order and thank everyone for being here tonight regarding the hillside
movement near Northwest Talos Drive and Shangri-La Way Northwest.
First this evening we'll hear from several city staff along with our geotechnical consultants, a
parcel nine property developer. And this presentation is
intended to address many of the communities and council questions that we've heard
to date. Afterwards, we'll give members of the public an opportunity to
address the Council. Like all other City Council meetings, this will not be a question
and answer opportunity or an interactive session with the City Council.
We will be recording all of your questions tonight. Some of these questions will be
answered on our website at issaquahwa.gov
slash TALUS soon after this meeting.
We expect others will take some time to answer. If you have
questions after the meeting, please submit them to talus at
issaquah.gov. It's important to note that
city staff will also be attending a question and answer session with the TALUS Homeowners
Association during its next meeting on December 3rd at
Timber Ridge. Now I would like to invite City Administrator Bob Harrison
to start the presentation. Bob, if you would please.
Thank you, Mayor. So thank you all for being here this evening to hear this
briefing on what's occurring up in Talos. We appreciate your attendance and
opportunity to engage with you on what's going on. So we have been
over the last two weeks working diligently as a staff and frankly all the elected
officials who have also been up to the site to monitor what's going on and
to engage with our with the developer and property owner on what's occurring up in
Talos. What you'll hear this evening is an update from the staff on what's occurring,
as well as some of our geotechnical experts. And they will hopefully provide a lot
of questions to your answers, particularly before we get into this Thanksgiving holiday. So I'm
just going to take a moment to identify those individuals on your city who
have been involved in responding to this situation. I will say I'm very
proud of the work that they've done. Many of them, in some cases, we've had
employees monitoring the situation on a 24-7 basis, putting in significant hours to help make
sure that we, one, engage in making sure that you're safe,
That's our number one priority. And number two, the protection of property that you have
up there, as well as the city's infrastructure and assets that we maintain. So that
has been our primary focus in that area. And so with that, some of the
individuals that are going to be speaking tonight, Brett Heath, who's our public works director.
Brett, where are you? He's in the back. Sheldon Lynn is our public works engineer.
and Sheldon couldn't make it. Keith Niven is our economic development director and interim director
of development services. Lucy Sloman is our land development manager. Doug Schlepp
is part of our city contracting engineering team from RH2. We have Greg Tryon,
who is the interim fire chief, as well as Mike Boyle, deputy chief from
Eastside Fire and Rescue. There they are in the back. Scott Beerbaum
our chief of police. Autumn Monahan our assistant to the
city administrator and Warren Cagerize our communications coordinator. The two of them have been actively
working in our communications outreach to the community.
Jim Johnson and Martin Page Jim Johnson there in the back is from Golder
Associates, and Martin Page is from Shannon Wilson. Both of them are
geotechnical consultants, so as typically get done, there is a, when the development gets
submitted, it gets reviewed by a city geotechnical expert. Once we discovered what was
occurring, we decided to bring in not one, but two geotechnical experts,
independent firms, to provide us with independent analysis and expertise as
we were making our review and decisions on what was occurring. And also as we
engaged with the property owner and developer to be well represented in helping to frame
our decision making. So there are
additional external primary parties involved, the property owner, and developer on
this site is Ora Talis, LLC.
JR Hayes is the developer's construction firm. Terra Associates are the
developer's owner's geotechnical firm. Triad Associates are the developer owner's survey
and civil engineering firm. So at this time, I'm going to take the
opportunity to invite Jenkins Chan, who is from Ora Talis
LLC the property owner to for parcel 9 to make a brief statement
That's you right there Mayor Butler City Council members good evening. My name is Jenkins
Chan and I'm here in representation of the owners or a talis 90 LLC Thank
you for the opportunity to address the uplift movement that's occurred on our site tonight
We feel that we're pretty close and we're working on it very hard to identify
the portions of the site that have and confirm the portions of the site that
have been impacted and we've been working with the city to mitigate that movement. As
soon as we are first surprised of the situation, we with our on-site contractor, JR
Hayes, and in partnership with city staff and their consultants, immediately and aggressively
implemented measure monitoring and mitigation measures to
resolve the situation as quickly as possible. We are absolutely grateful to the Talos
community and the neighborhood for being watchful citizens and helping us with communicating their
concerns and we really look forward to making sure that we work as hard as
possible to get it resolved as soon as possible. Thanks. Thank you.
Okay, as the mayor stated, there are still several questions that are gonna be answered
and hopefully we'll be able to answer those for you this evening. There are final
resolutions that still need to be determined. We're gonna be focused on keeping the neighborhood
safe, as I mentioned earlier, and dealing with the immediate effects of that and continuing
to monitor the situation over the next couple weeks, next several weeks until the issue
is resolved. We acknowledge and appreciate the
fact that everybody who lives up there and everyone who's a member of this community
has an interest and what's occurring up there and what the city's actions are. We
appreciate your efforts and engagement. We encourage you to take advantage of the
city's official social media sites and websites so that you can communicate with
the public. There are off-channel communications that the city isn't able to
respond, and so I would not, I encourage you not to rely on those off-channel
sites for official information because they really don't always represent the facts that are actually
occurring. So, While we're dealing
with the short-term issue of trying to get the dirt, the landslide from moving, we
also know there are going to be some longer-term issues involved with the management and
review of this site. We'll be dealing with that concurrently as we look at the
situation, but once we have additional data, we'll be able to make much more informed
decisions, and we're working with the property owner as necessary to do that. So
last and not least, I wanted to introduce you to Emily Moon, who's our deputy
city administrator. She's going to be coordinating our presentation this evening, but I also want
to give her a special credit for coordinating the team as the various departments
report to Emily and coordinating our city emergency response on this. So thank you, Emily.
Thank you. Those slides.
We're going to start with February, November 13th. On that date when city staff
and the construction contractor began noticing stress cracking and landscaped areas being
pushed up, water valves moving, stop sign leaning, and other issues, we
contracted, as Bob said, with Golder Associates and Shannon and Wilson to provide the technical
expertise that we needed to make informed decisions about how to protect the community. Golder
was chosen. because they had served as the geotech consultant for the
original Talus master developer and had familiarity with the Talus community.
Shannon and Wilson had been employed by the city previously to investigate the Camp Creek
slide. So at this point in time to talk about what has occurred and the
steps that we have taken thus far, I'm gonna first invite Jim Johnson from Golder
Associates and Martin Page from Shannon and Wilson up to the podium.
While Jim is getting, whoops, he's off the phone. That monitoring of data is happening
constantly. Oh, it's a water road. Okay.
Good evening, council members. My name is James Johnson. I'm a principal of the firm
of Golder Associates. I'm a licensed engineering geologist. I've been with Golder
Associates for 28 years. Martin, you want to introduce yourself? Good evening, I'm
Martin Page. I'm a Geo-Technical Engineer with Shannon & Wilson. I've worked for Shannon &
Wilson for 27 years, and both Jim and I have many years of
experience in landslide mitigation.
Okay. So we're gonna tag team on our
presentation tonight. First, I'll be providing a description of the area of
slope movement up at parcel nine in Talos from a geologic perspective. Like
where is it? What is it? How much did it move? Those sorts of things.
What's it doing now? Martin will follow me by discussing measures that are being
taken by the development team to mitigate and slow the movement. Like what was done,
when it was done, and how it was done. Okay, and then I'll follow up
at the end of the discussion about ongoing monitoring and analysis in the future.
So first of all, where is Parcel 9 at TALUS? Lucy, could you put up
the...
