I'd like to call to order the December 31st, 2018 City Council regular
meeting. I'd like to welcome everybody for coming tonight. We have a very
large crowd, one of the largest I've seen in quite a long time.
I'd like to let everybody know that Council Members Ramos and Ray are
excused this evening. So our sitting council is made up of five Council
Members. And any of those of you here tonight who would like to
join the Council and myself in the Pledge of Allegiance, please stand. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, the Republic
for which it stands, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,
Before I move into audience comments, I wanted to apologize that we can't fit you
all in better. We did decide to put out fewer chairs and if you are
in need of a chair this evening, Please let us know and we'll make sure
that you're seated. But we wanted to make sure as many of those who are
interested in coming tonight could fit into our council chambers. So thank you for being
patient. Also if you, and it's tempting when you're here with your neighbors and friends
to have conversations. It can be very hard for council to hear. If you do
want to have a conversation, if you could move outside of the council chambers and
come back in after, that would be great. So the first item this evening will
be audience comments and this is your opportunity to address your council. The guidelines for
public participation, if you have not done this before, are posted up on the overhead
near the lectern. Please limit your comments to three minutes. There was a sign-up list
and those who signed up will be called up first and if you did not
sign up, I will give an opportunity for you to also come and address the
council before closing this portion of the meeting. If you are here as part of
a group and based on the green in the audience, I assume there's at least
one group here, and you have an identified spokesperson, please identify yourself as such for
which group you're speaking. And anyone in the audience this evening who hears comments from
any of our speakers and wishes to show support, please indicate by raising your hand
so that the Council gets a good understanding of which items you support, which points
you support on any of the topics that you hear at audience comments. There's also
a public hearing this evening. AB 7610 is our proposed 2019 budget. If you'd like
to make comments on this topic, you'll have another opportunity, you'll have an opportunity later
in the meeting. So you can take your choice. You can address the council during
audience comments or you can wait and address the council about the budget during the
public hearing. And Tisha, has anyone signed up to speak this evening? Yes. Ken Eastman
followed by Kristi True and Susan Schaaf. It would be great to, I think we
have a lot of speakers this evening, if you hear your name called, if you
could move over sort of where Ken is standing near the lectern, that would be
great. Just so we can keep everybody moving through. Ken. Good evening, Mayor Pauley, City
Council members, and City staff. My name is Ken Easeman. I reside at 2473
Northwest Stony Creek Drive, and I'm representing the Save Cougar Mountain organization tonight. After
learning of the Bergsma Agenda Bill, I cannot tell you how excited we all
are. This initiative speaks volumes to the vision and the values of our community.
In a region of soulless cities with urban and suburban sprawl, Our city
has shown that it cares enough to protect what makes us special. Our creekside properties,
Old Town, Lake Sammamish, and our Issaquah Alps. Some would say that we live in
a Northwest paradise, and I'd have to agree. And we are so proud that we
live in a community where our civic leaders are working so hard to keep our
Issaquah special. Our mayor, city council, and city staff are to be commended.
Once the Bergsma property is protected, this corner of Cougar Mountain will
remain wild and natural forever. It will provide habitat for nature and
recreational opportunities for our residents. As I look out in the audience,
I see the beneficiaries of this fine effort, from older citizens who
are wise enough to understand its value, to the youngsters that will
be able to enjoy this property. over their long lives and their
children's children's lives. What an impressive legacy for our city council and for our
administration. This is a bold and courageous project led by a partnership of citizens,
multiple government entities and nonprofits, all working together towards a noble goal. All of
the pieces have fallen in place. At a cost to the city of 35
cents to the dollar, this is a deal that's too good to pass up.
We surely had some great negotiators working for us. And this is what we've all
been working towards for so long. I mean, look at this audience. This is truly
democracy in action. I want to offer our thanks to all that have been so
instrumental in getting us to this point. And I want to thank the City Council
in advance for their support of this agenda bill. Thanks. Thank you, Ken. Kristi? And
almost every single hand in the packed house was raised. Thank you. Good evening.
My name is Kristy True. I'm the director of King County's Department of Natural Resources
and Parks. And I'm here tonight to support the acquisition of the Berksma property. We
are very excited to be a partner with the City of Issaquah and the Trust
for Public Lands to do the acquisition of this property. I think you're aware that
part of our commitment is to do acquisition on one of the parcels that's under
consideration. But we also want to support the City and the Trust for Public Lands
in any kind of grant applications or the conservation futures tax application that we expect
the City to put forward. This is especially good time to do that as a
result of King County Executive Constantine's Land Conservation Initiative. There will be much more money
available in 2019. So we think it's really timely and important. And these are the
kinds of projects that the executive anticipated would be coming forward as part of the
next phase of our conservation futures application. I also wanted to address a question I
heard earlier about a map that's on our website about equity lands. These are lands
that we have identified in parts of King County where there really are no parks
or green space in those communities. So we've identified those properties so when they're applying
for grants in those particular communities, the match is waived. So it's really a different,
they still have to go through the entire process, but those are very specific conditions
for lands in those areas. We do expect that this acquisition, this application will be
very competitive. So we're really excited to be working forward with you and also just
want to again say that we support the acquisition of the Bergsma property. Thank you,
Christy. Thank you. Lots of hands, lots of signs. Tisha, who is third
on your list? Next we have Susan followed by John McDuff followed
by Susan Neville. I'm sorry, first we have Susan Schaaf. Oh, she
would like to switch to talk at the budget. So then we
have John McDuff followed by Susan Neville followed by Gary Campin. Good
evening. I'm here this evening to support the passage of Agenda Bill
7708, the Burksmont Property Acquisition. I'm here for two reasons. First, because
I, oh, excuse me. I'm John Macduff. I live at 620 Southeast. Oh, that was
my bad. I didn't make any, I didn't, you didn't catch it. Okay, name and
address. I'm slipping. I'm so fascinated with what you're saying. Okay, name and address. I
live at 620 Southeast Butch Street here in Old Town. And, okay, I'm here for
two reasons. First, because I think it's the right thing to do. And second,
as the current president of the Issaquah Environmental Council, I'm here
because they asked me to come and show their support also.
Thank you. Thank you. Hands are raised. Susan. I'm Susan Neville
at 2825 Northwest Pinecone Drive. I'm from Save Cougar Mountain. Thank
you for the opportunity to be here tonight. It's been a
long two years, but we're very happy, I hope. Since Ken
Koningsmark cannot be here tonight, he asked me to publicly share his comments
with you. Ken is a board member of Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust,
King County Conservation Futures Oversight Committee, and the Issaquah Alps Club.
Ken states, "I can't commend enough the partners who have worked so long and so
hard to create the proposal before you tonight. This is the one chance we've been
waiting for to save this crucial parcel for the public and now it's up to
you to step up and do the right thing and vote in support of this
proposal. We are fortunate that this timing coincides perfectly with the launch of King County's
Visionary Land Conservation Initiative. which seeks to support exactly this type of
conservation project. Your yes vote will carry on the 40-year multi-partner effort
to preserve the Issaquah Alps, build the mountains to Sound Greenway, and
to keep Issaquah green, livable, and connected to its environment. You will
leave a legacy for the future that clearly shows even as central Issaquah redevelops
and grows, this city and its people remain directly linked to the hills and
forests that surround us. This is a big, bold proposal for a small city
like Issaquah, and that may make some of you very nervous. But I can
remind you that Issaquah has always led this region in bold ideas. by
creating the first two urban villages in Highlands and Talis and all
the while preserving 80% of the land, to creating innovative TDR projects
that saved Park Point and the Mitchell Hill Forest, to wise planning
in the forward-looking Central Issaquah Plan, and now today to the much-needed
and much-desired proposal to preserve the Berksma property. and directly connect this
property to the Issaquah Valley floor, the transit center to over 3,000 acres, and 30
plus miles of trails in Cougar Mountain. A famous quote says, "Be bold and mighty
forces will come to your aid." This is a time to be bold, to support
the desires of the citizens of Issaquah, to leave a legacy for the future that
keeps us connected to the mountains and forest, and to vote yes on this proposal.
Be bold, have courage, vote yes. Thank you. -
Thank you Susan. Significant support from the audience. Gary,
up next. - Thank you. Gary Campen, 12601 SE
75th Place, New Castle. I'm a president of New
Castle Trails. We're in favor of expanding Cougar Mountain Park. We're trying to expand
our side. We've been working with the Save D'Elia Wall Group and the cities of
Renton and Newcastle from the start, and we've been friends and allies of the Isco-Alps
Trails Club since our founding in 1994. Anything that expands the park is good for
all of us. When I moved to the area in 1980, Newcastle was mostly
cow pastures. Now it's a city of nearly 12,000 people, all connected by a
trail system to Cougar Mountain. The park is a tremendous recreational asset, getting heavy
use. Newcastle Trails and the Coal Creek YMCA both use it for trail walks.
and we've supported Volksmarches of over 200 people in the park by two local
groups, the Interlochen Trailblazers and the Northwest Striders. I've enjoyed the park since 1980,
and I've seen only a fraction of its treasures, natural, historic, and scenic. For
a good survey of its wonders, check Eva Lundahl's trail book on our website.
It will amaze you. The bus connection is a great asset. It'll
make the park more accessible, more widely accessible, and it'll get folks out of
their cars. The proposed acquisition is strategic. It will expand this wonderful park and
make it more accessible. Seize the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you.
lots of hands in the air tisha who are our next three speakers this evening
next we have uh kevin emma and grace coming up together followed by kay heinz
and julie clark
Good evening, my name is Kevin Kincaid. We reside, this is Emma and this is
Grace. We reside at 1801 Atta Cordes Avenue, northeast of Renton. We are residents of
Renton as of three years ago, we moved to this area and prior to that
we lived in the Sumner area for about 15 years. And before relocating, I took
many things into consideration, one of which was access to recreation and Kruger Mountain played
a huge part in that relocation for us. Emma and Grace would like to have
a few moments. We can lower that microphone down,
which will allow everybody to hear them better. Thank you. Microphone check.
It's called the Green Stuff and Cougar Mountain and all the moths
and the animals, and I like to hike there because it's very
pretty and it's a good place to relax. It's a
fun place to calm down because it's super pretty with all the moss and the
trees and I feel relaxed when I'm walking on all the trails. Thank you. Well,
thank you to Emma and Grace and maybe to Kevin as well, but I think
Emma and Grace sort of stole the show. Lots of hands up in support on
that one. Kay. I think that says it all. We can go home.
