Thank you, Tisha. Good evening. Welcome, everyone. I'd like to
call the February 5th regular city council meeting to order. Anyone who would like to
join the council myself in the Pledge of Allegiance, please stand. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for
all. So for this evening's council meeting, we've decided to change the
order a little bit and we're starting with audience comments. Audience members may address the
council at this time. The guidelines are on the meeting agenda. If you signed up
to make comments this evening, you will be called forward first. If you did not
sign up, I will ask for more speakers before we close this part of the
meeting. When recognized, please come up to the lectern and speak into the microphone.
State your name, address, and relationship to the city. We have seven
members of the public signed up tonight for comments, so we'll allow five minutes for
each member. If you're here with the group, please be sure to raise your sign
or raise your hand when one of your spokespeople is up there so the council
can understand how many of you came for that issue this evening. And if you
have anything in writing, please feel free to submit it to the city clerk afterwards.
Thank you so much for coming today to address us during our meeting. And Tisha,
who do we have first signed up? David Wagner.
Good evening, Council. David Wagoner, 360 Northwest Dogwood Street, apartment K204,
Issaquale, Washington. I'm here tonight to take my full five minutes
to pay a tribute to a wonderful lady you see up on the screen. She
was a dear friend. I had the honor and privilege of being your cemetery board
chair for eight years and served on the cemetery board for 12 years. Linda served
with me. Linda served well over 20 years on the cemetery board.
Linda was also a wonderful city historian for a long
time. If you had any questions about city history, all you had to do was
pick up the phone and call Linda, and she would fill you in. Unfortunately, in
November, we lost Linda to a battle of breast cancer.
As I sat today trying to think of the words, I thought, well, I should
write out a little talk. I can't do that. I got to tell you about
Linda from my heart. Feisty, she was feisty.
Bulldog with the bone, kind, generous, What other
words, Barbara? My other cemetery board member. What other words?
Unique. One thing about Linda that I can tell you is that
her service to the city was unquestionable. She
was what Issaquah is all about.
And when I look at the council, I think about the fact that she was
serving the city before any of you ever got up there, and especially those that
are running for this office of city council member.
She was there, she was serving our city. I became part of Issaquah in 1945.
Many of you were not alive then. I was a Issaquah
High School graduate, and so was Linda. When you think about the things that
she did, said, helped with, tracked,
I can tell you at least once every two weeks I would get a call
from Linda. And when the phone rang, I knew it was not gonna be a
quick conversation. That's the way she was. And
usually it was fun and sometimes it was serious.
and I think about what was done for the city
under her time. I see the flashing green light, so I'm gonna speed up
so we can get an answer to all these folks sitting on their hands out
here. But I wanna show you something unique. Can
you help me, Tish? I've got a tremor and I cannot,
I want to go to that next slide.
Those furs were a source of irritation to Linda.
For years, I would hear about those furs. And
she wanted it to be a garden. Well, I've got some good news for you,
Linda. Would you give me my next slide?
Last spring, we made it into a garden. So when you're going up Sunset Way
this spring and summer, you'll see blooming flowers. When I see that,
I'm gonna think of Linda and her service to the city. She was,
I will miss her. I will miss the cookies she made. The
best words out of my mouth about Linda is, thank you for your service.
Thank you, Dave.
Tia Haim.
Good evening. I'm Tia Haim with Shelter Holdings. We are property owner of a large
undeveloped property in Issaquah Highlands. Over the past several years, we've worked in good faith
with the city on a plan for development of our Issaquah Highlands property. Over the
past year, we've submitted a preliminary plot and four proposals for retail and commercial development
that are absolutely consistent with the development agreement and also reflect the feedback that we
received from the community. All of our projects are vested to the development agreement, which
is the current code or set of regulations that applies to development within Issaquah Highlands.
Our proposals include a retail development, an office building, a medical office building, and a
storage facility. These proposals will bring the community more retail, services, and
restaurants that they so desire. They will also provide additional office, retail, and
medical jobs in Issaquah Highlands. The city has extensive files on each of these proposals,
and we're happy to share additional information with anyone that's interested. I'm here tonight because
on Friday afternoon the city administration made a drastic change with respect to its position
on vested applications. This change will create a wholly unnecessary controversy over
applications that are clearly vested to the development agreement standards. The staff memos that have
been provided to Council and Land and Shore regarding vesting do not accurately reflect the
current situation that vested rights currently exist. and that state law does not
allow legislative action to retroactively remove vested status. The
administration's sudden change in position creates confusion and likely will result in forcing litigation to
protect existing vested rights, which we do not believe is in the best interest of
the community or anyone else involved. Since the city council is ultimately the body that
will adopt the replacement regulations, we urge you to take the time to understand the
impacts and implications of the position that the administration is recommending to you.
This matter is before land and shore this week, but because of the importance, we
wanted to flag it for you tonight before it comes back to you for consideration.
We're happy to provide any additional information that you might think helpful. Just reach out
to us and let us know. Thank you. Robert Swanson.
Hello, my name is Robert Swanson. I live in 826 4th Avenue Northeast up in
Isquale Highlands. I just want to thank you, Dave, for what you shared. It's all
about the people. It's not about money and cents and dollars and regulations and all
that. It's all about Linda. It's all about the people that live here. So thank
you for sharing that. That was very touching. I just have a question for everybody.
I don't recognize a lot of people here, so this might be a good question.
Would you guys like the hospital built next to the high school? I mean, you
don't have to raise your hand. Robert, I'm going to get you to address the
council. Oh, I thought I couldn't. Okay. So if I address you, can I look?
Okay, if anybody in the room would like a hospital built next to the Issaquah
High School, raise your hand in your heart. I don't know if you're supposed to
get people to raise your hands, but think about it. Why would you not want
a hospital built next to the Issaquah High School? What one reason, let's
say they got the land, let's say you got the land for some mystical figure
like $700,000, okay? You got that land, you've passed all the laws, you've
certified it for a hospital, okay? But what's the one reason you got it for
a good price? What's the one reason you would not want that hospital built there?
Think about it. Traffic. Traffic would be a nightmare. It's already a nightmare. Anybody
have kids go to school there? two kids go to the high school. It is
a royal pain in the neck to get them there. Now, if you want to
know what it's like building a hospital next to the Issaquah High School,
they built an Issaquah Middle School. Okay, guess what's happening now? They have buses, let's
pretend these buses are ambulances going into the school. Well, what happened is the bus
drivers are now getting on their, I don't know, radios, walkie-talkies, whatever they are, hey,
can you get all these parents out of here, these cars, we can't get our
buses into the middle school. They are saying that over and over again. I have
ins on how I know that, but I know that for a fact. They are
not going, hey, this is all going great. Their kids are getting late to school.
But you know what, those lates to school are not excused. Not at all. Because
as soon as they built that school there, guess what happened? The traffic went completely
berserk. Okay, so now we're gonna move this over to, guess what? Yes, and I
went all pictures this time, no PowerPoint. This is Christmas Day, by the way.
Beautiful snowstorm we had. I had to go out and take the picture. But this
is the place that they wanna build, right next to the hospital. They wanna build,
cut this all down right there, pretty much right at the fence. boom, and put
an elementary school there. Now think about it, it's on top of the hill, okay,
that has in the past been deemed as not stable, okay? Now whatever deeming you
wanna say, it was deemed not stable. Now they say it is, but anyway, so
would you think that's a great idea, okay, whoever's in the room here? So what
we're gonna be doing here, here's the hospital. The hospital is just, you're facing this
way, it's just to the left of the school. This was taken probably about four
or five years ago. I took it pretty close at night. So here's all the
traffic that's in these, the about eight o'clock in the
morning. I took a day off work so I could take pictures during the weekday
about how many cars are there at eight o'clock in the morning? Well, here you
go. Yep, there's about, I'm gonna go at least eight, oops. I'm going ahead. There's
about 800 cars or so there at about 8 o'clock in the morning. Now, those
cars don't get zapped down there by Star Trek. They actually have to drive up
the hill. Okay, now, here you go. This is not the one I want. Here
we go. So this is me driving towards the hill, if you notice right up
there the hill. I have to take a left. Only one car can get through
there at a time. Two cars cannot get through there at a time. See if
I go backwards. Now, after I let that car go by, now I'm driving up
and guess what? There's another car come down here. You can barely have two cars
come down there at a time. Now this is the alleyway going down to my
townhouse. Guess what? There are tons of children down right here. You cannot have cars
going both directions that way and children. There is no sidewalk, there is no safety
way to get kids in and out of that with cars going both ways. Anyway,
point is, it's a terrible location and we all know it to put
a school right next to a hospital. And thank you very much. Thank you, Robert.
So just a reminder, I know a lot of times when people come, they have
not talked at the microphone before, and it's kind of intimidating to address the Council.
But for tonight, for public comments, remember that you are addressing those that are seated
up here, and so make sure to refer your comments to the Council. Patricia? John
Haas.