And I can drive that?
Everybody can see that okay? So here's Talos Drive. And
parcel nine is at the upper end of Talos Drive. This is Shangri-La
Way. Okay, everybody knows where we're at.
The shaded area here in red is the area we'll be focused on and talking
about. It's the area approximately where the slope movement has occurred.
And for me, zoom in on that image, please.
Thank you. How's that? All right. So from now on forward, I'll be
referring to this shaded area featured as a landslide. It
meets the definition of a landslide, which is a movement or a mass of rock
or debris or earth down a slope. Landslides are common on slopes and they come
in all shapes and sizes. From landslides that could fit in the front of this
room right here to landslides that have occurred on like Mount St. Helens when the
Mount St. Helens erupted. So they come in all shapes and sizes and geologists classify
them by how they behave. Okay?
So the landslide on parcel nine could be described as a slow moving earth flow
or a slump. The depth and the thickness
of the material involved in this is also part of the description. So we'll
talk a little bit about what is a landslide, okay? And why do landslides move?
So landslides move because there's an imbalance in forces in the soil on a slope.
Soil on the toe of the slope resists this movement, and the soil on the
top of the slopes provide driving forces. When there's an imbalance, the soil will move.
For instance, if you remove material from the toe, or you add material to the
top, and how steep the slope is that might move has a lot to do
with the material on the slope. If it's very strong, then it's gonna hold up
a very steep slope, and if it's very weak, then it's not gonna hold a
very steep slope. Other things that can affect it are the layers within the
soil or rock. If they're very weak, they can slide easier. And if there's water
in the slope, that can affect the stability as well.
So we have a slow-moving, deep-seated earth flow or slump. I'll talk a little bit
about the thickness of it as well. So how big is this landslide?
So the landslide, the top of the landslide is here on the west. The toe
of the landslide is down here on Shangri-La Way. That distance is about 450
feet in length. It's about 250 feet wide across this
dimension. It's about 100 feet high from here down to
the toe on Shangri-La Way. The thickness of the material that is moving
varies from about generally 20 to 30 feet and in one area, it
ranges from about 48 to 54 feet. And we know that by instrumentation that
has been installed in the landslide.
How much did the landslide move? So the
landslide was noticed on Friday the 13th of November, mainly because of the
movement that was observed on Shangri-La way. So there wasn't a lot of
instrumentation installed at that time. However, we can judge by the relative
amount of that movement visually how much it moved before we had instrumentation installed. And
that seems to be generally about a foot, about a foot down at the top
and about a foot up at the toe. Since that date, starting at about the
15th, there's been monitoring installed on the landslide and we know how much it's moved.
And at the top, it's moved from about seven inches to 11 and a half
inches. And at the toe, it's moved from about one inch to four inches
horizontally and maybe a half inch to two inches up. So in total,
the landslide has probably moved less than two feet. Hence the categorization of the land
site as slow moving. When will it stop?
We don't really know, but we can tell you that the movements have noticeably decreased,
especially in the last three days. So movements that have been measured in the last
few days are on the order of a quarter inch to eighth of an inch
or less. So that tells you a little bit about the level of accuracy of
the instruments that we have to be able to measure this. Those movements are not
perceptible to the eye.
You might say, are residents threatened by this landslide movement in Taos?
The answer is no. The movements have been slow. We have
monitoring in place now. The monitoring is being done on a daily basis. We
get information from the development team directly to us so we can monitor that
movement daily and make decisions about whether anything needs to be done.
I think that wraps up my part for now. Martin's now gonna talk to you
a little bit about the mitigation actions that were taken right after the landslide was
noticed and as part of the development team, their actions.
So after the developer and their design and construction team observed
significant movement around the 13th of November, they implemented some prudent
measures to try and stop the movement. One of those was to
place plastic sheeting over as much of the exposed soil surfaces as was practical at
the time. The other thing they did was to construct a four-foot-high
rock-filled buttress at the toe of the slide, again, trying to balance the driving
forces against the resisting forces, and so building a buttress at the toe was an
attempt to increase the resisting forces. They also implemented
research into the geometry and mechanics of this landslide that included in
drilling slope inclinometer casings and these are instruments that are installed
into the ground to various depths and give provide very precise measurements of
subsurface deflections they also installed dewatering wells
within the landslide mass to try and pull water out of
the soils lowering the groundwater table that's also a a very prudent,
common method to mitigate landslides.
That happened then between November 13th and 20th, and then
on the 20th, we met with the developer, their construction and
design team, and collectively,
recommended that additional measures be taken because the slide movement was continuing,
although at a slow rate. The additional measures that were taken between today and
November 20th included significant removal of fill material from the
upper portion of the slide zone, trying to reduce the driving forces on
this land slide. That's been ongoing for several days now and has accomplish
a significant amount of film removal. Additionally,
they have installed more slope inclinometer casings and
more dewatering wells within the slide zone. In addition
to that, we recommended a improved
management of the surface water on the site and storm water
collection and disposal methods that's typically involves
Lining the ditches lining the sedimentation ponds or removing the sedimentation ponds so
that there's no standing water within the slide zone
These measures to date appear to have had a beneficial effect on on
the landslide and that the rate of movement has slowed quite significantly in the past
four days. And there is more work to be done,
more instrumentation and more mitigation measures that will need to be done in the coming
weeks. Jim, I'll turn it back to you too.
So ongoing monitoring and analysis what monitoring is being done
on the landslide and around the landslide. The landslide monitoring is being
done by the development team. There is some being done by
Shannon, Wilson, and Golder at the request of the city, and I'll go over that.
And the data being gathered is being gathered on a daily basis, sometimes several times
a day. So these monitoring... the or the monitoring includes one visual
monitoring we shall remember that we see things and they look different from day to
day that clues us into going to look for for any changes that we see
on the site as I mentioned before the movement is down to the point now
where it's very difficult to tell changes from a day to day basis by looking
at it but you always want to keep your eyes open to see if anything
changes in the area hadn't seen before we also have what are called geodetic monitoring
so that's land survey So the surveyors go out and they install monitoring points,
typically pins in the ground. And they survey that location very accurately, and then
they go back day after day after day, taking measurements on these. I don't know
if those, those are not shown on this, okay. That's probably because there's about 142
of them all around the landslide. So those are placed up here,
above the ground. Shangri-La Way, and they're
within parcel nine on the north and south sides and also in Shangri-La Way and
even going down Tallis Drive. So we have monitoring points that are outside the area
of movement so we know that the movement doesn't extend beyond them. And then we
have some within the area of movement that we can monitor how much it actually
moves. We have inclinometer data. Martin talked about what an inclinometer is
that that device tells us how deep the ground is moving.
And there's these four here. The city has had us, or asked us to install
some additional ones in city right of way. Yesterday there were two installed
in Shangri-La Way. Will those show up, Lucy? The blue dot,
oh here we are, okay. So two here in Shangri-La Way.
These are kind of in the area where they had the hump in the roadway
if you've driven by there. One is actually outside that area right here in the
landscaping area. This one is kind of right in the hump area.
And one is being started to be installed today and should wrap up tomorrow up
at the head close by the water tank. and the intent there is to have
one outside the area of landslide. To date we've seen no movement on
Shangri-La Way at the head above the head of the landslide and there is monitoring
on the water tank itself and again showing no movement and then other
inclinometers and other belt and suspenders up in that area.