My name is Kaye Haynes, 2830 Northwest Pinecone Drive in Issaquah. And first
of all, I want to thank the City Council. You have been gracious
and courteous and willing to hear us for so many months, a couple
of years now, and we do appreciate it sincerely. We know that you
have many needs to balance in the city and we respect and appreciate that. So
I just want to summarize some of the more compelling reasons out of the 582
reasons. I want to pick seven for why this proposal should be approved. First of
all, the issue of stewardship. We have been gifted here with the most extraordinary rare
topography in an urban setting. It's just unlike most places that I have seen in
the region. What we have with the forested slopes of the Alps is completely unique
and all too easy to chip away at until it's gone, and we feel the
Bergsma property is pivotal in this. Second is the question of timing. This opportunity
will not come again. Development won't wait, and in the future structures can't be unbuilt
and giant trees can't be restored. There's a very real time frame here and a
very real opportunity. If we miss it, it's simply gone forever. Third is that this
is a legacy for our children. and grandchildren and beyond. What do we want
them to have in 10 years, in 50 years? A few more houses or an
extraordinary public space to be enjoyed by the entire community in perpetuity. The
property location number four is unique. It offers connectivity from the valley floor to the
rest of Cougar Mountain and it lies near the Issaquah Transit Center. This makes Cougar
accessible to folks using public transit and reduces car traffic to hiking and open space.
Fifth, this is the expressed priority of area residents and your constituents to
preserve forested slopes on open space. Our strategic plan reflects that and thousands
of area residents have signed on to that, as you know. Six
is the whole question of partnerships and funding availability. It feels as though all the
pieces of an enormous puzzle have kind of clicked together in a very serendipitous way,
in ways we never dreamed possible. in a very timely way, including the generosity of
the Trust for Public Land and the timely appearance of increased funding capacity of the
Conservation Futures Program. The list of partners is long, the property is well admired and
supported by the county, and Issaquah has a reputation as a strong and responsible partner
in turn. And the last thing I want to say is I want to mention
that aside from these partners, you also have the community as a partner. We understand
that if this agenda bill is approved tonight, it is the first step in a
longer process. We want the Council to know that we would not simply celebrate and
go home. But as a community, there are many of us who will be there
in whatever ways the Council needs us to support you along the way. Thank you
so much. Thank you, Kay. Big all hands up, signs up. Julie. Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Pauley and council members and city staff.
Tonight marks a very important point for Issaquah and its
many partners. Partnerships with the communities within Issaquah, residents of
Tallis, Newport Way, Montreux, Squawk Mountain, the Highlands, Old Town,
the Valley Floor. Partnerships with Issaquah Alps and Trails Club.
Eastside Autobahn, Issaquah Environmental Council, Save Lake Sammamish, and Mountains
to Sound Greenway. Partnerships with King County Council members. Representatives
from Save Cougar Mountain have personally met with Kathy Lambert,
Reagan Dunn, Rod Dembowski, Dave Upthegrove, Claudia Balducci, Jean Cole-Wells,
and their staff. each of whom have expressed enthusiasm
and support of this initiative to come up with solutions to save the Berkshire
property for open space. We have met with Bob Burns, Lauren Smith and Katie
Terry from King County Executive Offices to discuss the potential acquisition of the Berkshire
property through a partnership between the City of Issaquah and King County Land Conservation
Initiative. We received a warm welcome and they expressed support of finding
a way to participate in the process. Partnerships with the state. We have met
with Senator Mullet and following our conversation he expressed support of the initiative and
he asked his aide to look for various grants which would be available for
Issaquah to apply for. I share this information with you tonight so
that you understand that we know that this is a big decision. But we, the
City of Issaquah, are not making this decision alone. There are organizations and thousands of
people here with you to help along the way. Please make the right choice for
Issaquah and save Cougar Mountain. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. significant
support from the audience uh tisha our next three speakers we
have doug mcclelland followed by edwin erickson and bruce semple thank
you good evening doug good evening Hi, I'm Doug McClelland. I live
at 9525 300th Place SE, Issaquah, WA, and I'm representing the Mountain to Sound Greenway
Trust. And you received a letter from John Hoekstra that carries many of the points
you've already seen today, but I wanted to share something more personal. I've worked for
almost 40 years for the Department of Natural Resources and I've worked here in this,
I live in Issaquah area. So I've worked and been involved with the Issaquah City
Council, the Mayor, the Parks Directors from Rowan Hines all the way to today, from
Carrie Anderson to today, from Leon Koss and everyone else involved. And there isn't a
single city that I've worked with that hasn't stepped up more than Issaquah. Issaquah did
the original acquisition of properties at High Point that would have been condominiums that now
is the gateway to the tradition plateau. You did the Mitchell Hill Transfer of Development
Rights project, the first one in King County to transfer development rights to take more
density into the city and conserve lands that was right outside your city. Park Point,
a piece of property that worked for a really, really long time, the city took
a direct role and involvement in that. And then my personal friend that I got
to hire with your parks director, Margaret McLeod, worked for so many years to save
so much land along Issaquah Creek. And this is another big landmark project. It takes
more money than you probably were planning on getting yourself signed up to right away,
and that can be scary at times. But with this crowd and with the partnerships
involved and with the support of organizations like the Mountain to Sound Greenway Trust, you
can make it happen. And I just think the connection from downtown in the valley
up to Cougar Mountain will be incredibly valuable to this generation and future generations. And
the Mountain of Sound Greenway Trust is here to work with you on that and
very supportive of what this council's done and the council been doing for decades and
the mayor and the parks department and your staff. Matt Meckler with your parks department
received a John Ellis award at the Greenway dinner last Wednesday. One of your staff
people doing amazing things in that Greenway was recognized in that area. So I just
want to thank you for what you do and let you know this is a
good thing you're supporting. Thank you, Doug, but you stole my
thunder. Matt Meckler was in my report later, now everybody
knows. Edwin. Oh, Edwin would like to speak before the
budget. Bruce Semple. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pawley, City
Council members, and City staff. It's nice to be down
here on such a festive occasion. We've brought a representative
sample of Timber Ridge's body strength down here tonight as a symbol
of our overall support for the acquisition of the 46-acre Bergsma property.
We're all very aware of the myriad environmental benefits of forested open
spaces and parklands. Additionally, and most importantly for us now at our
tender age, are the proven health-giving benefits of such spaces.
not only for our bodies but also for our minds and spirits. So
this acquisition is of immense value for us and of course for everyone
now and into the future. We are therefore most grateful to our City
Council and representatives for pursuing this acquisition and wholeheartedly endorse your approval of
AB 7708 tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Lots of support. Tisha, the
next three. Stephen Cobert and Rich Hill. Thanks. I'm Stephen Cobert, 5710, 143rd
place in Bellevue. Tonight the City of Issaquah will have the opportunity to save
a prominent wild area that lies immediately adjacent to this great city. The Bergsma-Windward
property is a beautiful and wild place that has been enjoyed by hikers for
years. Contained within this property are beautiful virgin forests that are a true rarity
in the Puget Sound area. It's an amazing and dramatic backdrop for a
city that prides itself in being a gateway to the Issaquah Alps. With high density
development going in along Newport Way, saving these last remaining wild spaces becomes even more
important. This wild area is especially important because of accessibility to public transportation and an
easy walking distance from future high density residential developments. The public support for keeping this
property wild has been amazing. Support has been broad-based and sustained for years. How often
does the City of Issaquah get to vote on an issue with such broad support
from the community and essentially no opposition? A no vote would create a prominent and
permanent eyesore on the landscape. A yes vote would be truly a vote for the
will of the people. This is a one-shot deal. A yes vote would ensure
that this outstanding wild land be enjoyed for generations. This seems like an
expensive purchase now, but the long-term benefits will be priceless. Thank you. Thank
you, Stephen. And lots of support. Rich Hill. Good evening
members of the Council. My name is Rich Hill. I'm counsel for Resmark and
I'm here tonight to speak to agenda item 8D. My address is 701 Fifth
Avenue. As I'm sure you all know, Resmark is with very close coordination with
the City and its expert engineering consultants in the process of stabilizing the Talus
Parcel 9 slope. The stabilization project from the beginning included a four-wall
design. The fourth wall has been designed with tiebacks that are partially
located under city right-of-way. Resmark's engineers have confirmed that these tiebacks can
be installed safely without creating the risk of liability to the city.
The engineering designs have been submitted to the city for third-party review
by the city's expert engineering consultants. However, without submitting the design
for review to the city's experts, the administration recommends an agenda item
8D, denial of this design. Resmark respectfully asked the council instead to
remand this matter to staff and the city's expert engineering consultants so
that the questions that have been raised by staff can be fully
reviewed and evaluated by the experts. Staff's recommendation that this request
be denied without due consideration of its merits will unnecessarily delay
completion of this very important slope stabilization project. The concerns raised
by staff can be resolved by sound engineering design. Resmark therefore
respectfully asks that this matter be remanded to staff for further
study. I have submitted a letter to the council which you may have received, hopefully,
that more fully sets forth the facts and the background of this case. I've brought
hard copies with me. With the mayor's approval, I'll submit them to the city clerk.
Thank you, Rich. That is the end of the list of speakers who signed
up to address this evening. So I'm just going to ask for additional speakers. Those
that would like to speak on Cougar Mountain, it would be great if you have
additional and new information. I don't think there's much doubt about the amount of support
in the room for it. So just coming up and saying you support it, that's
probably not necessary. But if you have additional information, we've had almost a dozen speakers
speak tonight already. And if you are here to speak about the Sycamore sewer and
the 2019 budget, I just want to remind you that there will be an opportunity
to speak during the public hearing for that section. Is there anyone else who would
like to address council this evening? Mr. Kepler? Yeah. Good evening. I'll try not
to repeat what's already been said, but I think there's some people that need
to be addressed with this. I've been working on Cougar Mountain in this area
for decades, literally. Name and address. Did you do that? 255 Southeast Andrews. Thank
you. Excuse me. But I've been talking to, especially a little over
a year ago with TPL about this Bergsma property. And about almost exactly
a year and one week ago at the Greenway dinner last year, I
saw Richard who's with the TPL and has done a lot of work
and he was introducing and bringing around Sam back there, hidden, who was
the new guy. And he ended up getting, some would have thought, stuck
with trying to deal with this age-old problem of acquiring the Berkshire property
for a public park. and he's done an outstanding job and it's been really
great working with him. Just the TPL is such an important thing. When we went
broke in 1990, the Issaquah Ops Trails Club, doing them five day march, We
got to the fire, the fire, fire boats and Jim Ellis and all those and
some big time public officials to greet us at Elliott Bay. And we were broke
and it was obvious that this whole Mountain Sound Greenway thing was a lot bigger
than the Inns and Co-ops Trails Club. And that's what started. How did they get
started? TPL provided office space and staffing so the Mountain Sound Greenway could get started.
also many other parcels that they've been involved with. King County, what a great
partner. Think of what they've done just for the watershed of Lake Sammamish, Tibbetts
Creek, lakes in Issaquah Creek, the different forks. Huge acquisitions on both the east
and west side of Squawk, 3,000 acres on Cougar, Taylor Mountain Forest at the
headwaters of Issaquah Creek, goes on and on. Now, one thing almost to talk
to the audience more than the council, they're only going to rescue this from immediate
development. Our job is to make sure that we get
it together. David, you have to address the council. Yes.