John Haas, good evening, Council. My name is John Haas, and I live at 4825
240th Avenue Southeast in Issaquah, Washington, 98029. And
my relation to the city is I have a project that is in permitting in
the Issaquah Highlands, specifically Block 20. And we
have applied for, received, and paid for a ASDP permit
for our facility, which is going to be the nation's first indoor deep water surf
park and Jason Stormburner restaurants. And I'm here tonight
regarding a concerning change that happened on about January 25th, I received an email
from development services that the proposed vesting language
that was contained within the proposed bill for the for the end of the
development agreement, there's been language that has been considered
to vest the permits that had already been issued And I've been
to most of the hearings and so forth on it. There has been, to my
knowledge, there's been no negative feedback except from Regency Centers,
who is the retail owner in the Highlands. Other than Regency Centers, who has a
bit of a conflict, there's been no negative feedback that I've heard or that I'm
aware of. And I was concerned on January 25th that I was
that the vesting language, which was going to basically grandfather the permits
that we have applied for and paid for, in our case, we applied in April
of 2017. The permit fee was $25,400, which
they just happened to double that fee about two weeks before we applied for the
permit. But anyway, we applied for the permit, were vested. and the development agreement
is sunsetting and there's been this language that Tia spoke about
that would have vested these properties to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement
and now suddenly there's a change in position from the administration
and it concerns me for a number of reasons. We've spent almost a quarter of
a million dollars on this development between between land payments, land payments to the seller,
mechanical, architectural, structural, civil. We're a quarter million dollars into it.
And it's concerning that now if the bill passes as it's written,
the city, our vesting goes away. And we'll have to start over again. And so,
And ultimately, we'll have to look elsewhere for our center. But the thing that really
concerns me is that with all the public process that's happened, the
administration moved the goalposts at the very end in the fourth quarter with about three
minutes left. All of a sudden, the vesting went away.
I don't think that's correct. I don't think it's equitable. I don't think it's
what the citizens would want. I urge council to
rather than just accept it that it's not in the bill, I urge council to
look back and at Land & Shore and at the subsequent meeting to ask some
questions about why all of a sudden with two minutes to go in the fourth
quarter that the goalposts were moved. There's going to be ramifications for
this because for a number of reasons. I mean, for example, we got We have
over 2,000 Facebook followers, our business, City Surf Seattle, many of whom live in the
neighborhood. They're looking forward to it, our facility. They reach out to us daily. When's
it going to go? When's it going to happen? And I'm anticipating a lot of
disappointment to those folks because of the change in the city. And there's still time
for you guys to take some action and do what's right and consider
reinserting the vesting language, which was taken out at the very end
and in the dark of night. It was not a transparent process. I found out
about it on the 25th. Other folks found out about it on Friday when we
got the email from the city. And so I urge you to
carefully to not just accept that it's out of the bill and to really consider
the implications it's gonna have for the landowners and for the residents of this city.
Thank you. Thank you, John. Elizabeth Taylor.
Thank you, council. I've never spoken before a crowd before, so if I stumble a
bit, please forgive me. My name is Elizabeth. I live at 3425
Northeast Monterey Lane in the Issaquah Highlands. I'm here to speak for Cougar Mountain.
I rejoined the Alps Hiking Club last July after an absence of several years.
We have hike leaders who identify the flowers, trees, native plants, tell us their
uses in the past and present. They give us the history of the mountains and
the trails. Sure, you can walk on sidewalks and pave trails, but it isn't the
same as donning a pair of boots, slinging on a backpack, and rain or shine,
seeing how far you can go or how high you can climb. It gets so
quiet up there. No traffic noise, no exhaust fumes or construction noise.
Every season is different, fall being my favorite. When the foliage is turning color,
you're ankle deep in fallen leaves and the air just has a golden glow. No
road or sidewalks could ever take the place of a mountain
trail built by someone or by the people you've come to know. It just
isn't and never would be the same. You could never put it back the way
it used to be. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. There are about 20
or so people in the audience and 10 or so is Save Cougar Mountain signs.
Thanks. And Joe had two hands in the air. Tisha?
Good evening, City Council. My name is Geraldine Carey. I come up here as often
as I can to let you know I have issues with development on Cougar Mountain,
especially Bergsma property. And I wrote a long letter to you
a couple weeks ago, and I didn't get a chance to add a little bit
more to it. What I want to know is, With the history of that corner
having earth movement and one of the properties started development in 1999
and has never been resolved, it is still trying to be built. I want to
know if this development gets houses put on it and the road collapses or a
house starts to fall down, who is going to be responsible to that homeowner for
the loss? This is a steep hill. It has a lot of water in it
and to develop it with 50 some odd houses I think is a tragedy.
I understand that a landowner would like to make money on it and I understand
the developers would like to make a whole lot of money on it at our
expense. And I urge you and I urge
Mr. Hunter to deny this project for the same reasons he considered
it the last round. My comment about the people who have developments up in the
Highland, I understand why maybe the city council is going a couple steps
backwards. Traffic up there is horrible. There aren't enough roads, there are too many people,
and if this man is talking about 2,000 more people patronizing the Highlands,
I am agreement with the city in saying, Enough, we overstepped our bounds. You guys
all jumped in here, you wanted your permits, you slammed us, and you got your
money in, and now you're trying to force the city to follow through on the
developments. I understand the pain you're in, but I also live here, and I also
believe that we need to be good stewards of our city and the roads and
the people who live here. Thank you. Do I have one more minute? It looks
like it's still green. Okay, a quick comment. If this project, the Bergsville
project goes through, I live around the corner, very close to where the trucks were
going to be. And I want to know if you can make a condition that
they do not block the private residences from entering and exiting the properties that are
north and south of where the 88,000 cubic yards are going to
be transported. Please be aware that people live there and they
need to get home and get out to support Issaquah. Thank you. Thank you, Geraldine.
Tisha? Rigel Rearson? Lots of hands, lots of signs. Thank you.
I'm Rigel Ryerson and I just wanted to get up and briefly say that I
am in support of the Saving Cougar Mountain and I'm sure that you guys are
very familiar with your comprehensive plan but I just wanted to get up and reiterate
for you that you guys is your goal for the natural environment was to maintain
and enhance the natural system and features of the city and surrounding area from the
potential negative impacts of human activity including but not limited to land development. And I
think that that's a perfect example. That land is perfect for hiking. It's great in
its natural state. It adds to the Issaquah Alps. And to allow it to be
developed would be a travesty, in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel.
One or so hands, 10 or so signs. Tisha? Joe Verner.
Good evening, Mayor, City Council, and fellow attendees. My name is Joe Verner,
V-E-R-N-E-R. I live at 1230 Oak Crest,
that's Oakwood Drive, which is just off of Newport Way
Northwest, in between the Bergsma Project and the Gateway
Project. I'm here on behalf of the Save Cougar Mountains Citizens Action Committee.
I have a copy of a letter that the Save the Cougar Mountain Group retained
an attorney to review the revised mitigated
determination of non-significance. I'll leave a copy for
administration. So I just had a chance to review this letter
from the attorney to the city. It's five pages long. And after I
read it, I thought to myself, well, maybe this document should have been titled,
Revised Mitigation Determination of Most Significance, not
Non-Significance. Here's why, it's five pages long.
It is very detailed. It's to the point. This attorney and
his staff did an excellent job in my opinion. of pointing out
deficiencies, including deficiencies on the part of city development for not
following city code and not following RCW code. And so when you
get done reading this document, I think you're going to be begged with the question
of where has our city development services
directors and staff been through the development of Bergsma properties
Gateway properties, Talos, Highlands, for
the last one plus decades. Because
in my observation of city development services, they've been advocating
for the developer, the development project,
to the city council and to the mayor. to the development commissions,
to the lands and shore committee, et cetera. Now this is my opinion.
But if you ask others that are here tonight, I think they would probably echo
some of my opinion. So what has city development services been doing
besides advocating? And a vernacular for advocation is
selling. It doesn't seem to be any empathy or consideration
for the citizens and residents of the city of Issaquah that already live here,
already paying their bloody taxes. So in leaving tonight,
I wanna leave with one last comment. I encourage
the mayor and the city council to take under consideration,
serious consideration, for close, hands-on
supervision and management of city development services. And if changes and replacements are
necessary, then so be it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. A
lot of hands in the air, a lot of signs in the air. Patricia? No
one further has signed up to speak. So that is a list of seven that
had signed up, and I'm seeing Julie's hand in the back. So if you did
not sign up and you'd also like to participate in audience comments, please make your
way towards the podium so that we can get you up to speak after Julie.
Thanks.
Good evening. Julie Clark, 915, Bear Ridge Court, Northwest, Issaquah.
I wanted to stand before you this evening and read all of the considerations regarding
the Bergsma Windward development. As you know, many people have brought forth multiple concerns.
The Geotech peer review by Golder and Associates listed 18 separate issues requiring
additional work to be performed, additional information provided, and adjustments be made and
plans be updated. Amick Foster Wheeler agreed with each
of the issues and included five additional comments. Instead of dwelling on the risks, the
destruction of the city characteristic hillsides, the conflict with the Issaquah
Comprehensive Plan, and the deforestation of this property, I am asking you,
again, to work with the county and other organizations to acquire the 45 or 46
acres on the side of the beautiful mountain
Cougar Mountain. Add 46 acres to our parklands, hiking trails, and
quality of life. Many people have asked to be included on our Save Cougar Mountain
list, and one person who had written to King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert asking
her to help save the Bergsma property forwarded the reply she received.