Now the monitoring will continue as long as it is needed As I said before
the slide has shown a significant decrease in movement. That's good We want to see
it come to a complete stop and have the monitoring data show us that Once
the landslide movement has stopped work will transition into a monitoring
standpoint because Everybody knows it rains around here in the wintertime and water does have
an effect on landslides will continue to monitor to make sure it stays stopped and
then the work potentially our role will shift more into a
supporting role for the city staff in reviewing developer proposals for
permanently stabilizing the landslide. Do you have anything else to add?
No. That concludes our presentation.
Emily. Thanks. Before the gentleman, Martin, before you leave. We'd like to take the
opportunity if any members of the council would have any questions at this time
for Martin and James. I'd ask that maybe you hold off at this point and
if we can get through, I meant to talk to you all about this. If
we can go through the presentation and if you can just jot a quick note
down, we might be able to answer that as we go along. And if not,
then We're going to assemble the whole group up here at the end of the
presentation and be happy to answer questions to those particular individuals.
Okay, thank you. Okay. All right.
At this point in time, I'd like Brett Heath, who's our public works, Director to
come up and talk about our public works response. I didn't want to mention I
don't think this came out as clearly as I would have liked from the overview
and the introduction at the beginning, but I would like to personally thank
the developer property owners team for acting as quickly and as
collaboratively as they did to partner with us on evaluating the situation and
mobilizing a lot of resources to both get
this kind of equipment into the ground, but also to do the fill removal that
you've heard about and a lot of other actions. So I wanted to make sure
that that was mentioned. We're now gonna turn our attention to city staff.
responses and so with that I'll have Brett talk about public works and we'll get
PowerPoint back up. Actually, you can leave it on GIS. You want to leave it
on GIS for now? Yeah, that would be best. Okay, good evening. So
I'm going to cover the utilities, the impacts, damages that we know about,
potential damages and some of the mitigation measures that we've taken over the last two
weeks regarding the utilities out in the Talos area.
In general, we have at
the intersection of Talus Drive and Shangri-La, we have two water lines that run through
that intersection that supply water to the north side of Talus. All of the water
north of Talus Drive comes through that intersection. There's two pressure zones in there, that's
why there's two water mains. One is what we call the 752 zone, one is
what we call the 616 zone. Those are just hydraulic elevations for the water
system. We also have sewer that comes down Shangri-La from Boulder Way
down to the Tallis Drive intersection and then goes down Tallis Drive. We also have
storm water that comes from both directions on Shangri-La and then goes down Tallis Drive.
We also have dry utilities to go through that intersection, which I'll briefly touch on
those too. So there's quite a bit of utility. There's lots of
utilities in that area. We have been monitoring that. We've had
specifically for the waterline situation, we've had a 24-7 watch on that
going on with Public Works personnel, and we're working closely with the police department. They've
been very helpful. for us on that. We've also employed
HDR engineering to help us look specifically at the utilities
in the area and the impacts to the utilities and monitoring those, independent of what's
going on with the geotech work on the site. So I think probably the
most efficient way to address this is to just talk about each one of the
utilities, and so I'll go ahead and move through that. The
water system out here is constructed of ductile iron. I'm going to turn on
a piece here and then zoom out a little bit so you can see all
of it. When we first
discovered this, one of our first actions was to run some temporary
overland fire hose. so that we could supply emergency water to the 752
zone and the 616 zone. So we did that in two locations, down through this
area and then also through this area here, connecting the the
Talus Drive water supply and the water supply to the south side to the water
supply on the north side. So that was our initial stopgap measure to
be able to provide water to the north side of Talus.
The ductile iron water main that is in there is fairly close to the area
that's moving up. And ductile iron water main, while strong and has
flexible joints in it, does have a limit to how far it can move before
it's going to give way. And we're not sure exactly how far that's
moved yet, but given the movement that we've seen out there, it's probably at or
near its maximum ability to withstand those forces. So if the Earth keeps moving, at
some point, it's very likely that one or both of those mains could break. So
we have been assuming that that is a very real potential and have been
working hard on mitigation measures to to put in place so that we can supply
water to the north side of Talos, the north side of the Talos development.
The good news is the 616 Reservoir, which is the big reservoir right here, big
concrete reservoir, is outside of the impacted area
here. And again, with the additional monitoring that's being put in place and the monitoring
that's been taking place, it looks like the reservoir is safe at this time.
So what we've been doing with
regards to after we laid the fire hoses in, we looked for alternatives that were
a little more permanent, recognizing that this situation could go on for a while.
And so we have since have installed a combination of
underground and overland, eight-inch high-density polyethylene pipe, HDPE pipe.
in this area and this supplies water to the 752 zone which is essentially the
up side up the uphill side of Shangri-La. The 616
is pretty much everything on the downhill side that's an oversimplification but that's roughly true.
So that pipe is in this pipe is in place and is
samples have been taken and we hope to have positive We hope to have good
results, that's the wrong word because positive is a bad thing, you want negative results.
Good results on the water samples tomorrow morning and if we do then we will
be able to turn this line on which will supply water to the 752 zone
in Talus. We have also installed a pressure reducing valve, temporary, just off
the screen there to the north. that will allow us to feed from the 752
zone into the 616 zone if we had to. It's a stopgap measure, but it
would allow us to provide potable water, drinking water from the upper zone to the
lower zone. We have also installed, as of tonight, matter of fact, the
crews are probably wrapping up work right about now, installing
another temporary connection, potable water connection across this area to the 616. So
once that, and that will be activated tonight. When that line is activated, we'll then
be able to supply potable water again to the, to Talus, north,
excuse me, to the north side of Talus development should the 616 give way through
the intersection. So our ultimate goal in all of this work is to be able
to abandon in place, we're not gonna go in and remove any pipe right now,
but we wanna leave it in place and turn it off. both the 752 and
the 616 as they run through this intersection. So that's what all of this work
is for. This blue line here represents the HDPE pipe that is being connected from
Tallis Drive to Boulder Place.
And again, that's an eight inch overland line that's going to be run through there.
And that line, that work on that line should be complete tomorrow. and we hope
to have samples back on Friday. So once those samples come back, we'll turn this
line on and we will abandon the other temporary connection that we have and at
that point we know for sure we can turn everything off in the intersection here.
So that's an overview of where we are with the water. We've also installed a
insertion valve right here. We needed an extra valve in the 752 line, so we
did that a few nights ago. We completed that work and that allowed us to,
if we had to turn the 752 zone off, we could do so without
affecting residents on the south side that are served by that zone. So
water work is coming along very quickly. There's been a lot of different pieces to
it. We've been working to improve our Our situation as we go through here,
one of the things that we've had to deal with is if we had to
use those fire hose connections, we would have had to issue a boil water advisory
for all of TALIS. Would have affected everyone initially. We're now down to,
we can now know we can supply water here safely. So if we, should
something happen tonight at the intersection, The only area that would be affected with boil
water, notice, would be the upper areas up here.
And hopefully when we get our water samples back tomorrow, if they're good, then
that would go away as well. So I would say the takeaway here is we're
very, very close to having a longer term temporary solution in place to be able
to provide drinking water to the north side of the development. in both of the
zones and that the water is safe to drink. And
unless you hear otherwise from us, there will be safe drinking water
in all of Talus. There will be no need for a boil water notice. So
that's a rundown on the water. Sewer system, we have,
let me turn sewer on. So we have sewer runs down
Shangri-La down through here and then down Tallis Drive.