Thanks. They know this, but we need to pull off
the actual saving of this using a lot of voters
and a lot of work. Thank you. Thank you, David.
Who next?
Good evening City Council and Mayor. Thank you for having this issue brought before.
Name and address. Okay, nobody else. Forget it. When you come up, it's name
and address first. Geraldine Carey, 955 17th Avenue, Northwest Issaquah. Thank you Geraldine. I've
been coming up here with all the other people for two years to support
this project. I am one. Together, all of us, one, made a huge group.
And we are one, and I'm very proud of them. I'm here to
say here's my $100 to support the acquisition of the project. It's made out to
the city for the acquisition. It's not to be used for anything else except the
acquisition. I want to give it to you tonight to say this is a good
project. This is a good investment. Take it and run with it. Everybody else support
this acquisition. Thank you. Thank you, Geraldine. Lots of support for that. Would
anyone else like to address Council this evening on
this issue or-- Mr. Wagner. Good evening, Council and
Mayor. 360 Northwest Dogwood Street, Apartment K204. Been a
resident of Issaquah off and on my whole life.
I remember when I was a kid listening to
the coyotes in the woods and hunting, and it
was a wonderful place to grow up, still is.
All I'm going to say about the Greenway now is I'm in full support.
Count me in. Send me in, Coach, because I'll help them do the job.
I'm here tonight for another reason. I'm here to thank you and tell two
stories. The first story I want to tell is in 1980, some of you
are too young to remember that date, I was in
Illinois serving with the Illinois National Guard and I had a part-time job
and I was driving a bus and they sent me one evening in
the fall of 1980 out to pick up a candidate. His name was
George H.W. Bush and he rode on my bus back to Springfield.
And what I want to tell you about that wonderful man, not just because he
was a candidate and a president, he was a veteran. He flew 58 missions in
a TBM Avenger. There's going to be a bunch of people in this room who
haven't got a clue what a TBM Avenger is. Google it. Shot down, lost two
of his crew members, rescued by a submarine, and then went on to a distinguished
career. That night, in the front seat of the bus, all he did was talk
to me about bus driving and things that were going on. He had no interest
in politics, and I know his aides were a little frustrated with that, but I
can tell you it was an honor and a privilege, and thank God he survived
that bus trip to go on to become the President of the United States. The
other story I want to tell you is that in April, April, in October
of this year, I had the honor and the privilege of laying a wreath
at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And I was not dry that day.
I want to give you some numbers for Puget Sound Honor Flight, for the
number of veterans that we have carried back since 2013 to see the memorials.
Cold War veterans, four. Korean War, 262. Vietnam veterans, 41. World War
II, 701. For a total of 1,008 veterans that have left from this
part, and I see the red light, from this part of the state
to go back to see the memorials built in their honor. Thank you.
Thank you for all your work, Dave. Lots of hands of support.
Anyone else wishing to address their council this evening on any of the
topics we heard or anything new? Second call. Third call. Anyone wishing... Ah,
see Steve. Under the wire. Steve Pereira, Old Town about 10 years. So
just in brief, thanks to the city and the staff for... Your address
actually then. I always get it with Old Town. Okay, fine. Okay. So...
I think the city and the staff do a great job with the turkey trot
and I just wanted to thank the community for helping reach out to the community.
That was a good thing that you guys all do and get together on so
thanks for that. So just in brief, a couple blurb highlights. Yes, on the Bergsma,
I personally would like to see you use current fund balances to do that as
a preferred method. I think it is a unique opportunity going forward but that'll be
a discussion a little bit further but that was my own perspective. On the budget
just briefly touching I know I've talked about the dog park and I do disagree
with the dog park and I haven't reviewed the final budget But as we keep
growing we built this vision it's gonna be harder to keep the things that are
unique to is a quad and we have this is an example of I think
where we can better use funds and it's gonna be harder as we grow bigger
to keep those things that are unique and special about his quality like birds my
property and Old Town and any numbers that folks would add it's harder to keep
the vision when we start out with the idea of there's not a dog park
and then we put a four to a hundred thousand dollar fund kind of earmarked
towards the end and now it's going to two hundred thousand dollars and i heard
staff talking about maybe we could add other dog parks to other parts of the
city i don't see what we're gaining because it's harder to not expand and do
the things without losing the things that are especially unique That's kind of the vision
that I would like all of you to hold on to is what are the
things as we grow bigger? I don't want to look 20 years down the road
and say we've become like is a qua or we become like Bellevue or Redmond
or Kirkland But I'd like them to say I wish we remained or the special
things that kept us unique What made us like is why I wish we had
done this that we those other things going to attract people to move and live
here Please keep that vision going forward. Thank you. Thank you Steve hands of support
in the audience. I Is there anyone else who would like to
address the council? Second call. Last call for anyone who
would like to address the council. One more in the
back. Come on up. Keith Rossman, 7831 116th Avenue SE,
Newcastle. I don't know if this is out of my
domain. I don't really care. Cougar Mountain is my stomping
grounds and the adjacent areas. And it's time that Issaquah and
other locales do not replicate the mistakes of California, which is imploding from
excess development. Keep that in mind. Thank you. Hands of support. Is there
anyone else who would like to address Council? You know, it's a crowded
room. It takes a little bit of time to get up here. Second
call. Last call for anyone who would like to address Council during audience
comments. Sorry, did I miss Julian? Julian, would you like to come
up and address the council? Thank you, Tisha. Julian Midlill, 11 Sunset Court, Northwest
Issaquah, Washington. I just wanted to say that I'll be living with this decision
that's made tonight for however long I'll be living in Issaquah for, which will
probably be a long time. I've lived here for 10 years and we've really
appreciated the nature that's been in this town. and as well as the Old
Town. So any work and all the work that you've done is greatly appreciated by
me and the rest of the community. Thank you. Thank you, Julian. Lots of hands
of support. Okay, we're gonna try this one more time. Would anyone else like to
address council this evening? Second call. Third call and last call for anyone wishing to
address Council during audience comments. Okay, I think we have it. We're going to be
finishing, close with audience comments and we're going to be moving to Committee and Regional
Reports. And we'll be starting with Council Member Hunt this evening. Thank you. Thank you,
Madam Mayor. I have a very brief report. The Cascade Water Alliance December 6th Resource
Management Committee meeting has been canceled and the December 19th Board Meeting of the Cascade
Water Alliance has also been canceled. This concludes my report. Thank you. Council Member Winterstein.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to use some of Council Member Hunt's minutes. I
report it's regarding the meeting of the Puget Sound Regional Council's Growth Management Policy Board.
We held our meeting, a special meeting, last Thursday, November 29th at PSRC headquarters in
Seattle. I've often talked about the work we're doing to update something known as Vision
2050, and I want to offer a real brief kind of explanation of what PSRC
Vision is. And so I've pulled this from a background document. Between now and the
year 2050, the central Puget Sound region is expected to grow by an additional 1.8
million residents and 830,000 households. A critical issue will continue to be
providing adequate housing for all segments of the region's population. Meeting the housing
needs of all types of households at the range of income levels is
integral to creating a region that is livable for all residents, economically prosperous
and environmentally sustainable. Volatility in the housing market since Vision 2040 was adopted
in 2008 underscores many of the challenges ahead. From the precipitous drop in housing prices
and foreclosures of the Great Recession to the current housing market, the current economic upswing
and job growth that has led to historic increases in rents and home prices, the
region's housing market has experienced great highs and lows that have benefited some and created
exasperated hardship and inequities for others. Vision 2050 planning process is an opportunity
to raise awareness of the regional housing issues and to identify coordinated strategies,
policies, and actions to ensure that the region's housing needs are met. So
that's what we're working on. And on this meeting, we focused on two chapters of
the regional growth strategy, which is part of vision. We discussed potential updates to the
development patterns and environment chapters. And just as a summary regarding development patterns, almost all
of our conversation was about the future handling of
transit-oriented development, or more specifically, development
densities centered around transit stations. And I
would say there's a very unanimous feeling among the GMPB.
Everybody spoke from the city to from Seattle, Bremerton, Kitsap
County, Pierce County, Everett, and other East King County representatives
as well, that going forward, there should be planned growth
around these transit stations, which could in the future look something like
creating what's known as a new regional geography and the multi-county planning
policies be given direction to actually make allocations of population around these
transit stations. So I think that is something that the PSRC is going to be
looking at as a potential update to vision. The other item we talked about was
the environment. We focused on water quality and that there are some gaps in the
additional current plan that we could address. Now, I will say that water quality is
handled by our State Department of Ecology, Department of Health, and other agencies. So it's
very important that we stay in our lane here. But there are still things that
you can do with planning and growth to help restore and recover the health
of Puget Sound, to reduce stormwater pollution, to reduce the use of toxic products.
And I think that the conversation that evolved out of this discussion is that
to take, we asked the PSRC to take a look at creating watershed solutions level
planning that would be cross jurisdiction within a watershed and there's there is belief in
that there is science too to help with the planning process for the growth that's
coming if we did it at a watershed level to help protect water quality And
then the last thing along those lines was climate change. And in addition to what's
already in the Vision 2040 plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the four-county region,
they've identified a number of areas where we could take further action and further reduce.
So, for example, just to achieve the transit-oriented development goals that have already been identified,
we could reduce carbon emissions by another 2 to 4%. If we create more transportation
choices and that more people can work at home and more people had options to
walk to transit centers, that we could reduce carbon emission by another 10 to 12
percent. The road usage charge, one thing that the state, and I know the mayor
is involved with as well, potential user fees to change behavior could also reduce carbon
emissions by another 5 percent. And then technology, such as more vehicle electrifying and more
and faster recharge stations could reduce carbon emissions by another 20 to 40 percent. And
so these are all areas that the GMPP and PSRC will be looking at for
potential updates to the regional growth strategy within Vision 2050. That concludes my report.