Councilmember Lambert, this is Quote, Council Member Lambert believes it
is a high value conservation property and has requested that King County Parks
reach out to the developers and the City of Issaquah to see what can be
done to protect this land, end quote. Please work with King County.
Please work with Mountain to Sound. Please work with Forterra and Trust for public
land. Please work to save the Bergsma property. Thank you. Thank you, Julie.
All the signs are up in the air. Honey?
Hi, I'm Connie Marsh and I live up on Squawk Mountain. Linda Yelm, right?
Remember Linda, she died. Well, I met her from the Southeast Bypass because the Southeast
Bypass was gonna take out her house. And she was just an unhappy camper.
sort of like some people in the audience now. And so that was a very
long time ago, and I've been coming up day after day doing the same thing.
And so I was here with Talis, and then remember when we protected Park
Point? But there was this deal where Issaquah Highlands got all of the impact while
we saved a hillside. So it was really hard for me to support that because
I knew that one half of our town was going to be getting the bad
while the whole town was getting the good and I don't think that's fair. So
I listened to you all when we were doing the central Issaquah plan and the
main reason was we're going to develop out the valley floor so we can save
our forested hillsides and pretty soon we got some language forcibly in the comprehensive plan
to in theory do that. Well that never quite And so
now, yet again, we're looking at our forested hillsides under threat, and that would be
the hill behind Swedish and the Bergsma property, even while we're developing our valley floor.
And as a community member, y'all promised that we were gonna be
protecting something super important in order to allow the massive development that we're
expecting on the valley floor. And it's time for y'all to keep that promise because
you can't keep baiting and switching us and expect us to be on your side.
And we would all love to be on the side of the city and all
pull together, but that simply can't happen unless we can trust you. And so my
ask today is that we don't create just another, well, you know, we can
protect part of Bergsma, but that means we have to impact Talis.
Just protect Bergsma. Let's get something for the community that does not make someone
else's life miserable. Thank you. Thank you, Connie. Lots of signs, lots of hands. Mary?
And my name is Mary Lynch and I reside at 2690 Northwest Oak Crest Drive.
And I just want to build on what some of the others have said and
also say that you as a council or you as administration can put forth bills
and recommendations and change in policy. And one of the things is you can create
a hillside overlay plan. Because we also have some land that's currently being developed or
can be developed also out towards the north end. And unfortunately, some of the stuff
that's happening out there isn't pretty. If you go up 43rd and see what's happening
around Providence Point, that's not pretty. What's gonna happen downstream from there? We still have
stuff that's happening to our streams elsewhere in other parts of the city. We can
have redevelopment on Squawk. We need a hillside overlay plan that protects the
hillsides and saves our trees and our tree canopies. Plus with the park plan, we
need then management and open space management that also looks at what canopies we have
out there on the hillsides and makes sure that they're healthy. because I do wanna
save Berksma, but there still is some work that needs to be done there in
saving the trees. We in Oakcrest have 13 acres of
open space that we need to have protected and we need help managing because that's
not necessarily a healthy forest. So we need a true overlay, hillside overlay
plan that protects our streams or waterways on the hills and also downstream
and the wildlife corridors that go from our hills down and we need a true
management plan for our forests and our hillsides. Please, you as a council and
administration can do that. And we have been asking and hopefully we'll get something done
before we have another talus on our hands. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Lots of
support for Mary's comments. Is there anyone else who would like to speak this evening?
Steve is making his way over.
Hi, all. Steve Pereira, 170 Northeast Dogwood Street for about 10 years now here in
Issaquah. So several thoughts. The first was, so one person's going to be selected to
join all of you tonight. There's 12 that may go around disappointed. A couple thoughts.
One was, I'd like to see considerations given to those who have been
involved in some type of public service before they run for this position. That doesn't
necessarily require that they've served on a committee or a council. There's other ways to
give that. public service should kind of be a park zone. I don't know all
those people well. I only had a chance to catch the tail end of the
meet and greet, which I don't think was a very good opportunity, 13 people, three
minutes each. I would like to see televised debates and
good questions asked, follow all the answer. I don't know how you want to set
that up or when you want to do it, but I think it should be
more than just a meet and greet where probably a lot of people don't attend,
thanks to those two that I did get a chance to talk to. The second
thought was I think there's a lot more work on the affordable housing issue that
has come up. We've talked a lot about different structures like mini houses or
kind of an accessory dwelling unit, but I don't think we've really talked about ways
to get more affordable housing, how to require that of developers. We've talked about mixed
vertical use and how to require more density with a height given them, but we're
not going to reach our goal. I think all that needs to be done before
we look at lifting the moratorium. I also wanna say with
comments on a concern that I've had was a third topic was
we look at development of businesses as a person who does that. We have a
parks department that looks at the parks but there's not somebody that I see that's
responsible for our open spaces or tree canopies, a management plan. I
think that needs to be managed and done on how we protect those areas that
are maybe outside a park area. I don't see a way that that happens today
and I think that's critical to happen going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Is
there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening? Come on up.
Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. My name is Michael Boyle. I live
at 323 Northwest Dogwood Street. And I'm here this evening to request that the
city council actually expand its efforts to make our residential streets as safer to
include all of the Issaquah Valley. As I mentioned, I live on Northwest Dogwood. About
three years ago, we had the privilege and the benefit to have some pretty nice
improvements done to our street. Widened the street, added sidewalk, curb and gutters.
Very nice, excellent lighting, probably the best lit street in Issaquah at nighttime. But as
many of the staff members who worked on that project predicted, those types of efforts
are not conducive to reducing the speed of traffic. And Northwest Dogwood has
turned into basically a speedway. At this time last year actually, starting on February 1st
and through February 16th of last year, the city conducted a speed survey of the
street following an accident with a vehicle leaving the apartments there. The
speed survey found that in the 16 days, 45% of the vehicles that
traveled on that one section of the street were exceeding the 25 mile an hour
speed limit. And that's kind of skewed because some of the vehicles did turn out
of the driveway and cross the measuring device pretty close. So on six of
those different days, there was actually cars exceeding 50 miles an hour traveling down Dogwood.
Today, actually oddly enough with me being here tonight, I watched a van pass a
car going over 50 miles an hour on Dogwood. And one of
the things about the study is three of those days were the days last year
when we had about five inches of snow on the ground. And still the average
speed on that day was over 30 miles an hour. So I'm requesting
that the city council consider putting the same types of traffic calming devices on Dogwood
as they're doing in other parts of the city, things like speed tables or speed
humps, and expand that. I'd also like to request that the council consider putting
another traffic camera along North Newton-Newport Way, similar to the
one located at Issaquah High School, to also enforce the 20 mile an hour I
THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT WHAT WE'VE SEEN RECENTLY IS JUST A RAMPANT DISREGARD
for traffic laws, blocking of intersections, which given some of our current construction projects, even
has a bigger impact on the flow of traffic, disregard for speed limits, failure to
stop at red lights and stop signs. I'm aware that our police department, which I
think is wonderful, is short staffed, but I'd also encourage the council in that area
to work with the police department to make it so that when police officers come
here, they wanna come here, and they want to stay here, so they end up
retiring here. And that'll provide us, in addition to calming devices, which kind of takes
some burden off of our Police Department, it also provides some manpower to make
our streets safer again. Thank you. Thank you. And a show of support.
Are there any other speakers this evening? So I will ask two more times. This
is the second call. Would anybody like to address the Council during audience comments? Last
call, anybody wanting to address the council? So we'll close audience comments. Thank you all
very much. That may have been one of the longest list of different topics we
ever had. Save Cougar Mountain again showed up with large numbers, 20-ish
plus people. I'm sure I'll hear the true number later. And lots of signs. So
thank you for doing that. Thank you for bringing additional information and messaging each time.
I think it's really helpful for the council and myself to hear that. That's great.
So, now we move into special business. AB 7537.
The other reason we have so many people in our audience this evening. This is
Council action to fill a vacancy for Council Position Number 3. At the January 18th
Council meeting, we had the opportunity to hear from 13 individuals who applied to fill
the vacant position. Council and I had the opportunity to speak with the applicants at
an informal community meet and greet last month. Tonight, council will have the opportunity to
elect one of these individuals to the vacant seat. The specifics
of our process are listed in AB 7537 in the package. Does council
have any questions or we would like to proceed with opening nominations? Any questions?
If you have read through, I can quickly give you a simplified
rundown of what you can expect so that the audience also understands what our process
looks like. When I open nominations, I will look to Council and if you would
like to nominate somebody, please raise your hand. I will recognize you. You can state
which applicant you are proposing to nominate and very briefly why and we will move
True, each council member may or may not choose to nominate somebody. When all the
nominations are done, I will move to close the nominations. Any questions on our process?
Paul? Just one clarification. I don't believe nominations require a second. They do not. Right.
Mariah? So again, just a clarification. If we go forward with the nomination, we
should speak to it at that time or wait until of the
nominations are. So you'll have a couple of opportunities to speak tonight during the process.
When you nominate, you have an option, you're not required to, to provide a very
brief statement of why you're choosing to nominate that person. Nobody will be responding or
asking you questions. It's just a statement of why you chose. When we close nominations
and open it up for deliberations, then you can talk each
You can talk about each nomination as you choose, so you can then discuss, deliberate,
and ask questions. So you'll have a couple of opportunities. Okay. Thank you. Any other
questions? Okay.