We have seen some minor damage to the sewer system. We've videoed the sewer system
and we've inspected the manholes. One of the manholes has offset a slight amount and
seems to be We're having some leakage. Leakage is coming in, not out, so that's
good news. We're not leaking sewage out, but we are leaking some groundwater into the
sewer manhole, roughly in this area. And we're looking for, we're looking at
potential bypasses similar to what we've done for the water. We're gonna pick up the
sewer, run it around the intersection, either possibly down to Boulder Way or
down on the Tallis Drive. There's a couple of alignments that are potential, one through
here, one through here. That's not exact, it hasn't been, we haven't nailed that down
yet. Our focus has been getting the water system squared away. Should we
have an immediate problem with the sewer line, we have contingency plans to pump back
up over the hill so we can pick it up here, pump it back this
direction over land, put it back in the sewer system, and it'll go back down
the other direction. And we would be doing that while we completed a temporary connection
here. Stormwater system, it suffered more damage than in the
other utilities at this point, anyway, more visible damage. And in this, right down in
the intersection here, there's a number of catch basins and manholes. Again, we've videoed the
stormwater system, we've checked the manholes, and we've found a pipe that's been
pushed into the catch basins, pipe that's been deformed, especially right at
the back edge of the sidewalk in that area. We have a manhole that's being
crushed. So, but the good news is, regardless, even with that
damage, the system is still functional. So we're still conveying storm water through that system,
and at this point, believe we can continue to do so. We do have contingency
plans in place to move around that intersection if we need to. The good news
about storm water is if it does come out of the ground, it can run
down the street and into the next catch basin. We can also pick it up,
pump it. We have more options than we do with sewer and with water, with
the storm water system. At this point, we don't have any major temporary
bypasses planned like we have done for the sewer and the water.
On the gas side, dry utilities, PSE came in the first night and rerouted some
of their gas lines around that intersection. They laid some overland line on the south
side over here. So they feel their
systems are out of the impacted area there. On the power side, they checked the
slack they have in the cables. I know they've been monitoring that. For
streets, we have Obviously the bulge in the intersection right down
here and a likely repair you'll see for that is just adding some asphalt to
the uphill side to try and get it to drain so we don't end up
with a big pool of water there over the winter. So that will probably be
likely be some ongoing work depending on how that changes over the next several months.
We also have in place detour routes should
we have to close that intersection. And this is kind of a...
Let me turn that on here so you can see what we're talking about. So
we have really two detour routes. If we had to close this intersection, we have
the south side, which incorporates Cheyber and up through the bridges
development up through here. up on Harmony and on around. So this is a fairly
straightforward detour here. There is a one-lane bridge right here that would take alternating traffic,
but it's a fairly straightforward detour. This detour is a
bit more complex, unfortunately. This is the James Bush Road, and it is, for all
intents and purposes, a one-way road. It's rather steep. We have staged
temporary signals here and here. We've also laid out all of the detour signs that
we would need if we had to put this in place quickly.
So those are all in place now. We've worked with Eastside
Fire and Rescue. They're aware of this situation and are
reassigning some trucks, moving trucks around as necessary. should we have to use that detour.
Also, the school district's been involved, garbage. So they're aware of
the issues that we're going through here. I should say that
this is the last resort. We're going to do whatever we can to keep this
intersection open. We're not going to close this road unless we absolutely have to. So
one of the things that might trigger that is if we did have a large
water main break. And as I said earlier, we're getting close to the point
where those water mains will be shut off. So the likelihood of that as time
goes along gets less and less. The other probably possibility is
should the movement move out into the road far enough that it starts
blocking and we had to do some mitigation measures there. Again, you've heard from the
geotechs that that's moving very slowly. We're hopeful that we
don't need to invoke this, but just so you know, this is in our contingency
planning. So I think that wraps up utilities
and what we're doing in the way of public works operations out there.
All right, next. I'd like to introduce Keith Niven, who is our economic development director
and our interim development services director, and he's going to talk about DSD's
response to this situation. No, this is good. You're good? Yeah.
So thank you. Mr. Mayor, city council, community. So I'd like to
start just by offering an apology to the residents of Tallis. We have
approved a lot of weekend work. We've approved a lot of night work. We know
it's an inconvenience, and we know you guys have a lot of concerns. So I
want to start by emphasizing the urgency by which we have approached this issue.
What Development Services does is we review plans, we permit
development, both public and private, and then we provide site inspection services.
The first thing that we did when we realized that there was an issue
is we had our inspectors out there monitoring both the moving land
as well as the contractor activities. Development services also is the bridge between the
city and the development community. And so part of our role was to contact the
builder and the developer and make sure that they understood of the concerns that we
had and that we developed a plan quickly to address the issue. And so
the first, one of the first things we did once we realized that we had
an unknown issue happening on that development site was to issue a partial stop work
order. I mean, the first thing that anybody would do would be to say stop
working. And it wasn't a complete stop work order because we didn't want to
Stop the developer from doing things that would make the site more stable so part
of the reason why we issued a partial stop work order was so that they
could continue dealing with stormwater and Doing things on the property that would
cause the slide to either slow down or stop and so that was our first
goal Beyond
Beyond that, the next thing we realized was that, as was mentioned earlier this evening,
we didn't have the technical resources mobilized to actually understand the details
here. I'm not a geotech engineer. I don't understand what's going on and what is
needed to make it safe. So we hired Shannon and Wilson and we extended
our contract with Golder Associates to get them out on site and to start providing
both us information as well as the developer an additional amount of input that
they could use to make some decisions on the site. And then
kind of beyond that, you start to ask the question, so what are the limits
of the slope instability? And as our geotechs have talked earlier,
this is the area that has demonstrated mobility, but as we
start to look at what else is currently under construction, we asked our
geotechs to look also up at the divisions that are up on top of the
hill to see if there were any indications of any
slope instability or that anything that's happening down here in Parcel 9 would affect
anything up here in 7 and 8. And so we have had those reports coming
in. So they're basically doing daily walkthroughs to look at retaining walls, to look at
slopes, to make sure that if there's any surficial reasons why we should
approach that differently, that we would go ahead and employ those right now. And then
the other thing, obviously, is this road, which goes up to that upper property.
That will be a city street at some point, and we will have people driving
on it. And so the other thing is to make sure that if any of
the integrity of that road has been compromised by the movement of the soils in
this parcel, that that be addressed as well prior to moving forward with that
project up at the top of the hill. So that's pretty much what
Development Services has been working on, is really kind of interface with the builder.
and also providing the eyes out on the site with our construction inspectors.
Next, I'd like to ask Autumn Monahan, who is the assistant to the city
administrator, to come up and talk about our communications plan and response.
So we've been working to keep the Talos community updated in many different ways. We've
created a dedicated web page that includes our latest information as well as a Q&A.
We've also asked residents to sign up for our email alerts. So far, we have
515 subscribers, and we've sent nine notices. And we've committed to daily
updates, even if there's nothing new, until we've dedicated some further notice. We're also updating
social media and asking residents to help us spread the word. And we've been fielding
phone calls to the city's main line, which is 3,000,
including over the weekend. So we have responded to every phone call we received. We've
also been conducting media interviews with several TV news stations and local newspapers.
As TELUS residents probably know, we've also posted a variable message sign on Northwest TELUS
Drive, encouraging people to go to our website for more information. We have also been
in daily contact with the Talis Homeowners Association. And we've created an email address that
people can submit questions to at talis at isaqwa.gov. Some notices have been delivered to
doorsteps for those water customers who've had specific impacts, like reduced water pressure.
And we've heavily promoted the live stream of tonight's meeting for the community to find
out more. And we'll also present this or post this presentation online afterwards at isaqwa.gov
slash talis.
