarding Commission and outside agency reports?
[39:33] Go ahead, Mr. Stern.
[39:35] Turning to the business of government.
[39:37] Mayer and I had a busy day yesterday.
[39:40] She had a couple more board meetings than I did.
[39:43] I'm going to report on the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council with relevant to Paul Spowe specifically.
[39:49] And that was the affirmation and awarding subject to the rubber stamp of the Puget Sound
[39:54] regional council so it's it's a done deal and that was our third street
[40:00] State project for $2,062,000, and those of you who take third know what a sorry condition that is in, that is scheduled for 2027. And so that money is right now allocated for that project. Our fin hill overlay is on the other hand on the contingency list. So unless another project slips or differs, that will not be part of this particular project.
[40:29] particular, go around, I think what else is relevant mayor from the
[40:33] Conservational Coordinating Council, they're going to be coming to our chambers and
[40:38] each of the other cities to present to us to take questions and answer so
[40:43] you're not just relying on the mayor and I or one legislative dinner per year.
[40:49] And I'm very proud of the mayor will be attending all of those with her hat on,
[40:54] as President of the Pugetown Regional Council.
[40:57] which is the parent organization for our Kitsab Regional Coordinating Council.
[41:02] So you'll be making the go-around and a company.
[41:05] So that is Kitsab Regional Coordinating Council, I'll just add mayor, and we have one slide, I think,
[41:12] from the clerk's office on bus routing for Kitsab Transit.
[41:17] We had a lengthy meeting yesterday, but what's relevant and we'll see a display of the routing is Kitsab Transit has
[41:25] made tremendous progress and if you can see that from one hour routes to half an hour
[41:31] routes and connecting the north end and Paul's bow to Silverdale, to Bremerton, to Port
[41:37] Orchard with a five minute connection at each of those bus transfer stations and that's
[41:45] going to cut in half the time it takes for those who depend on public transit to access
[41:51] our communities and so that is a huge lift by the transit agency and we'll be
[41:59] implemented here shortly in addition to the Sunday service. So that's relevant
[42:03] for our communities. Anything you would have from either of those two mayor
[42:07] kids of transit or KRCC? KRCC it's really important that we got the money for
[42:15] through to Avenue and that's kind of a it's a done deal at this point it's a two
[42:19] million dollars and so we'll finally get what I call the goat path fixed up on third
[42:25] so which is really good news so that's that's about it I think yeah I want to say thank
[42:33] you to the VFW and the veterans for a really a couple really wonderful Memorial Day one
[42:41] was at Veterans Plaza one was in downtown both of them are wonderful services and thank you
[42:48] Thank you, Rick. I know you were deeply involved with those. God bless, Petswalk. We had dogs everywhere.
[42:53] It was great. I got to sit with little tests on my lap. It was a little Jack Russell,
[42:59] who belongs to my friend, Linda. So it was very, very nice. We had the fish line auction,
[43:03] which I heard was very successful and also the great peninsula conservancy auction
[43:08] were in the last couple of weeks. So things are busy. Other regional things going on,
[43:14] Ed talked about Kits up Regional Coordinating Council.
[43:18] I was really elected to the Pugestown Regional Council Presidency, and I have one more
[43:24] year, and then I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, and we had a really interesting conversation
[43:30] from Congressman Rick Larson, and he talked about all of the money that's coming in from
[43:35] the federal government throughout the state for really large highway projects, very interesting
[43:40] man.
[43:40] I also had quite a little conversation with Mayor Bruce Herald from the City of Seattle who is doing a really good job.
[43:48] He's a really, really good man and doing hard work.
[43:53] Let's see, housing kitsap had a clean audit.
[43:58] Yay, yay, that agency has been troubled on and off for many, many years.
[44:02] Spotless audit, no findings, positive cash flow, and they're really moving forward to starting to construct more affordable houses.
[44:10] The health district is really diving into the recommendations from the Johns Hopkins study about health care provisioning in Kitsap County.
[44:26] We had a conversation about basically hospital benefit death stroke or health benefit district which is another taxing agency in order to fund a hospital or additional medical services.
[44:40] in Kitsap County. Kitsap 9-1-1, we hired a new executive director. Her contract was confirmed,
[44:47] and so she is on board at least for two years, and then I think isn't that enough. I think that's it.
[44:55] Mary, your remarks caused me to remember while Al Jolene is here.
[45:00] And represented the Hawaiian culture and her feeling about the Pride Week. She is also the new executive director of Visit Kits App, which is a long time city recipient of lodging tax and advisory money. They're the lead for convention and tourism for the Kits App Peninsula in general. And I will be representing Paul Spowe at a special ceremony honoring the anniversary of the creation of the National Maritime
[45:29] I'm Trails.
[45:31] Kitsap was one of the first in the entire country
[45:34] to have a trail that's over water,
[45:36] which circumnavigates the Kitsap Peninsula.
[45:40] Commissioner Rolfis will also be there.
[45:42] And I want to thank Al Jolun
[45:43] for the invitation to look forward
[45:45] to Saturday in Port Orchard for that ceremony.
[45:48] Thank you, Al Jolun.
[45:49] Okay, I'm Mr. McVeigh and then Mr. Eckert.
[45:52] And then Mr. Newell.
[45:53] Thanks, Mayor.
[45:55] It's been a few weeks, but back on May 18th,
[45:58] to remember that, we had Viking Fest,
[46:01] and I just want to acknowledge
[46:03] Kathy Foresy is in the audience
[46:04] from Viking Fest Corporation,
[46:06] the nonprofit organization, yay.
[46:09] Great job.
[46:11] It was a terrific festival this year,
[46:13] well attended, some new events
[46:16] that I thought were really interesting,
[46:19] and it's just a great way to always to kick off the spring.
[46:23] And we all, and some of us enjoyed walking in the parade.
[46:26] I think it was a great weekend, a great chance for Paul's boat to show a case.
[46:31] It's self and just thanks to Kathy, the I think that I can best cooperation.
[46:37] And everybody who participated, much appreciated.
[46:40] Mr. Eckert?
[46:41] Yeah, just for the interlocal committee, we don't really meet too often.
[46:48] But I went ahead and attended the Native American Honourate Assembly last night.
[46:52] it's a qualmish, which is not just a qualmish, but it's all native students in the school
[46:58] district honored. Always a great event, very, which actually the parents were a little quiet
[47:04] this year. I was kind of surprised. Usually that's the best part is parents get up and talk
[47:07] about each kid what they've gone through and get's real personal, but everybody was a little
[47:12] quiet last night. I'm not sure once a qualmish is having their own individual event, which
[47:17] usually follows the district one and covers not just the high school students, but also college graduates.
[47:25] Police academy, like just anyone from the tribe that's done any kind of
[47:30] education like that, but if I find out I'll pass it on and that's also a great event to it's end.
[47:38] Because I said they honor each recipient, depending on what the achievement is,
[47:43] some gorgeous blankets and some other gifts are given out by the tribe.
[47:47] And then I just had a question with the hospital district.
[47:50] Are they talking scope at this point yet or is it still pretty loosely?
[47:56] There's a group of volunteers that are getting together to try to craft a hospital benefit district.
[48:02] And so far is that they're trying to do a county wide district.
[48:08] I'm kind of pushing back a little bit on that because at the south end of the county
[48:12] doesn't necessarily vote for that kind of stuff and it would be really horrible to go all
[48:17] the way through the energy and effort to create something only to have it fail at the vote
[48:21] because people don't vote to tax themselves.
[48:23] Well, yeah.
[48:24] So, we're having that debate.
[48:26] Well, that's why I kind of wondered because the South End has access south, you know, St.
[48:33] Michael is in the central area.
[48:36] It's up here where we don't really have much.
[48:38] And the folks across who can out in, you know, Jefferson County on the East, I really have nothing until you get pretty far over and then you put Angela's.
[48:48] So, yeah, the effort, in my opinion, I can't speak for everybody, is really needs to be focused north.
[48:54] No, I agree with you, but I'm kind of beating a drum that nobody's listening to, so.
[49:01] Mr. No, do you have some comments?
[49:02] We had just two things.
[49:04] I'm continuing to engage in the North Dakota School District Facility Advisory Board.
[49:10] This is a board that's much more citizen-focused, community-focused, parent-focused, and taking
[49:16] a look at what are the current conditions of our schools.
[49:20] Both from a material condition is the roughly key, does the heating, air conditioning work,
[49:26] but also from the teaching and learning environments.
[49:29] We've been going over anywhere from three to four schools a night and looking at that and
[49:36] Impressed by the systematic approach that's being taken this go around and for interest there will be a community meeting on
[49:45] June 17th
[49:46] Where members of the community can come in and provide their feedback as part of this process
[49:52] I'm more to follow on that. I don't have a date and time yet, but that's coming and then last night
[49:57] I did meet...
[50:00] As part of the Strategic Advisory Board for the Polesville Fire Department, I was impressed by their financial plan, it was going over their 10-year financial plan, and also their capital facilities plan. They shared their process and thoughts with regards to both levies, bonds, emergency medical services, but also what is the growth coming as part of their planning process, both from facilities as we think the rolling
[50:29] things that come down the street and show up in front of our house, but also the buildings
[50:34] and I know they're working closely with the city, but just was impressed by their efforts
[50:40] to support our community.
[50:43] Thank you, Mr. Null.
[50:44] And one final comment, as of today, we are 13,010.
[50:48] That is our population.
[50:50] I told Mike to go out and change the signs.
[50:53] Okay, we haven't changed in a couple of years, but I figured that we better do it now that
[50:57] we're 13.
[50:58] We better change the signs.
[50:59] We're 13,000 and 10 as of this morning.
[51:01] So with that, unless anybody has any other comments,
[51:06] go ahead.
[51:06] Keep going, let's keep going.
[51:08] OK, for an hour and a half.
[51:09] Yeah, we're on hour and a half.
[51:10] OK, so we're moving on to the consent agenda.
[51:12] All matters listed within the consent agenda
[51:14] have been distributed to each member of the city council
[51:16] for reading and study on our considered to be routine items
[51:20] A and B and I entertain a motion for approval.
[51:24] Madam Chair, I move to approve consent agenda items.
[51:28] A and B, second.
[51:31] We have a motion in a second.
[51:32] Any discussion?
[51:34] Seeing or hearing none, Ms. Libdol.
[51:36] Libdol?
[51:37] Mr. Newell, aye.
[51:40] Make the way, aye.
[51:41] Eckert, aye.
[51:42] Crow, aye.
[51:43] Mr. Taver?
[51:46] Okay, thank you very much.
[51:47] I'm now on to our first business agenda item.
[51:50] Budget Amendment 24-0201 and Budget Amendment 24-0215,
[51:55] related to Waspant Grant for Recovery Resource Center.
[51:58] And this is Kim Henderson, but I hear you're pitching in, Deb.
[52:01] I am pitching for Ms. Henderson.
[52:05] Can we get a definition waspick out loud?
[52:09] It's Washington Association of Sheriff's and Police Office Chiefs, thank you.
[52:16] So they received a grant and Ms. Henderson brought this before the contract before you a couple of weeks ago.
[52:23] And what's happened in the interim is they noticed some addition errors in the grant and so the grant actually is increased slightly from the original presentation.
[52:36] And so that is why there are two amendments.
[52:38] The first amendment reflects the first approval of what council said and the second amendment is just showing the difference between those two.
[52:44] And so this is funding for the Recovery Center, which has already been brought forward.
[52:48] I think this is pretty straightforward, any questions regarding this?
[52:55] I was a little confused, you know, not going to find a picture right now, there was one
[53:01] of the changes it was made, it sounded like was something about a vehicle.
[53:06] Can we just get a little clarification on that?
[53:09] Correct, they have received the authority to purchase the vehicle, which they will use
[53:13] for the Recovery Center. They utilize the State Department of Services to get a, so they
[53:23] could go to the dealer and avoid going through RFPs. And we're giving the State Price
[53:27] Contractor a picking up a new vehicle, the vehicle has to be on site before June 30th.
[53:32] So they're relying on this. I'll be approved of the grant. It's paying for that vehicle.
[53:36] And at the end of the program, I believe the intention is to roll that vehicle into the
[53:40] police department and support the behavioral health if we are not utilizing it for the recovery
[53:45] center.
[53:46] But it is brand new vehicle to support the program and to allow for customers to be transported
[53:52] and for the recovery center to go out and to meet with some of those customers.
[53:58] Okay.
[53:58] That was my question.
[53:59] I wasn't sure why we need the vehicle, I just, you know.
[54:02] Yeah.
[54:02] And just so you notice, there's a difference in funding.
[54:04] The vehicle is being paid for out of your capital funds because we cannot use the general
[54:09] operating to purchase capital. So that's why you see a little difference in the numbers.
[54:13] Okay. All right. Thank you.
[54:15] All right. I would entertain a motion. And do we have to do these separately? Or can we just say
[54:20] both budget amendments and approve of multiple approval? My thought is you can improve them all in one
[54:25] motion and just incorporate both numbers. Okay. So I would entertain a motion to approve budget
[54:30] amendment 24-0210 and budget amendment 24-0215.
[54:38] I'll go ahead and move to approve a budget amendment 24-0210 and 24-0215 as presented
[54:50] on the visa.
[54:52] Second.
[54:53] Okay.
[54:53] We have a motion and a second.
[54:54] Any further questions about this?
[54:57] Seeing none.
[54:58] and misleaved all the dots.
[55:00] Mr. Nuel, aye.
[55:05] Mr. Taver. Okay. Thank you very much, Council. The next is Rob Park, play for all project contract award. And this looks like Josh and Jeff are Jeff, Jeff and Josh. It's a J.J. Club. Okay. Good evening. I'm going to let Jeff kick us off here. And then it's kind of a tag team as we transition into construction.
[55:30] for Rob Park.
[55:32] Oh, perfect.
[55:33] Well, thank you, Josh.
[55:34] Good evening, Mayor.
[55:34] Good evening, Council and citizens.
[55:36] Just a brief highlight of where we are with the Rob Park Play for all project.
[55:40] This project is five, six years old.
[55:42] It's brainstormed by our community to build an inclusive, accessible playground for our community.
[55:48] And put it over at Rob Park, adjacent to our existing one.
[55:52] This leaves a lot to the imagination.
[55:54] So I'm going to go to the next slide right here.
[55:56] And you can see, oh, you're good.
[55:58] This is a little bit of the motion.
[56:00] So we can see that there's inclusive playground elements
[56:02] for all abilities in different ages.
[56:05] You saw this presentation a little earlier in the year.
[56:07] This is just a recap of what we're talking about
[56:10] because we don't have it modeled 3D.
[56:12] So a number of inclusive playground features.
[56:15] Our Pulse Bowl Rotary Club has been instrumental
[56:17] in raising quite a bit of funding
[56:20] to help put these into place.
[56:21] And we have a state grant, a federal grant,
[56:24] and another state grant to tie in funding
[56:26] to build this playground. We also have sensory panels and communication panels because everybody
[56:31] experiences play in a different format and a different way. Walking can be play, touching can be play,
[56:38] there are different ways to invite everybody to be here. We also have turf slides, so these are
[56:45] mounds. If you think of astral turf, these are various sizes where people can play and bounce on
[56:51] and also slide down regardless of your mobility.
[56:54] And then the turfing is an astroturf substrate.
[56:58] It's not a poor in place.
[56:59] And that was one way that we have worked
[57:02] with our consultant over the years
[57:04] to as cost went up, we value engineered.
[57:08] And so we looked at where we can reduce potential amenities
[57:13] instead of going for the top tier, go one down.
[57:16] And that helped us get into a more reasonable budget.
[57:21] We did that twice for value engineering through the process and then went out to bid.
[57:27] And with that, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Josh Reigns.
[57:31] All right,
[57:35] so as Jeff just talked a little bit about the different funding sources, I do
[57:39] get to mention as we roll through a couple of these slides and talk about our budget amendment,
[57:43] that it's definitely a partnership with finance because they've got to manage all of those
[57:48] different grants and funding sources so there's a lot of close coordination between all of our
[57:54] departments. I also just want to give a huge shout out. You may not see how much work finance
[57:59] has to put into managing grants and the requirements and what April has to do in Josh's engineering
[58:05] department, how there's a lot of work in tracking this and it could not be done without a full support
[58:10] of the city team here. So thank you to our finance department engineering. Okay so as you can see
[58:17] on the slide here, we opened bids May 28th and we received two bids.
[58:23] Of course, we were hoping to receive more bids in this and the bids came in higher than
[58:31] what we were expecting.
[58:33] Our engineers estimate was, as Jeff mentioned, value engineered to scale things back and
[58:40] so we were hoping to be in the $7 to $800,000 range.
[58:44] And the two bids came in about $1.2 million, and I want to add, not only internally did we look at that, but again, we worked with our consultant and value engineer this twice, including bringing in a professional cost estimate, or you may meet, recall me presenting on this in the last year, several times, DCW to really dial this in, and still the bids came in higher than anticipated.
[59:08] So, our low bidder was WS contractors.
[59:15] And so, to look at the overall budget, we have just under $1.1 million.
[59:22] MIG is our design consultant that we use for the project.
[59:26] With the big coming in, about just under $1.2 million, our other construction cost, which
[59:33] is kind of advertising printing the topo survey of about $12,000.
[59:39] And then we have MIG's construction services that you'll see later in the agenda tonight
[59:45] for a contract amendment for the $20,000 for construction support.
[59:50] And then we have our internal staff time through the construction to support the administration of $65,000.
[59:58] and then when we include it can
[1:00:00] The contingency of about 10%, which is typical of construction projects, we end up with a total budget need of about $1.53 million.
[1:00:10] That puts us currently over our budget, almost $436,000.
[1:00:17] So we're here tonight for two things to award the contract, two WS contractors, as well as request a budget amendment,
[1:00:27] which is funded from our impact fees and
[1:00:30] REIT for $360,000.
[1:00:33] And this has been coordinated with our finance director.
[1:00:36] And what you'll see here at the bottom is about $76,000 with the star on it.
[1:00:42] And Jeff might be able to talk a little bit more about this.
[1:00:44] But he has some additional funding grant revenues that just have not been realized through the budget amendment process.
[1:00:53] And those will be coming back to you in the future to fill that gap.
[1:00:58] And I'll speak, thank you, Josh, and I'll speak a little bit about that 75,000.
[1:01:03] We have additional funding that we have found to roughly make that up.
[1:01:10] And in the past, we recognized grant revenue coming in and that we wouldn't increase expenses.
[1:01:16] Because again, we valued engineered the budget so we weren't going to recognize an increase in expenses.
[1:01:22] as it was going to offset what the city would have to owe.
[1:01:26] Some of this additional revenue coming in
[1:01:28] is going to come in and pay for those expenses.
[1:01:32] So the budget amendment that you will see
[1:01:33] will recognize sources in and sources out.
[1:01:36] And you'll have that, likely in July,
[1:01:39] just how this is a wonky meeting scheduled at the moment.
[1:01:43] So I will mention as we go through construction,
[1:01:46] we will continue to look for ways to expedite construction,
[1:01:50] save cost.
[1:01:50] cost.
[1:01:53] Oh yeah, go ahead. And what you're not seeing, oh, maybe the next slide shows
[1:01:58] it, Josh.
[1:02:00] Okay. What Josh is talking about, about working with our finance director
[1:02:04] and looking at the RE ones, and she could speak a little bit more about this, of that 360.
[1:02:08] We're also moving around a few of our impact fees for some future parks projects. That's
[1:02:14] the urban past and trails. And so not putting that into effect this year, next year, so taking
[1:02:20] 30,000 out of that while we evaluate because that's it's been an ongoing we spread that 45 or
[1:02:25] for three years so we're going to pull out of that. We did take a look at what other impact
[1:02:29] these we can move from other projects but to pull the full amount from there would be it would
[1:02:35] impact every project on the CIP for parks and so we were thankful to have a discussion with
[1:02:41] finance director about REIT ones and I don't know if there's questions I'm sure we can have those
[1:02:45] answered as well. Josh, did you have other comments?
[1:02:52] Thank you, Mayor. So you anticipate my question. Having been at the nexus of this project
[1:03:00] with the rotary club, I recall Paul and Deborah some six years ago, this came to us as a
[1:03:06] community initiative. And a very good one, but a community initiative outside of our own
[1:03:13] CIP and Parks and Prioritization and a great deal of community fundraising went into this.
[1:03:21] There was a legislative appropriation and we have carried this on behalf of the community
[1:03:26] and incorporated it into our city priorities.
[1:03:30] My concern being, we also had our own well-developed long-term parks programs that involve many
[1:03:36] neighborhoods and organizations, that the impact and pushback that you begin to reference
[1:03:42] whether it's the urban pass or others, can you expand a little bit more what's going to be deferred,
[1:03:47] pushback, or otherwise curtailed?
[1:03:53] Half a million dollars is a lot of money.
[1:03:55] So, I'm happy to explain how that 360 is.
[1:03:59] $330 would come from the REIT 1s, REIT 1.
[1:04:02] And Deb, is this a good time for you to jump in and talk about that, and then I'll talk about where the 30,000 will come from the park impact fees.
[1:04:10] So the REIT, real estate excite tax is what's generated from the home sales, comes in two
[1:04:16] quarter percent.