I now open the nominations for Council Position Number 3. Oh, I missed a
tie. Council Member Goodman. I'd like to nominate Jamie Rosen.
Amy Rosen, would you like to provide a brief statement? No, I'm gonna wait, thank
you. Okay. Council Member Batiste. I would like to nominate Victoria Hunt.
Would you like to make a statement? Not at this time. Okay. Are there any
others? Council Member Winterstein. I'd like to nominate Brian Weinstein. Would you like to make
a comment? Yeah, I believe for, As all matters that come before the council,
large and small, and for the benefit of the city of Issaquah,
for the best interest of the city of Issaquah, I feel that Bryan at this
time would represent the best addition to this existing council. And that in no way
is a statement about any of the other candidates. It's because there's a lot of
phenomenal candidates. Thank you, council member. Are there any other nominations this evening?
The following individuals have been nominated. Jamie Rosen, Victoria Hunt, Brian Weinstein.
Are there any further nominations? Is there a motion to close
nominations? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded to
close nominations. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed?
Nominations are closed. We now enter into council discussion. I
would propose that those that nominated now take an opportunity to make a statement and
then it's open for discussion. Would like to go first? No.
Want me to go first? All right. So as council member Winterstein said,
we have so many great applicants, that this is really a
difficult decision that we have to make up here.
I'm looking beyond the ability to just do the work when I think about the
new person on the council. I'm looking for some things. I'm looking for someone with
a lot of courage. I'm looking for someone with an independent voice and I'm looking
for someone with a truly fresh perspective. And for me, Jamie Rosen rose to the
top, which is why I nominated her. Jamie had the courage to stand up at
the microphone a few weeks ago and tell us that we, this council, need to
do a better job. That the decisions are being made too quickly, mistakes go unrecognized
and unacknowledged. That we are part of a trust issue among the city and its
residents. It takes enormous courage to apply for this position and tell
the six people who are making the decision that they are part of a flawed
system. I recall a certain council member four years ago when we run leadership together
repeatedly telling me and encouraging me to be courageous. And why is that important? It's
important because oftentimes it takes a lot of courage to speak up. I'm looking for
someone who challenges me and challenges all of us in new ways. And Jamie did
that for me in her presentation. Admittedly, Jamie does not have 30-year ties here. She
said that and made that clear in her presentation. And I think that's just great.
That allows her to have an independent voice and a truly fresh perspective, one that
has not been shaped by the typical influences on people who have served or been
involved here for decades, though she has volunteered elsewhere. It's also very
compelling to me that Jamie wants to focus the next two years on rebuilding trust
through community outreach, transparency, and patience. If her perspective as a relatively new
resident is that those are her top concerns, then I believe we have work to
do and I believe we need that perspective on council. I wanna reiterate what
Council Member Winterstein said, however, that these are statements for
and not necessarily against because we just had a really terrific applicant pool.
Thank you. Member Batiste or Winterstein?
So I just wanted to start by saying that Issaquah is so incredibly fortunate to
have such an incredible slate of candidates who have come forward. With the wealth of
talent that's in this room and the amazing diversity of experience, coming up with
just one vote and just one, was incredibly difficult. And I
just want to thank all of the candidates for coming forward to serve. And if
you're not appointed this evening, my hope is that you will continue your involvement with
Issaquah and the surrounding region. Now that I've had the opportunity to meet each of
you, I have no doubt that that will be the case. I wanted to talk
about Victoria Hunt. I believe that Victoria has a unique background.
It spans ecology, land management, and urban planning. I believe that
she has a fresh perspective, enthusiasm, and her thoughtful, creative, detailed approach in both her
answers and all of her interactions have been impressive. Her thoughts on growth traffic, affordable
housing, and open spaces, along with her deep experience with multiple stakeholders' competing interests, stood
out to me. Her passion to serve in a city that she loves was obvious
and genuine. Her current experience serving on the Issaquah Planning and Policy Commission during a
heavy workload period and just her overall background speaks to her dedication and commitment.
I believe that Vicki would add a strong, creative, detailed and thoughtful voice to Council.
Thank you. Council Member Winterstein. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I want to echo
or add my support to the comments we heard previously from Councilmember Batiste and Councilmember
Goodman. Words in support for one candidate, many of those words I believe are applicable
to many of the other candidates as well. And I think the three, both Vicki
and Jamie as well, are very viable candidates, as are some others as well.
As I said earlier, as I contemplated this, by the way, this is a very
difficult, very difficult decision. It's difficult to say no to people who clearly
have passion and I believe have the ability to serve in the best interests of
Issaquah. And some of you I've known for just a little bit, some I don't
know very well at all, some I've known a lot longer. And I kept coming
back to on balance, what do I believe is the best thing for Issaquah? from
a council perspective. And you've heard some of these same claims about some of the
other candidates that have been nominated here, is that they
are constructively critical of the city and this council and our work. And I think
that is important. And Brian has a long history of being constructively critical.
And I also know that, again, when I get back to what I believe is
the best for Issaquah, I think about, there are some comments about service
and kind of history of service. And I think that's very important as well. And
to say that someone has a lot of service and others don't have a lot,
that that somehow negates the others, it really doesn't, because those opportunities are in front
of you. But as I've gotten to know Brian over the years, him and I
have actually disagreed very pointedly on some very important points.
And in my life experience, some of the most important things that have happened to
me have actually transformed me, transformed my thought. I recognize that I now look at
and view and think about things differently than I did before because I was open
to, I had passionate feelings, somewhat loosely held sometimes because I was open to the
good ideas and the good thoughts of others. And Brian has demonstrated that elasticity of
thought, though passionate about his feelings, showing growth and elasticity of thoughts and
adaptive to the actual issues and new learnings. And I think that's very critical for
any council member. So I think with that capability and that representation for a legacy
of the people, legacy residents of Issaquah joining, becoming a part of one of seven
up here, I believe that that in the end is the best, Brian represents the
best new mix on the council for the entire city of Issaquah.
Thank you, Councilmember Winterstein. So not just those that nominated somebody, this is time for
all of us to have a discussion. So Christopher, Councilmember Wray. Thank you.
I want to just echo what Councilmember Winterstein said. This is a very difficult decision
to make, and there are so many people that were more than qualified to sit
next to me, and you do have to sit next to me. But I think
it's our duty here not to say who do we think would be the best
candidate, but to really think about that we are acting as proxies for the voters.
So this is our job here is to try and figure out what if this
was an elected seat and we had all of these great candidates, who would the
voters have selected? So as I started looking at making this difficult
choice, I hearkened back to my time last summer knocking on doors and talking to
people and what was important to the people that I was talking to. And some
of there were lots of different issues in the city, lots of very strong technical
issues around growth and about traffic. But the emerging things that came to me was
they wanted a city council that was actively engaged with them. They wanted to have
a conversation they didn't want to be talked to. They wanted to be listened to.
and they wanted some fresh perspectives. They wanted us to challenge the way things have
always been. They said it was time for some new ways of thinking. I thought
about the individuals that are seeking the seat, and
I want somebody who is a strategic thinker that can look at complex issues and
understand the unintended consequences and implications, someone that can ask the hard questions and hold
people accountable, and someone that will engage the community and focus on issues with a
broader perspective. I've spent a lot of time reading answers to the questions. I
have listened and re-listened and re-listened to the presentations that you all gave. They were
amazing. And I met with many of the candidates, well, some even multiple times, one-on-one,
to really understand and get to know them. And from my perspective and from what
I've heard, if I was channeling the voters of Issaquah, I would support
and I would vote for and I will vote for Jamie Rosen to have the
seat next to me. That being said, there is nobody who has been nominated tonight
that I don't think would be a more than wonderful candidate. But it's time for
some different opinions and different perspectives. That's what drives growth and change. And I
think that we are making a vote tonight to make the City Council a better
organization, to make us better so that we can achieve for the people of Essequah.
Thank you, Council Member Ray. To reiterate many things said already,
it is a tough decision. I'm looking at lots of things and lots of folks
are very talented out here, but people have asked me a number of times what
I want in a co-council member. And what I always say, there's three things. I
want someone who do the work, who will think through it analytically and come and
look at it from a different perspective. There's a reason why there's seven of us
here. We want seven different opinions. And we want to listen to each other, improve
each other's work, and get to a decision that's better because there's seven of us
coming at it from different angles and get the best product possible. And I would
like to echo learning the things that Mariah stated, and I will be supporting Victoria
Hunt. Council President Martz. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I want to go even a step further from what some of the things that
my fellow council members have said. And I think all three of these nominees, first
of all, let me back up a step. I want to thank everybody who applied,
the other 10 who are not nominees. This is, I've said before,
with no offense to anybody who's been appointed before, one of the, probably the strongest,
slate of applicants that I've seen in eight and a half years on council. So
we have three in front of us. And I just want to say, I will
be happy to serve with any of these three. I think they're all eminently qualified
and I'm excited about any of the three of them. Having said that, I'm going
to support Victoria Hunt tonight. And let me tell you why. First off, you know,
we had one of the things that came out in this this
time around is we got a lot of public comment. And I think one of
the comments about Victoria was, could there be a more perfect candidate
for the city of Issaquah? And that came from a member of the public about
Victoria. And I thought she gave her background in the field and in PPC,
gave really strong answers. And to Council Member Goodman's point about somebody
who's gonna be, who'd be able to to come in and have sort of a
new vision and be able to make some changes. I thought Victoria really showed some
strengths there that I thought were really important in her written comments. One of the
areas was I would look to revise our code to disallow sprawling expanses of single
family developments, i.e. swaths of storage units where we envision a vibrant urban core because
I think they are incompatible constructs. I think that reflects some of what we heard
from the Cougar Mountain folks tonight. I would say that early on in her comments,
she talked about, as Issachua grows and changes, we must not sacrifice that which makes
us special. Our green spaces and natural areas are an important component to Issachua's identity.