Right, so the next steps that we plan to take beginning
tonight and into tomorrow is to continue our communication efforts that
Autumn just spoke about. That will also include, as we mentioned previously,
attending the December 3rd Talus HOA meeting. At that point in time,
we hope to have additional data and be able to present some updated
information and we will be available to take questions and provide
additional information and answers at that time. We also will
continue our geotechnical monitoring where we've been adding new instruments
periodically over the last several days. I think we're at the point now where we're
really building a good collection of data that's has been helping us to
make decisions about what additional steps to take on site. We're gonna continue that
effort. And then as Brett spoke about, we're finishing the temporary relocation of
many of our utilities. Lastly, I wanted to mention that starting
next week, there will be four geotechnical firms providing information to the builder and to
the city on how to stabilize the property, and helping us to determine the measures
that will need to be employed before the site can be deemed suitable for development.
It's likely that that analysis and evaluation by the city would extend into 2016.
So with that, council members, our team is ready to answer any questions you
might have. Are there questions from council members for any of the
presenters this evening? Councilmember Martz Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Butler. So of course
whenever anybody Here's the word landslide around here. It naturally draws
our thoughts to what happened up in Oso and so could you have the geologists
talk about this this parcel and whether there's You know and it's a relative
comparison or potential for for that sort of a catastrophic slide Certainly they're ready to
do so Yeah, I understand
the question and the concern. Oso was certainly something that caught a lot of people
by surprise, a lot of geologists by surprise. I think what they learned about Oso
was they had very thick, continuous glacial units.
So I'll kind of do maybe a little comparison between Oso and this slide. First
of all, the size, so this is quite a bit smaller. also had very thick,
continuous glacial units that held a lot of water. They were very permeable.
We have thin glacial units over bedrock, and they're not very permeable. The water that
they're pumping out of the landslide, as I mentioned earlier, is only a few gallons
per minute. So you need a lot of water within a landslide mass in order
to get it to travel a long distance in a rapid fashion. Those are called
debris flows. or mudflows, and what we have is a more viscous type
material which tends to creep more slowly. Does that answer your question?
I think so, thank you. Other questions? From council
members. I have a question. Council President Winterstein. Thank you. So,
Brett Heath, thank you for your information about the utilities. And as I was listening,
I've had the opportunity to hear a little bit more about this prior to now.
And I understood it very well. And so
I just get in. Was the water solution clear to people?
It seemed as we were watching or listening, I wondered if it was clear. And
so I want to try to recount what I think I heard for everybody's benefit.
and that you said there were two zones. There's two lines through the
intersection and they carry both the emergency water for fire protection and
for potable water to all the houses. And that
we are installing, I think you said long term temporary, lines that
Will connect from the water source, which is the tank up there to to I'm
just going to say the upper zone You had a number for it something related
to elevation and that And what you didn't mention was the health
department. So I don't think I heard that phrase so before by putting in a
new line like this before It will it is
We have to get a certification from the state health department that it is
potable, that it is safe to drink. And short of that, that would be if
we didn't have that, I think Brett was saying is that one line is going
to be in place. He said we're going to charge the line or something like
that. That means that water would go through, but with lacking the health department certification
that it's safe to drink, there would be a boil water advisory. So
my takeaway was is that two long-term temporary lines
that will hopefully, one has already received the Clean Bill of Health
from the Health Department. Tomorrow morning. I'm sorry? Tomorrow. So the first back there tomorrow
morning. On one of them. Correct. And the second one as early. Friday.
By Friday, okay. So, okay, so again, that's long-term temporary.
And so right now, there isn't any indication. We know the land is moved. We
know that there's some flexibility in the line. But as we're speaking, that could be
changing. We don't know. But at least all the mitigation work you're putting in
place, and we're very close to Getting what is absolutely required which
is a clean bill of health from the Department of Health That the water is
safe to drink and doesn't require boiling That's correct. Okay, and
and and so I just you know we'll love it. It should is the water
right now is safe to drink Right now right now right now everybody's getting water
from the lines that's better that they've always been getting water. That's correct. So there's
no issues with with the water currently that's available to everybody's homes. It's safe to
drink. That's correct. And during the switchovers, when we make the switches, that will be
transparent, seamless to the residents. They shouldn't notice any differences when we change
lines. Okay, so the ideal situation is that, so we're going to not wait for
any type of rupture. As soon as we get the clearance from the health department,
we're going to switch one line over, and then we get the clearance on the
other one, we'll switch the other line over. And then that will eliminate
the prospect of disruption or any need for a boil water
advisory. So that's the best case, is that there is no disruption at all. That's
correct. But we're not there yet, but we're getting there. That's correct.
Okay,
all right. Council Member Toll. If there were to need to be
a boil advisory, what would that look like for the residents in Taliesin?
So if we needed to issue a boil water advisory,
we have reverse 911 capabilities through both King County
and NORCOM. NORCOM is the fire dispatch agency. King County Sheriff's Office
uses a different system, but we've coordinated with both of those to be able to
use both of those systems if we needed to. Autumn has also been encouraging people
to sign up for cell phones because those systems don't cover cell phones. We would
put that on the reader boards. We would get that information out in a number
of ways so that people knew about the boil water notice. So did that answer
your question? Yes, it did, thank you. Other questions of council members?
Council member Sher. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to start with a comment, and
then I'll have a follow-up question that you may or may not be able to
answer. There was a comment earlier I read on TELUS Next Door asking about my
position on all of this. And I wanted to address that specifically. As some of
you may know, I'm one of your neighbors. I live in Ascent. And I've been
following very much, as you have, what's been going on. And I've been very concerned
and stressed out about this entire situation, as I'm sure all of you have been
as well. Whatever I personally feel or you may feel about this new
development itself or what should happen to it down the road, I want to first
assure everyone in the audience and those viewing at home that the city is taking
necessary and appropriate steps to safeguard our water, our streets, and our properties.
This is the government that you have elected to handle and protect yourselves
and those you hold dear. And I can assure you for many years on this
body that the staff liaisons you heard from tonight, whether that's Brett or Keith or
Autumn, are all absolute rock stars in their respective fields. And they are really
watching out for our interests in the neighborhood. I have had a number of questions
that I've asked of city staff and the mayor's office over the last week or
so. I've had all of those timely answered. As with all other council members, I've
toured the site itself and gone up to seven and eight. And I've passed along
concerns from the neighborhood as well to our city administration and received timely responses to
those as well. I'm sure there are times that many of us have felt that
the responses have not been fast enough and certainly when This all occurred on that
Friday night and you go up there and it looked like they were staging the
moon landing with the lights up there. There was a lot of trepidation about what
was going on. So I hope that this process this evening, the presentations you've heard,
the information that's being transparently conveyed to the community calms some of those fears and
speculation that have been engaged in. And even though in a couple months I'll be
joining you in the audience and not on the dais, I'll be following this into
2016 with keen interest. So my question relates to 2016, and again, you may or
may not be able to answer this, What is the long-term prognosis once the
emergency measures are addressed and the matter subsides?
Do we have any idea at this point in time, or are we going to
need to have some more follow-up in the coming months as that information becomes available
so folks understand where things are headed? Councilmember Scherer, it's
the latter. We're still emergency response and mitigation
right now we're very much focused on that I know the property owner the developer
our city staff knows that there are more conversations that need to be had about
how to proceed certainly right now we're making sure that the
site becomes stable there will be conversations about how to ensure stability going forward and
But it's premature at this time. We need to continue to collect data, continue to
reinforce our efforts to make this safe. And those conversations are for
a day in the near future. And we will keep the council informed and we'll
keep the community informed as well and engaged in that. Thanks,
Emily. Are there other council members with questions?