[1:04:17] The first quarter percent can be utilized for projects on the CIP, which are transportation
[1:04:23] and general and nature, general purpose.
[1:04:26] The second quarter percent can only be used for transportation projects, and that's been
[1:04:31] pretty much driven towards Noel Road right now, and it also has been utilized to make debt
[1:04:36] payments.
[1:04:36] The first quarter percent, we've been using to make the city hall debt payments.
[1:04:41] But as we've tracked REITs monthly, we've realized the revenue is much higher than projected
[1:04:46] and we've built a substantial fund balance in there.
[1:04:49] And so we felt that this project has been on the CIP for several years now and that is
[1:04:54] the best place to go.
[1:04:56] so it won't impact the park projects because we're not utilizing parks.
[1:05:01] And as we look at the REAPS long term, we know we had been building those reserves, and it may impact maybe how we fund future debt issues. But we have been coming in substantially higher than our budgets, and we built over a million dollars in reserves in that. So when we looked at the funding pieces to make this go forward into capture the bid as is, that's where we felt the best place to go was.
[1:05:24] And to clarify, make sure I'm correct, of that 360, 330 is RE-1, and 30 is park impact fees.
[1:05:32] But those park impact fees are 15,000 for this year, 15 for next year, and 15 for the following year.
[1:05:39] And that is the urban paths and trails funding component.
[1:05:44] And you may recall, it has been a $45,000 block as one, and it's been shuffled year to year.
[1:05:50] And so we're just removing this year and next year from that.
[1:05:53] I will mention that the impact is we council approved ongoing funding of $6,000 for our parks coordinator to work with volunteers to improve our parks.
[1:06:03] So it's not stopping our improvement plans to our trails at all right now by shift-chuffling this.
[1:06:13] Yeah, just to some kind of get in the weeds. Sorry.
[1:06:16] from standpoint of taking a look at who or the potential builders can do you
[1:06:22] know off the top of your head how many primes actually pulled drawings and
[1:06:27] actually we're looking at this project I think we had about seven signed up
[1:06:33] okay and how many it went through the walkthrough one only one attempt of the
[1:06:38] walkthrough was WS construct contractors the one that did the walkthrough they
[1:06:44] They were not, but I did forget to mention earlier that WS contractors has done work for the city.
[1:06:49] They actually did the little boardwalk for fish park here a couple years ago right off of a bond road there.
[1:06:58] In our RFP, did we specify a period of performance?
[1:07:02] IE, when did it need to be done?
[1:07:03] We did, we gave them your testimony memories.
[1:07:07] I think it was 70 working days.
[1:07:10] And what was the estimate from the standpoint of when we wanted them to start construction?
[1:07:15] We wanted them to start construction in the end of June, okay.
[1:07:19] So I guess just General Feedback Council and Mayor, this type of stuff everybody wants
[1:07:26] done in the summer because the big buyers of this are not just parks but they're also school
[1:07:31] districts and school districts don't want any construction on their property and so I understand
[1:07:37] And it sounds like we have the funding and I'm not suggesting we make a change, but it would be warranted, especially as we look towards the perk, other things to open up the period of performance and get the turf and any playground equipment period performance, give them latitude, get them off the summers.
[1:07:59] We will get much more favorable pricing if we're not asking it to be done when over that you got a window of July and August
[1:08:09] Everybody wants the same thing done. And so that you were paying up. I personally believe we're paying a price premium over what the
[1:08:15] Estimate was because of the time that you've just a little bit you gave me Josh. I think that's what's going on
[1:08:22] Josh and I were talking today just today about timing of bids and putting things out because
[1:08:27] because I happen to agree with you.
[1:08:29] We have to be very clever about when we issue our requests
[1:08:33] because for exactly the what kind of stuff
[1:08:36] that you're talking about, we didn't do it this time
[1:08:39] and we learned something here.
[1:08:42] And so I agree with you when we go out
[1:08:44] for like the Nordic cottages, et cetera,
[1:08:47] we're going to be much more strategic,
[1:08:51] I think is the best way to put it.
[1:08:53] Yeah, and there's always the danger of frustrating
[1:08:57] the bidding, the proposers, if you decide to pull back on a procurement, but it's not
[1:09:06] beyond our scope to say, hey, you know what, you're way off the estimate.
[1:09:10] We need to regroup, we don't have the funding, we need to take a different approach to this
[1:09:16] and it doesn't mean Jeff another round of value engineering.
[1:09:19] I think there's other things going on that's driving the cross and the reality is that,
[1:09:24] Okay, we can fund it, but that's 350 or $400,000, it's not going to something else that could benefit our community.
[1:09:31] So I'm...
[1:09:33] Okay, Gary, and then Rick.
[1:09:35] Thanks, ma'am.
[1:09:37] I have some real concerns about this.
[1:09:40] I've had some concerns, other points in this process.
[1:09:45] I appreciate Josh and Jeff and others that have worked on the value engineering.
[1:09:52] I know we've made some reductions, you know. I know this project was started by a small group in Rotary.
[1:10:00] And I sort of sit here feeling like we're kind of, to some extent, left, holding the bag a little bit. So I'm not happy. Where we're at with it. And I'm wondering what our options are. Can we, can we find some other reductions to try to get this down to a more reasonable level? Because to Doug's point, I'm really concerned about the other things that we're not going to be able to do with the money that's going to go into this.
[1:10:30] Good point Gary, and I agree does right, I can't tell you how many times I asked the
[1:10:39] question on the school board of is the extraction going to happen during the school year, can
[1:10:43] we push it to when the kids aren't there? Because I was always concerned about the safety
[1:10:46] aspect of what outside contractors are we bringing on to our school grounds to work when kids
[1:10:52] are there. So I was that person always pushing it to the summer, pushing it to the spring
[1:10:58] during breaks, pushing it outside when the kids were present.
[1:11:01] So, yeah, when we're doing a project,
[1:11:03] where they're not competitive pool.
[1:11:05] Yeah, we definitely want to look.
[1:11:07] Can you go back on slide?
[1:11:08] I had a question, this amount says,
[1:11:12] and it's only $20,000, but it says $15,30,
[1:11:17] or 1.5, 30, but the agenda item says $15,50.
[1:11:23] So, I just wanted to clarify what,
[1:11:24] If this is the slides correct or the agenda items correct, but I said it's only 20 to 20 thousand out of different.
[1:11:31] But for the total, the total, yeah, the totals are different between the agenda item and the total in the slide would be correct.
[1:11:39] We were quick, quickly updating our total project budget with our finance director this afternoon to make sure we had all our numbers on the slide correct.
[1:11:48] Okay. So the total is 1, 1,538, what's on the slide, correct?
[1:11:55] Correct. It's not the 1,550.
[1:11:59] So we'll need that for the motion just to make sure we get the numbers right.
[1:12:03] And then just in general, I mean, I agree there's concerns that the project is the cost keeps changing and we've
[1:12:09] already cut back what it's going to tail. But I do overall I think this is a good, we talk about being
[1:12:15] welcoming, diverse, and equitable for all people to access, well, this is a slice of our community that we've not done a lot for, and so having this part, this playground for the kids who need this kind of playground equipment and that member of that part of the community, I think in the idea of wanting to be sure that we are serving the entire community, I think we need to, we need to find a way to make this work.
[1:12:44] Okay. Any other questions from the council? So would you please go ahead.
[1:12:51] Josh, back to the seven people that pulled the drives. Did you? You haven't, how do I
[1:12:57] say this is simply, have you called any of them and asked them why they didn't bid?
[1:13:02] No, we have not. Okay. Thanks. Yeah.
[1:13:08] What was your question? So my question is, I was posing, is there anything else that we
[1:13:14] We can conceivably take out of this project to try to get the cost down to a more manageable level beyond what we already have.
[1:13:21] So as far as reducing elements, I think maybe there's a couple things that we can look at during construction.
[1:13:29] We would not be able to eliminate it at this time.
[1:13:33] We would have to accept the contract as it is and then go through a change order process with the contractor to potentially eliminate some work.
[1:13:42] I will say that Jeff and I did have a conversation about the magnitude of the cost and while I recognize and agree with Doug, I think that we're largely here because of the timing of the bid, we are, we're working to a priority for this project, we were working to try to meet some grant obligations and so it's not super uncommon to unfortunately be in the situation as hard as we work to try to avoid.
[1:14:11] avoid being in the situation, we will be in the same situation when we go to bid here in the next month
[1:14:18] and a half or no road. It's not the ideal timing, but we are tied to a grant funding deadline.
[1:14:24] So, we do have some grant applications, but Jeff might have a little bit more information on some flexibility on our grant.
[1:14:32] If it was determined to push this project off another year.
[1:14:35] We want to provide all the information we possibly can, the Council, so you can make an informed decision.
[1:14:41] The reason, as Josh is stating why this is likely so high and Council Member Newell mentioned it, is the timing.
[1:14:47] If you recall the previous updates we've been providing for over a year, this was a tight timeline to get too bid at the beginning of this year when contractors are looking for summer work.
[1:15:00] Well, the number of hiccups that had to be solved, this is the most gentle way to phrase that. And that took time until we were ready to actually get out to bid. And when we went out to bid, that happened to be now in May as opposed to January or February. So we really have other contractors, the general contractors are committed to other projects. What could happen, but there is a risk, is this could be pushed to
[1:15:30] end of this year, beginning of next year.
[1:15:33] That would give us potentially more favorable bids coming in
[1:15:38] to rebuild the process without reducing scope,
[1:15:40] without removing more elements.
[1:15:42] It is valued engineered as much as it's going to be.
[1:15:45] We're good at squeezing money from rocks,
[1:15:47] we can't squeeze much more from this project.
[1:15:51] But the risk is, look at the last six years
[1:15:54] before I was here, this project has only gone up and cost.
[1:15:57] It has only encountered more delays.
[1:16:00] It is a six-year project that we have.
[1:16:02] The city has signed on, but Councilmember Stern did talk about this as a community-driven
[1:16:07] project, and they are looking to the city to deliver this project.
[1:16:12] So if we do decide if Council provides direction to the mayor that we should go re-bid this next
[1:16:21] year, prices could go up, we could be in the same scenario or worse.
[1:16:25] And then two, we're under some pretty tight grant deadlines.
[1:16:29] We've already extended some of these grants from 2019-2020.
[1:16:34] We have grants that have been ongoing for ages and they understand these challenges.
[1:16:38] We can work to get those done, but there's no guarantee that it will be challenging.
[1:16:44] Yeah, I would pose to the rest of the council that consider rather than trying to remove anything else on the project or delay it further.
[1:16:55] We understand it's expensive now, but what we do is we highly encourage these two highly skilled individuals in front of us to engage their grant writing skills and Jeff's sponsorship skills.
[1:17:11] And maybe we see if as we go forward, there's a way to cover some more of the costs from that way, rather than we dig into this project even more, or we push it off and run those risks.
[1:17:22] I think there's a way potentially to get sponsors or see if there's other grants and that's a safer route than risking the grants we've already got.
[1:17:32] I would recommend the council that we move forward now, and I know this is painful, but as I said, this has been going on for six years.
[1:17:41] We've made commitments to rotary, we've taken how much, how many, how many dollars does has rotary given us?
[1:17:47] Over 100.
[1:17:48] Yeah.
[1:17:49] 100,000 dollars worth of donations.
[1:17:51] So I think we need to move forward now with the caveat that you guys will negotiate back with
[1:17:57] change orders to try to reduce the price.
[1:18:00] Is that possible?
[1:18:02] I mean, in other words, at the end of the day, we'll approve it for 1.5.
[1:18:06] At the end of the day, you can kind of come back to us and say, hey, we're heroes.
[1:18:10] It really only costs this.
[1:18:12] Is that possible?
[1:18:12] It is possible, we can't just negotiate the price as it sits.
[1:18:20] We can negotiate a change of scope, removing something, reducing something.
[1:18:27] Those are things that we can negotiate, but as the project sits, we cannot renegotiate
[1:18:34] the price.
[1:18:35] And we renegotiate the time of construction.
[1:18:39] We have the ability to give them the flexibility, yes, that could be something that we could entertain with the contractor if we give them some flexibility.
[1:18:51] Would there be some credit if it's, I'm going to presume that if the contractor bid on it, they bid on it because they have the availability in their schedule to do it.
[1:19:03] So, they're going to be motivated to do it this summer versus push it off, but I think it's something that could be pursued.
[1:19:11] Okay.
[1:19:13] I think we've talked this to death, I think it's decision time, and these two motion things are, we don't normally do it this way, and this is the second one like this.
[1:19:24] I would rather have one concise motion, but is there two different motions here that they have to do?
[1:19:34] No, you don't, but when we were talking about this, it was the preference of both Jeff and Josh in their department to keep them separate, so we knew what we were approving.
[1:19:42] But you can't combine them absolutely.
[1:19:44] Okay, so, and the numbers are wrong, so what is the number of the first motion is 1.190?
[1:19:50] I mean, are these correct numbers on here?
[1:19:54] On the slides?
[1:19:55] Yes, they are. And it should match the agenda that you have.
[1:20:00] Yeah, that's the total bid amount. Okay. All right. So here's the sample motions. Now council, you're in the hot seat. It's your time to make the decision. And so what do you want to do here?
[1:20:17] Okay.
[1:20:22] You want me to? Yeah. I need a motion at least. Or if you guys don't want to do this, then I don't like to go off. Look, I'm not good at winging it. Can I just read it as it? Read it. Read what's on on the screen. Okay.
[1:20:39] Okay. Okay. I mean, I've got it here too. So, okay. I move to approve the contract award to WS Contractors LLC in the amount of $1,190,080.26 in authorize the mayor to sign the contract on behalf of the city and move to authorize the mayor to sign change orders up to 10% of the contract value.
[1:21:01] Additionally, I move to approve a budget amendment number 24, tax 0, 2, 1, 6 in the amount
[1:21:09] of $360,000 funded from REIT and PARC impact fees to provide additional funding to construct
[1:21:16] this project.
[1:21:18] Okay.
[1:21:18] I'll second.
[1:21:20] Okay.
[1:21:20] So we have a motion in a second.
[1:21:22] This is a tough one.
[1:21:23] I noticed a sticker shock, but this has been in our loop for six years.
[1:21:27] Six years we've been working on this.
[1:21:29] So, I advocate that we move forward, we have the funding, we have the money, and I would hope that we might be able to find some savings as we move forward and change orders.
[1:21:45] Okay, that's my plea.
[1:21:47] Yeah, I just I so the math and the motions does add up to the one five five zero zero eight zero twenty six
[1:21:54] So that does not match your slides. So just to be clear the amount of what the in the motion is the
[1:22:01] That is what we're voting on so
[1:22:05] Yes, was the motion correct the motion is correct that what what Rick is referring to is the overall budget
[1:22:12] But we're only here for two items tonight, which is approving the contract and
[1:22:16] the budget amendment.
[1:22:17] The contract, a value of $1.1 million on the screen is correct.
[1:22:21] The amount for the budget amendment is correct.
[1:22:25] Okay, all right,
[1:22:28] okay, so we have a motion in second.
[1:22:30] Any further discussion?
[1:22:36] Just, I need to say, Mayor, this is a very difficult pill to swallow after some 25 years of finance committee meeting twice a month and
[1:22:44] reviewing things and making recommendations, the opportunity to work with staff,
[1:22:49] tweet things as problems arise.
[1:22:52] This is an alpha omega moment where we're faced with a problem and asked make a decision
[1:22:58] all in the same evening.
[1:23:00] And that doesn't afford one, a lot of opportunity to examine and do due diligence.
[1:23:08] On the other hand, I'm a longtime member of the Rotary Club and I understand their passion.
[1:23:12] I'm probably going to vote for this, but I do want to say this, this harkens to me of the larger question of dealing with one off special projects, special needs, outside of our budget sequence, that period of time from September to December when all projects are put on the table, all personnel, all needs, and we prioritize and take it as a whole. This is kind of a one off, and it's very difficult for me.
[1:23:45] I have voted for this along the way I'm going to vote for it tonight but I would ask that
[1:23:53] we go back to the rotary club and see if they would be willing to help us a little bit
[1:23:57] more with this since that is where the idea generated from and they seem committed to it.
[1:24:04] I think that would be very helpful and build some good will.
[1:24:08] Thank you.
[1:24:08] I'm going to say one more thing.
[1:24:10] This is the last time I'm going to get hooked in with a rotary project like this.
[1:24:15] I had some real heartburn with this as well.
[1:24:18] But we've been working on it for six years, okay?
[1:24:22] And so I think that if you want to throw away six years worth of staff work, you say no.
[1:24:30] But honestly, I think we need to move it forward.
[1:24:32] I think you're the third Parks and Rec Director that's worked on this project and you know
[1:24:39] The Rotary gave us a hundred thousand dollars
[1:24:42] So I think we need to move this forward and we value engineer at the best we can after the contracts let and
[1:24:49] Either that or so we're done
[1:24:51] Okay, this doesn't go through we're done, okay?
[1:24:54] I'm you know, we can't have staff working round and round and round and round and round and round and
[1:25:00] I never get anywhere with this. And I want to reiterate, this is a playground unlike any we have in the city. So this serves the need of a part of our community that is not being served currently. So I agree. It's expensive. But we can try to, we can try to mitigate that later. As Debbie pointed out, this is coming from a fund where there's money we didn't expect to have. So, you know, I want to serve the needs of this community.
[1:25:29] like we are trying to serve the needs of the rest of our community, and you're right,
[1:25:33] we've been throwing away a lot of work, but I'm more concerned with the end result
[1:25:37] than the past work. I want to give those kids a place to play. So, you know, if I
[1:25:45] got to stand next year's Viking fast with a can, ask them for donations for the
[1:25:49] park, I'll do it, but we got to give these kids a place to play. Okay. Let's call the
[1:25:54] question. The question has been called Ms. Libdol.
[1:25:58] Libdol I. Mr. Stern.
[1:26:00] Stern I. Mr. Null.
[1:26:05] Null no. Mr. McVeigh.
[1:26:08] McVeigh I.
[1:26:09] Eckerd I.
[1:26:10] Mr. Crow I.
[1:26:13] Mr. Tabor are you there?
[1:26:15] Yep, Tabor I.
[1:26:16] Okay, so that's six to one.
[1:26:19] Thank you very much and you know what?
[1:26:22] We need to be very careful when we get sucked into
[1:26:24] these projects like this and I can say this because
[1:26:26] and blame myself because I was the only one.
[1:26:29] Both of these guys weren't working on it.
[1:26:31] They just inherited it, okay?
[1:26:33] So thank you very much, appreciate it.
[1:26:35] Thank you, Council.
[1:26:36] Thank you, Council.
[1:26:37] Okay, so now we're moving on to the Johnson Ridge Final Plan.
[1:26:41] This is Mr. Bateman.
[1:26:50] Good evening, Madame Mayor, again, Council.
[1:26:52] Good to see you all.
[1:26:54] We're gonna shift gears to a little easier subject
[1:26:58] for you here.
[1:27:01] This is, it's been quite some time.
[1:27:03] Since you guys have seen a final flat, we've got a bunch of projects moving forward so you're going to see projects coming forward more often from here on out.
[1:27:13] I'm going to remind you a little bit as Joyce pulling up the slides here how the subdivision process goes.
[1:27:23] It goes through a rather rigorous application and approval process through planning department and engineering.
[1:27:28] we go through and make sure that they follow all of our rules and codes.
[1:27:34] And in the end, after coming through Planning Commission and the city's hearing examiner,
[1:27:40] it is determined as a point of law that they have met the law and
[1:27:46] the code standards hearing examiner, gives a decision and gives a decision that includes
[1:27:51] a whole set of conditions of approval from both Planning and Engineering, public works as well.
[1:27:57] and they then develop a set of construction drawings for approval, we approve the construction drawings, they go out, they construct the project, and at the end of construction, they come forward here to you to City Council for what's called final plat approval, and that when that is recorded, the final plat drawings are recorded with the county, that is what takes it from one big lot to all the individual lots that can then subsequently be have home constructed on them.
[1:28:24] So your role tonight is to review our work in showing you that they have met every one of the conditions of approval as given and are ready to move on to the next process to get final plata approval from you guys and go on to home construction.
[1:28:43] And I'll tell you that this is as many projects, all projects have a lot of challenges.
[1:28:47] And especially as we move to more challenging areas of polls, but the low hanging fruit was picked some time ago.
[1:28:57] And the remaining projects have a lot of work to do to get through the approval process and continue to have a lot of work to do in construction.
[1:29:06] Things come up as normal. And we have a couple of fellows here from CPH Consultants that worked very hard on this project, want to acknowledge them.
[1:29:14] The knowledge of hard work, they have been fantastic partners as this project came through.
[1:29:19] They worked hard during the design and approval process to work through issues and new
[1:29:25] items that come up as we work through new parts of our code.
[1:29:28] And then during construction, they worked very hard with us as wonderful partners to get
[1:29:33] through construction challenges and actually get to this point of final part of approval.
[1:29:36] So we're all very proud of this project getting to this point.
[1:29:40] So here we have Johnson Ridge Final Platt, it's a 13.74 acre parcel. Part of that, the kind of
[1:29:50] swoopy part on the top there is out of that parcel because we purchased that and we purchased that
[1:29:57] area to construct Johnson Parkway.