Thank you, Council Member Winterstein. Council Member Goodman. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Fortunately, I have
a lot of minutes to donate to Council Member Winterstein. Land and Shore Committee meets
this Thursday, December 6th at 6:30 p.m. here in Council Chambers. On the agenda, Agenda
Bill 7329, Agreement for Dedication of Land Agenda Bill 7683, amendments to
the Issaquah Municipal Code regarding community facilities standards regarding public buildings. And
Agenda Bill 7680, amendments to Central Standards Table 4.3a regarding the level
of review of permit applications. The Eastside Fire and Rescue Board will meet
December 13th at 4 p.m. at headquarters on Newport Way, and I do not have
the agenda yet. That's my report. Thank you, Council Member Goodman. Deputy Council President Batiste.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Two updates on upcoming regional board meetings.
The Eastside Human Services Forum Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday
from 3:00 to 5:00 this week in Kirkland. They'll be talking
about the 2018 accomplishments, reviewing the 2019 work plan, and electing
expiring board seats. The Economic Development District Board, PSRC, is meeting on December 5th
in Seattle from 1 to 3. And at that meeting, they'll be discussing an analysis
of four key economic sectors in Washington State, energy, water, agriculture, and building materials, and
having a discussion around how the region can leverage a green economy based on a
better understanding of those sectors. And that concludes my report. Thank you. Council President Martz.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. The King County Growth Management Policy Council, GMPC, met last Thursday,
November 29th. We had one item on the agenda, which was a presentation on the
Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. uh conversation was sort of led by County Council member
balducci uh the first thing that we discussed was a question that I had that
it turns out everybody else had too which was what's the difference between that and
one table and so the answer is that one table is more focused specifically on
homelessness while the affordable housing task force is actually focused on affordable housing So that
helped. Currently about 2,500 new affordable homes are produced per year. The goal
from the task force would potentially be 44,000 in the next five years.
That's 8,800 per year. That's a lot more than 2,500. We talked about
why a number that was such a stretch goal and Councilmember Balducci said, because we
need to start with what's needed. And we need to understand it may well be
that we can hit that number. But if we don't understand what's needed out there,
we don't understand how far we are from the mark, which seemed like a reasonable
answer. so there is a proposal out there to have a gmpc
subgroup specific to affordable housing we talked about its constitution it would
be electeds and staff and other partners in the affordable housing space
would be both informational and deliberative We talked about they have a stated
focus on less than 50% AMI, which I said, okay, for Issaquah, that isn't necessarily,
we have sort of a different demographic. And the point was that it was monies
would be spent to subsidize at below 50%, but that the target focus for policy
development would be all affordable housing. But it's just that they would try to focus
their monies on the below 50% AMI. Then so so the PICC membership through
our chair The chair of our caucus talked about we will be going back to
pick to discuss recommendations Of approval to the King County Council whether we support that
we're going to be discussing Potentially recommending a menu of options for cities to address
their areas of greatest need I think is it was ahead of the game because
the work that we did on the moratorium And then finally, we had basically said,
we like the idea of this new Committee of Growth Management Planning Council. Not sure
who would be appointed to it. It's going to be a big body. It wouldn't
necessarily be co-management. Co-staffed by the same people that are on GMPC, but it is
something that we're going to take that back Which leads to we're taking it back
to my other item for this evening Which is the Sound Cities Association Public Issues
Committee, which will be meeting I don't have the date in front of me, but
it's the second Wednesday in December. I apologize. The agenda is a couple of housekeeping
pieces and then this Regional Affordable Housing Task Force. So it was good to be
on both bodies. And I will let my fellow council members know how that conversation
goes. That concludes my report. Thank you. Moving on now to the mayor's report for
this evening. There was an executive session held earlier this evening at 6.15 p.m., a
special meeting to hold uh sorry earlier this evening at 6 15 p.m there was
a special meeting to hold an executive session to discuss property acquisition per rcw 42.30.110
per n1 per nb we will be taking action on this item later this evening
i am waiting for my uh deputy clerk to put up a few slides i
have a few community items that i'd like to share with you this evening
First, Rose Finnegan, one of our community members, passed away peacefully the morning of
November 16, 2018. She was an amazing woman and a public servant to Issaquah.
Last year under Mayor Butler, he proclaimed October 17, 2017 as Rose Finnegan Day
for the many contributions she has made to our community. For more than 20
years, she served as head nurse at the Echo Glen School serving at-risk youth,
She was the founding mother of Life Enrichment Options since its inception in 1988. In
2003, she was the driving force behind the first adult family home in Issaquah for
people with developmental disabilities, aptly named the Rose House. In her career, Rose received numerous
awards for her devotion, including being elected to the Issaquah Hall of Fame in 2002,
named the Issaquah Lions Club Citizen of the Year in 2003, received the Arc of
Washington Award, and was elected to the Carroll College Alumni Hall of Fame in 2010.
These are just a few of the impacts she's had on our city. We and
the citizens of the community will miss Rose and her inspirational work within the City
of Issaquah. at mountains to sound greenway trust annual dinner
and meeting on november 28th matt mackler the city's parks operations supervisor received the jim
ellis spirit award the award recognizes matt's years of partnered work with mountains to sound
greenway trust and a number of our city's parks and open space lands the award
stated in recognition of matt's true collaborative spirit positive energy and enthusiasm as a respected
agency representative His commitment to ecological restoration and preservation of wildlife habitat and
his steadfast stewardship of public lands throughout the Iskwet Basin. We're very proud
of Matt. A news item about our Parks and Recreation Department. We
have a new registration system. Last week we launched the new and improved online registration
system for parks and recreation activities. Our new system features a more user-friendly registration experience
online, in person, and over the phone. Customers will also enjoy enhanced access and control
of their accounts and payments. Once a new account is created, users will be able
to view all programs, manage payment options, add family members, register for programs, and frequently
asked questions in the structural video can be found online at our website. And my
last item tonight is about a current council vacancy that we have. Because of Council
Member Ramos' successful run for State Representative, we will have a vacancy on City Council
as of January 1st, 2019. Looks like we have a lot of candidates in the
room waiting to put their hand up. We are seeking qualified candidates to fill this
vacancy. Applications are due by 10 a.m. January 8th. Applicants will be able to provide
a 10-minute presentation to City Council on January 14th and attend a meet and greet
with Council and community members on January 22nd. City Council expects to fill this vacancy
February 5th. And to find out more about applying, please visit our website or contact
the City Clerk's office. Next, we'll be moving to the consent calendar. The consent calendar
was distributed to Council in advance. If authorized, the items on the consent calendar will
be considered together and approved in one motion. Have the payables and payroll been reviewed?
Yes. Thank you. Does any Councilmember desire to remove any item from the consent calendar
and consider it under regular business? We need a motion. Madam Mayor, I move that
we adopt the consent agenda as listed in this evening's published agenda. Second. It's
been moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.
Those opposed? That carries unanimously. The next item on the agenda is public
hearing. AB 7610, the proposed 2019 budget. We will be conducting a public
hearing and we'll also, council will also be considering adopting an ordinance. The
public hearing on the preliminary budget was conducted on November 5th and tonight
The general fund includes $52.8 million in revenue and $53
million in expenditures. And the general fund, over half of
that is coming from personnel. The general fund includes a
balanced budget with spending of a little over $200,000 in
one-time expenditures. And I'll go over that in just a
minute. There was, during deliberations, council had some slight modifications
to the reoccurring base budget. One of those was
adjustments to the base budget. These adjustments are ongoing revenue
supported adjustments. Council deliberations resulted in supportive transition of the
city senior center from interim to city operations. So staff
adjusted revenues and expenditures according to the administration's recommendations.
This included the addition of two FTEs. It increases operations programs,
volunteering, partnerships, and rentals, and this improves the cost recovery performance
for the senior center. A second been slight minor modification was
in the ARCH Trust Fund contribution that the city contributes every
year. We increased it to the minimum contribution. requested in
the partnership. And so we offset that with some miscellaneous expenditures in the
base budget. The senior center operations were added to the recurring base budget
and to create the needed budget capacity, staff identified one-time authorizations, well, some
reauthorizations from 2018 to be removed from the base budget and are identified
as funded through the fund balance, which I'll go over here.
In a second. So the second type of modification made to
the budget with council deliberations with some one-time adjustments. These included
increasing the award to Village Theater in the Community Fund by
$12.5 million to total $25,000. $12.5 million. $12.5 thousand. to
25,000. Staff also recognized an adjustment for
the capacity to senior center in some
development services, professional services relating to the
chapter 18 code review and this will
partner with the Green Necklace and Central Issaquah Code
Update, which staff will be returning to council in
early 2019 for an update. Also, 30,000 in expenditures
for interns was added to the budget as requested
by council. The 2019 general fund balance is expected
to be 23.2 million and 43.5% in reserve.
I'm just making a note that this might be
a slight difference from what you've seen because this
accounts for about 81,000 or under 100,000 in restricted
reserves. The budget process for 2019 included some preliminary
budget presentation, council workshops, two public hearings, tonight is
the final public hearing, and the council work session.
And tonight, staff recommends closing the public hearing, tonight's
second and final public hearing, and adoption of the
2019 budget and 2019 salary ordinance. Thank you. Thank
you, Kristina. Does Council have any questions for Kristina?
None. If there are no questions, I just would like
to remind anyone who would like to provide some comments during the public hearing that
the Guidelines for Citizens' Comments, which are again posted up on the overhead, apply for
those also under public hearing. So please remember when you come to the microphone to
state your name and address. I'm now opening the public hearing at 8:04. And Tisha,
who is the first person signed up? Ted Gamlin.
Yeah, my name is Ted Gamlin. I live in 4117, 221st Place
in Providence Point in Issaquah, and I'm chair of the Government Affairs
Committee of Providence Point, and the reason I'm here is I just
want to be sure that you folks don't lose sight of the
funding, the signalization project for the 43rd Way. This is a
problem that's been with us since we were incorporated into the city of Issaquah.
We have about two accidents a year there at that intersection. We've had the
second one just a month ago, so I think we're okay at least until
January. And... I know that some of our committee members have
been watching the proceedings for the budget on TV, and what we've
decided is that you folks are awfully hardworking and doing the budgeting
conscientiously. It's very time consuming and takes a lot of energy, and
we thank you very much for your efforts. We do realize that
the signalization project is listed as unfunded, but we hope that that can
be sorted out as things happen down the course of the year. It's
going to be particularly complicated when they start building the schools up on
just above us. As a personal matter, my address is changing tomorrow.
It's going to be 100 Timber Ridge. And one thing about Timber Ridge is,
well, I noticed that you folks have been talking about acquiring the Bergsma property.
When I first heard that, I was really excited by that project.