Council President Winterside. Thank you. Could you zoom in all the way to the area
again, please? The other zoom
area.
So I don't know how many people have looked at. So we have a map
online, and the map that's online and the website actually colors in all of parcel
nine. So you need to kind of do an overlay on this. This is just
a portion of that. Also, it looks like there's plats on
there and there's a road, but really none of that's there. And it wasn't there,
right? That's just what's planned. Nothing's built on there. And so I
know when I first went up there, and I've listened to the gentleman this evening
and I had a briefing when I visited the site over the weekend as well.
So you stand down there below, right at the intersection, and you look up.
And you know what's moving you know how do I tell so what I know
is that it's It's well in front of our east of that water
tower and I do appreciate it too. I know about a week ago I said
can we put a you know in kilometer, you know near the water tower I'm
glad to see that and and and so So I have a better idea of
the scope of this. And I think you've already answered this, but I'm going to
ask you to answer it directly. And this would be either Martin or James. And
it was also probably the question was maybe part of the answer came there as
well. But the likelihood of there just being a breakaway,
just the surface of the land just breaks away and slides down.
And that happened.
Okay, so the soil within the slide zone has already broken away as you,
meaning it has already moved. What do you mean by break away? Are you talking
about going up and over Shangri-La? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Leaving that site and getting
downhill. Based on the geology at this site, it is a slow-moving landslide.
And the mitigation measures that have been put in place over the past two weeks
have been effective at slowing down that movement. So we think the probability of a
sort of a catastrophic breakaway going over or through Shangri-La is low
at this time. Low. It's a low probability.
Could it happen? I guess low means it could happen, in your opinion.
I don't expect that it would happen. I think that we're
close to having this landslide stopped. And
that's because of removing the material from the top?
That plus the other measures that have been put in place recently. The dewatering? The
dewatering, getting ponded water off of the slope. and
controlling the surface water infiltration. Okay, so if we were to have a
big weather event, the kind of things that happen November, December around here, and
what about the rainwater uphill from this location?
Where's it gonna go? I mean, that's kind of like a stormwater question. I don't
know if that's for Brett, but can you tell us just about what's already in
place uphill from this location? I don't know if that's a question for you, Brett,
or? Yeah, I think it's a stormwater issue.
So we've got, Keith, so there's roadways up there. There is permeable
and nonpermeable surfaces. The roadways being just the non-permeable. So if we had a
big rain, where is that water going
to go?
So obviously water travels downhill. And water travels downhill through urban
development in stormwater pipes and via catch basins. This property up
here, even though it has not been final platted, the roadways and
the wet utilities are in. Excuse me for that. And so there are storm
systems already in place in this division. And so right now,
and west is to the left, so in this direction, which is going uphill to
Cougar Mountain Wildland Park, Basically, there is still runoff that comes
through the forest. That's one of the things that we saw with the
minor slide that happened farther to the north in Talos a few years ago, is
there was a collection of water and it all got discharged at once. So that
stormwater that's coming down the hill does get caught in the stormwater system that's in
Foothills Drive. Is that labeled on here? Right here? And so,
What I would say to you is what happens in parcel nine is kind of
its own thing. Everything uphill of parcel nine is being managed by the existing
stormwater system. And what about from eight or parcel seven north of it? This?
So it's being managed and put into pipes within this division.
Other questions from council members?
Seeing none then. MR. Mr. Mayor, just a couple of things real quick.
When I introduced this, I was a little remiss and not recognizing
Danielle Giffins, who actually brought this to our attention. And I would tell you, the
police department would tell you that the greatest partnership we have is with the community
when these things come up. And she noticed something different in our infrastructure up there
and made that call to us, which enabled us to trigger this in. So we
appreciate you contacting the city about this and letting us know and do the appropriate
investigation. The other thing, just a reminder, as you made comments earlier,
there is a way to submit questions that you have. We've already been receiving questions
on the city's website through the email that was listed up there, and you may
have questions like, who's paying for everything, right? I mean, that's already one of the
questions that we've got. And so the developer has been paying for the
majority of the costs at this point. And the structure of this meeting really doesn't
allow for a Q&A session because it is a city council meeting. There is an
opportunity for public comment. And what I've asked our staff to do is, you know,
if you come up and speak during public comment and and ask a question, we
will track on that question. And if we have a little time
following that, we'll try and answer that this evening. It's not kind of a formal
Q&A because we still have a structure of a meeting. But some of these things
we can't, You know, we won't be able to give you an answer tonight, even
if you send us a question to our email account, because some of these things
are going to take some period of time to actually figure out as we get
more data or as we get some, you know, continue to do some investigation. So
just to reiterate what you had said earlier, I know there's been some people who
have been trying to ask questions as we go through the process, and there is
a structure to this meeting, and we'll try and capture those and address those as
best we can at the end. Thank you
for that, Bob, and I want to thank those in attendance here this evening for
being very, very patient and sitting through the briefings. We hope that some of that
may have answered some of the questions that you have in mind. Just a reminder,
citizens' comments are an important part of the public process. We take them
seriously and factor them into all of the decisions that we make. Anyone this
evening who wishes to comment on the Tallis Hill slide will have an
opportunity to do so. Please keep your comments respectful and directed to the City
Council. When recognized, move to the lectern and speak into the microphone.
State your name and address. Please limit your comments to three minutes. If you have
written comments, please submit those to the City Clerk. And I'll now
ask the city clerk, if you would please read off the first three names on
the list. And as your name is called, please line up at the podium.
Yes, I have four on the list. First three, Daniel Givens, Karen
Porterfield, and Chuck Monninger. If you can please queue up at the podium, starting
with Danielle. You can proceed when you're ready.
I'm Danielle Geffins. I've lived in Taos for 11 years. I really appreciate this
presentation tonight. I found it very informative and very helpful and answered a lot of
my questions. But my biggest question is really is how did we get here
to this point? So from my perspective, I was not surprised at all to hear
that the land had moved. The development, the hill was clear cut. It
rains the last retaining wall was removed About two
weeks before we noticed the movement I have to feel like it's it's it's that
it's connected So really my questions are how did this
how did the grading? the development get approved
in this steep slope and How frequently was the city monitoring
the construction? Were there any protective measures in place
required of the developer? Or are we just reacting now that the hill has
moved? It sounds like there are a lot of protective measures that can be put
in place to mitigate this type of movement Did we ask ask for that ahead
of time? And if not why not and if we did ask for it was
a developer complying with it?
The the cost of this I have a you know, I'm pretty sure that the
that the citizens are going to be picking up a pretty big bill. There has
been work around the clock for about two weeks. So I know a lot of
it's on that parcel, but a lot of it's not. So my expectation
is that the developer will pick up all of that. And that's the only thing
that should happen. This is definitely a direct correlation from the development. It
also kind of creates a lot of questions about access. Okay, so
James Bush Road is clearly not, it would be an okay if you're leaving
once and never coming back, but you can't, I mean the idea of using that
as an ingress and egress. One minute remaining. Is pretty concerning. So
I'm hopeful that this will prompt us to look at James Bush Road and perhaps
widen it, make it not a permanent ingress and egress, but one that actually could
be used on a permanent, temporary basis, like the water system. So in
closing, I just want to say I think that these issues really require us as
a city to kind of pause, critically review our policies and our priorities.