That was in her first response and sort of the first thing that she talked
about out of the gate. I think all these are very important, and I think
that her experience and her point of view and in both her written and her
verbal presentation to us, I'm confident and that she would do a great job on
city council. So that's where I'm at, Madam Mayor. Great. Would anybody else like to
comment or ask a question? Or are you done with deliberations?
Okay. I actually am not voting this evening. I am so stressed out.
This is this room, you can just feel it. First off, I agree with how
hard it must be for them to sit there. I've sat there before and done
this, but I've also sat where you've sat twice before as well. And whether you
were nominated tonight or not, I understand how emotional it is to sit and hear
all of this discussed in public. So thank you. Thank you for
applying. Thank you for sticking with us through the whole process, providing your great
written answers and your presentations and
your informal meet and greet with us as well. Now it's time for the vote.
And so I will explain a few things about the vote because we have several
possible outcomes and the council will have options depending on these outcomes. Each council
person has one vote. They can cast one vote for one of the names that
I read. I will read the slate of candidates in the order that they were
nominated and ask for those in favor of that particular nominee to raise their hands.
I can run through a few scenarios. It would help the council or not, but
we've gone through this a little bit with email just explaining if there's a tie,
then the council will have some more deliberations and some additional options on how to
proceed. Are there any questions before we vote? Okay.
And our first nominee, Jamie Rosen. How many in favor of Jamie?
Council Member Goodman, Council Member
Wray. On our second nominee, Victoria Hunt.
Council Member Hartz, Ortiz, and Ramos.
And on our third nominee, Brian Weinstein. Council Member Winterstein. In
order for a nominee to win, they must secure the majority of the votes seated
here tonight. So four votes. We have two for Jamie Rosen, three for Victoria
Hunt, and one for Brian Weinstein. You have several options now. You can have a
discussion and talk more about the nominees. We can
go for a revote without a discussion and revisit the vote that you've already taken.
You can recess into executive session to have a conversation. And I believe you can
even reopen nominations and add additional nominees. So what is the council's preference?
Council President Martz. Let's try a re-vote to see. A reconsider of the vote.
Sorry, a reconsider of the vote. You want to have discussions or have anybody speak
to it before or do you just want to redo the vote? Any thoughts from
anyone else? Council Member
Winterstein. I appreciate the many comments from my colleagues up here on the council.
And I truly was listening. I had the opportunity to
also get to meet Jamie and made a very strong impression upon me. I had
the opportunity to talk with Vicki, and for the accounting that was given and for
the reasons given. I do concur with those. And
I can count votes, I would ask. I think that as good as those reasons
were I'm
willing to proceed with the next vote. Would anyone else like to speak before we
reconsider the vote? Round two. Would all those in
favor of Jamie Rosen raise their hands? Council Member Ray,
Council Member Goodman. All those in favor of Victoria Hunt raise their hand.
Council President Martz, Council Member Batiste, Council Member Winterstein, Council Member Ramos.
Victoria Hunt will be our next council person.
Okay, looking for my next step here. So do we go right to, okay,
we are going right to the swearing in. All right, do you want to come
up
to the podium?
I'm new at this. I, Victoria Hunt. I,
Victoria Hunt. Have been duly appointed to the office, City of Issaquah, Council Position Number
3. I've been duly appointed to the office of City of Issaquah, Council
Position Number 3. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully and
impartially. That I will faithfully and impartially. discharge the duties of this office. Discharge
the duties of this office. As prescribed by law. As prescribed by law. And to
the best of my ability. And to the best of my ability. That I will
support and maintain the Constitution. That I will support and maintain the Constitution. Of the
state of Washington and of the United States of America. Of the state of Washington
and of the United States of America. Congratulations.
Council member, you can join him in the seat next to him.
We're going to take a quick recess. Five minutes. We'll reconvene at 8.15.
I'll call the meeting back to order. The next item on the agenda is committee
and regional reports. And for tonight, we will give our new council member a pass
and we'll go right to Councilmember Ray. I didn't get a pass on my first
meeting. No, you didn't. Thank you, Mayor Pauly. The Services and Safety Committee is scheduled
to meet on Tuesday, February 13th at 6.30 p.m. here in the council chambers. Likely
agenda items will be the 2019-2020 human services grant funding targets,
visiting Issaquah organization, that is the Lodging and Tax Advisory Committee recommendation.
Amendments to Municipal Code Chapter 3.32, which is around collecting delinquent
local improvement district assessments. And then finally, the Arch 2018 Work Program and administrative budget.
Additionally, the Eastside Fire and Rescue Board of Directors will be meeting this Thursday, February
8th at 4 p.m. The meeting will be held at the EFER headquarters on Newport
Way. It will be an opportunity for us to say farewell to
our mayor as one of the EFER board members. We will have election of new
officers. We will also be, there's an agenda item around the release of surplus equipment.
There is also a resolution to support the merger between Fire District 10 and Fire
District 27, being that Fire District 10 is a charter member of Eastside Fire
and Rescue. And then there is an executive session planned. And that concludes my report
for this evening. Thank you, Councilmember Ray. Councilmember Ramos? Thank you. Mr. Mayor,
I'd like to say today I was down in Olympia all day working on the
Latino Legislative Day. So I was having fun down there working on various issues that
are concerned to my community. The Infrastructure Committee is set to
meet on the 15th next week. The agenda is being put together this week, so
I don't have that yet. And my Emergency Management Advisory Committee will meet on the
14th. Instead of our regular meeting, it's actually an all-day retreat where we'll be working
on a strategic agenda for the year. and that will be at the election headquarters,
King County Election headquarters in Renton. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Council Member
Amos. Council Member Winterstein? Thank you. Last Thursday was the
Growth Management Policy Board meeting. I did not attend, but I do have a report
because there were significant accomplishments. And the most
notable being was that the board did approve the draft framework
and has made a recommendation to the PSRC Executive Board for adoption of
the regional framework, regional centers framework update. And the major amendments
that were approved included adding the requirement for a minimum mix
of uses in regional and countywide growth centers. So at least 15%
population of the activity units, the way they're added is each person is one
population, every job is one job. Together they're called activity units. And
you have to have a certain number of them to be a growth center. But
previously there's been no specified ratio. And so what was approved
for a referral to the executive board is that there be at least 15% of
at least one of them. Most regional centers already have at least 15%
of their activity units or jobs or activity units or population.
Issaquah does stand out within our regional center that zero of our activity units are
population within the regional center. Even Seattle barely has 15% of
their activity units as population within theirs. And so, anyway,
so that was a, one of the amendments that was added to the framework. They
also added some minimum standards for countywide manufacturing and industrial centers so that
they should have at least 1,000 jobs or 500 acres. And there are some other
amendments proposed by the port that were passed. There was an amendment that was denied
that requested requiring countywide growth centers to plan for at least 16 activity units per
acre. So there is really, actually the proposal was 10, they tried to make it
16, that was denied. And I think those are really the
overall key amendments. The comments here say, overall the framework approved is a compromise that
supports the center's framework for growth. creates more consistent standards across the region
while maintaining designation of all existing centers, which is key. And I think that
standard across the region is very key. This process really did demonstrate that there were
very wide varying standards for regional centers. And it also increases planning and
performance monitoring for centers. There was not performance monitoring before. It does recognize major
military installations and recommends their inclusion in the update to Vision 2040.
And it creates a new path for designated areas with industrial capacities as regional
mix. That's the key action from the GMPB last Thursday, and that concludes
my report. Thank you, Councilmember Winterstein. Councilmember Goodman? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council Land and
Shore Committee meets this Thursday at 6.30 p.m. here in Council Chambers. On the agenda
is our regular moratorium update. And then we have a very packed agenda.
Agenda Bill 7511, amending the code and central standards prohibiting community
health engagement locations, the safe injection sites. Agenda Bill 7543, the
proposed 2018 docket of comprehensive plan amendments. Agenda Bill 7507, amendments
to the code and central Issaquah standards regarding inclusionary zoning requirements for central Issaquah. Agenda
Bill 7524, end of the TALUS development agreement. And the companion agenda Bill 7523,
end of Issaquah Highlands development agreements. And agenda Bill 7326, we
will continue our discussion on the Old Town sub area plan update. And that concludes
my report. Thank you, Council Member Goodman. Council Member Batiste? Thank you, Madam Mayor.