[1:30:00] Josh is a fantastic project that won awards, right? The remaining remaining parcel went through the subdivision process and, and, good.
[1:30:13] Came up with this design. We have, we have 61 single family lots. They're going to be building homes. The construction of the home builder is not going to be the current owner of this project. This is project is, as
[1:30:29] normal, you know, moving from one order to another as they move into the home
[1:30:33] construction. That's fairly, fairly standard for flats. And that home builder's
[1:30:38] going to be building homes ranging between 22 19 and 27 41 square feet on on the
[1:30:44] lots that are there. These lots are beautiful. I don't know if you've had a chance
[1:30:47] to walk out there and look, but they're going to have some great views. These are
[1:30:51] going to be nice homes. They're providing new city roads with the connection
[1:30:55] connection out to Johnson Parkway in two places and a future connection to the South as always.
[1:31:00] You know, we provide future connections to adjacent parcels.
[1:31:07] It didn't have a whole lot of frontage improvements to Duke because we've already done them with our project and they're going to be connecting down to our new Johnson Parkway around about.
[1:31:18] Did you want to talk to Joy or you keep going?
[1:31:23] Okay. They have done as normal for all of our projects. They've constructed water sewer
[1:31:30] storm. The normal features the little inset there shows you you know kind of how busy the
[1:31:35] streets are with with infrastructure showing water sewer storm all all the normal stuff there.
[1:31:43] They've got over two acres of open space recreational amenities landscaping and you may notice
[1:31:49] just that some of these photos are updated from what went in your package.
[1:31:53] These guys have been working very hard to have this project be a really nice looking project
[1:31:59] as we get here to final flat and so Joy went out and took some more recent photos to show
[1:32:03] off their hard work and you can see that the basketball hoop is striped and they've got
[1:32:09] good plantings there and done nice landscaping along the parkway and have their park in good
[1:32:14] shape.
[1:32:17] They've got, this is the first project that is taking advantage of a section of code that is new-ish to some of us.
[1:32:25] It's been in place for a little while, that allows a project to propose an amenity on a stormwater vault when we've got a vault.
[1:32:33] I know many of you and older council members have had to express many times in the past that you'd like us to move away from having vaults that just had a big bunch of gravel on top.
[1:32:43] an ugly flat spot, work through the challenges with that, with our team here, the engineering
[1:32:50] team on the developer side, and our public works team as well to make sure that we could
[1:32:55] figure out how to get an amenity on the vault with still maintaining the access the public
[1:33:01] works needs to properly maintain our infrastructure, not only just on a regular basis, but on an
[1:33:07] emergency basis.
[1:33:08] You know, when things go wrong, they go wrong at a rough time, right?
[1:33:10] So those guys need to be able to get in there and do what they need to when they need to.
[1:33:14] And there is an agreement that was part of your package that's part of that work to develop the ability to do that that went through our city attorney's office and had been approved by them.
[1:33:28] Joy's showing us here some of the work that they went through as they were working on the project.
[1:33:33] I'd like to point out that the nice scroll work on the vault there,
[1:33:38] this project had a vault that has a lot of exposed face
[1:33:41] and planning department worked really hard with them to mitigate that amount of flat space
[1:33:46] and have some texture to it as well as plantings in front.
[1:33:50] They've teared some walls and put some plantings in front that will grow up over time
[1:33:54] and have it be a much nicer looking than it would have been had it just been a
[1:34:00] big flat ugly space. So we like to acknowledge our planning is hard work. Nicole
[1:34:04] especially worked very hard on that as did the team here from CPA age.
[1:34:12] As you
[1:34:12] have seen in your package there's a we went through a pretty extensive review
[1:34:16] process showing you that they have conformed with our PMC chapter. All the
[1:34:22] conditions of approval were met properly.
[1:34:25] They've provided maintenance bonds as required.
[1:34:28] They provide performance bonds as required for the landscaping.
[1:34:32] The agreement has been completed, reviewed.
[1:34:36] This is going to be the template that we use to move forward.
[1:34:41] I think you'll see this in some future plots as well.
[1:34:45] The future plot of plateau at on the south end of Ikeing
[1:34:50] is probably going to propose some of their needs on the vault I would expect, and we may
[1:34:54] see that with Audrey as well, so this will become more common.
[1:35:00] And I think is appropriate for what we want in the city. And I'd like to thank Mike and his team also for, you know, being open-minded and working hard to come up with solutions that we can have something really nice like this and still be able to perform their work. And we'll learn from each one. And as a former mentor said, we'll make new mistakes next time instead of repeating old ones. So if we have made any, if we have some lessons to be learned,
[1:35:28] We'll learn him and carry him forward, but so far this project is turned out great and we're very happy with it and
[1:35:35] City engineer and his team
[1:35:38] Recommends approval of this final plat and the public storm drainage easement and I apologize for bringing you a two-step
[1:35:44] approval
[1:35:45] Motion again as as you had the last time we were advised by the clerk that it would be best if this was a
[1:35:53] Two separate motions. I think it would be fine to combine them as Brit did
[1:35:57] and read them all at the same time into one motion,
[1:36:01] but we did want to have it be one piece.
[1:36:05] And at this point, I think I'll ask,
[1:36:07] if you guys have any questions for us.
[1:36:09] Mr. Dull and then Mr. Stern.
[1:36:12] Yeah, just quickly is having driven through there
[1:36:16] and seeing all this seems like there's a lot of effort
[1:36:19] gone through before we get to a final approval on this
[1:36:22] standpoint.
[1:36:22] Is the timing of this being kind of a new guy up here?
[1:36:26] Is this typical that the contractor has made all these investments before we've given
[1:36:33] final approval on the plaque?
[1:36:36] This is the way the state law has set up.
[1:36:39] This is the only option.
[1:36:41] There is no other option.
[1:36:43] Okay.
[1:36:43] It seems kind of...
[1:36:44] Yeah.
[1:36:46] There's the development team and the ownership team put a significant amount of work and financial
[1:36:52] effort up front before they ever get to do anything.
[1:36:54] And so as you can imagine, these folks are anxious to get going on building homes.
[1:36:59] Mr. Stry.
[1:37:01] May I just want to compliment your staff specifically, Mr. Bayman, for an excellent presentation of a complex project, succinct and very clear.
[1:37:09] Well, I got to thank you, but I got to tell you, the presentation was done by my wonderful colleague Joy here.
[1:37:14] I just took advantage of her hard work and presented it to you.
[1:37:19] Mr. Acre.
[1:37:22] Yeah, I drove through there last night, actually, my way back from Sequoia Mission.
[1:37:25] Yeah, it does look good, and you see, yeah, the amenities are already there.
[1:37:30] And this might be more of a question for the builder when they come along.
[1:37:34] But the size of the house, you just said, intended 24 to 42, so would you just say?
[1:37:40] 2227.
[1:37:41] Oh, twice.
[1:37:42] Okay.
[1:37:42] We can go back to that side, if you want.
[1:37:44] Well, I was just thinking those lots didn't look that huge.
[1:37:46] So I was thinking coverage percentage, that sounds like they're going to be right up against
[1:37:50] the mass. Yeah. Yeah. The lots range from about 4,000 to 6,500 square feet. Okay. Yeah.
[1:37:58] But it sounds like the intent is that me pretty much pushed the limit on lot coverage. Yeah.
[1:38:03] And I think the reality of construction these days is that's what it takes to make these projects
[1:38:09] viable because they put so much work into the dirt work. You saw how much over time how much
[1:38:17] was moved on this project.
[1:38:18] It looks good and the pictures don't really do justice
[1:38:20] to when you drive through.
[1:38:22] It's not as deep property between those roads.
[1:38:25] It seems like it looks like it is on the pictures.
[1:38:28] You drive through it and it's just right there.
[1:38:31] But yeah, I mean the work that was done
[1:38:32] already looks great, but I think the builders
[1:38:36] are gonna have some challenges in their own.
[1:38:39] Oh yeah, so we will work through it with them as usual.
[1:38:42] I think the signs say right now it's 27 to 3300 square feet
[1:38:46] are the houses, and they've got the signs back up that says they're going to be basements.
[1:38:52] So, you know, maybe they've switched back.
[1:38:55] They were for a while going to be basements, and then they were going to be not basements,
[1:38:59] and now the signs say they're going to be basements.
[1:39:00] Well, they're definitely not going to have a lot of yard to move.
[1:39:02] Who knows?
[1:39:03] For the bridge.
[1:39:04] No, no.
[1:39:05] Okay, just ready to make a motion.
[1:39:08] Just, Michael, the builder is Century Homes, is that right?
[1:39:12] and they've done other projects in our community.
[1:39:16] They have?
[1:39:16] Yep, and they've been good partners.
[1:39:18] And the folks that are working there, we've worked with many times.
[1:39:21] And we're familiar with them.
[1:39:23] They've been a good team to work with.
[1:39:29] OK, who wants to make the motion?
[1:39:32] OK.
[1:39:34] That's good.
[1:39:35] Madam Chair, I move to approve the final plot of Johnson Ridge
[1:39:39] and authorize the mayor to sign on behalf of the city the public storm drainage
[1:39:43] easement agreement for the stormwater bolts. Second okay we have a motion and
[1:39:50] a second all right any other questions. I'm sorry I think what we're red it's not
[1:39:55] exactly what's on the screen here. I said I could combine them.
[1:40:00] I think that, I think that motion will be fine for us. Okay, because we just left out and authorized the mayor to sign on behalf of the city. Does that in there? Yep. Yep. She got that. Just didn't say move to approve twice. I said it once. All right. So we have a motion. Is there a second?
[1:40:18] Pam second, motion is second. Any further questions? I have a comment. I walk through the subdivision every day with my dog. I want to thank you for doing the extra landscaping. I want to thank you for the six foot fence.
[1:40:29] by the storm plan. I didn't want any kids following off of it. There's some work that has to
[1:40:35] be done. Michael, you and I are going to have a long conversation about rock walls. Okay,
[1:40:40] before this is completed, but I want to thank you very much for the hard work. Okay. Motion in
[1:40:44] second. It is a nice fence. It is a nice fence. It's six feet. I was worried about kids on the storm
[1:40:50] upon. Miss lived all, lived all aye.
[1:40:54] Sir, aye.
[1:40:55] No, aye.
[1:40:56] McVeigh, aye.
[1:40:57] Eckert, aye.
[1:40:58] Crow, aye.
[1:40:58] Mr. Taver.
[1:41:00] Thank you.
[1:41:01] Thank you very much.
[1:41:02] Thank you, Mayor and Council.
[1:41:04] Good luck.
[1:41:04] Great to see you guys tonight.
[1:41:05] It's been a while.
[1:41:06] Okay.
[1:41:06] And with that, we are going into a meeting break for how much?
[1:41:12] How much time?
[1:41:13] 15 minutes.
[1:41:14] 10 minutes.
[1:41:15] 10 minutes.
[1:41:16] So we will re-establish here at about 6.55, a little over 10.
[1:41:25] Thanks, Bob.
[1:41:26] Yes, I know.
[1:57:04] Go ahead and restart the meeting, so if you want to turn the recorder on and be a cat if you're still here. The first thing on our workshop agenda is department head comments. So who wants to go? I'll go ahead and start mayor. Just want to give a brief update on the investigation that is going on regarding the vandalism to the pride flags. We do have a very active investigation underway. We did solicit information from the community. We're still hoping that we can get
[1:57:34] yet further information, any tips or video,
[1:57:38] we're also actively looking for those things.
[1:57:41] And I did have a conversation with Chad Inwright,
[1:57:44] Kitsap County Prosecure regarding the elements of the crime
[1:57:48] and our parameters for following this as a hate crime.
[1:57:53] And we'll work with them hand in hand as we develop evidence,
[1:57:57] and as we uncover more detail as the case develops
[1:58:01] if we're able to charge this as a hate crime.
[1:58:03] and we absolutely will.
[1:58:05] Another thing I was going to ask Council
[1:58:08] if you would mark the date, June 24th,
[1:58:11] the week of June 24th, the Court,
[1:58:16] the Recovery Resource Center and Paul's Bo Police,
[1:58:20] are showcasing all of our services
[1:58:23] that we provide the city and are inviting Council
[1:58:27] during that week to take part in a series of events
[1:58:31] Where you'll be able to come in, find out more about each of those departments, ask questions,
[1:58:37] sign up for different segments of instruction.
[1:58:42] The way we're going to do this so that we can avoid creating a quorum is we're going to send you all an email
[1:58:48] with a full schedule of all the events that occur during that week so that you can see what you're able to attend
[1:58:54] and who's already attending or who's already signed up.
[1:58:57] So, we've got it pretty organized, we should be sending that out early next week.
[1:59:03] The other thing that I just wanted to highlight is that we have been working for several
[1:59:08] months with crime stoppers in relation to our homicide case.
[1:59:13] And they have been working very closely with the family of Nicholas Sarah to raise more
[1:59:20] of a reward than the typical that has offered through crime stoppers.
[1:59:24] that reward is up to $15,000.
[1:59:28] On Friday, there will be a film crew here
[1:59:32] from David Rose's Spotlight program
[1:59:36] to help us promote the Crime Stopper
[1:59:40] reward as well as do a segment on Nicholas Sarah.
[1:59:44] So we will be producing that on Friday.
[1:59:47] It should be on Fox 13, Friday evening,
[1:59:50] and in the following week, a story about Nicholas
[1:59:53] and his family will be aired on Spotlight, which I believe is also on 13.
[1:59:58] Just for your awareness.
[2:00:00] We know that that's coming. Thank you. Chief, with the crime stopper, I understand the reasoning why, but the sign that they put up there, Fin Hill, does seem to potentially obstruct people's view when they're trying to turn. Is there a better, could we? I know that location has meaning to the crime, but if there's a safer place to put that, that can be looked at. Every time I come off that road, I have a little concern about that.
[2:00:29] Yeah, I think you're talking about the case that's actually the State Patrol's case from the time I three was the crime stopper sign.
[2:00:36] It's up there in Fintail. So if you were talking to crime stoppers, yeah, just I worry every time I come through that that someone's going
[2:00:44] to have an obstructed view and we're going to end up with something else happening there because of that sign.
[2:00:49] All right, so, gotcha.
[2:00:52] Chief, we had a citizen during citizen comments who made at least one allegation about some video of the pride banner
[2:01:05] to face meant being available in our police department has not done anything to track it down.
[2:01:12] Is there anything to light you can shed on that just to put it to bed?
[2:01:15] But yeah, we're soliciting all the businesses downtown to share a video with us if they have it.
[2:01:22] So we've got a detective assigned to this case that's soliciting that from the business owners directly.
[2:01:31] Absolutely.
[2:01:34] Can I just go ahead?
[2:01:35] This is a little bit tangential, but I want the public to know that I sent an email to a couple council members and
[2:01:43] to chief regarding the event that's being hosted by the NAACP on June 15th, Monday 5-7
[2:01:52] PM.
[2:01:54] I'm going to be going, if there is anybody available from the police department, I think
[2:01:59] that would be really beneficial.
[2:02:00] I've already signed up and forwarded it on to command staff, so we'll have some other people
[2:02:04] there as well.
[2:02:05] Thank you.
[2:02:07] Oh, did I say it's on Monday.
[2:02:10] I think maybe June 17th.
[2:02:14] 17, maybe?
[2:02:15] Yeah.
[2:02:15] Sorry.
[2:02:16] 17.
[2:02:16] Yes.
[2:02:18] Thank you.
[2:02:19] Thank you.
[2:02:20] Go ahead.
[2:02:21] I just want to update you a little bit on the B&O tax and where we were at.
[2:02:25] We sent out almost 4,000 postcards.
[2:02:28] I have received several returned in the mail.
[2:02:30] So we're going to find out businesses that are no longer located in the city
[2:02:33] that was still listed on the state system.
[2:02:36] I am building several phone calls and emails almost daily.
[2:02:39] So people are getting the information and asking the questions and coming back to us and
[2:02:43] just not forgetting that this is a brand new tax for the city and we are learning as well.
[2:02:48] So we are reading ordinances and rules and I'm reaching out to our partners, cities who
[2:02:52] have, you know, to help answer the questions if I'm not fully understanding them and making
[2:02:57] sure we're not giving incorrect answers but don't forget that we are learning along with
[2:03:01] everybody else.
[2:03:02] The software that the file local is developing for online filing, they are now good to go
[2:03:07] after we approved that contract, they are developing it, it will be released probably
[2:03:12] not to the city until the middle of August for us to start testing and then it won't
[2:03:17] be available to the public until September. We are in the process of hiring our employee
[2:03:21] and once they come on board we will be doing some public outreach and scheduling, some workshops
[2:03:26] probably in city hall or through Zoom to help filers who may not where the applications
[2:03:32] might not be similar to follow but I'm hoping the applications when we see an online
[2:03:37] and it's a user-friendly and fairly easy to file.
[2:03:40] I think where we get confused is when we start paying taxes
[2:03:43] to other jurisdictions and the activities taking place.
[2:03:46] So we're all getting on board with that.
[2:03:48] But we are trying to do our best.
[2:03:49] And so people are becoming aware, and you can pass the word on.
[2:03:52] Some not so happy and some very understanding.
[2:03:55] And so we're just moving forward.
[2:04:00] Thank you, Mayor.
[2:04:02] So it's already June.
[2:04:04] I have to understand that we're approaching, finally,
[2:04:07] pretty good handle on carry forward.
[2:04:09] and balances. When might the council be informed of such? Do you have that on your schedule, Debbie?
[2:04:14] It is on tonight's agenda, and I will be the last item on, and it will be a very late night for you. That's why we're feeding you.
[2:04:23] Hey, Deb, thank you for engaging me. It's one of your citizens asking you questions about the B&O tax. I'll just say that, you know, having walked through it.
[2:04:35] Even though we had a healthy discussion, there's enough unknowns that what information needs
[2:04:41] to be collected starting in one July, I don't have to file a October, but I have to start
[2:04:46] putting things in certain pieces to be able to do that finally.
[2:04:49] I eat business inside city limits, commissions for sale of a house outside, how do we break
[2:04:55] call this up. I'm glad you're going to have workshop.
[2:05:00] I think we've got a steep road to climb in this standpoint to get understanding. The other piece of this, in just talking to the CPI, they didn't, we weren't aware yet of it. And we need, we should strongly consider, I would recommend that for businesses under maybe $100,000 in annual business that we looked maybe not do quarterly filing. My quarterly amount would be $40 to $50.
[2:05:29] dollars, and my accountant's going to charge me $100 to file it, if that's the kind of, because of it.
[2:05:36] So, learning curve debt, I just, none of this is new.
[2:05:41] I'm just sharing this with the council, is that there is a burden on us to come up to speed, and
[2:05:46] there's a burden to maintain over time.
[2:05:49] And I just think we need to be flexible as we try to figure this out together.
[2:05:52] And that's the intention is to be flexible.
[2:05:56] The ordinance was written that it was either monthly, annually, or quarterly filings.
[2:06:01] So we have that capacity to change that.
[2:06:04] The forms are being set up and the intention of quarterly because that's what most filers
[2:06:09] will say.
[2:06:10] Yeah, most filers, most filers will file quarterly, but the ordinance was written.
[2:06:14] And we are going to set up some factors where it's easy to file annually.
[2:06:19] When we talked about it at council, that's what we had said as well is it might be more
[2:06:24] beneficial to filers, to file annual, because they are paying that fee.
[2:06:28] Not only your paying just $38, you're going to pay a $4 online filing fee, plus your credit
[2:06:32] card fee.
[2:06:33] So we are going to either set some parameter limits if your income is below a certain threshold
[2:06:38] or above a certain threshold and sometimes just by request only in granting those.
[2:06:42] So I have been taking note because I have requests that said I would prefer to file annually.
[2:06:46] So I'm gathering all those and then we'll set up the criteria and it might be just through an application process
[2:06:51] But I'm a little short-handed in my department right now, so we're trying to get as much done as we can
[2:06:57] Understand that I just yeah, but we're you've got
[2:07:00] 4,000 people trying to figure this out. Yeah, absolutely, and we're all short-handed in the space because none of us have and
[2:07:07] That's why I'm taking phone calls and emails daily and trying to answer as quickly as possible
[2:07:11] If you're a business owner in the Washington state, you're used to feeling in these forms because you feel them out for the state of Washington.
[2:07:18] And so-
[2:07:19] Yeah, annually.
[2:07:21] I feel mine out, annually, and it's pretty easy.
[2:07:23] And pretty straight.
[2:07:23] This came out quarterly, and it's got a calculation to it, business insights to the limits and not.
[2:07:29] So there's additional data that needs to be collected that we're not used to collecting.
[2:07:32] Okay.
[2:07:33] As individual LLCs.
[2:07:34] Whether it be as a consultant or as a realtor, there is stuff that's different that we haven't
[2:07:41] seen before.
[2:07:42] I'm just sharing.
[2:07:43] All right.
[2:07:43] I used to kind of do this kind of stuff for the outlet.
[2:07:46] That's right.
[2:07:47] Okay.
[2:07:48] Who's next?
[2:07:50] Just so you know, if you're not aware Heather is out of the office until June 20th.
[2:07:55] So if you have any director-level questions or concerns for some odd reasons, you put
[2:08:00] me in charge.
[2:08:01] So go ahead and direct those to me and then also I just want to make a plug because it's construction season and we're reviewing quite a few projects there's lots of rumors lots of narrative about projects.