I discovered that when I first moved here more than 10 years
ago, and I use the little pocket park on the north side
of the Tallis development to bring my family, children and grandchildren, and
there are three trails emanating from that park that connect to various
trails, the King County trail system and Newport Way and up above. And
I was always very sad that that was going to be developed someday and the
fact that it might be recovered by the city to me is absolutely great and
I thank you all for finding the matching funding to push that through. Thank you,
Ted. Can we call up the next three, Tisha? Yes, we have Susan Shaw followed
by Rowan Hines and Edwin Erickson.
Oh, no, I think you're fine. But thank you for checking,
Susan. Susan and I were talking today about this evening's meeting
and about the opportunity for comments. Yes. I'm Susan Schrader-Schof. I
live at 381 SE Crystal Creek Circle. I am not the
designated spokesperson for the entire Sycamore community. It's very diverse. I
have one comment, though. from consideration. What I've heard this evening is there
are so many occasions and there's a long history in Issaquah of thinking out of
the box, especially on environmental issues. To the extent, and I think Mary Lou's going
to be speaking about this later, if there is a research or any kind of
assessments that are going to be performed for the I don't even know what
we are calling it, the sewer, the move from septic to sewer, whatever this project
is being known for. However, one component is the investment in technology that we may
be asked to hook up to and an understanding of how much it's going to
cost. And I know that the council is going to be reviewing this in much
greater detail in the next year. I asked for one line item. in
the assessment and thinking out of the box. The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, as reported by the Wall Street Journal not
even a month ago, is investing millions, and I think it
was over 100 million, in this very issue of seeking out
sewer septic technologies that are environmentally friendly and preserve water.
Wow. And there are neighbors. So as an assessment, let's
consider contacting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Whomever is
selected to do this research assessment, whatever may be done,
include that. as part of their action plan to contact the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They have hired experts that are implementing
these new technologies in the developing world now. And we may be
able to find funding, test programs. We may find relief for this
single homeowner who has the most distressed situation right now of almost
living in a condemned property. So let's think out
of the box. All I'm asking is one line
item to include that in any project assessment or
review or research. That's it. Thank you. Thank you,
Susan. Next up is Rowan Hines. Thank you. My
name is Rowan Hines. My address is 1571 Sycamore
Drive here in Issaquah. My relationship to the city
is I'm a former councilman, retired mayor, and a 47-year
resident of the city. Incidentally, for Mayor Pauly's comment about the city council
vacancy, it's not well known at this point, but I got my first
start with the city by filling a vacancy on the city council. That
was in September of 1979. And interestingly, I was the only applicant. There
was an election in November of '79, and there were three of us went downtown
Seattle, filed for the election. I was the only one who went downtown Issaquah City
Hall and filed for the appointment. I can never explain that. And the rest is
history. So I do have some familiarity with what you have before you tonight.
And my concern is the sewer fund as it relates to
my neighborhood in Sycamore. Last month, our neighborhood attended a city-sponsored
meeting concerning possible sewering in our neighborhood. I don't remember any
mention at that time that there was going to be a
line-item budget for next year on that issue. But I
do know that you are charged with protecting public health and safety, so
I don't have a problem with that. About 90% of the residents that
attended that meeting were not in favor of pursuing any further actions at
this point. As such, then I have two requests for you.
One, adding two words to the work plan focus on
pages 138, 140, and 142 of your budget document. And
those two words would be if required at the beginning
of that first sentence applying to the sewers in the
Sycamore neighborhood. And my reason for asking this, I notice
on page 144 that wording is added on a work plan
focus item there. So I would appreciate if you could just add those two
words to those three pages. Secondly, I would ask if and when any action
is contemplated on this issue of sewers in Sycamore, that I be given some
advance notice so that I may perhaps help work that process and minimize issues
that may come out of that as we go along. Thank you. Thank
you, Rowan. Edwin? Good evening, Mayor Pauley. This is the City Council. My name is
Edwin Erickson and my wife's here, Tiffany. We moved to Issaquah about three years ago.
When I came to Seattle in '96 to go to the University of Washington, I
drove from Yakima to Seattle. Issaquah was a beauty. I loved Issaquah from day one.
It took me almost 17 years to finally come here and be a resident. My
wife and I moved our three kids here three years ago. Now we have four
children. The first week we were in our house, Myel was like, "Dad, I don't
know where to play outside." I go, "Why not?" She goes, "Our yard is so
big and so spacious, I don't know which side to play on." And so that
is why we moved here. So we are part of this Sycamore neighborhood that is
vastly opposed to this sewer issue in our neighborhood. We know that this has come
to light by a certain developer who has come to our neighborhood. And we also
have a relationship with that developer, with the City Council members staff that was not
brought to our attention ahead of time. So part of our concern here is this
was never an issue until this individual moved to our neighborhood. And all of a
sudden we get someone in our neighborhood who's been surrounded by people living there for
hundreds of years, and now we want to change. That to us is problematic, and
it doesn't speak of moving the area of Sycamore into a more advantageous position. So
we're here to express our concern about the process, what is about to take place
in our neighborhood, and if we were to have this situation come in, to allow
sewer to come into the neighborhood of Sycamore, how it's going to greatly change our
neighborhood. If we wanted to live in the Highlands, we would have bought a house
in the Highlands. We don't want a neighbor 10 feet from our residence. And if
you bring sewer into Sycamore, we're going to have another neighborhood that looks just like
that. So why do we want overdevelopment? And now Front Street is going to be
even worse than it is now. We all know how terrible Front Street is from
4:30 to 7:00 p.m. And you add 20 more, 50 more homes in Sycamore, do
we really think that's going to be advantageous to our neighborhood? So part of our
concern is that we can talk about the good and the bad of environmentally healthy
septic systems, sewer systems, whatever it may be. We are all for a wonderful environment
that we would love to do our best to have the least economical or environmental
impact possible. We do everything in our power to teach our kids how to recycle.
It would be nice if we can preserve, like we're doing here with Save Cougar
Mountain, some of the beautiful areas that we call Sycamore. And for some of you
who haven't been to Sycamore, just drive in and you'll feel the beauty. It would
be a travesty for us to see sewer come into our neighborhood, change the look
and feel of it, and the love and desire that my kids have to want
to grow up there. Thank you. Thank you, Edwin. Hands of support in the
audience. Is there anybody else signed up today? No. Is there
anyone else who would like to address the council during the
public hearing on the 2019 proposed budget? Calling once. Second call.
Anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?
Come on up. My name is John Meisner. I live at
1430 Sycamore Drive, Southeast. My wife Donna's there. I live next
to Ed and Tiffany. Ed touched on a little bit of
the problems that go on along the traffic way there. And I
do think that overdevelopment is something that is of issue here. And
one of the reasons that we voted for some of the politicians
in the city here are that they were-- that was part of
the-- uh, policy that they were looking to try to alleviate. And so, um, I
voted for, for, for, uh, people that, uh, that supported that. And I felt like,
uh, I feel like this is kind of going backwards. Uh, I feel like it's
kind of taking back some of the, some of the talk that we, that we
had conversations with, uh, um, And I just am very afraid that
this is going to negatively affect Sycamore, not only
from a standpoint of the beauty, but as well
as the costs that we'll all be subject to.
Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to, and their
hands up in the audience in support. Is there anyone else who would like
to speak during the public hearing this evening? Calling for a second time. Calling
for a third and final time. Would anyone like to address council during the
public hearing? Seeing none, the public hearing is closed at 8:18. And does the
council have any questions before I move into the next part of the budget?
Any questions? So before we move to the approval of the budget ordinance, I did
want to put some comments in the record. I think it's probably confusing for those
members of the public who do not live in Sycamore and did not attend the
open house a few weeks ago to understand maybe the context around why we have
Sycamore neighborhood here this evening talking about the 2019 budget. So last month the City
held an open house to assess neighborhood interest in the formation of a local improvement
district in Sycamore to construct and complete a sanitary sewer system. The open house was
very well attended and the majority of attendees spoke against a local improvement district option
to fund a possible sewer expansion. Sycamore is one of our neighborhoods that has a
mix of both homes on sanitary sewer and the majority of them on septic system.
We have septic systems in other neighborhoods, but this is the neighborhood in town that
probably has the most septic systems. It's essential to ensure that wherever a septic system
exists currently in the city, that we have testing programs that assure our community that
contaminants from poorly functioning or failing systems are not impacting water quality. in the aquifer
beneath their town or nearby creeks and water bodies. I've requested funding in the
2019 budget for the following items related to Sycamore's potential expansion of sanitary sewer.
One is to complete the survey of property owners in the Sycamore neighborhood who are
on septic, but for various reasons were unable to attend the November open house. This
information will provide council with the data hood on the likelihood of forming a local
improvement district to fund any possible future improvements. I think what you've heard tonight is
those that did attend the open house were mostly opposed to this option. To review
our second item in the budget is to review our current code requirements for septic
testing to make sure property owners are using current best practices and methods to assess
system functions so that action can be taken to protect our water resources. Funding is
also included to research other options other than a local improvement district for funding sanitary
sewer installations. that allows for those homeowners with functioning systems to plan for sewer connections
at a time when their current system is no longer meeting performance standards, and they
are able to financially plan for the costs of connections. There's also funding to perform
other analysis such as environmental sampling. And lastly, I wanted to provide funds to update
the previous design and construction costs for a concept plan that was developed over 10
years ago. So Council will be able to discuss this project and its priority in
the list of projects in the capital improvement plan. The proposed 2019 budget does not
include funding for a capital project. Pursuing a capital project would be a future Council
decision. The only funding proposed for 2019 is for professional services that would help us
assess options. I believe this work is important and timely. I would also like to
mention that I and Council members received a letter and comments accusing a City staff
member or me with having a conflict of interest. And a conflict of interest generally
applies to decision makers and holds that the decision makers cannot adjudicate their own cause.