On Wednesday, February 7th from 1 to 3 in Seattle, I'll be attending my first
PSRC Economic Development District Board meeting. And there will also
be a meeting of the Economic Development Council of Seattle and King County this week.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to bring this up again during the
good of the order there. As we've talked about before, the Economic Development Council is
undergoing a lot of change. They are putting together a new initiative, bringing
many different partners together, and it is a combination
private sector, public sector ask, and
a lot of information that I can send out about that. But basically with the
additional ask that is coming from the group supporting this initiative, it would be an
additional $2,500 that would be asked from Issaquah.
So I'll give more information and get feedback from everyone during the good of the
order and then I'll send some information around via email. Thank you. Thank
you, Madam Mayor. First off, I want to welcome Councilmember Hunt to the Council and
tell her that she has been appointed to the Council Infrastructure Committee and the Council
Services and Safety Committee. So good luck with both of those. In addition, there
are one and two regional appointments that Deputy Council President Batiste and I will want
to chat with you about, potentially, assuming they work with your schedule. So next up,
The town cities association is having its orientation meeting this Wednesday, February 7th
at 6 PM. at SeaTac City Hall, which is always exciting to get to at
6 p.m. Typically it's raining. And anyone who serves on an SCA board or
commission is expected to attend that to help understand how those work. That includes me,
even though I'm entering my eighth year associated with Sound Cities Association. But the food's
always good. Then there will be next Wednesday, the 14th,
the pre-PICC workshop is PICC 101. SCA members are invited to attend, covers
topics including PIC logistics, best practices on how to be an effective PIC representative.
So this would be good for both Chris and I to attend. And then
finally, the actual SCA PIC meeting agenda for that evening is at 7 p.m. By
the way, these are both at Renton City Hall.
The regular agenda does not have any action items that require input at this time.
We have many discussion items, but nothing that is a pending decision. This concludes my
report. Thank you, Council President Martz. For the mayor's report, I also wanted to
welcome newly seated Councilmember Hunt. Glad to have you here. Glad to have a full
council again. There will be an executive session held this evening to discuss collective bargaining
sessions per RCW 42.30.140 per N4
and items related to pending potential litigation and property acquisition per RCW 42.30.110.
paren 1, paren B, and 42.30.110, paren 1, paren I.
These items are expected to take approximately one hour and 20 minutes, and action is
anticipated to follow in open session. Since our last council meeting, on January 17th, I
attended the East Lake Sammamish Trail Grand Opening with Council Member Winterstein and a
Highlands Community Meeting at Blakely Hall with Council Member Ray listening to concerns on traffic
and pedestrian safety. On January 19th, I met with Josh Brown, PSRC's Executive
Director, to discuss the Growth Management Act and concerns of Southeast King County cities. On
January 24th, I attended the Eastside Fire and Rescue Board Meeting. January 25th, I joined
Parks and Recreation Director Jeff Watling at the Issaquah Alps Trail Club annual meeting at
the train depot. January 26th, I participated in the Count Us In one night count
of those without shelter during the early morning hours and in a question and answer
session at the Issaquah Senior Center later in the day. On January 30th, I met
with the Mountain-South Sound Greenway Trust Team to discuss common areas of interest in the
I-90 corridor and upcoming projects, and I will be joining the Trust's Advisory Board.
On February 7th, I attended the Regional Transportation System Initiative Elected Officials Committee
meeting with the mayors of King County Cities and King County Executive Dale Constantine. In
the afternoon, I hosted Governor Jay Inslee for a tour of the Z-Home project in
the Highlands and a roundtable on the Governor's carbon tax bill within the context of
outdoor recreation. And I was joined at that meeting with Council
President Martz. Today, I toured the Southeast 62nd Street project
on site with Councilmember Winterstein staff and our consultant construction manager, Kevin Simmons.
We observed activity related to setting bridge girders. The project is more than halfway complete
and is currently on schedule and within budget. A time-lapse video of the construction can
be viewed on our YouTube by searching Southeast 62nd Street Extension Project.
I attended the Eastside Mayor's Luncheon today in Bellevue and visited and talked with 104th
grade students at Clark Elementary this afternoon about local government and the role of mayor
and city concerns. Also in my report, I wanted to give a few key project
updates. First, Confluence Park. The American Council of Engineering
Companies, ACEC of Washington, held their 2018 Engineering Excellence Award Ceremony.
The ACEC recognizes design professionals and their clients for their accomplishments and contributions to
engineering. David Evans and Associates, Incorporated, and our Parks and Recreation Department, won the 2018
Silver Award for Social, Economic, and Sustainable Design Consideration for the Confluence Park Pedestrian Bridge.
I want to provide a little update on the two outstanding moratorium work items. Inclusionary
zoning requirements at the next meeting of the Land and Shore Council Committee on the
8th. This item. will be discussed and the possible scope will
be reviewing of a case study and checking in with the building community on feasibility
of the new inclusionary requirements. The district visions component of the work plan, its next
touch will be at the Parks Board on February 8th, discussing the plan for parks
and open spaces in Central Issaquah, followed by the next Planning Policy Committee meeting on
February 15th. Those are the only two work items remaining in the moratorium. Old Town
traffic calming project update. The installation of all the devices is expected to be completed
in these neighborhoods this Friday, February 9th. And the survey for residents will open at
that time. Residents can visit www.issaquahwa.gov slash Old
Town to leave feedback and access up-to-date traffic count data at any time during the
duration of the pilot program. At the conclusion of the program, all feedback from the
survey and data from the traffic count tubes will be collected and help shape a
permanent solution, including enhancements to pedestrian crosswalks, visibility. Oops,
I'm moving on to the next one. The second traffic calming program I wanted to
talk to is the program up in the Highlands. which is also underway and will
include some enhancements to pedestrian crosswalk visibility, roadway channelization, speed and traffic calming and
parking. And the Highlands Council has launched a Drive Aware Walk with Care program
last month as well. Last project I'd like to provide an update on is the
Cougar Mountain Bergsma site. I just want to say a few words because of all
of the passionate folks who have been promoting the preservation of the north side of
Cougar Mountain and coming before Council to talk. This 45-acre property is privately owned by
two local families and is currently under contract for residential development. In some ways, this
project represents many of the reasons citizens and residents are pushing back against current growth.
As for many, this project represents more traffic and maybe a loss of more trees
in our community. The property is currently valued at over $10 million. In the past,
the city's been able to work with various funding partners to look for creative solutions
preserve privately owned open space. Although I cannot disclose the conversations that are happening, I
can tell you the city is exploring different alternatives with the developer, hoping to find
a win-win outcome for our community. And that concludes the mayor's report.
Moving on to the consent calendar. Have the payables and payroll for February 5th been
reviewed? They have. Thank you. I now ask the clerk to read the consent calendar
into the record. The consent calendar was distributed to Council in advance for study. If
authorized, Council action will occur by single motion regarding the following items. Item A seeks
approval of the accounts, payables, and payroll of February 5th. Items B through E seeks
approval of the minutes of the Council Special Meeting and City Council Regular Meeting of
January 16th, and the City Council Special Meeting and Council Committee of the Whole Meeting
of January 23rd. Item F, AB 7479, 2019 through 2020
Human Services Grant Funding Target, seeks referral to Council Services and Safety Committee. Item G,
AB 7502, Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Annual Appointments, seeks to confirm. Item
H, AB 7511, amending IMC and central standards prohibiting community health engagement locations,
safe injection sites, seeks referral to Council Land and Shore Committee. Item I, AB 7522,
creating the Visit Issaquah organization, seeks referral to Council Services and Safety Committee. Item J,
AB 7528, solid waste contract update, seeks referral to Council Infrastructure Committee. Item K,
AB 7540, amendments to IMC chapter 3.32, collection of delinquent I'm sorry.
LID Assessments, seeks referral to Council Services and Safety Committee. Item L, AB 7543, 2018
Docket of Comprehensive Plan Amendment, seeks referral to Council Land and Shore Committee. Item M,
AB 7544, Arch 2018 Work Program and Administrative Budget, seeks referral to Council
Services and Safety Committee. Item N, AB 7545, Arch 2017 Fall Trust Fund,
seeks referral to Council Services and Safety Committee. Item O, AB 7547, Cascade Water Alliance
Board Board representation seeks to approve
resolution. If approved, it will be assigned number 2018-01. Item P, AB 7548,
Old Town Traffic Calming Project, change order one, seeks to authorize. Item Q, AB 7552,
Police Staffing Resources, seeks referral to Council Services and Safety Committee. This concludes the reading.
Thank you. Does any council member desire to remove any item from the consent calendar
and consider it under regular business? motion.
Madam Mayor, I move to adopt the consent calendar as described. Second. It's been moved
and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed?
That passes unanimously. The next item on the agenda is regular business. The
only item I believe we have under regular business this evening is AB 7542,
influence the choice. This is the Drug Free Communities Grant authorization of the
submittal. This is an informational present, oh, an informational presentation was made at the
January Services Committee, and I'd like to invite our Finance Director, Jennifer Olson, to the
dias. Jennifer Olsonson- Thank you, Madam Mayor. The administration is seeking authorization to submit a
grant application to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for this
Also for your consideration is an approval of a memorandum of understanding for
the city to work with the Influence of Choice Drug Prevention Alliance for Youth. Tonight
we have Barbara DeMichel here to provide a very brief presentation from the Alliance for
Youth. And so with that, after her presentation, then I would be happy to answer
any questions about the MOU that is before you tonight. So with that, I would
like to have Ms. DeMichelle come and speak with you. Thank you, Jen, and welcome
back. Thanks.