[2:08:13] Please direct anyone to contact our staff directly we're happy to answer any questions we have all the information in the world we're very transparent about ongoing construction projects for development and highly recommend that anyone who's interested to sign up for our monthly newsletter because we put all of that information in there.
[2:08:31] So I'm really grateful that you're filling in.
[2:08:35] That's cool.
[2:08:36] With Heather being on for a couple of weeks.
[2:08:38] So this is our interim planning director while she's gone.
[2:08:42] So thank you.
[2:08:43] Go ahead.
[2:08:44] Okay.
[2:08:45] So just really quick to tag on to what Nicole was saying.
[2:08:49] So I think everybody's aware Oslo has started this week.
[2:08:52] They're at the corner of a 305 and Viking,
[2:08:56] the large multi family development that's going on there.
[2:09:00] So Heather and Nicole in the planning department did a great job and put together a very great website about that project in particular about some of the facts about it in the history.
[2:09:13] So if there's any questions because I know that we've already received some recommend going to that website that's available on our city's website to check out that project.
[2:09:24] I also wanted to mention that the Nordic cottages, so just a reminder, we opened bids on Monday, so that'll be exciting.
[2:09:33] And then of interest, we did just recently get a request from the Eliasin Development here at the end of Front Street and Third to close the sidewalk in front of their building as part of their improvements.
[2:09:47] We knew that it would happen at some point.
[2:09:50] So the request that they put in for pedestrian traffic control is to close the sidewalk along the front of their building starting next week.
[2:10:02] So we will have them place quite a bit of signage in D2 or for the pedestrian to the other side of the street at appropriate crossings. And I know you guys are aware. The Evanna Heimer project is supposed to start up here any time. So we're working with both developers to make sure that we're coordinating because a sidewalk or pedestrian route must remain open at all times through there.
[2:10:26] So that will be something that will be ongoing through the summer.
[2:10:32] Thanks, Josh.
[2:10:33] Good.
[2:10:36] I had a pleasure to attend the grape and insulin conservancy and also fish line gallows.
[2:10:41] And there's some potential partnerships with GPC.
[2:10:43] City was recognized by fish line for our partnerships with the Recreation for All Program and outreach
[2:10:48] over at the Rec Center and a number of our initiatives, so very thankful to those organizations.
[2:10:54] If you didn't have a chance to attend it on May 29th, we did our first National Senior Health
[2:11:00] I'm pretty darn good attendants too, and got some great feedback, so we're going to continue that going forth.
[2:11:05] That had three fitness classes, educational classes and courses.
[2:11:10] And then, also just wanted to give a shout out to Public Works,
[2:11:14] Polesville Rotary Club and our Fire Department for the AED.
[2:11:18] So those are now installed at four of our parks.
[2:11:20] And we've already received, we've been, Rotary let me know, a community member reached out and said,
[2:11:25] Thank you. This is going to save lives. And that was within days, just want to say thanks to public works and those organizations for what they've done.
[2:11:33] And lastly, you may have noticed, but the sign came down. When I say the sign, it's the one of our community banner signs on 305 between Viking and Bond.
[2:11:44] So we're very thankful for public works for taking a look at that. We're putting some improvements into place. And I found out that carpenter ants made that quite dangerous.
[2:11:54] So that came down that day for a safety concern, and we're working at replacing it.
[2:11:58] So you may not see some advertising on the two highway banners for this month while they get upgraded, just as a heads up.
[2:12:06] Oh, and everybody's busy with grants, so it's grant season right now, in case you're wondering.
[2:12:10] Go ahead.
[2:12:11] Thanks, thanks, Jeff.
[2:12:14] Anything new on the indoor pickleball facility that made the presentation to us,
[2:12:20] and sounds like it's in the private sector is going to take care of that.
[2:12:27] Mayor, do you want me to share updates?
[2:12:28] Okay. Great. And thank you, Council Member.
[2:12:31] We've been keeping things fairly low. There was a conversation with those enemies
[2:12:36] after the presentation of a private party that I'm not going to name, but a private business came
[2:12:40] in and expressed interest in actually moving into the office max space.
[2:12:45] So that is a private business that would then renovate it and open up indoor pickable
[2:12:49] facility. It is, government should be complete peating with private businesses, so we took
[2:12:55] a big step back from this and said, all right, take, you know, if this works out, great,
[2:13:00] but cities here to entertain discussions on feasibility if this doesn't work out. What we heard
[2:13:06] from Clay Roberts, who presented to Council, is those discussions are moving forth right now
[2:13:15] with that private entity, and it looks quite likely, that's as much detail as I, as the
[2:13:20] mayor and I have from those updates.
[2:13:22] And that's recent as about a week or so ago, two weeks, two weeks ago, that entity did
[2:13:29] update their website.
[2:13:30] So they are planning on doing something there, and we should hear about it.
[2:13:34] In the meantime, Councilmember, we are working with our local pickable group to just improve
[2:13:39] our certain courts.
[2:13:40] We haven't touched a rob, we haven't touched a lion's, but we are pressure washing and striping
[2:13:44] the Rec Center. So we're starting there and then you'll hear about more community outreach soon.
[2:13:48] So we're taking care of our own parks at the moment.
[2:14:02] Just real quick I just want to let everybody know
[2:14:05] and everybody that's watching on June 19th the holiday the parking garage will be closed. We're
[2:14:11] going to be doing some meetings down there restriping it and changing out the lights to LEDs. So
[2:14:15] anybody in town that likes to come and park down there they won't have the opportunity.
[2:14:20] Also, just a heads up, June 1st was when Gambit recovery officially took over the maintenance
[2:14:31] duties at Nelson Park, so they're in there, they're going now, I believe it's only the
[2:14:36] one guy in there right now named Alex, very nice guy, I don't think they've gotten any
[2:14:41] residents in there yet, but we're looking forward to seeing how that goes, so that's it.
[2:14:47] All right. Thanks, Mike. You want to talk about your road ceiling and the fact that
[2:14:54] next week. Oh, is that next week? Okay. Update on neighborhood streets next week.
[2:15:00] But the bucket truck should be here tomorrow.
[2:15:04] I'd like to tighten really quick on Josh's report about the bid opening for Nordic cottages. Just so you know, we have filled out our application to go with the State Treasures Office in their debt issue. And so we are filling out the application. We will be coming forward counsel for approval to submit that. We are waiting for the final price from the cottages to come in. So you will see that on a future agenda. But that is how we intend to fund those receiving a lower interest rate through the
[2:15:29] state and not utilizing internal funds and that way it avoids some of the timing issues
[2:15:34] we're having with the collaborating on all into one issue okay anybody anybody else okay
[2:15:44] questions and concerns the council yeah I had a couple I guess mayor no just just one
[2:15:53] right now as I mentioned earlier I just thought you know I know I have a full agenda tonight
[2:16:00] So I don't want to take too much time for this, but I just wanted to sort of tee up a conversation about
[2:16:05] improving downtown safety and security
[2:16:09] beyond the pride banner
[2:16:13] defacing. I know the mayor has mentioned to me at least the one or two
[2:16:18] assaults that have taken place downtown where we
[2:16:20] some security camera footage would have been very helpful
[2:16:24] in solving those crimes.
[2:16:28] The mirror and I talked a little bit about, you know, what might that look like if we could try to add some more cameras downtown.
[2:16:34] I think we need to, of course, consult with the city attorney.
[2:16:38] There is some potential, you know, legal issues involved there.
[2:16:42] We could get a challenge from some groups over it if the city were to own the cameras.
[2:16:49] But I'm wondering, you know, I think we need to have a conversation about it.
[2:16:52] So I guess I just wanted to see if my colleagues are also interested in that conversation and if we should put it on a workshop agenda for the next one to two weeks upcoming meetings, it seems to me at a minimum, there are some things perhaps we could do to encourage more of the private business owners down to put in security cameras that we could access if having city owned cameras is going to be a potential legal issue, but I think we do need to look into that.
[2:17:19] So I just know I think that we need people to feel safer than they do down there right now in some cases
[2:17:28] and busy summer season coming up and so we might be asked the mayor to work with the police department to come in with some recommendations for council to consider.
[2:17:37] I'm not sure the best way to approach it, but I wanted to raise the issue and see how we best might further the discussion.
[2:17:46] Rick's next, and then you,
[2:17:49] okay. Are you responding to it yet?
[2:17:50] Yeah, I was just comparing with Gary and that there's, you know, in conversation with
[2:17:56] officer Black over the weekend, he specifically mentioned that it would be really helpful to have
[2:18:01] a few well-placed cameras, and it's not just about the pride flags, you know, we've heard
[2:18:06] about these assaults. There are, I work on that, you know, what we call dysfunction junction.
[2:18:12] and the four-way stop, there's many near misses
[2:18:18] of pedestrian versus car.
[2:18:20] There's just a lot going on down there
[2:18:22] and of all the time.
[2:18:24] So, I understand some of the challenges
[2:18:26] that go along with it, but I would like to have
[2:18:28] a conversation as well.
[2:18:32] Yeah, and I would just say one thing we need to make sure
[2:18:34] we're going into it is are we looking for prevention
[2:18:37] or prosecution, you know, what's the goal of the cameras?
[2:18:40] because it's very different if you're looking for somebody to be able to respond
[2:18:44] real-time based on what they see on that. That's manning for chief. So first
[2:18:48] watching a camera after the fact to prosecute. I had one big thing I needed to
[2:18:54] bring up. I mentioned the 19th. You know, we were all invited down to
[2:18:59] Bremerton for the Juneteenth Observance. There was some confusion on the
[2:19:04] emails of what the actual day was. So I reached out and asked for clarification.
[2:19:09] it is the Saturday before which is the 15th and I know we were sending a
[2:19:14] proclamation down. I did indicate that I was planning to attend and so I was
[2:19:19] asked if I was going to read the proclamation. So what I let the organizer know
[2:19:25] is that she get tentatively penciled me in until I had a chance to run it by all
[2:19:29] of you before I volunteered to speak on our behalf without getting head
[2:19:33] and odds to say yes.
[2:19:35] So I'm aware of that date and conflicting with AWC
[2:19:39] on the actual holiday.
[2:19:41] That's also the date of the rotary Viking tour
[2:19:44] in Bruthess, and I plan to skip that,
[2:19:46] and I will be at Evergreen Park to support you.
[2:19:50] Yeah, so I'm definitely gonna go.
[2:19:51] I just, if the council's okay with,
[2:19:55] we're planning to send down the proclamation,
[2:19:58] but as far as reading it.
[2:19:59] Thank you.
[2:20:00] That's fine. Sounds good. Okay.
[2:20:04] Okay. Yeah, it's as long as one of us is willing. I just need to let her know. I didn't want to speak on our behalf without. And then speaking of the conference, I caught me off guard. So I don't know if you're real notice, but the last day of the conference, there is a separate registration event for a presentation by FEMA on the national incident management system, which with our discussion of an emergency manager seem pretty good.
[2:20:30] timely so I don't know if anyone else that's going or even just wants to come
[2:20:34] down for that was interested but it does require a separate registration so you
[2:20:40] have to let see clerk know it was pretty quick they registered me but it was
[2:20:46] in obvious they said when they registered us originally so they did have to
[2:20:51] reach back out so if you wanted to attend that last day it's pretty much the
[2:20:55] whole of the morning of the 19th about the National Incident Management System, which
[2:21:04] is something like Doug brought up on your time to discuss it before about trading certain
[2:21:08] levels, and he and I have both had some of this trading before.
[2:21:12] And then the last one is I was just going to put a plug in.
[2:21:16] Josh mentioned Oslo's starting and some Mara and Elmoth says those trees start to come down
[2:21:21] if that will be any further push we can use to have a meeting of the 307 committee on
[2:21:28] road because you know I've already heard folks talking worried about traffic that development
[2:21:35] will increase but maybe that's the impetus we need to get the county and the state to
[2:21:41] do something with to make that intersection or even a bypass happen certainly something
[2:21:47] to do better on bond roads so if we can at least get the committee to meet and start
[2:21:51] having conversations about how to make that better, maybe Oslo would be the starting point.
[2:21:57] And Mayor, I think Josh mentioned that some of the mitigation was improvements on
[2:22:02] the 305 corridor.
[2:22:06] I'd appreciate if he'd just give me a synopsis of what those are because people
[2:22:09] are going to be asking so we can say here's what is part of the project. It'd be helpful, Josh. Thanks.
[2:22:16] Yes, so primarily what they're doing is upgrading the controllers to the signals along 305 so
[2:22:24] that they can talk to each other and be a little bit better timed so that is supposed
[2:22:30] to mitigate their impact and delays at those intersections.
[2:22:35] So that will happen before they get a certificate of occupancy.
[2:22:40] So before anybody can move in there, they're required to complete those improvements on 305.
[2:22:47] Okay, and anybody else, Doug, do you have any comments to see, or comments to see evening at all?
[2:22:52] Anybody? No?
[2:22:56] I barely can hear you there, bud. No, okay. I'm going to make a comment on the cameras.
[2:23:03] I've told this to Brit. Maybe I'm a child of the 60s and the 70s, but I get a little nervous with
[2:23:08] government with cameras and we put them in some of our parks there's there's no doubt but
[2:23:16] I was when we did all the legislation regarding the body cameras the ACLU really pushed back
[2:23:24] hard on that they've been pushing back on cameras for years that's why they're just now
[2:23:30] getting them on anything other than red light cameras for highways so I'm just saying
[2:23:36] I mean, we need to not say no, I'm just saying we need to be thoughtful about how we do this and the policies surrounding cameras, you know, people like their privacy.
[2:23:48] And so, anyway, just put that out there because, as I said, maybe I'm getting too old and I remember the days where you really didn't want government cameras.
[2:23:59] Okay. Okay. That being said, let's move on to number three, which is C3-S-S-R-305
[2:24:08] code amendments, and this is Nicole.
[2:24:19] There's something wrong with this chair, but
[2:24:20] that's okay. We'll make it work. Good evening. So we're here for a workshop tonight
[2:24:27] for the C3-S-R-305 zoning code amendments. I'm just going to share the memo that
[2:24:34] you received just to kind of walk you through. I'm not going to repeat what I already said in the memo,
[2:24:39] but just a reminder that these code amendments come out of the moratorium that you passed in
[2:24:45] September of 2023 and it was a building moratorium specifically in C3 for vacant or underutilized
[2:24:51] properties parcels that are proposing multifamily could come in during that moratorium.
[2:25:00] So, what we've done over the last several months is evaluate some of the background information
[2:25:08] that we have, such as a market study that was conducted last year by a consultant looking
[2:25:13] at the topography of the 305 area. Really, kind of, we spent time walking multiple areas,
[2:25:21] just kind of getting a feel for it, so that's the kind of stuff that we do when we're thinking
[2:25:25] about code amendments, doing research about other jurisdictions, et cetera.
[2:25:29] So what we've concluded, and what we took through planning commission that you have in
[2:25:34] front of you tonight, is some strategic amendments to get us to a point where we feel like it
[2:25:41] could encourage some more additional residential units within mixed use buildings, and then release
[2:25:47] the moratorium at the same time, keeping in mind that you will see more amendments in
[2:25:53] regards to commercial zones and residential uses in probably early 2025 in correlation
[2:26:00] with our comprehensive plan and an update, comments of plan update as well.
[2:26:05] So some other items that we'll talk about in the future is the flex space.
[2:26:09] Of course, we'll bring that back forward and talk to you about that.
[2:26:13] We'll talk to you about multifamily tax exemptions in the future.
[2:26:16] So there's other items that we didn't include in this package because they're bigger conversations,
[2:26:20] but we felt like these were strategic items to bring forward to get the moratorium lifted.
[2:26:27] And the amendments are related specifically to two major items which is height.
[2:26:32] And that is with careful consideration of topography and what the lay of the land is along 305.
[2:26:39] And then also some strategic amendments to permitted uses.
[2:26:43] The parking reductions for this zone, they're very minor.
[2:26:47] they were already done when you adopted the college marketplace amendments last month because the
[2:26:53] code section for that applies to both zones. So weren't we didn't bring forward any additional
[2:26:58] parking proposals. Of note and Gary called me yesterday and asked me this question I wanted to
[2:27:05] make sure you're aware in regards to the height that there still is a code section that pertains to all
[2:27:11] of our city that you can't achieve an additional 10 foot in height above the 45 or 55 that we're
[2:27:19] proposing with under building parking. So that still is on the books for this zone. So there is
[2:27:25] a potential, so in the 45 foot height limit you could go to 55 with under building parking in the
[2:27:31] 55 foot height limit you go to 65. So just want to make sure. Yes, of course.
[2:27:41] Bring this up because I
[2:27:42] it's relevant to the proposed development near my house but is there a
[2:27:48] distinction between under building and underground? No it's just under
[2:27:53] building so the Sophie also utilize that code section as well it's not
[2:27:57] underground it's under building that's a way to encourage less pavement in
[2:28:04] terms of parking spaces. No I understand that yeah yeah it's just it's it's the
[2:28:09] And the code says under building.
[2:28:11] Yeah, so that code section still applies.
[2:28:13] I just wanted to make sure that you were clear about that.
[2:28:17] Thanks, Mary.
[2:28:19] Nicole, thank you for I've spent quite a bit of time with this.
[2:28:24] I think the recommendations look good.
[2:28:26] Appreciate the work by you and staff and
[2:28:29] Heather and our planning commission.
[2:28:32] I had one concern I wanted to discuss.
[2:28:37] and that is early in the document it talks about the market study that the
[2:28:43] consultant did for us and one of their recommendations in the C3 was that we
[2:28:49] allow for developments to go right up to the sidewalk in the front. It's
[2:28:56] essentially kind of making it a bit more look like downtown in some respects and
[2:29:02] And I talked with Nicole about this the other day, I guess planning commission did discuss
[2:29:08] that, but it is in here right now that we're proposing is different than what this consultant
[2:29:15] suggested.
[2:29:17] And that is to have a 15-foot minimum in the front yard.
[2:29:23] And so I'm a little concerned about that, you know, if we're trying to encourage some development
[2:29:30] in this area, and we know the challenges of the slope and other challenges in this area.
[2:29:37] I talked with Nicole about the prospect of changing that 15 feet to 10 feet.
[2:29:44] She thought that could be workable, and so I just thought I'd like to have a brief conversation about that
[2:29:49] if people have objections to that, because I think it could help make a difference for us.
[2:29:53] And I looked at some of the properties over there, and it seemed like the 10 feet would still work well.
[2:29:58] Thank you very much.
[2:30:00] With the idea with like a 15 or even a 10-foot setback, be that you're going to be able to include some landscaping elements that kind of soften. Yeah, so it would that be possible to 10 feet. So there were. Now I suddenly forgot if the see three zones required to do landscaping. I believe yes, they are. Sorry downtown isn't required to do landscaping. But projects in this area are also required to do like plazas type of entry type.
[2:30:29] thing so the 15 feet lens itself to that a little bit more but going down to 10 or even 5 gives some flexibility to what
[2:30:37] That might look like we could still like one part of the building could have a plaza
[2:30:40] But then the other part could be closer to the street
[2:30:43] So our goal is always to provide some flexibility and how the site is designed
[2:30:47] So I think that could lend itself well to that
[2:30:51] Yeah, that was the only thing that I saw too and
[2:30:56] Not just because the recommendation was to make it less
[2:30:59] but that we have 10 feet on biking avenue already and I was really surprised that we would
[2:31:06] have more of a setback on 305 than we do on biking. So yeah, I definitely think at a minimum,
[2:31:13] we should make 305 10 feet to match biking and possibly we could certainly maintain lower,
[2:31:21] but I think 10 feet at least is reasonable when we look at what those two roads consist of and
[2:31:29] 305 is certainly more of a through way,
[2:31:33] whereas inviting this more of a stop and go,
[2:31:38] I can't see 305 having more setback than the other.
[2:31:41] So, Doug has made a point a couple of times too
[2:31:46] about in a perfect world, we'd be consistent
[2:31:51] to make it easy for the development community and staff
[2:31:54] so we don't have a lot of ups and downs
[2:31:56] and sort of different regulations and different zones.
[2:31:59] And sometimes that's necessary, but I think Rick raises a good point, and if I think further
[2:32:04] sort of in my mind makes the argument for change in this to 10 feet.
[2:32:08] Okay.
[2:32:09] Sarah general.
[2:32:10] Agreed?
[2:32:10] Great.
[2:32:13] Just a general question from the standpoint, we talk about 45 feet, we talk about 55 feet.
[2:32:20] Can you translate that for the lay person's and building?
[2:32:24] How many floors do we think we're going to get out of 55 feet?
[2:32:28] So 35 feet, you're looking at three floors, 45 feet, four floors, and that's generally
[2:32:34] with a, with, you expect to see 10 foot floor to floor?
[2:32:39] It could be yes.
[2:32:40] That's what we're seeing for mix, for mix juice though, the first floor would be likely
[2:32:46] a 12 foot ceiling, and then it could be as low as 8 foot ceilings for the residential.