Neither I nor the City employee alleged to have the conflict of interest are the
decision makers because we have no authority to approve the budget or the provision of
sanitary sewers to the subdivision. The decision makers in this situation will be the City
Council. And since you've all received the letter, I just wanted to make sure you
were clear in understanding how that would work. And is there a motion? Madam Mayor,
I move to adopt ordinance number 2853. Adopting a revised 2019
salary schedule for all City employees and amending the salary
schedules previously adopted and amended by ordinances number 2819, 2828,
2829, and 2835. And adopt ordinance number 2854. Adopting the
2019 budget and setting forth the estimated revenues and appropriations
for each separate fund estimating impact on ending fund balances for
all such funds combined of the city for the fiscal year
commencing January 1st 2019 second it's been moved and seconded is
there council discussion council member winter Stein no I was wondering
if the president was gonna say anything about his letter oh
good point sure Thank you very much, Paul. So there is
a letter included with tonight's packet. In it, so let me point
out a few things in it. So the works, City Council supported
your people and tools recommendations in full, including adding the following portions
and technology enhancements to the budget. Building inspector and management analyst, budget
analyst, maintenance worker, worker parks, human resources analyst, support services, passports,
fiscal analyst, payroll and benefits, senior IT project manager, IT network
analyst, maintenance worker, Environmental science assistant, recreation supervisor, recreation specialist, two police
officer positions as authorized but unfunded, customer relations management system, website update,
implementation of additional munis system modules for utility billing, payroll and grants,
enhancements for citywide cybersecurity and end user training to manage security threats,
network and security device enhancements to keep current with security requirements, backup
system capability and off-site disaster recovery service, mobile solutions for city
staff in the field, and new and replacement fleet and equipment.
In addition to that, as we discussed earlier, there were specific
budget amendments that were already shown in the presentation. Let me
primarily address additional direction. which has to do with sort of is
future looking. Capital projects included in the 2019 budget represent those that were shown as
funded in the adopted five-year capital improvements plan and reflect new cost estimates, revised project
scopes, updated revenue sources, and the prioritizations established in the newly adopted parks strategic plan.
A handful of anticipated and desired 2019 projects remain unfunded. We will review the 2019
unfunded capital improvement projects in early 2019, and we asked staff to prepare
funding options for these projects, specifically including Southeast 43rd intersection improvements. We
discussed a key policy question regarding whether the City Council would continue to explore other
possible management models for the Senior Center and operate it on a temporary or interim
basis again in 2019. During final deliberations, Council Members voiced support for a City-run enhanced
center and directed staff to adjust revenues and expenditures according to Administration's recommendation. Council also
requested that the operating and management model be assessed and revisited every three or four
years to determine whether a more cost-effective or advantageous privately operated option is available at
that time. As part of our review of CityGives, i.e. the way in which the
City financially partners with nonprofit organizations that provide services to the community, City Council requested
that we have an opportunity to review the methodologies and constructs that govern the Community
Fund and Contracts for Services and Sponsorship categories. This review should take place prior to
next spring so that parameters are established for the 2019 grant application process and the
development of the 2020 budget. We also ask that $140,000 be added to the 2019
final budget for costs associated with reforming the Green Necklace and Central Issaquah code integration.
Again, we discussed that a little bit. In addition, staff was directed to return to
City Council in December and January with recommendations on how to facilitate this project in
the 2019 work plan. This may include an additional proposal for consulting services staff and/or
workplace reprioritization. In closing, I would like to thank you and your staff for preparing
this full-service budget for 2019. The adopted budget is our roadmap for spending on initiatives,
projects, services, and personnel. As you described, 2019 will be a momentous year where we
will adopt a new strategic plan for the City. That community-derived plan will provide guidance
for operating and capital budget priorities in future years. Thank you. Provides a lot of
background on the Council deliberations. Is there any... Question my own questions discussion. That's
my winter saying councilmember hunt. All right. Thank you So you just heard we go
into quite a bit of detail on these budgets and Thank You councilmember Martz For
reading that leather. Sorry to put you on the spot But the point I was
I think it helped me make is that our diligence is complete and thorough and
And I bring this up because it's with more than a
little bit of surprise that I hear about a line item
budget for sewer in Sycamore. Frankly, we never discussed it. It
wasn't an item that was brought up for deliberation. The sewer
utility is part of the city. The mayor and her staff have
the responsibility for their safe operation and their ongoing operation. And I view it
as a very normal part of course in fulfilling that duty that we make
assessments to how to create and expand and create a good functioning sewer system
for everybody's benefit. I think taking a look at an issue and talking to people,
and I actually admire how the city has evolved over the last few years of
being proactive and engaging neighborhoods and people on issues before any action is taken. That's
how the lens that I view as what happened. That November meeting was an opportunity.
to talk to people and I know that a lot of voices came out very
clearly against a future development of one. Now if a sewer system, as was said
already, would be built, that question would come before this council. There are many different
ways to fund it. Whether there would be a local improvement district is a question
that would come before the residents of Sycamore. We're a long, long ways away from
any one of these issues. I also think it's very normal if you're a property
owner or someone who maybe wants to build that you would inquire and ask about
the status of something like that. I think that's a pretty normal thing to do.
I've lived on sewer. I've had a strain field fail. I knew what it was
like to live through that. I'm also aware of the costs that are associated with
doing an attachment or getting connected to a system. I am very empathetic about the
homeowners who own sewer and your responsibilities to have them operate effectively as they're supposed
to. But I do view what has been done to date and what's
been outlined in the work plan to be just good stewardship by the
city of what we do to make sure that our environment, especially when
it comes to sewage and effective onsite sewage systems, are safe. are working optimally
and not affecting the environment i view what's been done and what's been only talked
about for 2019 as like a study and doing that study is at the purview
of the mayor of inner staff and i don't view that as being harmful and
we're getting information We're going to learn a little bit more and there will be
any opportunity to actually come forward and maybe build a system is quite a few
months or years in front of us, but we're not even considering that question this
evening. I just wanted to make all those points clear. Thank you. Council Member Hunt.
Thank you. This was my first year working on the budget and I
think that the city continues to make efforts to make the budget more understandable. My
thought working through the process is that there are a lot of departments that are
changing to meet the growing and continuing evolving needs of the city. I think there's
a lot of software changes as well, technology changes and as the departments change in
the future and as the city changes in the future and grows, I think one
part of that transparency that is important and to make the budget more understandable will
be to make it very clear how the budget is changing over time and to
make that very traceable over time. But I do think that the city continues to
make strides towards having a transparent and understandable budget and so I was appreciative of
that. Any other comments? Council President Martz. Yeah, I just want to say a particular
thank you to City Administrator Moon and her staff. We had a transition in financial
director leadership right smack dab exactly where you wouldn't want it, which is right at
the beginning of the budget process. And she led her staff in a thoughtful conversation
with council on this year's budget. And so thank you to her and her staff
who put so much, so many time and hours both during the day and after
hours into this budget. Thank you. It's very kind. Are there any other? Oh, Deputy
Council President Bautista. thank you madam mayor so i was uh supportive of uh the
the direction that that i felt like we needed uh to head with a focus
on uh both people and tools i think that um a lot of those a
lot of those items in terms of staffing and technology uh were critical uh this
year um and also uh taking getting an opportunity to take a look at the
city run senior center which i was very supportive of and glad to see that
we could integrate the green necklace code revisions and have an opportunity to take
a look at that. But I do understand that we have capital projects that
are unfunded and I very much look forward to having the discussion in early
2019 So we'll have an opportunity to talk about that as well. And also just
very much looking forward to the fact that with our new strategic plan as we
head into budget sessions in the future that we will have that strategic plan to
help guide. Thank you. - Thank you. Any other comments before I reread the motion?
Okay. If there's no further discussion, all those in favor of adopting
ordinance number 2853, adopting a revised 2019 salary schedule for all city
employees and amending the salary schedules previously adopted and amended by ordinance
numbers, 2819, 2828, 2829, and 2835. And adopting ordinance number 2854,
adopting the 2019 budget and setting forth the estimated revenues and
appropriations for each separate fund and estimated impact on ending fund
balances for all such funds combined of the city for the
fiscal year commencing January 1st, 2019. Signify by saying aye. -
Aye. Those opposed? That carries unanimously.
I did want to actually add a clarification. I don't think I mentioned this earlier
tonight, but we do have five out of seven council members seated this evening and
four ordinances to pass. I just want to make sure it's clear that council understands
that four of five votes are required for passage of ordinances. And we have several
more of those on our agenda this evening. That was a unanimous vote. We move
to regular business. First item under irregular business
is AB 7708, Berkshire property acquisition. This
is the first time this agenda bill
is before Council and I'd like to
invite Parks and Recreation Director Jeff Watling
to make a presentation. Mayor, Council, thank
you. Sorry for that. Well, tonight, This agenda
bill certainly represents a culmination of nearly a year of work and discussion
on this possible acquisition of the Berksville property. It's a very complex undertaking
and a very complex agenda bill. I'll do my best to walk through
the details that are in the agenda bill and certainly as has been
presented to you in prior executive sessions. The agenda bill requests your
authorization to acquire the 46-acre Berksville property in partnership with King County and the
Trust for Public Land. A little bit of background. The Berksville property is, as
many, if not all, in this room are aware, is located on the northeast
corner of Cougar Mountain. It has been proposed for development numerous times through the
years. Most recently, an application in 2017 was submitted for a
57-lot residential development. Concerns for that, concerns about the impacts of
that development environmentally, traffic-wise, neighborhood impacts, visual impacts to the hillside
were certainly expressed by residents throughout that development review process. In
January of this year, of 2018, The city approached and kicked
off work with Trust for Public Land on a partnership to explore
options to purchase all or some of that property. That work continued
throughout the year. And again, U.S. Council were updated as we went
through that process. Why purchase this property? You certainly heard the eloquence of residents.
They certainly spoke to a number of reasons. I'll touch on a few as identified
in the agenda bill. This is certainly a priority within a number of our planning
documents. The comprehensive plan as well as the recently adopted park strategic plan identifies the
protection and preservation of our forested hillsides that surround Issaquah as a high priority.
This preservation obviously is done so to produce a number
of environmental benefits, both for the hillside as well as
protecting streams and thus the tributaries, creeks and salmon that
we so appreciate and want to protect in this community.
It also touches on and we talked about and you heard the priority
of connectivity and access. Certainly as a priority identified in the park strategic
plan as well as the recent central Issaquah plan update and the green
necklace vision. The opportunity to connect the valley floor, in
particular the Tibbets Valley area of the valley floor up
into Cougar Mountain can certainly be accomplished with this acquisition.
This really is a property, when you look at its
location, really serves as the gateway from the valley floor,
from our central Issaquah area up into Cougar Mountain. Another
priority, another Really benefit for this property is the opportunity to expand
the park area that supports the talus neighborhood That too was identified and we
heard throughout the park strategic plan process the existing Harvey Manning Park and
and its size is not one that is completely meeting the needs
of the Tallis community. We also heard interest in this acquisition would
also provide the ability to create a pedestrian access from the Tallis
neighborhood down into the valley floor. So certainly a number of public
benefits that have been identified in our planning documents.
Also speaking to the public benefits in August of this year, we
had a chance to deliberate and discuss with City Council. You all
adopted Resolution 2018-13 supporting the pursuit of acquisition of this property within
that resolution. You certainly identified a number of these priorities and benefits
by which we want to pursue consideration of either, again, a portion
or a purchase of all of the property. On to negotiations and
the appraisal process. We identified really early on the delicacy of
this approach and even pursuing a potential property for this property given that
it is a site that is in and has a development application in.