Hello, I am Barbara DeMichelle. Do I need to give my address? I don't believe
so. Oh, good. So it's my understanding that you received
this report in your packets. Does Victoria need one of these? All of
the applicants that were here this evening got the full packet before hand. Thank you,
Barb. And then I have a revision to that that I'd like to distribute.
Council
member. So in the overview that we
prepared, we really wanted to tell you what did you get from
the partnership that we entered four and a half years ago when we first applied
for a federal drug free grant. Influence of Choice was
first initiated in 2011 and by 2013 we were
awarded a federal drug free community grant that is worth $125,000 a year.
And it is good for five years. So we are now in our fifth year
and we are getting prepared to write and submit the continuation grant for the
sixth through tenth year. I want to stop and say we could not have done
this without the city of Issaquah acting as our fiscal agent. And we've had a
wonderful relationship with the finance department. We've solved problems
together and we've worked through things and It really moves very, very smoothly,
and we've really appreciated the partnership. Our mission
is preventing and reducing youth substance abuse within the Issaquah School
District Service area. We use this as a strategic frame, the positive community
norms, and that is a... best practices approach that
focuses on the majority of our youth that made good and healthy choices and
encourages others to join them. So that's the framework that we're using through everything. The
Alliance itself is made up of an executive board. We have 12 sector representatives and
we've listed the 12 sectors that are represented. And the purpose of the group is
to bring across a cross section of the community together to strategize on how to
reduce and prevent youth substance abuse. And we also wanted to tell you that we
have a youth group that we started two years ago. Its name is Yoda, Youth
Opposed to Drug Abuse. It is a going concern and a lively group of kids
and Katie Moeller who was on staff for the city is now the person in
charge of that group and we're thrilled to have her with us. On the second
page of the report, I gave a long list of activities that we've participated in,
many of them directly involving the city of Issaquah, and I won't read through all
of those. But some of the more prominent ones are we've had a student video
contest for the last five years. We're now in the sixth year, we're launching it.
We've had over 350 videos submitted in that contest. It's involved over 1,000
young people. We have a positive community norms campaign going on at Disiqua High School
where we're reaching 2,200 students every year and again, encouraging the
choice for a healthy lifestyle. We held a family
night last year that was very successful, Spanish only, and then this fall, another one
where we had 160 people come to Confluence Park, eat dinner, and get a message
about preventing substance abuse among young people. So all in all, we have a whole
page full, but those are some, I think, of the big highlights for the things
that we've done. So overall, on the last page, what is the
effectiveness of this work?
And we have some very, I guess, very important questions
positive results for the last five years. But the first thing I want to say
is we want to be very careful to say that we as the Influence of
Choice do not take credit for those results. Our role is very, very
clear to us. We do not provide direct services. Our role is to bring together
all of the organizations in the Issaquah community that do provide direct services and
them together so that we can have conversations and come together for a strategic approach
to reducing and preventing substance abuse. So we look at these results and we say
we give credit to all of those organizations who are in the front lines and
providing classroom presentations, for example, or the city with its
commitment to parks and recreation and law enforcement and recognize that that is where the
real work is done. Just for the people who are at home and watching on
TV, we've had reductions across the board in alcohol use, in
marijuana use, and for the number of kids who are
using prescription drugs to get high. We've had an impact across of those
areas and we're very pleased. We know there's still a lot of work to do
and we're hoping that when we apply for and hopefully receive the grant for the
next five years that we see even more progress in those statistics. And at
the bottom of the report I give a list of 34 community organizations who have
joined us and who are very, very proud to be partners with.
Jennifer mentioned that we've worked with the finance department to vet this memorandum of understanding.
It's been reviewed very thoroughly and we're hopeful that you'll approve it. Thank you.
Thank you, Barb. I'm just going to get you to stay up there for a
second in case there's any questions. Okay. Any questions of either Jennifer or Barb on
the program? That's President Martz. Yeah, I just, my question is around how do we,
I know you've thought about how we present information in council bills. This is a
pass-through. This is not, although it says $125,000, it's not actually the impact to
city finances is not intended to be 125. So I'm just wondering if down the
road, if we can consider a mechanism to, for the public, I think
the, at least the six of us, hopefully the seven of us, understand how pass-throughs
work for the city, but that clarity would be good. Okay. I'll take that under
consideration. I think because we act as the fiduciary agent for them, this one might
be a little different than just a straight pass-through, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I'll
definitely find out an answer for you. Well, can I ask the question differently? Is
there any possibility that we would be on the hook for this 125 if the
grant didn't get approved? Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for Barb or Jen?
Is there a motion?
Thank you. Sorry,
Council Member Winterstein. Yes, I would like to move to authorize submittal of the Drug-Free
Communities DFCs support program grant application and authorize the mayor to enter into and execute
the Memorandum of Understanding with Influence the Choice Drug Prevention Alliance for Youth. Second.
It's been moved and seconded to authorize the submittal of the Drug-Free Communities drug-free community
support program grant application and authorize the mayor to enter into and execute the Memorandum
of Understanding with Influence of Choice Drug Prevention Alliance for Youth. Is there any discussion?
Mr. Member Winterstein. Mr. Just a couple brief comments. I want to thank Barb and
others who are here in support. I think it's great when you do have results
I appreciated the humility with which you represented what the organization does. You're a convener
of those that provide direct services. I think it does point to
the number of people within the community who care about and want to spend time
on what's right for our youth. I did look at the list of partners that
you had and a lot of them. or based in Issaquah, even though you cover
the entire school district. And so I'm gonna support this. Also, when
I had looked at your results, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, they're not
telling the story as strongly as they could. And so Barb gave us a handout,
if anybody's looked at the packet, I think you've made a proper adjustment, because when
something goes from, say, 5% to 1%, that's just not a 4% reduction, that's
an 80% reduction in terms of a percent. And I see that you've caught that.
I think that's a very powerful message. And I learned tonight too
with your emphasis that by telling the story of those that are
resisting alcohol and drugs at these ages and inviting others to join them, that's a
very powerful affirming way to move forward. So I'm sure
I'm glad to hear that and I'm sure it's contributing to the results that we're
seeing here. Thank you. Well, that's the reason we have other people doing the finance.
Is there any other discussion? Seeing none, I'll call for the vote.
All in favor to authorize the middle of the Drug-Free Community Support Program grant application
and authorize the mayor to enter into and execute the Memorandum of Understanding with Influence
the Choice, Drug Prevention Alliance for Youth, please say aye. as opposed
the motion carries unanimously next item on the agenda is
for good of the order and we can start with council member council president martz
and council appointments you want to do that this evening i put on my list
i think i may have um jumped the gun and Oh, the broad council appointments.
Oh, sure. I had
Councilmember Batiste and I met and worked with the mayor's
office where there were joint recommendations and worked with
council on their preferences for what committees and commissions they were
interested in. And so, for instance, going through the critical councilmatic ones,
Councilmember Ramos is going to be chair of the Council Infrastructure Committee. along with Council
Members Goodman and Council Member Hunt. And Landon Shore,
Council Member Goodman is going to chair that with Council Member Winterstein and myself as
members. And then Council Member Ray gets to jump right into a committee chair with
my old committee, Services and Safety. I'm excited about his passion for the topics. And
that will be Council Deputy President Batiste and again, Council Member Hunt. And then
we have Cascade Water Alliance. I am going to be the alternate on that. EFR
will be Council Members Goodman and Ray with Mayor Pauly as the alternate.
Eastside Human Services Forum will be Council Member Batiste. Eastside Transportation
Partnership is Council Member Ramos. The greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce,
Councilmember Winterstein, is going to be a representative as well as chair of the LTAC.
And then SCA PIC, I think I alluded to earlier, I'm going to retain
Issaquah's representation on the PIC. But Councilmember Ray is going to be my alternate, which
is going to come in handy in March when I'm going to be in Africa.
And there are a number of other regional appointments as well, but those are the
ones that are where council members are representing the city of
Issaquah on those boards. Thank you. And Council Member Batiste, did you have an item
to share today? I did. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So just to give a little
more context to what I was talking about earlier, I think the best way for
me to do this, I'm going to send this to you in email. But I'm
going to read two paragraphs from a letter that was sent by Governor Chris Gregoire,
who's the CEO of Challenge Seattle, to the executive director of the Sound Cities Association,
Deanna Dawson. And what it says is, thank you for your continued support of the
development of the regional alliance for trade and economic and economic development in the Puget
Sound region. We appreciate your support and commitment to the effort to build a best
in class organization that will support the region's trade and economic development work by focusing
on international engagement, research and analysis, marketing, and lead to prospect
generation. We've made significant progress in developing the organization. A search committee has been formed
to identify the CEO for the alliance and an executive recruitment firm has been selected.