Land that's steeply sloped, it has inherent limitations. And it doesn't make sense to develop
it the same way that a flat land that you would develop it, with density
or with grading. I really think we have to look at the topography of the
land. We need to look at the surrounding parcels, the neighborhood, the infrastructure. We can't
just look at that in isolation and say, go for it. And I
really think that it's common sense that when you clear cut a slope, there will
be consequences. And when those natural consequences occur, I just think we can't be surprised
by it. So really, I think we need to look at how we got here.
and really make some changes so this doesn't happen again. We're fortunate that this was
a slow moving landslide and not a fast one. So thank you. Thank you. Karen
Porterfield. I'm going to
ask that you not applause, but if you agree with the speaker,
a more appropriate way would probably be to just raise your hand and that way,
we can see everyone who supports the comment of the speaker. So I ask
for your help in that regard, please. Karen? Good evening. My name is Karen Porterfield.
I live in Tallis. I am a member of the Homeowners Association, but I'm also
a professor of public administration and a management consultant working with local governments across the
region. I firmly believe that the primary responsibility of every elected official
is to ensure the safety of our families and children. That goes for the same
in Issaquah. Before we can talk about bike paths and parkways, traffic improvements and
parks, you need to ensure that we are safe in our homes and on our
streets. For many years, the residents of Newport Way pleaded with the city to improve
pedestrian safety. Accidents and near misses were hallmarks and the city did nothing.
It wasn't until we had a tragic death this last summer that the city chose
to take action. So who was standing up for our children? No one on the
council, not Mayor Butler. No one was standing up for our children.
Two years ago, we asked the city council to do what was right for the
families in Tallis. We asked that you insist that the development plan for Parcels 7,
8, and 9 conform to the Tallis Development Agreement. Our motivation
was not to stop development, but to ensure the development was done in a responsible
manner and developed in a way that would ensure the safety of our residents. No
one on the council, not Mayor Butler, no one stood up for the residents of
Talos for the children and families that live there. We have had two weeks of
crisis now in Talos with more dump trucks than can be counted dropping rocks and
moving dirt. Much of this is happening just feet away from homes where families live.
And this is happening because the city approved a development plan that disregarded the slide-prone
nature of this land. What is the impact that this has had on our families?
And why don't you care? No one on the council, not Mayor Butler, no one
stood up for the residents of Tallis. So once more we have the city you're
considering the annexation of East Cougar Mountain. Another slide prone area up the hill from
all of this. What are we to think if we start to see problems up
there? You're going to allow clear cutting as our last speaker talked about and
terraforming to maximize the building. Again, you're going to choose to put everybody who
lives down the hill at risk. We can't undo the bad decisions that have been
made, but we can stand up to the land speculators and the developers and we
can make the right choices now. We can learn from our failures and make good
decisions. We don't want a repeat of the current problem, so I'm going to ask
this question to you. Is someone on the council, Mayor Butler, who is going to
stand up for our families and children? And will you find the courage to make
the right decision and say no to the annexation of East Cougar Mountain?
That's time. Excuse me. Chuck?
My name's Chuck Monninger. I live in Tallis at 2601 Northwest
Alpine Crest Way. which unfortunately is on that map. As I said last
week, I look out the kitchen window at the site. It
has come a long ways in the last week and I appreciate everything that's been
done. I appreciate the presentation that we've seen today. I still have some
concerns. The area south of what has been
identified as the slide area, is covered with straw
and I still don't understand that because I'm pretty sure that the water that lands
in that area runs downhill and it is on the uphill side of the roadway
so I still think it's going under the road. I still think that that is
a temporary condition that needs to be looked at. The comment was made that all
the water that falls on this area should be carried away so that no to
prevent any further saturation. And it brings to mind one of the themes that I
brought up last week is that the temporary condition, the permanent condition is great. Once
it's all done, it's the temporary condition that got us here. And I'm concerned about
the comments that were made about all the storm drainage that's in place.
It generally is not functioning in
its final condition. Oftentimes a storm drain inlet is
the, they leave an inch and a half or an inch of pavement to be
put on the final surface. And I've been in a lot of developments where there
will be openings around the storm drainage where water gets in because it can't, it
doesn't want to go up over that little hump there and it starts to undermine,
it eventually undermines the road and in the future development after the developer's gone, then
you get potholes and you get holes in the ground. So I think there ought
to be a complete assessment of everything uphill of the property for its current temporary
condition and make it function like it's permanent. Now on the positive side, I know
that there's a retaining wall that's part of the development that has been put in
and I'd like to know what the depth of those piles are and whether or
not they are into, I'm sure not bedrock, but are they, is that wall,
helping to support, I mean like really helping to support the road
that's above that and a water tank that's above that. Because that's one of the
permanent features that I know is intended to stabilize the whole area and
it was substantially in place I think before this started. Thank you. Thanks.
Last on my list, Julian Hostensky.
mayor and City Council. I have no toothpicks with me this week. I come unarmed.
So for those of you who were here last week, I do want to say
thank you. I want to say thank you for listening. I want to thank you
for the apology from the staff. It has been a nightmare. I do want to
thank you for naming it a landslide. Last week you were kind of tiptoeing around
that term. And most of all, I want to thank the hard work of the
staff who were out there in freezing weather, raining weather. They have worked so hard
and so diligently. And yet, it's
scary. It's scary because these trucks keep coming and the dirt keeps moving and the
water keeps draining and it keeps raining. And we worry about our safety, we worry
about our health, we worry about our home values. These are all scary things.
I didn't prepare my comments tonight because I wanted to respect and listen to the
people who spoke. So I've got three main areas. One was communication, the second is
the monitoring, and the third is sort of the reaction.
So on communication, I want to thank the efforts on the web page.
I think it's an evolving and learning process, so I think the notices to the
door is a good idea. However, last Friday night, there was a tapping
into the water pipe right next to the well, which we live right across the
stream from. There was no warning. There was no nothing on the door.
staff couldn't reach anybody who could speak for the city. They took my phone number
and said someone would call me. Nobody called me. I posted something on the Facebook
page of the city of Issaquah. It got removed. So I, unlike some people, I
haven't had that good experience, but I'm hoping to in the future. And I know
it's a learning experience. This is a scary time. Next
is the monitoring. I'm glad things are slowing down, but let's be
clear that it has been very sunny. So I would like to make sure that
triggers are identified for when things go wrong. The city
knew this was a landslide area. They reported as such to the county.
King County puts out a hazard planning guide, and the city of Issaquah clearly
explained that this area was a landslide-prone area.
I'm curious what we're gonna learn from this going forward. Finally, the reaction. Thank you
for being so quick, but as others have said, the cost has got to be
astronomical. We saw trucks just waiting in line. 15 seconds. So
I know there was an executive session before this. I know you're looking at a
future claim, but we do have to ask who's gonna pay for it. And let's
update the codes. Let's get it right going forward. Let's make sure this doesn't happen
to anyone else. The Issaquah Highlands social media is alive. They're worried too.
We're all worried that the development happened too fast, wasn't coded properly, wasn't
inspected properly, and we're all facing a fearful time. Thank you.
That's the last who have signed up. Is there anyone else in the audience desiring
to speak this evening? Yes, please.
Hi there. Thank you for putting this on for us. I really appreciate it. My
name is Shannon Dasgupta and I'm on 2567 Northwest Stoney Creek Drive
in the bridges. So yeah,
thanks to all the crew who've been working overnight 24-7 on this. I do appreciate
it. What wasn't totally clear was what's going to happen with the cable.