So certainly as staff, as the Parks Department, we work directly with Trust
for Public Land to certainly establish a differentiation between our role as regulator
and the work that Development Services Department is doing and the work that
we were doing in pursuit of considering this acquisition. In that role, in
that relationship, TPL became our primary voice and negotiator with TPL with the
proposed seller and developer. I just wanted to certainly make that note and
recognize the importance of that dual role that we have been playing in
this effort. So in that work, Trust for Public Lands completed an appraisal
as well as an appraisal review that was shared with the developer. That
appraisal for the full 46 acres came back at $10.5 million. Following a
series of negotiations with the developer, an option to purchase agreement was entered into
between the developer and TPL for the full 46 acres. The terms of that
option were for an $11 million purchase with an expiration of that option being
December 31st of this year and allowing up to 60 days to close the
purchase. $11 million is a lot
of money, certainly a lot of money for us to figure out how we were
going to fund that. As negotiations and that work was going on, another key element
to this work this past year was really begin to strategize and look at who
potential funding partners are. That was a work that really took a lot of time
and a lot of effort throughout this 12 months. It became clear and evident that
The King County Land Conservation Initiative that Director Christy True mentioned really provided
and created a strategic timing as that work and that region-wide, that county-wide
effort was going on as we were pursuing that. So really, in any
and all of our funding strategies, that really is an anchor for potential
funding. Back to the proposal though, in this purchase and sale agreement
and in the partnered effort, we the city would become the owner of
33 acres which becomes the easternmost 33 1/2 acres of the property. That property
that I was just mentioning earlier really connects to the valley floor. Our central
Issaquah area allows for that gateway into Cougar Mountain Regional Park. The 12 1/2
acres, which is the western portion of the property, would be owned and managed
and maintained by King County. We see this 33 1/2 acres as really becoming
a wonderful extension of Harvey Manning Park. So Harvey Manning Park becomes
nearly a 35-acre community park and natural resource area. In that sale,
King County has agreed to purchase the 12.5 acres. The appraisal came
back at a price of, given its isolated area, given its really
lack of ability to be developed at a price of $340,000. As
we agreed on a purchase price of $11 million, given that incremental
amount over appraised value, King County has agreed to pay an increment
over that appraised value as we are also doing for the
33.5 acres. That leaves certainly a significant portion of
this property, $10.645 million to be used for the
33.5 acre purchase. As I was saying earlier, any type of
funding strategy for something that's significant is going to take a multi-agency, multi-sourced effort.
What is spelled out in the agenda bill, and I will make an effort
to certainly go over here tonight, is to highlight how we see the breakdown
of that $10.65 million commitment. You'll see in the agenda bill We
estimate that roughly $6.82 million will be gathered and garnered
through grants over the next year to three to four
years. That would leave what we see as the city's
long-term investment, long-term commitment in this at $3.8275 million dollars.
What I will try and do next is highlight those five
funding sources. There's five funding sources, I should say, that make
up the grants that we see. And as we've talked with
public agencies and public partners, what grants this property, this acquisition
feels most strategically positioned to be able to receive. And really,
in a lot of ways, I'll touch on, I'll start with the large
one. As I mentioned earlier, the King County Land Conservation Initiative really makes
up a majority of what we see as the $6.8 million collection of
grant funding. a little bit on the Land Conservation Initiative. As Director True mentioned, this
is some work that's been ongoing for, boy, a number of years now in terms
of the initiative. Just last, earlier this year, in August, King County approved a
funding source, a funding mechanism for the first couple years of this land
conservation initiative. As I've highlighted with you before, by increasing the bond capacity
of the conservation futures tax, King County wants to create a significant
amount of funding dollars that would go towards these large,
substantial land acquisitions. In creating that funding source, they've identified
the existing Conservation Futures Program to be the grant program that these funding,
these dollars would flow through. This is exhibit C, a slide on exhibit C within
your agenda bill. This is a portion of a PowerPoint slide provided by King County
Parks as they've gone around explaining what they see as the schedule for conservation futures
funding being next year You'll note on the first area
under early January, you'll see applications for roughly $40
million. As has been communicated to us, there will be two
sort of grant application processes going on at the same time. The
$24 million bond-backed funding that you see up there, that is the
category by which we would be applying this acquisition for. as
has been stated before, and certainly as we've worked with the
county staff and looked at what the criteria of that grant
program is, this project certainly is a highly, highly, highly competitive
applicant for that funding. You'll see that in terms of timeline,
applications will be due in early March. Like other Conservation
Futures funds, the Conservation Futures Committee, a group of citizens will
go through their decision-making process, similar to grant processes we do
ourselves. Those recommendations are then submitted to the executive and council.
It's anticipated that proceeds from these grant dollars would be available
towards the latter part of next year. that application
again and that the timing of that increased
capacity into and really desire to seed large
significant Property acquisitions such as Bergsma really becomes a strategic, amazing
strategic timing given even the opportunity to consider a purchase of
a property like this for Seattle, for Issaquah to be able
to do that, forgive me. In our and in that goal
of receiving and anticipating $6.8 million worth of funding, this application
request, the King County LCI grant program of 5.3 million, we're
able to apply up to 50% of what the value is.
So we would apply for that 50%, that $5.3 million, that
would represent and does represent 78% of that $6.8 million that
we are seeking. To seek and to look for the
remaining $1.5 million in grant funding we anticipate, we really
see a majority of that happening through state RCO grant
applications. RCO is the Recreation Conservation Office. They administer a
number of statewide grants. Some are known
as WWRP, let's see if I get the acronym right, the
Washington Wildlife Recreation Program. There's seven grant categories within that area.
We have already met with our RCO representatives and RCO program
directors that support King County. We have talked through this perspective
acquisition and sort of played a what if. Very, very incredibly
positive support in terms of what this 46-acre purchase represents and how strong
of a candidate it would be for two of those seven funding sources
for acquisition. So we would anticipate applying for both of those. One is
the WWRP local parks category. The other is the WWRP Urban Wildlife
Habitat Program. We would apply for acquisition funds under both of those
categories. Another grant program that RCO administers is the Land Water Conservation
Fund. Again, in our research and our conversations and the groundwork with
RCO staff and other partners, this is an incredibly strong candidate with
LWCF funding as well. And so we would be submitting those applications as well.
The cycle of those applications is another year out, 2020. So in the agenda bill,
you'll see that we've identified the need to complete and work with the developer on
a waiver of retroactivity. That's a fancy term for the ability that we can submit
that waiver to RCO. So when we apply for those grants, it's as if we
haven't purchased the property yet. So we're able to apply for those as
if this property is still under threat of development, still has that same
sense of urgency, and we can let that project compete in that way,
in that form. So that is certainly something we'll be doing now to
position ourselves to be able to apply for those funds in total.
We are likely going to apply for more than $1.5 million,
even within those three state grants. It could very well be
that we receive more than $1.5 million in those grants, but
given at least where we are right now in this process,
we wanted to... be somewhat conservative in that number. The fifth grant
source that we see this project really being a strong candidate
for is also within the Land Conservation Initiative program. King County is
looking at initiating a carbon credit program. You'll see the fifth bullet down,
carbon credits for new parks, green spaces. We've met with staff who are
leading this effort and initiating this effort. Sam Plotkin has joined me in
a number of those conversations. This 46 acres really represents a terrific opportunity
to be a candidate for, in essence, creating a bank, if you will,
that private entities can purchase carbon and carbon credits off of this site.
Of the five funding sources, we anticipate this is likely the smallest that
we would net proceeds from, but it certainly appears to
be an incredibly viable opportunity and one that we would
want to pursue in that funding strategy. little bit
on in a particular conservation futures and RCO these are very
very well established grant grant agencies and grant sources that we're
relying very heavily on in this funding strategy the good news
is we are not going into that blind as a city
we have been Over the years, incredibly successful at receiving Conservation Futures
funds as well as RCO funds. Just a little bit to highlight
that, since the initiation of the Conservation Futures program, the city, Conservation
Futures funds to the city of Issaquah have helped us to purchase
108 acres. The city of Issaquah has received a little over $5
million in CFT funds. Some of the examples of properties that
have been utilized for that purchase, the Carey Woods, the southwest side
of Squawk Mountain, those 40 acres were purchased with assistance of CFT
funds. Sammamish Cove, the 19-acre property. Uh-oh, there goes my voice. Adjoining
Lake Sammamish State Park was purchased with CFT funds. Ingee Johnson Park,
just south of us on Front Street, 7.8 acres were purchased. Recently,
portions of the assemblage of Confluence Park were purchased with CFT funds
as well. I would say that with the track record,
the success that the city has had in leveraging those CFT monies with
our own funds, matching those, and really doing great work, our relationship, our
track record with the CFT committee, as well as county staff, is very,
very strong. And I think that's certainly important to note. Within our state
grants, within the RCO agency, those two, we have as a city been very strategic
and very successful in receiving some of those grants. I highlighted a couple of the
grant sources that I'll just touch on in the WWRP local parks category. Recently,
in 2008, we received, applied for and received a $1 million
acquisition grant to assist with Confluence Park acquisition for four acres
within Confluence Park. On the development side of the local park grant,
we received two separate $500,000 grants for both Central Park Pad 3
and the synthetic turf project that was done in 2003, and most
recently, Central Park Pad 1 synthetic turf project just last year, well,
in 2016, also received $500,000. Within the WWRP Urban Wildlife Habitat grant,
In 2006, the city received $500,000 also for the McCrary
Woods acquisition on Squawk Mountain. In 1996, for urban wildlife
habitat, the city received $230,000 to assist with Issaquah Greenway
properties, which are just south of us along Issaquah Creek.
In 2006, Ingee Johnson Park also received Urban Wildlife Habitat
funds, RCO funds of $450,000. Land Water Conservation Fund, most
recently, the city applied for and was awarded for Confluence
Park Phase 1 work, $500,000 in 2011. Again, these
represent the success, the relationship the city has with those
agencies that again is instrumental and certainly vital. And as
we have done the groundwork and exploring these potential grant
funding sources, Again, they're being done with a degree of confidence and
understanding of what it takes to see those through. You might also notice, I
was mentioning those names, these grants, the RCO grants and Conservation Futures grants, in
a number of cases have been used in the same acquisition strategy. I
bring that up because what we are considering
doing with this purchase of Bergsma is similar
in that it takes multiple funding sources to
be coupled and to be shared to accomplish
something of this nature. Forgive me.