[2:32:50] Okay, so would be floor to floor of 14 feet on the first floor and then a little shorter,
[2:32:54] And then that might lend itself a little bit more to flat roofs because you don't have as much room
[2:32:59] But we are talking amongst our staff is currently discussing how we measure high and looking at that again to encourage more pitch roofs
[2:33:06] But that'll be before you add a later time, but we are looking at that
[2:33:10] So just kind of take a step back of course
[2:33:14] Four to five story buildings. Yes, four to five. Okay. Absolutely. Say that out loud
[2:33:20] I know I just want to make sure we talk and feed, but yeah, in visual I think Doug
[2:33:27] you're wise because people are listening to this. We're talking four to five stories.
[2:33:31] Yeah, okay. That's what we're talking about. We currently allow three to four. So thank
[2:33:36] you.
[2:33:37] I have a question about the setbacks. Is there any way we can average them? In other words,
[2:33:43] the average 10 feet and that way you can have some that go in and out and give you a little
[2:33:48] more. Yeah yeah I've seen the plaza yeah I mean I've seen that before I could
[2:33:55] write it in there as an app like in our residential low zone for example we say
[2:34:00] 15 feet total so it could be seven and a half and seven and a half or five and
[2:34:05] 10 so we give that flexibility in our residential low so we could do something
[2:34:09] like that in the front yard and just say an average of I mean you could have one
[2:34:14] section of the building coming right out to the sidewalk flush and then that would allow
[2:34:19] that would allow you to build a really nice kind of a plaza area to move the other
[2:34:25] parts out.
[2:34:26] I think that's not about idea.
[2:34:27] I mean does that come down to discretion of the planning department as to where that
[2:34:33] tool would be best utilized because I can think of some places where it might be less desirable.
[2:34:40] So it would be specific to, I mean it would be again this is getting away from one
[2:34:44] to be consistent. I wouldn't want to, at this point, change the way we measure setbacks
[2:34:50] for everything. Yeah. It would be just for this zone, for this setback. So maybe that's something
[2:34:56] that we can look at a little further and bring back to you.
[2:35:00] When we bring more amendments to you early next year, because that's a great idea. I just don't know what that looks like exactly. I would really like the idea of having like a good wide sidewalk, then almost a plaza area in front of a building, but then the building can go way out to the sidewalk again on one side. Yeah, I think an average may says, but I would suggest that if we if we make 305 a 10 foot average, we also make liking a 10 foot average. Yeah, so I think that's something best to bring back at a later time after we have time to look at what that means and other because it tends to
[2:35:29] the pool of thread sometimes of the rest of the code?
[2:35:34] Okay, Doug, go ahead.
[2:35:35] Yeah, and just the only thing I know you said you're going to come back on multi-family
[2:35:38] tech, the assumption, just I think it's an interesting tool.
[2:35:45] Glad you're going to come back.
[2:35:47] There's a lot to be discussed regarding it.
[2:35:49] Planning Commission had a very robust discussion and did not recommend bringing it forward
[2:35:53] to City Council.
[2:35:55] However, it's a part of the code.
[2:35:56] That was two years ago.
[2:35:57] That was two years ago.
[2:35:58] So it's a part of the code that the Planning Commission actually doesn't have any recommending authority over for City Council.
[2:36:04] What part didn't hear what you said, the MFTE, the multi-family task time time?
[2:36:07] We looked at it hard two years ago and did-
[2:36:09] Lots of good questions, lots of good discussion, but we do intend to bring it to Council to be able to have that same discussion.
[2:36:15] It's the only way we're going to get affordability.
[2:36:17] Garry's a man, really.
[2:36:19] I understand it, and I get, you know, getting our head around, what do we do and what do we expect the responses, you know.
[2:36:27] I mean, we can't exempt everybody from paying taxes for 12 years.
[2:36:31] Yeah, it would be a very strategic sort of fun.
[2:36:35] Walk us through that, because it's more complicated, my little brain can handle.
[2:36:40] And that's one of the things I know at your retreat, Heather shared kind of the matrixes we
[2:36:45] put together about housing, and we're basically taking walking through the tools that are available
[2:36:50] and bringing them to you, and then that's a decision you can make if you want to adopt
[2:36:53] that tool.
[2:36:54] So we're going to keep doing that.
[2:36:55] Yeah.
[2:36:55] I have so.
[2:36:56] Go ahead, Greg.
[2:36:58] Yeah, I just took one other question and it's very minor.
[2:37:01] I know when we were talking about Alhava, we talked about storage and I think it was,
[2:37:05] so in here we talk about self-served mini storage.
[2:37:09] So that's when it's a dedicated storage facility, right?
[2:37:12] Not storage associated with another business.
[2:37:15] Self-service mini storage in any capacity is not permitted in the C3 zone currently.
[2:37:21] So, if someone puts in a apartment building in a high store, this is a separate
[2:37:27] just dedicated, okay.
[2:37:28] So, like, what's across from town and country?
[2:37:31] Yes.
[2:37:31] Okay.
[2:37:32] Stand-alone warehouse type storage is not permitted.
[2:37:35] And so, what we have, the footnote is that basically any that exists now can stay.
[2:37:40] Yes.
[2:37:41] What would happen if, in some redevelopment of 305, one of those existing properties
[2:37:46] wants to modify what's there, would they be limited then because this says it's prohibited?
[2:37:52] Yeah, so they would fall under our nonconforming code section, which has some bumpers around it basically.
[2:37:59] You can do some work, but you can't expand the existing nonconformity.
[2:38:04] You can do maintenance and work and stuff like that.
[2:38:07] So they can potentially take part of the property that's currently self-service and turn it into something else?
[2:38:12] Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[2:38:15] But it wouldn't be like, no, it's cell service, if you touch it, the whole thing has to shut down.
[2:38:21] They could carve out a section and put an apartment building in there.
[2:38:24] There's likely a way that they could do that, yes.
[2:38:26] Yeah.
[2:38:27] Okay.
[2:38:28] Any more questions for Nicole?
[2:38:29] This is beautiful work.
[2:38:30] Thank you.
[2:38:31] I'll be back.
[2:38:32] On the 26th with the public hearing.
[2:38:33] Well done.
[2:38:34] Okay.
[2:38:34] Thank you very much.
[2:38:36] Okay.
[2:38:36] So now we have Carla and the Perk.
[2:38:42] That's a novel, Carla in the perk, that's a novel title.
[2:38:46] It does, it does, it sounds like a book title.
[2:39:03] All right, well good evening, City Council, Mayor Erickson, so I'm Carla Bowton, and I am the special project planner here at the city.
[2:39:13] And with me is Josh Reigns, our city engineer, and we're here to talk to you about the perk in our local agreement between the city of Paul's Bow and the Kitsat Public Facility District,
[2:39:22] which is a funding agreement.
[2:39:27] This project, as you know, has been on the city's capital improvement plan
[2:39:35] in a scale, more scale down version for over 20 years
[2:39:38] and has been something that we've been working with
[2:39:41] four and towards for the last six years.
[2:39:44] So it is actually a bit of a short, how about an expanded short story
[2:39:50] But it is my pleasure actually to be before you tonight with yet another step and those
[2:39:57] as if you've been along the park journey.
[2:40:00] I know that the saying that I started at the beginning is we're going to take the next step, as long as there was another step to take. And so we are here, again, with an important step, which is the funding interlocal agreement between the City of Palsville and Kitsat Public Facility District. In your packet, there's a cover memo and then the interlocal agreement that has been reviewed and approved by the KPFD.
[2:40:27] I'm going to go ahead and make a few introductory comments about the annual
[2:40:32] agreement. I have it ready to bring up on the screen if there are specific
[2:40:35] sections that you want to speak about, but I won't put it up unless we need to.
[2:40:44] We will go ahead and do that then. Thank you. So highlights, so I want to start off by
[2:40:54] saying that this interlocal agreement was drafted in full coordination and cooperation
[2:41:00] with the Ketat Public Facility District.
[2:41:03] We started in January of 2024 where the mayor and staff met with the KPFD executive
[2:41:11] director and their executive board to discuss and agree upon the framework for the ILA.
[2:41:19] and then the city did provide the first draft at the end of 2024 and there was
[2:41:24] quite a bit of review on the interlocal agreement that was done between the
[2:41:28] parties. Legal counsel for both parties reviewed it. Our financial advisors
[2:41:34] reviewed it. Debbie, our finance instructor, city administrator was intimately involved.
[2:41:42] Josh was a dinlinious was so our city attorney Emily was so we had a lot of eyes on that on our side
[2:41:49] But the PFD did too and the reason it took maybe longer than we expected was because this is and I say this with a little bit of pride
[2:41:57] We are the first funding interlocal agreement from the 2018 call of projects that they made so the PFD was actually making sure their their eyes were
[2:42:08] dotted in their T's were crossed when crafting this ILA because they will be using this as
[2:42:15] a template for their other projects moving forward.
[2:42:20] So highlights of the interlocal agreement are just takes forever.
[2:42:26] Oh, sorry.
[2:42:27] I was just saying so while this project has been going on for as long as we said it was,
[2:42:33] we're not really behind other projects that were awarded that same year.
[2:42:37] That's correct. We are the first.
[2:42:39] I like that.
[2:42:41] I like that too.
[2:42:43] So the some highlights for your note for our notation is that if you recall in the feasibility
[2:42:51] study, we had a preliminary assessment of 11.7 million and we have adjusted it to 13 million
[2:42:58] for $20.25. That does represent a funding split of 8.71 million to the KPFD and the city
[2:43:06] at 4.29 million. The KPFD spent a lot of time talking with us about what the total cost was
[2:43:15] going to be to them inclusive of interest. And that's actually when Debbie and her, the
[2:43:21] city's financial advisor and the PFD financial advisor got together to talk about it. And the reason
[2:43:26] is because the PFD really needed to know they were doing their financial modeling. They have two other
[2:43:32] projects that they've committed funding to, they wanted to know kind of what the
[2:43:36] all-in game was going to be for them so that they could then do budgeting for
[2:43:41] their other two projects. So that did result in a number of attachments that are
[2:43:48] to the interlocal agreement and attachment D in particular as a financial
[2:43:52] estimate. That's basically an amortization table that goes out from 20, 25, yes
[2:43:59] to, you know, for 20 years.
[2:44:04] It assumes a 4.5 interest rate, which is what our financial advisors recommended that
[2:44:09] we assumed to be conservative, but Debbie shares me that during the bonding crisis interest
[2:44:15] rates can be negotiated.
[2:44:17] And so we're hoping that there might be an opportunity for some cost savings with that process.
[2:44:23] Yes. What that does result in, though, is the PFD did agree to an approximate 10.3 million
[2:44:29] all-in and have stipulated that in the interlocal agreement, so that is inclusive of that 4.5
[2:44:37] interest rate. Then there are other attachments to the ILA. We have attachment B outlines the
[2:44:44] high-level tasks, up to construction, and then attachment C is the budget summary. So the
[2:44:51] proposed this this ILA was presented to the public facilities district board
[2:44:57] The board of directors, April 29th.
[2:45:00] The city was very well represented at that meeting. We had the mayor council member Newell was there, Debbie or city administrator, Josh, Jeff, our park structure, and then myself. And so there was a bit of discussion. They had some new board members that hadn't been along for the full ride of from the beginning of the 2018 call for projects, the process that their board went through and selecting the project.
[2:45:29] projects, and so we took the time to kind of tell the whole story about their own process
[2:45:37] and our piece of their story as well. So with all that at their conclusion, they did
[2:45:43] approve the ILA, they did have two changes that they wanted to make. One is they wanted
[2:45:49] to have an attorney fees clause in case we have a disagreement, which I don't think we
[2:45:55] will. But mostly they wanted to make sure we were going to do what we said we were going
[2:45:59] to do. And even though I would say that we have consistently shown them that we are doing
[2:46:05] what we're saying we're doing, they have had some negative experience with other agencies
[2:46:11] that may promises that they didn't fulfill and so they did put a clause in our interlocal
[2:46:16] agreement that we will be out to award a construction contract by December 31st, 2025,
[2:46:23] or the ILA will terminate.
[2:46:28] And there's some caveats about that meaning if we have outstanding invoices that, you know,
[2:46:33] two consultants that they'll pay for it and all that.
[2:46:35] So it's not a hard, we're going to quit everything.
[2:46:38] But what they are communicating to the city is that we want you to do this project
[2:46:43] and we're expecting you to do this project.
[2:46:46] And so Josh and I are here before you tonight to answer any questions
[2:46:51] questions that you have about the interlocal agreement and hopefully move forward with the
[2:46:55] project.
[2:47:01] This is literally years in the making and
[2:47:06] some crying, I think, the gnashing of teeth and
[2:47:10] jumping up and down and just, you know, it's been quite a wild ride.
[2:47:17] I want to thank you, Carla, for all of the hard work you've done on this.
[2:47:21] Carla has been masterful in putting this all together.
[2:47:25] You, Josh, and Diane's not here, but both of you and supportive rules that you've been.
[2:47:29] It's been a heck of a ride and Heather as well, she's not here, but it's Mary and Mary and Dan.
[2:47:39] I mean, this has been a long time coming, so it's very good work and I'm really proud to present this tonight to you guys, really.
[2:47:48] Go ahead, Gary.
[2:47:50] Thank you, Mary.
[2:47:50] there. Yeah, this is exciting. I, one thing I just wanted to kind of raise, I know with
[2:47:59] there had been some previous discussions about given some of our other needs in the city,
[2:48:04] for instance, rebuilding or shorting up the boardwalk along Liberty Bay, repairing, replacing,
[2:48:16] the Oyster Plant Dock, there had been some discussion about packaging, bonding, as I understood it, with the Perth project, and I talked with Deb about this the other day, and my understanding is that we and the facilities district would prefer, as I understand it, that this project, the bonding for this remains separate, and that we would, if we're packaging other bonds together for some of our
[2:48:45] our infrastructure needs that there would be ample opportunity to put some things together separate and distinct from the perk.
[2:48:52] So I just wanted to share that with my colleagues, I'm comfortable with that, I think it makes a great deal of sense.
[2:49:01] And you know, I look through the documents, I really don't have any concerns, I know it's been well-vetted, I know, I think we've talked previously about the deadline that the facilities just put in there.
[2:49:15] of December 31st, 2025 is doable, right?
[2:49:18] We don't have concerns about that.
[2:49:20] Is that right, Josh?
[2:49:21] That's correct.
[2:49:22] Okay.
[2:49:23] I would just like to take the opportunity.
[2:49:25] That's why we came forward also with the engineering position is because as Carla is stepping
[2:49:31] back to support this, she did all the hard work to get it here, engineering is taking it and
[2:49:36] managing the project through design and construction.
[2:49:39] Okay.
[2:49:40] Appreciate you mentioning that.
[2:49:41] How we coming on fill in that position, by the way?
[2:49:43] Well, we're going to talk a little bit more about that here later in the new
[2:49:46] January.
[2:49:46] Okay.
[2:49:47] All right.
[2:49:47] Okay.
[2:49:48] Good.
[2:49:49] So, yes, I'm very supportive and moving forward with this, you know, six years plus
[2:49:54] in the making, let's get going.
[2:49:58] Sadie it.
[2:49:59] Thumbs up.
[2:50:00] So, everybody?
[2:50:03] Well, I also was kind of, I got really excited when I was reading the materials again and, you know, some people just kind of wanted to classify this as just the two athletic fields. There's so much more that we're going to do up there. If you really look at it, you know, and so I think it's very exciting and I think it'll be a terrific amenity for the community. Thank you. Thank you, Council. We will put it on next week's council.
[2:50:29] Yeah, consent agenda yeah, just with Gary would say I'm just going to take a quick second to do that
[2:50:35] multi you two multi-use artificial tourist force fields
[2:50:39] sports courts which includes at least one basketball court and four pickle pickle ball courts
[2:50:45] a nature playground the entry plaza
[2:50:48] terrace seating outdoor fire pit
[2:50:50] front site furnishings which is benches and rest areas shelters
[2:50:55] for picnic's and teams and restroom and concessions.
[2:50:59] This is way more than two soccer fields, so.
[2:51:02] Good job, great work.
[2:51:05] Look forward to seeing the final design plans and exactly what it's going to look like.
[2:51:10] So one clarifying thing, maybe Jeff can talk about this, but my understanding is we've got four pickleball
[2:51:17] courts, but the basketball court area could also be used for two additional courts.
[2:51:22] Pickleball courts, is that right, John?
[2:51:24] I want to talk.
[2:51:26] It's my time to shine.
[2:51:29] Talking with Josh, so right now we're, you know, council proves this and then we start working on.
[2:51:34] Design's going to come and that's where we can influence design.
[2:51:37] Because what we want is we want facilities that are used and not just sitting there.
[2:51:41] And multi-use facilities are a great way where we can adapt.
[2:51:44] So ideally, both basketball courts can expand and you can run six pickleball courts for tournaments.
[2:51:50] And then potentially, conversely, maybe we're going to have more basketball courts,
[2:51:54] but I think flexible with how we are thoughtful with the space that applies to the fields and other areas.
[2:52:00] That I'm looking forward to.
[2:52:01] Yeah, I probably don't know.
[2:52:02] It says, at least, one basketball court and four football courts.
[2:52:06] And if I may just go ahead and ask you to just tag out on Jeff, the message we heard every steering committee meeting
[2:52:15] was make this as multi use as you can
[2:52:20] and so we are squeezing every drop out of this modest six acre site.
[2:52:27] And so we're gonna, yeah, we will work with our consultant.
[2:52:34] Those courts surfaces can also be used for stage for outdoor concerts and food trucks.
[2:52:42] So, like, we are thinking big about how we can utilize every square inch of that to be more than just two soccer fields.
[2:52:51] Okay.
[2:52:52] Thank you.
[2:52:53] All right. So, on to council approval.
[2:52:55] Thank you, Dr.
[2:52:55] Thank you.
[2:52:56] Okay.
[2:52:57] Thank you.
[2:52:58] Okay.
[2:52:58] Now we're moving on to 246, well,
[2:53:04] 246 or 5,
[2:53:05] We have no North 3B grant acceptance, this is Josh.
[2:53:13] Okay, so bear with me you get me up here for just a little while for the next few agenda items.
[2:53:21] Okay, so we are here to talk about the no North 3B grant acceptance.
[2:53:27] We are on the tail ends of finishing up our right-of-way acquisition, getting all the
[2:53:33] T's cross-eyes dotted and getting that submitted and wrapping up our design and getting
[2:53:39] an obligation done.
[2:53:41] So this is one piece that we've lagged behind is accepting this grant.
[2:53:46] So just to highlight what this project is, coming late this year, late this summer, later this
[2:53:53] year down near where Johnson Parkway left off there on the left. We'll complete the
[2:54:02] gap in the Shergey's path, and then the next two segments at the north, which is Langway
[2:54:06] Net and Maranatha, which are segments 3A and 3B.
[2:54:13] So specifically 3B, so similar to Johnson
[2:54:17] Parkway, we had to be creative and blessed finance for bearing with us through all the grants.
[2:54:24] We had to be creative and get multiple funding sources.
[2:54:28] So one of the funding sources we got was for segment 3B and it was an STP grant and
[2:54:36] we received $1.8 million.
[2:54:39] Now we were fortunate to be able to couple the 3B project with the 3A project, the Languane
[2:54:45] F section, and move the funding forward from 2025 to 2024.
[2:54:51] And so in that process, PSRC was able to rebalance, they had some additional money, and since we moved forward.
[2:55:00] Early, they offered us an additional $350,000. So that's what we're here tonight about.
[2:55:12] So, we're
[2:55:15] here to accept the $350,000. So just to highlight, STP is the surface transportation program,
[2:55:26] but no, we were super excited about that. Yeah, Josh, could you put the road man pack
[2:55:31] up the previous slide. Yes. Congratulations on that. Thank you Mayor PSRC, KRCC and everyone.
[2:55:39] What's the ultimate disposition once we complete this NOL road? Any modification to the existing right
[2:55:47] away? It's just going to be maintained out there and connected 305 as is. I'm not sure I understand.
[2:55:55] Sorry. The NOL road, the old NOL road once this is completed. Could you go over it?
[2:56:00] final disposition is planned. That's correct. So let me see if you can see my cursor. Yes, so
[2:56:07] the old, no, no road comes here and it turns and it goes down and it ties into 305 here.
[2:56:16] So that will, that all is mostly the county and where it intersects 305. And so that is part of
[2:56:24] the 305 corridor study and it is a project to change that intersection to a right-in, right
[2:56:31] out.
[2:56:32] So you won't be able to take any left turns there into it or out the left turns.
[2:56:37] Correct.
[2:56:39] So currently does not have funding but it is on the project list and is one of the priority
[2:56:46] projects for 305 after some of the roundabouts occur.
[2:56:50] you see some of the construction happening right now on
[2:56:53] Bainbridge Island, so those are the kind of the next
[2:56:56] priority projects on the 305 corridor.
[2:56:59] If I could request a copy in my box of this particular,
[2:57:03] sure, of course, yeah.
[2:57:07] One of the interesting things about all of these projects
[2:57:10] is how you guys have been a miracle workers of layering
[2:57:16] this various pieces of money together in order to put it all
[2:57:21] all the pieces together to make this happen.
[2:57:23] It's been really complicated.
[2:57:25] And also, thank you to Devstap, who tries
[2:57:27] to keep it all straight on the finance side
[2:57:30] as to what grant belongs to what.
[2:57:31] So it's been very complicated, but extremely well done.