The board of directors for the organization is being developed and the first board meeting
will be held the first quarter of 2018. In addition, over $1 million has been
raised from the private sector and we anticipate securing a total of $1.5 million from,
I'm sorry, an additional $1.5 million from the private sector. However, to continue the
development of the organization, we need your financial support as well. Our goal is to
raise a total of at least $500,000 from the public sector to support the
private sector contribution. And that will serve as the startup funding for the new organization
and pay for the development of a strategic plan, the new organization recruiting and hiring
and supporting the CEO and supporting staff focused on the research analysis, marketing and
prospect generation. That was helping me put in a nutshell what's
happening within this organization and they are coming together with other organizations
that may have been doing things similarly and all of those organizations are coming together
under one group, which is a private-public partnership and now they are coming and asking
for an additional, for Issaquah, that would be $2,500. I'm gonna send this to you
in email and then would just encourage you to reach out and talk to me
a little bit more if you have concerns or comments about that. Thank you.
Thank you. And I just wanted to welcome
Victoria to the council and I'm really, we're all very happy to have you here.
Thank you. I actually have one more. So
we are starting to think about this year's council retreat. And so what I would
like to do is I would like to ask people to think about two questions
and either send me your thoughts in writing or if you would prefer to give
me a call, that would be fine as well. But the two questions are what
worked well in 2017? And if the new council members want, no, we didn't, did
we record the retreat on video? I don't think we did. Nevermind. You're gonna have
a hard time answering that question. But for the other four of you, what do
you think worked well in 2017? I guess a correlator that would be
what didn't work well. And so I guess there's three questions. What worked well, what
didn't work well, and what would you like to see in the 2018 retreat? And
if you could give me your thoughts within the next couple of weeks, I would
greatly appreciate that. Like I said, if you want to give me a call, if
it doesn't amend itself to writing, that's fine. But I'd like to get a
roundup of everybody's thoughts before we get too far into that process. Thank you.
Great. Anyone else for good of the order? Council Member Ramos. Thank you. Two little
quick things. One on this list there, I'm also on the King County Conservation District
Equity and Social Justice Committee. I wasn't listed. And then I'm going to take a
personal note here because it's something that's worth noting on the dais. And that is
this weekend I was down in California because today is actually my mother's 100th birthday.
So Guadalupe Ramos, happy birthday. Oh, nice. Anybody else for good of the order? I
have a couple of quick little things to add. Okay, so the council work session
for February 12th has been canceled. A couple of look ahead at the February
20th council meeting and our proposed agenda right now has two items under regular business.
End of Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement and end of Talos Development Agreement. Those are
both going to the land and shore with a turn back to Council on the
February 20th. And originally, these were to be,
recommendations were to be completed by the end of the year. So these were originally
slated to expire December 31st and they've been carried over into this year. And that
is all that I had for good of the order. At this point, will move
into oh no before we move into executive session this evening our city attorney
uh jim haney will provide a brief overview of executive session for the benefit of
the public and for our newest council member jim thank you mayor
as the mayor said i've been asked tonight excuse me tonight to provide a brief
overview of the rules regarding executive sessions that this council is
authorized to conduct under the State Open Public Meetings Act. As the council knows, the
Open Public Meetings Act is a broad statute which provides essentially that
all meetings of the city council must be open to the public. The public must
be allowed to attend all meetings of the council, except where the council is expressly
authorized to go into executive session or where certain
items that the council may discuss are exempt from the Open Public Meetings Act. An
executive session, simply put, is where the council is allowed to go
behind closed doors in order to have a discussion that is not open to the
public and where the matters which are to be
discussed are such that Public discussion of them would have an adverse financial,
legal, or other consequence for the city.
The council is not authorized to make decisions in executive session. It is merely authorized
to discuss matters in executive session. The sole exception to that being adopting
positions relating to collective bargaining strategy. So there are actually 14
recognized purposes in the state law for going into executive session. There are also four
matters which are exempt from the Open Public Meetings Act. Tonight, I'm really just
going to talk about three or four because they're the most commonly used. Some of
the matters which are in state law relating to executive session relate solely to state
boards and agencies like the library board, the state finance commission, those types of things.
There are some matters which you rarely see, but which I suppose you could, such
as national security, which you're authorized to go into executive session for. But tonight I'm
really not going to talk about those. I'm going to talk about the most common
ones which you use. The first is relating to real estate, and that can be
for two specific purposes. Either one, to consider the
selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate
where the public discussion would likely lead to an increased price. So if the council
is looking to buy property and we think that public discussion of
property that we might want to buy or the public discussion of the price at
which we might want to acquire it might lead to an increased price, the council
can go into executive session to discuss that. Also, the council can go into executive
session to discuss the minimum price at which the city is willing to sell property
or lease property if, in fact, the city is engaged in that. Again, where public
discussion of that minimum price might lead to a lessening or
decrease in the price. Council can't make decisions regarding those matters in
executive session, but it can go into executive session to discuss them.
A second, I think, purpose for which you can go into executive session is one
which you've used quite recently and that is to evaluate the qualifications of a candidate
for appointment to an elective office so as the council will know and as
i'm sure the the newest council member will know the council can go into executive
session to discuss qualifications of people that they might appoint to fill a vacancy on
the council or to fill a vacancy in the mayor's office
The third reason for going into executive session is one which you've been
in probably all too often, and that is to discuss litigation or potential
litigation to which the city may become a party or to which any member of
the council may become a party on behalf of the city. Potential litigation includes
attorney-client privilege to discussions, discussions with legal counsel of the legal
risks of any proposed course of action that you might be considering taking. You don't
actually have to have litigation. You don't actually have to have a threat of litigation.
But if in fact there is the potential for litigation that may arise from an
action that the counsel is prepared to take or not take, the city can go
into executive session, the council can go into executive session in order to discuss those
legal consequences. Finally, the one I wanna talk about is one
that you are gonna discuss tonight, and that is collective bargaining. And collective bargaining actually
is an exemption from the Open Public Meetings Act. It's not
specifically in the executive session of the act. It's listed as an exemption to the
act, but virtually every jurisdiction that I've ever been involved with treats it the same
way that they do executive sessions. Collective bargaining exception allows you to go
into closed session in order to consider the strategy that you are going to adopt
with respect to collective bargaining or to consider collective bargaining proposals and negotiations.
It also would allow you, if you were conducting your own collective bargaining session
with a union, which I never recommend by the way, but if the council were
to conduct a collective bargaining session, you could hold that collective bargaining session
at a meeting that is not open to the public. So those are four basic
reasons why you can go into executive session. Those are the four most common that
are used. Others are things like evaluating charges
against a public employee or officer, national security, as I mentioned,
considering cyber vulnerability or vulnerability of your utility systems,
things like that. That's something that you can go into executive session.
The only other thing that I wanted to say about executive sessions tonight in this
brief overview is that there are really four key points that
you should keep in mind about executive sessions. First, executive sessions are allowed
only when they fit the express purposes that are set forth in the Open Public
Meetings Act. The act is very narrowly, the
exemptions to the act are very narrowly construed, as I said, and you must fit
them within the four corners of the provisions of the act. The second is
that with the exception of adopting a collective bargaining strategy, no decisions can be made
in executive session. There can't be any straw votes. There can't be any secret ballots.
There can't be any polls of the council as to what the council is interested
in doing. You can discuss, but you cannot decide. Third, before going
into executive session, the presiding officer whether it's the mayor normally
or in the mayor's absence, the council president needs to announce the purpose of the
executive session and the approximate length of the executive session, and the council needs to
stick to those purposes and that length unless the council, or unless it comes
back out and says, we're gonna extend the executive session. And lastly,
All information the council receives in executive session is considered confidential.
It may not be disclosed by any council member that
if it is confidential information, and it may not be used by any council member
for their own personal gain or profit. Disclosure,
violation of that provision, or in fact a violation of any provision of the Open
Public Meetings Act, both can lead to a penalty of $500
fine. It also is grounds for forfeiture of office. So it's
not something to be messed with. You'll find that if you look at
cases involving recalls of council members, usually it's one of the It's a
violation of the Open Public Meetings Act is often one of the things that is
stated in those recall cases. So that is something to be careful about.
And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them. Any questions
from council members or new council member Hunt? Okay. Thank you, Jim.
As earlier announced, there will be an executive session held this evening to discuss collective
bargaining sessions per RCW 42.30.140 per N4
and items related to pending potential litigation and property acquisition per RCW 42.30.110
per N1 per NB and 42.30.110 per N1 per N I. These
items are expected to take approximately one hour and 20 minutes. Action is anticipated to
follow in open session. We will now recess into executive session at 9.06 PM.
We're back in regular session at 11, 12 p.m. and we have a couple of
motions to consider. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we authorize the mayor to
enter into a tolling agreement with American Tower relating to potential litigation over sub-leasy
payments substantially in the form presented to council in executive session. Second.
It's been moved and seconded to authorize the mayor to enter into a tolling agreement
with American Tower to potential litigation over sub lessee payments substantially in the form
presented to council in executive session. Is there any discussion? I'll call for a
vote on the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously.
Another motion. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would move to approve the First Amendment to
Settlement Agreement with Church Home related to city church litigation in the form discussed in
executive session. It's been moved and
seconded to move to approve the First Amendment to settlement agreement with Church Home related
to the city church litigation in the form discussed in executive session. Is there any
discussion? All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed?
That motion passes unanimously. There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned at 1113.
Thanks.