I know that's a utility. I work from home a lot, so that's a concern
for me. So maybe that can be sent out through email or
something to let people know. I'm very concerned about that parcel up there with the
wall and so I think that You know as a number of people
suggested we should probably try to do some monitoring there Maybe
some and kilometers or whatever they're called to go up there and try to make
sure that things are going to be stable because if that wall goes all of
talus is gone um And then as Danielle
mentioned, what can we do to ensure that this doesn't happen again?
Because I think that clear cutting,
it's obvious that things like this are going to happen. And it's just not safe.
So I think we need to put some measures in place to ensure that this
doesn't happen to other people in other neighborhoods. And I think it would be helpful
if you could update all of us on once we get this sort of thing
halted, what's going to happen and will these geotechs be involved before
we continue development, whether it's this area next to the bridges or this area up
here with the wall.
And what happens if the developer goes bankrupt? if they're
paying for all this, that's just another question I had. Thank you.
Is there anyone else desiring to speak? Mr. Kapler?
Good evening, David Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrews Street. My involvement with the east side of
Cougar Mountain goes back to leading the city council on a tour when AJ Culver
was mayor. And it turned out to be the wettest day of the year, and
the whole side of the mountain was sheet flow. Every trail was a creek, and
the rest of the land was just flowing water. So it does get wet up
there. And there's some pretty interesting geology, as we've found out, as well. When
I've been up there, mostly on weekends, I think How many billable hours are we
talking or how much overtime are we talking? The cash registers are just spinning out
of control up there and that's how it's going to be for a while. I,
as a taxpayer, of course, am concerned about how much of that ends up on
my bill or how many services are not being done by city employees because they're
up there. Is there a way to
expand this so we can see the larger area here? I'm afraid to touch it.
That's great, thank you. We're gonna get
through this, you're gonna get through this. I don't live up there, and it's gonna
take a while. You've already been put up with for years, literally, of dump trucks
and all the rest going on with the development of seven, eight, and now nine.
My concern is the big white area that
would come off the north end of 7. And when you look at that white
area with the green notch out of it, compare that to Tallis. That's the
East Cougar and potential annexation area for the city of Issaquah. It could not be
served by any way except by going up past 9, past 8 through 7, and
connecting there. King County would like to buy it. It's not affordable now because the
people have this idea that they're going to be selling it, or they're going to
get it annexed by the city and have great development potential. If they
eventually lose that speculation fever that they've
had for years on that land, it'll be affordable. And King County Parks would purchase
it. development rights on that land should be transferred down to the comprehensive plan
area, the central Issaquah plan, where we want to have appropriate higher density
development. Thank you. Mr. Mayor,
I think we had one quick comment about the East Cougar PAA. KEITH BIRTHWINERWOODY- Well,
Keith, would you go up and make one quick about the East Cougar
PAA. I will make a very quick, very quick comment about the East Cougar PAA.
So this area that is that has been referred to by a number of speakers
this evening and I think the general perception or
perspective of the people who have spoken has been that this area really doesn't belong
in the city. So the city has actually asked King County to
basically take it out of our potential annexation area. So there
is a So that takes a county council process And that would happen next
year, but we have initiated those requests with the county with the county staff to
actually remove this area so it would just basically become
a rural part of King County because it would not go to Bellevue's potential annexation
area, which is up in this direction, but we would basically remove our
claim to it. So that process has started. So we hear you. We understand that
there's concern about this area. It's all landlocked right now. It's all steep sloped. And
so that request has gone in and that's been initiated. And I don't have more
detail than that. I apologize, but one of my staff does. Part of the response
to the questions this evening, we will get a finer grain of detail on that
so you all know what to expect. Thank you, Keith, for that quick comment.
It looks like by the show of hands that was very well received by the
audience. Is there anyone else this evening who would like to speak? Yes, please.
My name is Mark, I'm also on the HOA board at Talus. I have a
quick question for Keith. I thought you left me hanging. You said you went up
to seven and eight, looked around. I apologize. Under
our rules for audience comments, it's not a conversation. The question is Keith, I
don't know his last name, went up to seven, eight, said he walked around, looked
around, but he didn't say whether he saw anything that was different or anything that
moved. So I know some of my people that were sitting next to me also
felt that left them kind of hanging. I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm gonna ask you to sit down and ask one of our geologists who went
up and looked at that to report on what they saw up on parcels seven
and eight. and they're
flipping a coin right now to see who got the short straw. The geologist was
tagged. Both Martin and I took a walk
Friday? Yeah, Friday, a week ago Friday, up to
Parcel 8 and Parcel 7. So we walked around the parcels.
The intent was to look for any signs of any kind of slope movement,
tension cracks, walls that may show distress, or anything
like that. We didn't see any signs of that in Parcel 7.
Everything that we could observe during our walkthrough looked like it weathered through the storm
events that we had just fine. We didn't see any water
flowing uncontrolled across the site either. And we walked
around Parcel 8 and we noticed one thing in Parcel 8, there is a small
tension crack across the top of a rockery in Parcel 8. It is not
associated with any movement on Parcel 9. It's the type of thing that I've seen
on many construction sites. The first winter they go through, when they first see rainfall.
It's probably related to some settlement of the rockery or the construction of the rockery.
That is something that can be mitigated at a later date.
Thank you, Jim. Is there anyone else in the audience who desires to speak this
evening? Yes, please.
Excuse me. Before that, somebody was asking where Parcel 7 and 8 was. Should I
at least point that out? That would be
great.
OK. Parcel 8 is this area right in here, just above Parcel 9.
And then this road here goes up to Parcel 7, which lies to the north
of it right up here. OK, is that clear? Thank you,
Jen. Yes, please. Hi, Jennifer Disblunner, 2246 Northwest Harmony Way.
There was quite a bit of description about the temporary water situation for North Tallis.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear about the water to the bridges and
the estate apartments to the south of Tallis. So if there could be comment on
what that water situation is, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
our Director of Operations is approaching the microphone. Yes, good
question. Sorry I didn't cover that in more detail. So the area south of Tallis
Drive, the bridges, Shiber, up through that area, that we can
isolate the area north without affecting the area to the south. So the area to
the south can be served off of the existing 616 reservoir now that we've put
the insertion valve off of both pressure zones. can be served
without any effect. So if we had to isolate the north side of Talos,
no effect on the south side of Talos. Does that answer the question?
And Brett, before you leave, the city administrator has a question for you.
So we are asked the question about Comcast, and we can get that information from
Comcast and get that answer posted for you. There was some work by Puget Sound
Energy on the gas line tonight. Do you want to touch on that real quickly?
Yeah, I mentioned that earlier. They have relocated the gas line on the north side,
and they've laid some overland gas line on the south side. It's interim measures.
Is there anyone else in the audience this evening desire to speak?
Anyone else desiring to speak this evening? Third and final
call. Anyone else in the audience desiring to speak? Seeing none then,
I'm going to close audience comments. I would like to thank everyone who came
this evening. We know that it's a difficult time up
there and we're doing everything to ensure your safety. I know that
it can be trying at times, but please bear with us
as we work through this. I want to assure you that the city council, myself,
and our staff are committed to taking care of the issues that
have been uncovered. With that,
we will now move into executive session. The City
Council will discuss potential litigation for RCW 42.30.110
per ann I. The item is expected to take approximately 30 minutes.
No action is anticipated to follow an open session. Please note that
executive sessions are closed to the public. Again, thank you for coming this evening.