[2:57:35] So, okay, so what do we, we're requesting this,
[2:57:38] but this will be on the council agenda next week.
[2:57:39] Correct, yeah.
[2:57:41] Okay, go forward, great work.
[2:57:43] Thank you.
[2:57:45] All right, deal with me.
[2:57:50] Take it away, comes back the other side.
[2:57:55] Okay, amendment two to the Rob Part Play for All project.
[2:58:01] Okay, so I have this one.
[2:58:03] Didn't we already talk about Rob Mark?
[2:58:05] We did.
[2:58:07] We did.
[2:58:07] And so this, those specifically, is for the consultant agreement.
[2:58:13] So I mentioned it earlier and it was the amount, the cost, the $20,000 cost was included in the budget amendment that was approved earlier this evening.
[2:58:22] However, tonight bringing forward the consultant contract to give them that $20,000 for construction
[2:58:33] support.
[2:58:34] So, just really quick, I won't take very long, but so, yeah, so really what they're there
[2:58:46] is it's, thank you, it's an as-needed thing.
[2:58:50] And so they will support any RFIs or questions during construction or design issues and so they're there just to help us
[2:58:57] Solve any problems or construction
[2:59:00] Go ahead
[2:59:01] Tan general to this and I've communicated I think a copy to the mayor and a parks director
[2:59:07] That play for all part once it's finally constructed and we start getting public usage
[2:59:12] I'm pretty heavily involved in volunteering a lot of time to help maintain as a private citizen stewardship a part of the trail system
[2:59:19] I think others of you have exposure to Rob Park too.
[2:59:22] I continue to have a concern that people allow their dogs
[2:59:26] to run free up there.
[2:59:28] And I think once we have the very young
[2:59:30] and the handicapped specifically coming
[2:59:32] there as a destination, I don't know what we can do.
[2:59:36] And I look at Mike, I know we're going
[2:59:37] to be installing the new caretaker unit.
[2:59:40] I don't know how we can enlarge.
[2:59:41] What's particularly invigorating mayors,
[2:59:44] we have a perfectly good dog park there,
[2:59:46] one in the few in the city, right?
[2:59:48] and people continue to insist to run their dogs free.
[2:59:52] And they can get away from them and everybody thinks they're dog is special.
[2:59:56] I'm not sure what, if anything, we can do on...
[3:00:00] And positive reinforcement that people need to leash up their dogs, but especially in front of handicapped elders and young people using that part. I can say that we could have code enforcement go up there or the police go up there, but I'm worried about we don't have enough police to do what we have right now, so it's good signage. Good signage, and I think people speaking to other people and saying, you know, you're not supposed to like
[3:00:29] How much dog run free here? I know I do it.
[3:00:32] What I imagine is a real positive way, like the caretaker, I don't know, volunteers can do this.
[3:00:38] But a little pre-printed sheet where please leash up your dog or the dog parts right there.
[3:00:44] I'm not looking for punitive.
[3:00:47] I'm looking for informative.
[3:00:51] Go ahead.
[3:00:52] Okay.
[3:00:53] It's a common issue every single city faces.
[3:00:57] And our partner cities around us have also approached us in different ways,
[3:01:00] from enforcement, education, dog advisory committees, partnering with, um,
[3:01:04] they have dog advisory committees?
[3:01:06] Oh, yes.
[3:01:08] Dogs advising? Could that be great?
[3:01:11] I don't think I'm coming on that part, but there is, this is something that we can potentially
[3:01:16] tackle, talk to the mayor, where how can we educate our community, signage doesn't solve
[3:01:21] anything. It is helpful, but it doesn't solve everything. And if there was going to be
[3:01:25] enforcement, how would it work? And we are not alone in this. It would just take some
[3:01:29] time and we would want to by community members to weigh in because they're the ones who are
[3:01:35] suffering or those who aren't dog owners from the irresponsible ones. But it is an issue
[3:01:40] that is larger than who is sitting at this table and would take time and we would just need
[3:01:45] direction from mayor on this and prioritize it whenever we could.
[3:01:49] I'm still standing by a dog advisory committee. It's great because then they can weigh in about
[3:01:54] talk about dog park improvements and meetups, and anyways, talking to a dog family.
[3:01:58] Actually, I know that it's very annoying because my dog tends to be pretty reactive,
[3:02:03] and he doesn't do well with other unleashed dogs, so I get it.
[3:02:07] I understand the frustration.
[3:02:09] I'm just not sure.
[3:02:11] Especially before the play for all is installed.
[3:02:13] I think that underlines it for me.
[3:02:16] And I agree that, totally.
[3:02:17] I, we've talked about this before, and I would go so far as the punitive,
[3:02:23] except that I fear it would be exactly what the mayor talked about a meeting or two ago where we'd spend a lot of money to collect ten bucks and it'd be a lot of expense to do it, but quite honestly, even now with the dog fart there, you all know I live right down the hill, when it's open window season, I hear dog fights all the time coming from down from Rob Park.
[3:02:49] So, it is an issue now when it's just folks up there as they are now.
[3:02:57] I worry about the same thing when we expand that playground.
[3:03:01] I would, if forming a dog advisory committee is the way to go, I'm in.
[3:03:07] Because I think we should look at, you mentioned about doing a master park overlay for Rob.
[3:03:12] It might be something we look at is Rob Park not a dog becomes not a dog friendly park in the future and we put that service somewhere else.
[3:03:25] I don't know, okay, I think we've given proper direction to staff to focus on the problem.
[3:03:31] I'm sorry, I'm getting tired, I'm getting giggly.
[3:03:33] Pam, did you have a comment?
[3:03:35] No, it covered, unfortunately, I will have to exit at 9 p.m.
[3:03:39] I've been negotiating with my sitter.
[3:03:41] So I think we can get through this. I think we're good. Okay. All right. So we have the amendment to the rock park
[3:03:50] Which is it and that's go forward in peace. I think this is the $20,000 discrepancy is this $20,000. I think that's why your slides don't
[3:03:58] Lie down. You might be right. Yes. Thank you. So if with concurrence, we'll bring it back on consent agenda. Yes, on consent. Thank you. Okay. Now we have adoption of the six-year TIP tip
[3:04:16] I asked April to come up and present this with me, so just to circle back, I really got
[3:04:23] to give April a lot of credit as well with all the grants and things like that and managing
[3:04:31] this stuff and especially with the workload that particularly like I've had and our department
[3:04:35] us had here recently. April has been a godsend so I just want to give her quick
[3:04:41] kudos. So we are here tonight. We do this every year where we update our tip.
[3:04:48] It's our transportation improvement plan. So it's required by RCW 3577 and 4726
[3:04:57] to maintain this tip.
[3:05:00] And it's only projects that are included in the tip that were eligible to go out and receive federal or state funding for grant applications. And so when we look at projects, it has to be a federally classified street as well to be on this list. So just to quickly highlight from the changes from our 2024 or last year tip. Really, we updated some of the project budgets due to current bidding climates and construction costs.
[3:05:30] And we removed a couple projects that we completed or have started in 2024, so they fall off the list because it's a 2025 starting list.
[3:05:41] Josh, how do you escalate pricing? Are you using CIP or some other standard to automatically update them in that regard?
[3:05:50] Well, we try not to just apply just an inflationary thing.
[3:05:55] When we look at years out, we will apply an inflationary thing.
[3:06:01] But when we come back each year and we look at these, we like to reset them.
[3:06:05] So in 2025, I look at the new $20.25.
[3:06:08] If I'm looking out at 2030, I reprogram now with some inflation.
[3:06:13] So this is the list of our projects on our tip.
[3:06:17] Now, this does not mean necessarily that we will do all of these projects.
[3:06:21] These are kind of our wish list of projects over the next six years.
[3:06:24] They're not necessarily reasonably funded.
[3:06:27] We maintain our reasonably funded projects on our CIP list, but these are all projects that
[3:06:33] we would like to do and maybe go out and receive or apply for grant funding on.
[3:06:39] Rather than we run down the list here, all of the, there's no new projects on the list.
[3:06:44] Just like I said, we just removed a couple projects, particularly Null Road 3A, 3B, and
[3:06:53] I think that might be it.
[3:06:57] So this is a map.
[3:06:59] Oh, sorry Pam, yeah, go ahead.
[3:07:00] I'm awake, I am here.
[3:07:03] If I recall correctly, weren't you, was some work being done on streets regarding ADA compliance?
[3:07:08] Is that something separate else?
[3:07:10] So that is folded in, because it wasn't that 24?
[3:07:14] Correct.
[3:07:17] So, we do have an ADA project that was separate on here and we are still working on design and trying to get that out to advertisement dis fall, but since we will start construction in 24, it falls off the 25 list.
[3:07:32] So we do still have on here our ADA improvements, and that's still a city wide, because we still have an obligation by our ADA transition plan to still continually look at our ADA deficiencies and provide upgrades.
[3:07:51] You could just, as you go, kind of discuss how much this list actually commits us to versus a guide, like a view.
[3:08:00] You know, yeah, this list does not commit us to anything whatsoever.
[3:08:06] It is not until we go out and get a grant, then where we receive funds and we're tied to that funding their grant application.
[3:08:14] My understanding is that we don't have certain things on this broader list, then we might box ourselves in later.
[3:08:23] Is that 100% correct?
[3:08:25] Like, so we have to build this big list, and it's certainly not a comment.
[3:08:28] And so you'll see a few projects on here
[3:08:30] that maybe you're a little bit vague and are not super defined.
[3:08:34] And that's exactly it because there's citywide things
[3:08:37] that allow us the flexibility that if there's a certain grant
[3:08:39] or a certain need that pops up,
[3:08:42] we can pick it off of this list and lean on it
[3:08:46] to be able to go after that grant.
[3:08:49] Yes, sir.
[3:08:50] Um, thank you.
[3:08:52] Just two things.
[3:08:54] One, I'm happy to see the Fjord Drive traffic calming
[3:08:59] and pedestrian improvement is still on here.
[3:09:01] I haven't mentioned that in a while,
[3:09:02] so I just wanted to amplify that that is still on the list
[3:09:06] and I think it's still a critical need.
[3:09:09] And then, Josh, I'm wondering, you know,
[3:09:11] what the good news about the 2 million plus
[3:09:14] in funding now for a third avenue.
[3:09:18] Can you give us just kind of your best estimate
[3:09:20] on when we might be able to break ground on that project?
[3:09:23] Yeah, so the funding that we received is 2027.
[3:09:26] And now, if there's by chance that we get it designed
[3:09:31] in a spot earlier, we may be able to request to move the funds
[3:09:34] up a year, an early obligate, which is what we just saw
[3:09:38] in the last presentation for 3B.
[3:09:40] We moved it forward a year, and they actually gave us more money.
[3:09:43] If we can get through the design fast enough,
[3:09:46] that's what we would do.
[3:09:47] We would ask to move it forward.
[3:09:49] But we do have to go through 27.
[3:09:51] Correct.
[3:09:51] We do have a need for process to go through
[3:09:54] that is super slow now for the permitting process.
[3:10:04] Okay, so I just, we put this map together just to highlight the projects and really where they're at. This is, you know, just in map form. It's the same list that you just saw. What you see up in the top right is the city wide projects. Again, these are the project projects that are a little bit generic in terms that we can go back to if we need to have some specific pops up.
[3:10:33] That I would
[3:10:33] entertain any questions process wise we will need to come back and hold a public
[3:10:38] hearing to adopt this so in your packet was a resolution that's just for
[3:10:43] your review once we go through the public hearing and that's when we'll
[3:10:46] adopt that resolution. All right any questions for Josh okay just with third
[3:10:53] avenue are we going to discuss again um design because then we talked about
[3:10:58] for um designer third avenue could very well be driven by what we want to do on
[3:11:03] the front street. Yes, so it's a great question. Right now, April and I were just talking about
[3:11:09] that today. I think it's on the agenda for next week to do a third avenue update. I'm hoping
[3:11:16] to maybe bring that to you, but I'm really busy and I'm not sure I can get the presentation
[3:11:21] together for you guys, so I might need to push that back out to a little bit later in June
[3:11:26] and present the concepts that we have also at our council retreat. We talked about looking
[3:11:32] that the one weighing a little bit more and how to treat front street so we're working
[3:11:38] with our consultant right now on a scope amendment and a budget for that that if I can get
[3:11:44] work through then I will bring that as well at the end of June.
[3:11:49] Well, I'll have everybody else.
[3:11:51] I would argue for waiting if it can include the front street aspect rather than hurrying
[3:11:57] up to give us third without the front street.
[3:11:59] Yeah, no right now. It looks like both of those will line up on maybe June 26th if there's room in the agenda all
[3:12:09] right? So
[3:12:12] You doing okay, Doug you've been in a little box for a long time. Okay. No bears. No
[3:12:23] He's he's gonna be sunny all night. Excuse me. Go bears
[3:12:28] Sen goes down at about one o'clock in the morning there.
[3:12:31] Okay, engineering position review, salary and placement.
[3:12:36] Hello, so you asked earlier about the engineering position.
[3:12:44] So here we are.
[3:12:46] So the mayor had actually asked for me to review the salaries for the entire engineering department.
[3:12:54] And that really was because you graciously approved an engineering position, we did not
[3:13:01] get any qualified applicants.
[3:13:03] So we kind of went back and thought, what can we do?
[3:13:06] And so I worked with the acting public work director, Josh Reigns, we looked at salaries,
[3:13:12] we looked at organizational charts.
[3:13:15] We kind of went outside the box.
[3:13:16] We looked at the City of Burmerton, we've never done that before, but the mayor said, look
[3:13:21] at the city of Burmerton so we're probably going to be a little bit above average before
[3:13:25] we've always been the average of our comparable cities and so that might bring us up a little
[3:13:30] bit more. And so what we have the recommendations after doing that review is to move the city
[3:13:40] engineer position to range 31, move the civil engineer position to range 24 and that is on
[3:13:46] the management schedule. And then on the teamster schedule, move the engineer three position
[3:13:52] to range 30 and then create a new engineer four position on a new range 34. So you might
[3:14:00] go, well, if we have a civil engineer, why do we create a new engineer four position? It's
[3:14:05] because our teamsters actually have some benefits that the managers do not. And so in order
[3:14:11] to kind of keep this for retention for our teamsters.
[3:14:16] We kind of decided to go that route.
[3:14:18] Now the good news is is the engineer one and two
[3:14:21] were pretty much right in range as were the tech positions.
[3:14:26] So right now there's really not a cost to it,
[3:14:31] but we would like to actually advertise
[3:14:33] for a civil engineer.
[3:14:36] Did I mention earlier how much I'm looking forward
[3:14:45] We don't need just one engineer, we don't need two engineers, we need two and so I just
[3:14:50] bore warning, go ahead Doug.
[3:14:52] I curious, where do you advertise?
[3:14:54] members.
[3:14:55] We actually our city clerk.
[3:15:00] We did a lot of the advertising when we did for engineers, so I did not do the advertising for that last one. But we went on on government. Yeah, I can speak to some of that. So I know we've advertised on LinkedIn. We've advertised on APWA. We've posed indeed. And we've also the government jobs, the government jobs. I think there's even an advertise.
[3:15:29] on Craigslist.
[3:15:34] We did post on Facebook, but when it gets updated, poke at me, let me see if I can kick it out. Also, give it.
[3:15:45] Yes, please share, I know that it's been posted on LinkedIn and maybe just to add just really quick. So the engineer for position is not a new FTE, it's not an adding a person, it's just adding a position on the salary chart.
[3:15:58] really what we're hoping to do is open that range of what's available for different applicants to come in and apply for a position.
[3:16:08] So to add also to what Deanna said, we didn't get any qualified applicants.
[3:16:12] I went out and I did a little kind of survey of the local agencies hiring.
[3:16:17] there was I think I counted 23 open engineering related positions within a
[3:16:24] reasonable commuting distance of Paul's bow and on top of that two or three of
[3:16:32] those agencies were offering hiring incentives yeah yeah I think the county
[3:16:38] has a total of eight yeah but they I saw there and I think Mason County had five
[3:16:48] Yeah, amazing county, yes, yeah.
[3:16:50] So have you guys looked at potentially entry-level recruitment
[3:16:53] out of college to groom them from that standpoint?
[3:16:55] Yes, we are talking about that.
[3:16:57] Yes, we are talking about that definitely
[3:16:59] and really strong, yes, and I fully support that
[3:17:06] and love to be able to bring a new engineer up
[3:17:09] and build them up and teach in the right way and work with them.
[3:17:14] But with our workload and everything
[3:17:17] that we have right now.
[3:17:20] Yes.
[3:17:21] Yeah.
[3:17:24] So if
[3:17:30] we get what the mayor is talking about here in the second position sometime in
[3:17:36] the future, that would definitely be where I would go with that position.
[3:17:44] So we're.
[3:17:45] I'd like to do another what I call a baby engineer.
[3:17:48] Yeah, I think we're going to have to be creative in this standpoint because not only is the
[3:17:54] County going out north going out next week too with capital projects engineering position
[3:17:59] too. So there is, you want to work in Kitsip County in your space, you pick the people who
[3:18:07] you like.
[3:18:10] Yeah, I was going to ask them to talk about outside the box rather than necessarily going
[3:18:16] much higher in salary which is a long-term cost. Have we looked at hiring bonuses or even
[3:18:23] relocation bonuses so that we can look further afield and get someone who wants
[3:18:28] to move here and so we're not competing with the same local pool or even just
[3:18:32] the Western Washington because that would be a one-time class. So maybe we can
[3:18:37] afford better. I'll speak to that just briefly and then the mayor probably could
[3:18:40] talk a little bit more. Not not only the goal of this is of course I want to hire
[3:18:46] an engineer. We need an engineer but with this much going on in our area and the
[3:18:53] competitive salaries that we're seeing.
[3:18:55] I knew we were behind and working with the mayor and Deanna
[3:18:59] through this process.
[3:19:01] We saw that we're behind in salaries.
[3:19:04] So I want to remain competitive for our current staff as well
[3:19:08] because with all of those available, yeah.
[3:19:12] So that's one piece behind it and then I'll let the mayor
[3:19:15] maybe talk a little bit about the hiring bonus stuff.
[3:19:18] We're going to need two engineers and we want one
[3:19:22] That's fully functional and then we're going to want another one that what I call a baby baby engineer recruiting on a college
[3:19:28] Is stuff like that somebody we can train up. You've seen part of the workload tonight, you know all the projects we have going on
[3:19:35] We really we need the staff and we do have the funding for it a lot of a lot of the wages can be built about against some of these projects
[3:19:44] The the wonderful Rob Park project we had sixty five thousand dollars in there for supportive work for that particular
[3:19:52] that particular project. So we have funding mechanisms to hire them, we just got to find them.
[3:19:57] So yeah, yeah, I'm not I'm not
[3:20:00] Opposed to the salary changes. I'm just wondering if we can, if we have the ability to talk a little bit about some of the things coming in higher if we have the ability where we don't want to necessarily commit long term by trying to outspend it through salary. But if we can offer incentives, relocation, for example, to search much water, you know, search Midwest, search each coast. And maybe that would, you know, get someone who wants to move
[3:20:29] with the Washington, but can't afford it.
[3:20:32] Well, if we can make it affordable to move here,
[3:20:34] maybe that'll help us because, like Doug said,
[3:20:37] the competition is fierce right now.
[3:20:40] So, you know, if that would get us somebody
[3:20:44] that we wouldn't otherwise be able to employ,
[3:20:48] it's a way to go.
[3:21:00] So I can speak to that a little bit
[3:21:01] and then the American add to it.
[3:21:03] So we have discussed it quite a bit internally.
[3:21:08] really the thought is it's unfair to our current staff, if I bring somebody in with a bonus
[3:21:14] of $10,000, I wouldn't my current staff go to somebody else to get a $10,000 or $20,000
[3:21:24] sign on bonus just so they get that fair shake or fair treatment.
[3:21:29] So it's a consideration, we're trying to not go there to maintain fairness with all of
[3:21:35] our staff.
[3:21:36] I guess it seems like to me, if other areas are also offering these things, it really just
[3:21:44] means to me that the competition is really that stiff.
[3:21:47] So I mean, if people from out of state could still be applying to other nearby jurisdictions
[3:21:53] offering those bonuses, but they're not filling the positions, then you know, it's just
[3:22:01] When we did our police bonuses, we did a hiring bonus, but we did a retention bonus as
[3:22:08] well.
[3:22:09] We did both, okay, because when you do hiring bonuses, what happens is you're people that
[3:22:15] are working for you.
[3:22:16] What do they chop liver?
[3:22:18] You know, they get a bunch more money to come in and do the work that you've been doing.
[3:22:21] So I don't like hiring bonuses.
[3:22:24] I like retention bonuses a lot, but I think relocation is a really good idea Rick and we'll take
[3:22:30] I think relocation and yeah, I think we support what you want to do here, I think Rick is trying to give you another tool in terms of
[3:22:39] the strictly relocation. Let's set the bonus issue aside and move forward. And make sure you tell them we're going to have a new
[3:22:46] play for all park when you're right to add.
[3:22:50] And we have an award-winning engineering department.
[3:22:54] So can we also get concurrence because we currently have an approved engineer three position to go up to a civil engineer.
[3:23:04] It's the benefits are already with the position and the majority of the cost is there if we could do that it would give us some a little bit more flexibility.
[3:23:17] It is not in the budget.
[3:23:19] No, it's in the packet.
[3:23:21] That's part of what you're proposing tonight, right?
[3:23:23] That's part of our request, yeah.
[3:23:25] Okay. I just want to make sure you're not adding a new one next. I have an early read.
[3:23:28] No. Okay. All right. Thank you.
[3:23:33] And the next item is the salary and wages resolution, which will come forward on the
[3:23:40] the agenda next week. And that will include all of these engineering positions as well as
[3:23:47] a police department position that was already approved in the reorganization. So that one was
[3:23:53] fast. I know you guys are really ready to get to the carry forward.
[3:24:01] Thank you. Thank you, Council.
[3:24:19] It's as you can tell, it's very, very busy right now. There's lots of stuff going on.
[3:26:04] In 2024, carryover, budget amendment that we're discussing also referred to as beginning balance. We are resetting our beginning balances as we have the actual numbers completed for 2023. We're still continuing through the audit, but we're close enough to where we can figure these out. So we focus a lot on the general funds. So this is the big good news that you've been looking for. So we had a projected being an imbalance of 3,175,570.
[3:26:34] $34. The actual beginning balance came in at $7,864 and $441.
[3:26:42] With a difference of $4,000,000 and $36,000.
[3:26:46] So I spend a lot of time looking at why our numbers are so different than what we expected.
[3:26:55] We'll get there. Okay, I know. It's a little shocking.
[3:27:01] Once we get through the numbers, we'll be able to see why.
[3:27:04] So just reminding you how we started out, the budget beginning for revenues was $15,498,840.
[3:27:15] The actual revenues came in at $18,7502 with a difference of $3,253,000.
[3:27:23] Less our expenditures, we have projected at $18,043,000.
[3:27:27] So we anticipated going into the 2023 budget utilizing $2,544,000 reserves.
[3:27:36] Our expenditures came in at $16,740,000, so leaving that an actual difference for our
[3:27:43] revenues exceeded our expenditures by about $2 million.
[3:27:47] That is what gets to your difference of where we projected.
[3:27:51] So we can see that we spent less than we thought and we brought in more than what we thought.
[3:27:56] So, getting down to the very specific, I ran history reports of every expenditure in
[3:28:01] the General Fund and the Revenue and General Fund.
[3:28:05] So some of these are the differences.
[3:28:07] These are differences of what we've projected.
[3:28:09] So these aren't just the numbers of the actual revenues coming in.
[3:28:13] So a large number that came in is our taxes, our property taxes, sales and utility taxes.
[3:28:19] About 400, a little less than half a million dollars, was due to sales tax coming in higher
[3:28:24] than rejected.
[3:28:25] So the good news with that is we used almost all of our federal funds with ARPA and the
[3:28:33] intent is we kept our, we funded those with people and expenditures and the hopes that
[3:28:38] you did the revenue replenishment so that worked directly in line with what we anticipated
[3:28:43] and what we shot for.
[3:28:44] Yes.
[3:28:44] Just real quick before I forget.
[3:28:46] So that sales tax will also then down the road include the, each of those one tens of
[3:28:53] will present potentially coming back to us as well.
[3:28:56] No.
[3:28:56] Where is that in that number?
[3:28:58] This is strictly the sales tax and the general fund.
[3:29:01] The sales tax that we put in for affordable housing and for your transportation benefit
[3:29:08] district are accounted for in a special revenue fund.
[3:29:12] So these are exclusive of those taxes.
[3:29:15] I will say is we are very conservative in our budgeting and we've known and council has always
[3:29:19] said in the direction of please don't project more in your sales tax than what you've collected
[3:29:25] the prior year. Well, we're really in a budget in July, so really it's based on almost a year
[3:29:30] and a half later. So these, although the sales tax is over projection, it is very close to what we
[3:29:37] actually collected in 22. So we will build or 20, and so we will build the 25 budget with the much
[3:29:46] entire number encompassing those, but that's a good thing to have, because we have grown
[3:29:50] into those revenues supporting some of the ongoing expenditures, remembering that we have
[3:29:54] planned on using reserves to fund us.
[3:29:58] So, when we look at the sales time,
[3:30:00] Taxes, which is also tied to your criminal justice tax. And we also about utility taxes in much higher. As you see as the city is growing, we are bringing in more developments, which are collecting utility taxes, as well as the rising rate of utilities. I don't know about you all, but my utility bills have significantly increased. And so as those gross revenues increase, and so related does your utility taxes. Remind me where we're currently are with utility excise tax percentage.
[3:30:28] The utility tax excise tax is 12% on everything with the exception of solid waste.
[3:30:37] So in here is the big number.
[3:30:39] This is your development fees, almost one and a half million dollars over projection.
[3:30:45] That includes the Oslo development that we have just got going.
[3:30:49] Those are usually one-time dollars, which also helps explain why we need a city engineer
[3:30:54] because we have those developments.
[3:30:55] We have collected those revenues and anticipation of expanding the funds later.
[3:31:00] So that is a large number.
[3:31:02] We have projected using one time, or we have projected over 23 and 24 using ARPA funds
[3:31:10] of about 800,000 for each year.
[3:31:14] With the federal treasury indicating that they were coming in to take any leftover funds,
[3:31:19] I brought it to council and I said we need to spend all of it now.
[3:31:22] So we had projected 400,000, we were able to gather of $450,000 more in federal funds than
[3:31:31] we anticipated, and keeping in mind that $800,000 was a one-time revenue projection.
[3:31:36] So that will reduce the revenue coming in 24, but we have expanded everything through March,
[3:31:42] so we will not be in jeopardy of losing any of those treasury funds.
[3:31:45] So that's the good news.
[3:31:47] Federal and, again, the federal ARPA dollars, but we also received grant revenues.
[3:31:52] As you know, the triple-H committee has been collecting grant dollars.
[3:31:57] We also had some grant dollars replenishing us for some of the Null Road.
[3:32:02] The Null Road tunnel and the Null Road roundabout was accounted for the General Fund because
[3:32:08] we do not own those assets.
[3:32:09] So we had been negotiating some of those revenues coming into the General Fund.
[3:32:13] So those are some of the one-time dollars.
[3:32:16] For detention center detention revenues,
[3:32:20] we came in a little higher than we projected.
[3:32:22] And a big number, which we always are very conservative on,
[3:32:25] because we can't predict the market.
[3:32:27] As we've been seeing last year,
[3:32:28] we saw a loss in revenue over what we had gained the year before.
[3:32:33] So we were under projection.
[3:32:34] This year, we have a very proactive portfolio.
[3:32:37] And if you've noticed on our quarterly variance,
[3:32:41] and our pool keeps growing.
[3:32:44] That's interesting, isn't it?
[3:32:46] Sounds like a lightning out there.
[3:32:49] It has our portfolio growth.
[3:32:53] We're going to gain more investment earnings.
[3:32:55] And the general fund always collects a fee
[3:32:58] for investing for the other funds as well.
[3:33:01] So our investment revenue is about $374,000 over projection.
[3:33:05] Hopefully that will be continued, but we
[3:33:08] will be using some of these funds going forward.
[3:33:10] We'll in probably in the next two or three months, which we implant on we're going to be putting about four million dollars to the county to pay for some of those projects
[3:33:17] We've shared it. So we will be taking down our portfolio some but we are very strong and cash flows right now
[3:33:24] Some of the expenditures where we see savings is the wages and benefits. We've had some vacancies
[3:33:29] You know, just be good at timing of replacing positions that we've approved people leaving leaving that vacant in between replacing them
[3:33:37] We had established, when we set up the police budget to pay for the agreement that we have
[3:33:44] with Kitsap 9-1-1 for the RMS policy, we had built a budget with all four years of support
[3:33:51] in the first year and when we started evaluating, we said, oh, this is really a four year expenditure.
[3:33:56] So we only expended one year and 23 and that's why we've had savings there.
[3:34:01] JL costs as we've talked about we kept increasing that budget for many years
[3:34:06] because we were exceeding that and we just haven't got up to those levels
[3:34:11] again so we were about $262,000 less than we had in paid in JL costs probably
[3:34:17] about three or four years ago so so for about two years you've seen those much
[3:34:21] less in budget and I would assume going into 25 we'll be able to lower those
[3:34:25] projections based on historical costs. Indirect allocation this is oh actually
[3:34:31] And yes, well chief would you say that's true because some of that decrease is probably likely to
[3:34:38] That drug crimes we're not crimes during part of that period and now they are again
[3:34:44] So would you anticipate our drug our jail class?
[3:34:47] Yeah, the law change has made most of those drug possession charges misdemeanors so they're they're not being booked in a county jail or at least kept there
[3:35:00] So, I would say that we will continue to see probably this trend. So we value it. It might be higher than this year, but I would assume we of that 260,000 savings will be able to recognize some of that. I mean, we're hoping everyone chooses diversion. And this all becomes an H3 cost, but some folks are going to go to jail. There's not going to choose the version and folks that were not going to jail because of the change. And we do have jail costs. It just will be lower than we have been.
[3:35:28] and you'll see in several years ago.
[3:35:31] Also reminding us that we did a legal budget,
[3:35:34] budget amendment mid-year projecting based on the trend
[3:35:38] where a legal cost were and some big legal issues.
[3:35:41] And in the end of the year, we used about $45,000 less
[3:35:43] than we anticipated with that amendment.
[3:35:46] Indirect allocation, this is the amount
[3:35:48] that we charge our utility funds for providing service.
[3:35:51] As the cost of operating those utilities,
[3:35:54] it costs more money for us to support them.
[3:35:57] and it all goes into a big formula, and what it did is it increased.
[3:36:02] We have to go through, as the auditor said, so really it reduced our expenses because
[3:36:07] we put those charges back to your utility funds.
[3:36:11] So you will see your utility funds suffer a little bit because they're being hit, but the
[3:36:15] cost to support those administratively for everything we do in the city, for those two
[3:36:19] of these sets is the finance department provides a lot of support for that.
[3:36:23] We do all of their billing, the engineering helps with their projects.
[3:36:26] It all is a the council gets a portion of their budget charge back to that the mayor so we we have this huge formula
[3:36:32] And I'm probably one of the only ones in the city that understand it with this red sheet
[3:36:36] By the same token our special projects where whether it's health and human services or some of the federal
[3:36:43] Transportation are you also in direct allocation or direct allocation to mayor or finance department on those projects?
[3:36:53] The projects we usually charge directly by hours, but there are some costs within the
[3:37:01] engineering.
[3:37:01] So we figure out based on that indirect formula, so we look at how many projects, and
[3:37:06] that's what you see fluctuation, are more of the projects being supported for governmental
[3:37:10] nature, or more of the projects supported in utility fund nature.
[3:37:14] So that's part of the formula is evaluating that, and those charges do come back to that
[3:37:18] in a cloud chicenter.
[3:37:18] And they all have different variables that we used to calculate this.
[3:37:22] For the finance department, we actually look at our hours and our functions in time when
[3:37:26] allocated to the public works for utilities and city hall.
[3:37:30] We base it on square footage and the space that they occupy.
[3:37:34] For council, I actually count up all of your agenda summaries to see how many we've supported
[3:37:40] for public works.
[3:37:41] Summer based on FTE, it's just different parameters.
[3:37:45] And what happened with the auditors offers several years ago is they became very strict
[3:37:50] on these because as general funds were suffering, they were seeing all of these formulas adjusted
[3:37:54] to hit the utility.
[3:37:56] So they wanted fair formulas and that's why we have this written policy and evaluated every
[3:38:00] year.
[3:38:02] So potentially could some of those engineering salary increases come out of the utility funds
[3:38:08] because of the projects that they're working on?
[3:38:10] But they're supporting the big developments and stormwater projects that Charlie brings us, et cetera.
[3:38:16] Some of those projects are charged directly to the project.
[3:38:20] So those exalries and wages are not posted into the engineering budget.
[3:38:25] But some of the costs such as the overhead for the engineering department are cast on based on those projects.
[3:38:31] So that begs the question of the utility excise tax calculation, which we debate as a policy,
[3:38:38] a soft policy here on council about every three to four years.
[3:38:42] Can you fill this in a little bit of perspective on that versus allocation of cost?
[3:38:47] Okay.
[3:38:47] Utility costs are different.
[3:38:49] It is almost a business and occupation tax that we are charging to the utilities.
[3:38:55] And so that is not based on the indirect allocation formula.
[3:38:59] It's based on a percentage of your gross sales.
[3:39:02] And so almost every utility with the exception of city utilities unless you go to a vote of
[3:39:08] the people is 6% the solid waste, the water, the sewer, and the storm grain by council
[3:39:16] has been bumped up to 12%.
[3:39:18] And when we've evaluated these other cities, we found that we thought 12% was high but
[3:39:22] actually we're pretty low and right in the middle of where they are.
[3:39:27] When I have mentioned to public works is we utilize all of our neighbors and our friends within
[3:39:35] in the whole state to figure out where they're going.
[3:39:37] Solid waste is, we've capped at 6%,
[3:39:40] but I think we do need to look at increasing that.
[3:39:44] Other cities, for the sole fact that our garbage trucks
[3:39:48] are probably the hardest vehicles on our city streets.
[3:39:52] And we should be collecting that to recoup
[3:39:54] some of our transportation, as is the support
[3:39:56] of our city streets, but it has grown significantly.
[3:40:00] The street light bills we continue to grow, the cost of dumping the streets we've been is significantly increased. And so we are, you know, those are some of the costs that are going into, to hit our taxpayers. And so that is a way to recoup some of that. So that was one of my suggestions, futures, looking at that when we're visiting Solid Waste, but Solid Waste is struggling by itself.
[3:40:25] Well, Debbie's correct, it was some years ago Finance Committee, it was a long time ago.
[3:40:29] Bremerton was as high as 25% on its utility XX tax.
[3:40:34] Well, percent is a very, it's actually quite a lot of stuff in here in the industry.
[3:40:40] Yeah, and we have talked about it almost every budget cycle, so it can be a visit again.
[3:40:45] I tell you, hand go.
[3:40:46] Oh, sorry, I thought every time we were going to hurry up.
[3:40:49] So we have our increase in population.
[3:40:50] So has there been a significant jump in that utility tax?
[3:40:57] Is that showing to be an alignment with that?
[3:41:01] That would exactly be in line because as our neighborhoods grow
[3:41:05] and we provide more utilities to those, that revenue does grow
[3:41:09] and so that does feed into that.
[3:41:11] And then the developments that are still coming into fruition,
[3:41:15] you know, there should be even more of a jump.
[3:41:18] That's correct.
[3:41:19] Yeah, that is correct, so that would support some of our general operations to that.
[3:41:24] Also keep you in mind though when people talk about our growing, I just like to be really
[3:41:28] clear on property taxes because the reason we went to utility tax increase is because all
[3:41:36] of these neighborhoods when they say growth pays for growth, it does not pay for growth.
[3:41:40] And when we talk about our property taxes by state legislator, we are capped at 1% above
[3:41:46] our highest allowable levy.
[3:41:47] What that equates to for the City of Palsville last year was a little over $30,000.
[3:41:53] Now we've been able to increase that higher because we add new construction to those figures,
[3:41:58] but eventually new construction, we know is going to slow, and I've been hearing from
[3:42:02] many of my neighbors, we are, we are normally other areas, they're decreasing significantly
[3:42:07] above our development revenues, and eventually we'll get there, but I just, that's part
[3:42:12] of the reason that supplements that loss of what we're able to capture in property taxes
[3:42:16] because property taxes are designed to support your streets and your parks, and $30,000 a year will not support those costs.
[3:42:30] Thanks, so it's 8.45, Pam has indicated she needs to leave by 9, I'd love to leave by 9.2, I don't know if we're going to make that, but I just wanted to, if Pam, if we could maybe just give Pam the opportunity, you've seen the slides, are there any other questions that you, are the questions you have on the other slides that we want to make sure we're safe?
[3:42:51] we get to before you have to leave.
[3:42:53] No, thank you so much, Gary, for that consideration.
[3:42:56] And actually, I'm going to have to step
[3:42:57] out a little earlier than that somebody's very tired.
[3:43:01] OK.
[3:43:02] Well, that would be me.
[3:43:05] I'll take you with me.
[3:43:06] Thank you.
[3:43:06] Do we need to make it through all this tonight
[3:43:09] or could we pick it back up next week during the business
[3:43:12] agenda?
[3:43:13] What do we need to accomplish tonight?
[3:43:14] I am flying out tomorrow morning to go to a conference.
[3:43:18] So I will not be here next week.
[3:43:20] And that means we're going to have a lot of money.
[3:43:24] I guess what do we do?
[3:43:27] Oh, there's an amendment that we have to start.
[3:43:29] Right.
[3:43:30] And the amendment will come forward, but it usually comes forward on consent.
[3:43:33] But I what I need to know is we need to get through here,
[3:43:36] and to see if your consensus on how we're allocating these carry-over.
[3:43:39] Like because there are still expenditures that we need to talk about.
[3:43:42] So why don't we get to that?
[3:43:45] I'm trying my best.
[3:43:46] I won't go through each one of these items.
[3:43:49] but here are some items that are actually
[3:43:51] from the general fund that will be carried over
[3:43:53] for expenditures next year that are included in this amendment.
[3:43:58] So you'll see that we still are carrying
[3:43:59] over some professional services obligations
[3:44:03] but it is much less than what we have in the carry-over dollars.
[3:44:09] So looking at this, did you want me to go back in?
[3:44:13] So looking at this, I just wanted to show you
[3:44:16] where in 23 where the actual figures came out
[3:44:19] in 24 in the projections, we have projected the 24 budget of utilizing reserve of 1,747,000.
[3:44:28] So the good news is when we have that carryover, we will not have to utilize that.
[3:44:32] So we would immediately propose reducing that and covering this with our carryover and not
[3:44:38] utilizing reserves in 24.
[3:44:41] But then also looking at when, and I will say is the mayor and I have had a brief discussion
[3:44:46] And also attached in your agendas when you wanted to look at the list of what was requested
[3:44:53] and put on the wait list.
[3:44:54] What was included in this amendment and is covered is the cost of the police officer
[3:44:59] sure you have.
[3:45:00] We discussed the cost of the city engineer, which we discussed, and there really was not a lot left over other than public works. And I know the mayor's had a conversation with them and their committees is we need to really look at their operations before we start funding those because some of the utilities are struggling and we need to get those comprehensive plans updated with the rates updated to support those. So it's not a not funded. Let's look at it and evaluate where we're at.
[3:45:29] Yeah, I don't know if you're catching your breath or you're ready to keep pushing it just in a high
[3:45:36] level. We've got a surplus this year. We projected a deficit. How frequent is it one way or the
[3:45:50] Do we typically do better than expected how many years have we really needed reserves?
[3:45:59] We typically do better than we expected, but not this level.
[3:46:05] This is an extreme.
[3:46:05] This is unusual.
[3:46:06] This is highly extreme.
[3:46:08] But it's development revenues.
[3:46:09] What happened?
[3:46:10] We got a lot of money from development revenues to the very end of the year.
[3:46:13] Okay.
[3:46:13] That's what happened.
[3:46:14] It's $1.4 million in development revenues, above and beyond what we budgeted, because that's
[3:46:21] So total year to date with that not being over budget, our development revenue is probably exceeded almost $2 million.
[3:46:27] We used $800,000 of federal funds which now are gone.
[3:46:31] So some of these, that's why I said it's one-time dollars.
[3:46:34] So reminding us is the first thing that the recommendation is, is let's not use the reserves in 24.
[3:46:40] Obviously we don't have to because we have that.
[3:46:42] I mean, ultimately this money is going back to reserves, but we're utilizing it.
[3:46:47] But the good news is some of these revenues you see are growing and that is going to greatly help us in 25.
[3:46:53] We are planning what's nice in 25 as you guys have talked about getting the city administrator in in 25.
[3:46:59] So we can fund that.
[3:47:00] We can fund some one-time dollars.
[3:47:02] I know you talked about some of the staffing levels which is nice and you guys can evaluate those.
[3:47:06] It's to go forward because we can continue to go in and support those.
[3:47:12] So we're in a good place.
[3:47:15] So Doug, I can't remember a year where we didn't balance by projecting to take out a
[3:47:21] reserve, but then never touched it as far back as I can remember.
[3:47:26] And they're usually a lot closer than this.
[3:47:29] I think one year or two years we maybe came, the one year, I think there is maybe one or
[3:47:36] two years where we have used reserves to get us to the fund, but it's very knowingly because
[3:47:41] as we try to utilize those for $1.
[3:47:44] I think maybe one or two years,
[3:47:45] our revenues did not exceed our expenditures.
[3:47:49] But we project that pretty close,
[3:47:50] because then when we project it,
[3:47:52] we know where we're farther into the year
[3:47:53] and we can trend.
[3:47:54] And what's also hard to do is remember,
[3:47:57] our sales tax is always two months behind.
[3:48:00] So I don't know what our sales tax are
[3:48:01] until the end of February to good those into December,
[3:48:05] because the state auditor said your sales tax
[3:48:08] in February applies to the prior year.
[3:48:10] So we're continuing to play in an estimating game when they come in higher.
[3:48:14] So a question for you in the mayor.
[3:48:16] With all due respect to the 2023 audit that's wrapping up.
[3:48:21] This is a little late getting the carry forward numbers.
[3:48:24] So we've talked about engineering.
[3:48:27] Yeah.
[3:48:28] It's, it's only maybe, it's not that late, it's a couple weeks late but not that late, yeah.
[3:48:34] We talked about engineering, we talked about police, have we talked about the need to
[3:48:38] in fill on the financial side.
[3:48:41] Well, that's what we're talking about.
[3:48:42] So we can be a little more timely and support day,
[3:48:44] not as a criticism.
[3:48:46] We just hired, we just put offers out
[3:48:48] to two more people in finance, okay.
[3:48:51] One that will be administering the B&O tax,
[3:48:54] which was part of the B&O tax,
[3:48:56] and then of course we've lost a person,
[3:48:58] so we needed to backfill that position.
[3:49:02] We're gonna need an additional engineer above
[3:49:04] and the one we talked about.
[3:49:06] I mean, we just saw all those projects coming forward.
[3:49:09] We're brilliant.
[3:49:09] That's the baby engineer I was talking about.
[3:49:12] Something higher out of school.
[3:49:14] We need another engineer.
[3:49:16] We need another cop.
[3:49:17] We have to have another cop.
[3:49:21] So additionally, we need to have,
[3:49:25] I think we need to have about $30,000
[3:49:27] to finish our parking study.
[3:49:29] That's not here.
[3:49:31] And the other thing is, I was going to say,
[3:49:36] I will look at your staffing when we talk a solid waste and I'm serious.
[3:49:41] We've been babysitting solid waste for far too long when you'd have a serious conversation about our ability to do solid waste in the future.
[3:49:49] But I am going to get a little defensive to Mr. Stern because it's not that late, I think you've heard it before when we went to Finance Committee.
[3:50:00] But I also want to say, as we are fully implementing to be in no tax that we have never done before. We also, if you look at the number of grants, we never had a triple H program and the number of grants going through and the work created that is significant. So I will say a little defensively, it's not just because of that. It's the increased workload that we continue to get. So yeah, and we're trying to hire up and get there, but it's taking time. Even with two new people coming on, I've got a training period of six months to a year before.
[3:50:29] they're going to be at the speed. What you've just seen tonight and really intense presentations
[3:50:38] is the workload that's going on right now and we are. I think what happened is we did
[3:50:42] nothing much happened for about two and a half years during the pandemic two years and we
[3:50:47] had all of these grant obligations on all this funding. Yes, we got to Johnson Parkway done but
[3:50:53] all of these other projects just were sitting there and then all of a sudden now that they've
[3:50:58] come do, we are short staff and we need to hire more people in to get the work done.
[3:51:05] And the grants, I mean, are a great thing, but we used to have two pages of grants, and
[3:51:08] I just ran it tonight and we have five pages of grants, five pages of grants.
[3:51:12] So, yeah.
[3:51:13] And I hear you and I totally appreciate it, yeah, no, I appreciate that, but yeah, it's not
[3:51:19] just that.
[3:51:21] It's everybody is on overwhelm.
[3:51:23] We're a wash and money and we're short people.
[3:51:25] So, one special request, and I'm going to state the obvious that most of us know, with
[3:51:30] this, I'll call it extra money, the carry forward beginning balance, if we can encapsulate
[3:51:36] our needs and get it in on the budget process, what I get scared about is January through
[3:51:42] June when we hear about one off, great things, but we don't have that yardstick to prioritize
[3:51:48] and balance, and I'd really like Mayor to veer away from that.
[3:51:53] Well, you know, the problem we have here is, we just came forward and told you we have
[3:51:57] an extra $2 million, okay?
[3:51:59] I would have really liked to use that about halfway through the year to hire more people
[3:52:03] because we're dying for a lack of personnel.
[3:52:07] So while I understand you want to have that constraint of the budget, and I get that, on
[3:52:13] the other hand, we have ever increasing workflows.
[3:52:16] We don't have enough staff.
[3:52:17] I think that should be pretty apparent to you right now.
[3:52:19] So, it is a balancing act, okay?
[3:52:24] It is responding to opportunities, a funding,
[3:52:30] it is responding to necessities of communities' desires,
[3:52:34] and then being able to implement in a strategic way.
[3:52:38] And so, we're doing this all the time.
[3:52:40] And I do have to say, as I know the mayor hates me seeing this,
[3:52:44] but much of this is one-time revenues.
[3:52:46] And you do not want to fund people that the good news is not all of its one-time revenues.
[3:52:51] So we're growing into that revenue stream to support us and these projects that we are
[3:52:55] bringing in with this one-time revenue will generate future sales tax.
[3:52:59] So the good news is we're in a growing place.
[3:53:01] And I will say, as we do the quarterly variance reports, and we've been showing you our cash
[3:53:05] is growing, our portfolio is growing, but it's so overwhelming when you hear it, I don't
[3:53:10] think the full picture gets through that we're really doing.
[3:53:13] I mean, finance, you know, finance is, it's great for us, but not everybody gets it, so.
[3:53:19] Okay.
[3:53:21] I've mentioned this to the mayor and to Deb, and you know, first of all, and we should just make sure
[3:53:27] everybody's clear, this is a really good problem they have.
[3:53:30] Yeah.
[3:53:30] Okay.
[3:53:31] Really good problem they have.
[3:53:33] But I do think that it's sort of highlights that I think we need to have more collaboration and
[3:53:42] coordination between staff and council, you know, the budget is one of the council's most important responsibilities.
[3:53:50] And I believe that we should form a budget advisory group, not a committee, a group that would meet periodically,
[3:54:00] to engage in more depth with staff, try to anticipate these things to the mayor's point.
[3:54:05] We've been kind of living in poverty throughout the year when we didn't really need to.
[3:54:10] Maybe if we were working a little bit more closely together, we could kind of, we could help with that.
[3:54:15] So anyway, I really think that we should seriously pursue that.
[3:54:20] I think it would be, I think it would be great for the city if we could collaborate more closely on this.
[3:54:25] So part of the problem is that we have depth short-stacked and huge workloads and we don't
[3:54:36] have, the reporting is, is tough.
[3:54:40] We should have budget to actual on a quarterly basis so that we don't, this is kind of surprise.
[3:54:46] This is a good surprise, but it could be a bad surprise, okay?
[3:54:49] I mean, that's the problem.
[3:54:51] And so, you know, we need to have budget
[3:54:54] stacks, what I was talking to Deb about that,
[3:54:56] how we could go about it.
[3:54:57] That's not an easy thing to do with her software.
[3:55:00] And we're working with older software. Was it 15, 18 years old? Yeah, you probably will see a request come through for next year. But I do say is we do have quarterly budget to actual. They just maybe are not answering the questions that you want. So it would be. We'll work on some of the reporting. But it.
[3:55:22] I don't want to I don't want to say conversion because it gets enough to make many account and put some meltdown because they're so difficult to do. But we're going to have to address some of our software.
[3:55:31] issues here in the next couple of years. So anyway, okay.
[3:55:36] Yeah, it almost sounds scary like you're suggesting in a limited way we bring back the finance
[3:55:41] committee and that might not be a bad thing, just that one committee because finance is such a
[3:55:48] significant role. But not like it was a regular every week like the committee's met before, but
[3:55:54] quarterly or monthly or something. But I agree, like, you know, what you were saying before.
[3:56:00] Or because what I'm hearing more than anything is things that we thought we needed the B&O
[3:56:07] tax to pay for, we're in paying for already.
[3:56:11] And now the money that's going to come in from that tax is available for other things
[3:56:15] like additional and staff to cops, things like that.
[3:56:19] Because this money is already kind of know where we're going and we don't really know
[3:56:24] where that's going to go yet.
[3:56:26] I don't need to interrupt but remembering that over two million of this dollars is one
[3:56:32] time dollars.
[3:56:33] So, when you're committing to people, you're committing to ongoing cough and that's
[3:56:38] what we're setting up.
[3:56:39] But some of the V&O is going to go to as your person to manage it, the city administrator,
[3:56:43] potentially administrative staff for the mayor and administrator.
[3:56:48] That wasn't, you know, that much of it seems like it's covered already through what's
[3:56:53] going to be ongoing, the one time could go towards improving your software and improving
[3:57:00] this, you know, maybe an exponential increase down the road of what you can do.
[3:57:04] What I was going to say to is, with all the staffing issues, you know, the Mayor of
[3:57:09] December tonight, we know we arrested 13,000 and I don't know from not being on the council
[3:57:16] for that long and a lot of us are newer, you know, we know where are our populations
[3:57:22] that now, but how much is our staff increased proportionally to that population increase?
[3:57:27] So maybe some some point numbers of, you know, when we had a city of 5,000, we had this many staff.
[3:57:36] And now we're at 13,000 and we have this many staff because if we don't increase the staff to support the increased population, this is going to continue to be a problem.
[3:57:44] And some of my suggestions too is when looking at this is we are going up with labor
[3:57:49] negotiations and maybe updating some of our comparables as we grow.
[3:57:54] Number two is we have held departments to bottom line budgets without any increases
[3:57:59] without unless we ask for a $500 travel request which we said no to.
[3:58:04] We need a $250 supply request.
[3:58:06] Maybe it's time because I will tell you the cost of travel and training and supplies is not
[3:58:10] decrease. It's probably going up 40%. And I think maybe some of the things we need to do are
[3:58:15] fund some of those ongoing operations and get those expense levels to where they be first.
[3:58:20] And maybe that's when we go to the budget cycle is saying every department or every operating
[3:58:25] budget should be increased a certain certain percentage. Because I still get nervous that we did
[3:58:30] balance the budget with a deficit. Some of those one-time dollars is covering it.
[3:58:40] Some of those
[3:58:40] And I will say, Palsible is very isolated.
[3:58:43] We are very lucky, but they are predicting a definite economic downturn.
[3:58:50] They said the consumer spending is not as competent anymore, and so to prepare.
[3:58:54] The good news with this is we are in a very good place.
[3:58:57] We are planning to go out for debt, so we have some reserves.
[3:59:00] We maybe don't have to go for debt as much, or we back fill in.
[3:59:03] We have the money to make those debt payments over the years when we are not in a good place.
[3:59:08] when we had planned to build the City Hall and utilize our first quarter of real estate
[3:59:13] excise tax to pay for the City Hall debt and many years that revenue was not meeting
[3:59:17] that debt payment and we were using the reserves to meet that.
[3:59:20] So this leaves us a little comfort level and that's what you don't want to do.
[3:59:24] You don't want to focus on just the year's years.
[3:59:26] We want to look at a long-range plan and that's what we try to do when we try to build some
[3:59:30] sustainability.
[3:59:31] Now, do we maybe conservatively budget because we have this policy of not projecting higher
[3:59:35] than the other year maybe it's and that's why I said is we could probably could bump up
[3:59:39] our sales tax projection half a million dollars right now which sustained some of those ongoing
[3:59:44] expenses. We did just hire some personnel and so this will hopefully sustain that but you
[3:59:50] don't want to over over burn too but you've got to have a balance act because what's a healthy
[3:59:54] level of reserves so you're right we don't want to keep going in to continue to to tax
[4:00:06] We've got a couple big challenges facing us. This is a good surprise to have. Number one, we're also going into our labor agreements this spring. Well, this fall, really. Soon. Two months. We're going to have our labor agreements and you know that that's going to be very challenging. We're going to have a lot that's going to hit big, big cash. The second thing is we've got a bunch of dead issues.
[4:00:29] we've got to make. And so having the extra cash is good to have. Although I will have been
[4:00:38] I was surprised. I didn't know. And the reality is we could spend it tomorrow on fixing
[4:00:45] the boardwalk, oyster plant park, and fixing roads and old town. It would be gone. Or buying
[4:00:52] out the historical society and the building approaches for matching land. We want to do
[4:00:59] We could spend it all in a heartbeat, but yeah, I think a holistic, expensive review,
[4:01:09] like you just mentioned, is a perfect project for a new city administrator.
[4:01:13] You know, if somebody comes in who hasn't been here through the ups and downs,
[4:01:18] who can look at it coldly and fresh and say, what should the city be doing?
[4:01:24] It sounds like a perfect, you know, when the new person comes in, they should do that.
[4:01:29] I just say we had one of our items on the agenda was the chart, you know, where it's the
[4:01:33] asks, the mayor's recommendation to the council.
[4:01:35] So are we moving to that soon?
[4:01:39] If you go through your presentation, you can call me up.
[4:01:41] These are all funds that have been allocated and have been put aside to carry over to the
[4:01:45] next year.
[4:01:48] It was in your packet.
[4:01:52] Did we make a decision on that chart tonight?
[4:01:54] I guess it's not really getting out of there.
[4:01:56] Well, and I can pull up the chart too,
[4:01:58] we have a meeting decisions on it.
[4:01:59] I'm not making any of those recommendations tonight.
[4:02:01] I can just want to give you the what the cash is,
[4:02:04] and then we will come back and do it.
[4:02:05] So one happy idea.
[4:02:06] Deb, is there an opportunity here for a bond rating review
[4:02:09] to see if we can strengthen it?
[4:02:11] Well, here's, and that's, yeah, that's spending on your reserves.
[4:02:15] We are looking at, we're using the local program,
[4:02:19] so luckily we don't have to go out for a bond rating.
[4:02:21] for the Nordic cottages, we will definitely be looking at a bond rating when we bought
[4:02:25] for the perk, and that is good news to have some reserves in there.
[4:02:29] And they really look at your reserve policies, which we have in place very well.
[4:02:33] The revenue debt that you eventually will have to go to if we don't go for a public works
[4:02:38] trust fund loan, which is what we would first like to look at.
[4:02:40] We have several debt issues that we're looking at over several years.
[4:02:44] That one will be strictly dependent on the revenue and expenses and reserves in the
[4:02:51] The perk will be looking at our general obligation.
[4:02:54] So just let me see.
[4:02:55] I have to share a different presentation, so let me.
[4:02:58] So long and short of what you said is, yes, we will probably be going out for a long
[4:03:03] ride in because of the perk.
[4:03:05] Okay.
[4:03:05] We're double A plus.
[4:03:07] Okay.
[4:03:08] We've got good strong financials.
[4:03:10] Cash is a strong one.
[4:03:11] Well, yeah.
[4:03:11] And the one reason I wanted to look at that, that three column, particularly, I can't get
[4:03:16] it.
[4:03:16] Yeah, I know.
[4:03:17] I'm just throwing it as one of the things that Mayor that you had said to wait on was Mike's asphalt hot box
[4:03:25] Which is a one-time equipment expenditure?
[4:03:28] So that was when I had kind of glued in on where since a lot of our money is one-time
[4:03:34] Revenue I wasn't sure what why we would wait on that
[4:03:37] I don't want to make any comment on these tonight. Okay. I think we're all too tired
[4:03:40] I know I am and I think we need to end this conversation now. We'll pick it up two weeks from now
[4:03:46] So the money isn't going anywhere.
[4:03:48] I'll just look at this three-com approach
[4:03:49] and this was in your packet as well.
[4:03:52] So this was put on the weight list,
[4:03:55] the civil engineer, the engineer we talked about,
[4:03:57] that is being funded.
[4:03:59] It was built into the carry-over figures right now
[4:04:01] to get the end dollars because we built the amendment funding
[4:04:05] that.
[4:04:05] The police administrative specialist that was funded
[4:04:08] with the police organization and the police officer.
[4:04:12] You funded one of those officers.
[4:04:15] The utilities is the mayor said she wants to continue to look at solid waste and where
[4:04:19] the operations are in those utility funds.
[4:04:22] Park overtime was on a wait and the phone handsets were waiting because they're evaluating
[4:04:28] the entire phone system and then the overtime for the comp plan they talked about.
[4:04:33] So those were the only things and the ask about hot box what you're talking about is about
[4:04:38] $50,000 out of our capital equipment.
[4:04:40] So those are still in the way at least, but the ones, you can't tell the colors up here,
[4:04:44] but the says funded by carry-over, funded by carry-over.
[4:04:48] So primarily the people have been funded.
[4:04:51] This is the one-time hot box you can do that.
[4:04:53] But that's what was built into the amendment.
[4:04:54] And the amendment is planned.
[4:04:55] I was hoping to get improved at our special meeting in the end of June
[4:04:58] because then it gets...
[4:05:00] We're supposed to do the budgets, and it's easy to evaluate it as six-month window. And the officer would split one, so is there one 301? The 301 would be the vehicle then, right? The 301 would be a vehicle for the officer. And I don't, I don't know if they necessarily mean, I think they wanted to keep it in there, but as they, they actually, when they reorganize, because they use their reorganization to fund administrative specials who doesn't need a vehicle, so they may have the vehicle. But funding an additional officer will definitely require
[4:05:29] I don't call it 250,000 dollars.
[4:05:31] Well, yeah, because the two officers,
[4:05:33] that's what I figured the real one.
[4:05:34] And I will say these costs are probably low
[4:05:36] because when we built this for vehicles,
[4:05:38] last time we built it at 50 or 16,
[4:05:39] they're coming out close to 70 to 80,000 dollars.
[4:05:42] And it is now 10 after 9.
[4:05:43] Everybody's getting shot.
[4:05:45] We need to end this now,
[4:05:47] and we'll come back after you get back
[4:05:49] from your conference dev.
[4:05:51] And we'll talk about what my recommendations are
[4:05:54] for moving forward with the cash flow.
[4:05:59] So okay, I hope I don't mean to truncate this but not everybody's tired. It's time. It's time to call it a call
[4:06:06] so
[4:06:08] What's next on the agenda? I've lost my
[4:06:11] Questions and concerns of the council. Please don't have any
[4:06:20] No, I'm just tired. Go ahead. I was just gonna relay on Pam's behalf because we had spoken about it earlier and then she had to take off
[4:06:28] She is going to take over kind of the chair position of our community
[4:06:33] I'm still on it, but she's going to, she's a great fit.
[4:06:37] And we are still working on it, say we're all doing a lot and it's a busy time right now, but we're pulling the committee together and moving forward for an event in November.
[4:06:49] Super.
[4:06:51] Anything any other concerns of the committee?
[4:06:56] Just that if we don't, we stop that conversation, I hope for the hiring purposes
[4:07:02] that it doesn't delay them too long because I know how long it takes to get a cop.
[4:07:06] I thought we would lost you.
[4:07:08] You were doing this.
[4:07:10] They've already started moving forward on hiring the cop.
[4:07:13] Well, yeah, but this letter is going to do it, too.
[4:07:15] So, you know, anything, any other concerns to the committee?
[4:07:19] No.
[4:07:20] I don't want one more really good thing that I realized I didn't mention before.
[4:07:24] I did order replacement pride banner flags that sound reprographics is rush ordering.
[4:07:32] I think we should hear more from the community what they want to do in the immediate, but
[4:07:36] I wanted to have them available.
[4:07:39] So I don't think any more of them down and should have they?
[4:07:41] Okay.
[4:07:42] All right.
[4:07:43] And now we have continued comments from citizens if you have comments on the cast.
[4:07:46] No, one more.
[4:07:47] Future agenda item.
[4:07:50] I just want to make sure you capture the downtown safety and security to be an agenda item on our workshop for either next week or the following week.
[4:08:04] We will try to do that if we can get the data. How's that?
[4:08:07] Okay.
[4:08:07] Okay. All right. Now continue comments from citizens. If you have comments for the council, step to the podium, you have three minutes.
[4:08:17] Hi, good evening, council members. So the public comments that were given earlier tonight, I think, touched upon most of the important things.
[4:08:25] Oh, my name's Natalie Artemiath and I'm a resident here for about three years now.
[4:08:30] This should be quick. There were just a couple of things I wanted to emphasize that were I don't think touched upon earlier.
[4:08:35] So, first of all, I understand that initially after this vandalism happened with the pride flags there were likely discussions about taking the damaged flags down and replacing them with backstock or reordered flags.
[4:08:52] I just want to thank you all for supporting and allowing these flags to stay flying.
[4:09:00] They really mean a lot.
[4:09:03] I understand that in the aftermath on Saturday, it was very emotionally charged and I think
[4:09:10] a lot of people were looking at those flags as a reminder of an act of violence, but
[4:09:14] because of the community response since then, I think these flags have become a deeply
[4:09:20] moving symbol of what the LGBTQ community overcomes, strength and resilience of this community.
[4:09:27] And my only ask is that at whatever point discussions continue for what to do with these flags that at least one of them that is stitched is preserved and ideally hung in years to come.
[4:09:42] I understand that a painful experience for this town to be going through together but we're also healing through it together and most of us I think at this point when we look at those stitched flags we see our resilience through it.
[4:09:56] And tangentially, I would like to thank Brett Livdall.
[4:10:00] Your work and dedication to this community is really awing and in context with what's been going on with Paul's full pride. It's a human rights issue and we see you. We really appreciate you. You embody the characteristics of a true public servant. And it means the world's us. Thank you. And happy Pride Months to everyone.
[4:10:24] Continue comments from citizens. Anyone?
[4:10:30] Any council comments left?
[4:10:32] But it's not, I had to entertain a motion to adjourn.
[4:10:36] So moved.
[4:10:38] Is there a second?
[4:10:39] Second.
[4:10:39] All in favor?
[4:10:40] Aye.
[4:10:41] We're adjourned.
[4:10:43] Aye.