So as highlighted, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, like
many acquisitions that we've completed here with the City of Issaquah,
often the partnered funding, the grant funding is provided in the
form of a reimbursement. The city, in any and all
of these efforts, needed to expend the money to get
reimbursed from these grant agencies. This is certainly a similar
matter here with this purchase at a much bigger scale
and one that we certainly do not walk into lightly.
What we anticipate is within three to five years, those grant
proceeds to be collected. What this will mean at closing, as
we look at, and as I mentioned earlier, with a late
February closing of this property, we would need to bring
a significant amount of city funds to make this happen. As part of the partnership,
as part of the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding that you see in the agenda
bill, Trust for Public Land has agreed to bring $3 million, to provide $3 million
of interest-free funding, bridge funding for the city at closing. King County would bring,
as I mentioned earlier, their $355,000. That would leave the
city needing to fund $7.645 million at closing. Beth Goldberg,
our finance director, will be coming up to join me shortly
as I transition slides to walk through some of the funding
options that we have for considering how to finance that in
the near term. One more thing I would point out that
is certainly an important one and done by other conservation agencies
when Dealing with an acquisition like this of this
scale and size and timing, it's very often the case
that when the property is purchased, in the time between
purchasing the property and waiting for the partnered funding to
come available, we have to look at how how we
might need to mitigate that risk in this case of bergsma to
preserve the opportunity to purchase the whole 46 acres as we consider
this hard decision of financing this amount of money should for some
reason the lci funding not become available or not happen
we would not have any conservation easements on that property. That property
could, if we needed to mitigate that risk or that investment, sell
a portion or sell all of the property. I mention that only not
as a desire or as an interest, but as we sort of look
at all the timing of the funding and the need for the commitments
from these partnered agencies as they come in the form of grants, we
have that option at our disposal. So with that, Beth, I will come
on up. I'll transition the slides. I'll try.
Good evening. As Jeff mentioned, I'm Beth Goldberg.
I'm the Interim Finance Director and I am
here to talk about Strategies for how to cover
the seven point six four five million dollars that we would need to bring
At closing in February should the council decide to proceed with this with this
transaction I will say at the outset I'm going to give you an overview
of the options that we are considering would welcome feedback and direction from the
council about what strategies it would like to see developed. But we are not actually
asking you all for a decision on this financing strategy tonight. We will be coming
back to you on January 7th for a decision on the financing strategies, assuming you
make a decision to go forward with the purchase and sale agreement as Jeff described
it. This slide here just provides you an outline of the costs that
Jeff spoke to. The bottom line that I'm going to be speaking about
here tonight is the $7.645 million that we'll need to bring it close.
As Jeff mentioned, we are anticipating grant funding to offset these costs so
that the city's final ongoing costs would be $3.823 million.
So the question is, how do we come up with that
cash to bring to close? The fact that we are expecting some
of this to be covered by grant money does suggest that we need to look
at a combination of short-term and long-term funding strategies. So among the options that you
will see here, look at a blending of strategies to match the timing of the
money. We're also taking into account as we analyze this, the city's other near-term capital
financing needs. We know that that's something that we're going to be talking with all
of you about in early January and so want you all to keep that in
mind as you're thinking about these options. We certainly are as we think about them
as well. So the four options that we are presenting here are the first one
is a blend of using fund balance to cover the portion of the financing that
will be covered by grants and then a bank loan, a bank qualified loan to
cover the long-term financing needs that 3.823 million. I will say at the outset that
this is the administration's preferred option. And I will keep reminding you of that throughout
the presentation, but these other options are viable as well. The other option would be
to fund this entirely using fund balance, the entire $7.65 million. The third option would
be to finance it entirely with a bank loan, the entire $7.645 million. And then
the last option would be to use long-term bonds. And I'll expand on these options
in a moment. Before going into the options though, I do want
to give some background about our fund balance situation. Given that you just
adopted the budget, you are intimately aware of fund balance. The adopted budget
has an unrestricted fund balance of $23.2 million. As you all know, we have a
fund balance target of 15 to 20 percent, basically that we won't fall below 15
to 20 percent of expenditures. So when we're looking at whether fund balance is a
viable option, we're looking at that excess over and above that 20 percent. So based
on the budget you adopted tonight, there's about $12.6 million of available fund balance, allowing
us to still preserve that 20 percent. The second bar is what fund balance would
look like if you went with option A, option one, sorry, option one, where you'd
use half of the fund balance to cover the grant portions and then finance the
rest. If you did that, there would be 7.3%. $3 million of fund balance above
that 20% available. And again, that would be replenished in later in 2019,
2021 when we receive those grant fundings. And then the last bar would
be if we finance the entire project, the whole 7.645 million using fund
balance, and that would only leave $3.4 million of fund balance remaining after
the transaction. Another variable that you will want to consider when making
a decision about this is the city's debt capacity. Washington state law sets limits
for how much debt a city can take on. It's tied to our assessed
property valuation. There's a lot of numbers on these slides. The upshot is we
have over nearly 96 percent of our debt capacity available we're only we're using less
than four percent of the debt capacity currently if we were to debt finance this
the entire 7.65 million it would take that down to about 90 percent If
we finance less, it would be between there. The main point
being the city has plenty of debt capacity to accommodate the
financing of this acquisition. and there would be plenty of room should the council
decide that it needs to debt finance other things. The main thing is our ability
to pay and we are not proposing that any taxes would need to be raised
to support this property acquisition. Now, for the actual options, as I
mentioned at the outset, this is the administration's preferred option. It would be
to split the cost half between fund balance, half with a bank qualified
loan. The debt service on this transaction, it would be a 10-year loan, is
$454,000 a year. This translates, just to give you all a benchmark of how to
think about this, of what this would cost the average Issaquah taxpayer, it's about $20
of debt. equivalent of about $20 of property tax a year. Again, not proposing to
raise property taxes, but if you were thinking about how much is this costing me
as a taxpayer, it's about $20 a year for 10 years. The total financing costs
of this are just under $1 million over the 10 years. And it is, aside
from fund balances, is actually the lowest cost option. So when thinking about this
option and among the reasons why the administration is recommending this option is we
like the combination of fund balance and debt financing. This is an asset that
is going to benefit residents living in Issaquah today. It's also going to benefit
residents that will be living here for years and years to come. So this, by
using fund balance and debt financing, you're spreading the cost among all of the beneficiaries
that will take advantage of this property. We also like this strategy because it does
preserve fund balance, which gives us some flexibility and liquidity that we think is an
important strategy. And then last, A bank qualified loan, not to get too technical here,
but we would be limited to $10 million of debt if we went with a
bank qualified loan. This strategy would leave us $6.2 million worth of tax exempt financing
available to us in 2019 should the council decide it wishes to debt finance other
capital priorities when we take that up in early next year. I'm going to
go through these next options pretty quickly. They're in your packet materials. Since they're not
our preferred option, certainly we could bring this back at the next meeting when we
have a little bit more time. This strategy, as I mentioned, is entirely using fund
balance. It's the lowest cost option because the only interest would be foregone interest on
the amounts that we would be investing, but we're not paying interest on long-term debt.
um that said there's a cost it depletes our fund balance down to 3.4
million dollars above that 20 target which is really limiting our flexibility moving forward
so that's that's the main reason in addition it's not sharing the cost with
future beneficiaries who will be using this open space should this acquisition go through
option three would be to entirely fund this with a bank loan Option
three is a bank loan. Option four is bonds. Bank loans offer a
slightly lower interest rate. The other advantage that they offer is a slightly
lower interest rate than bonds. The other advantage that they offer is there's no pre
penalty for prepayment. So we would have flexibility to prepay for the amounts we would
recover from bonds. Um, the downside of this is it's it's a little bit more
expensive than option one. Um, and um, we wouldn't have very much debt capacity left
under this because we're limited to $10 million under a bank qualified loan. So there
wouldn't be a lot of wiggle room should the council decide it wishes to debt
finance other priorities later in the year. And then finally, the last option is to
go with long-term bonds. This is the most expensive of the options we're considering. Again,
to use that benchmark, it would be equivalent to about $21 to each taxpayer per
year for this. The downside with this strategy is you're locked in. If we put
in prepayments for those grants and we didn't receive the grants, we would still be
obligated to make those early payments. So there is a little bit of a risk.
With that the other thing I would mention here is it does take longer to
issue bonds than it does to issue a bank loan And so we likely wouldn't
have the cash at the time of closing. We would need to rely on fund
balance for about a month So anyway, that's option four And then as I mentioned,
financing schedule, just the main point of this slide is that it takes longer to
issue bonds than a bank qualified loan. If we went with a bank qualified loan,
we would have the cash in hand prior to closing on February 20th. If we
went with bonds, it would take about a month longer, six weeks longer. And so
we would need fund balance in that interim period of time until we receive the
proceeds from the bond sale. So as I mentioned, the administration's recommending that
we go with option one if the council does decide to proceed with this land
acquisition. We don't need to make a final decision. We don't need you to make
a final decision until January 7th. But certainly we would welcome any feedback you have
about preferred options, variations on options that we could develop between now and January 7th
so that we could bring that back to you for a decision assuming you go
forward with the purchase and sale agreement. Thank you, Beth. Is Jeff still hanging around
and do you have anything else to add? Okay, so hang around for questions. So
thank you so much for hanging around for two and a half hours or two
hours and 15 minutes. I just want to make sure it's clear to those of
you who stayed what the rest of our process looks like this evening. The council
will now have an opportunity to ask questions of staff and we'll take turns
and see how many questions we have. Expect the council member then to make
a motion and council will have some time to deliberate and discuss on camera
before they take a vote. Questions? Okay. I'm gonna go with Council Member Hunt
and Council President Martz. This is a question for Director Watling.
How does this property fit into the Green Necklace Plan and the
Park Strategic Plan? And what's the role of this particular property in
both of those plans? Yeah, great question. Park Plan first, as we...
uh did extensive community uh surveys and feedback it certainly fit
into the plan in multiple forms i think first was this
decades-long vision and really priority that the cities had for hillside
acquisitions and purchasing the Issaquah Alps and other areas. It definitely
was resoundingly reinforced as we went through this plan. As I'm
looking at the plan, I can actually give you some project
numbers. We also had a project identified that I
had mentioned earlier in regards to that connection between
the valley floor between Tibbets Park and Cougar Mountain
as well as Tibbets Valley floor to Talus. So
both of those projects were identified within the plan. If you're familiar with
the plan, page 49 identifies all of the projects, and I can tell
you that projects 43 and 44 were the two projects that specifically identified
this project, along with really the goal and policy of preservation of hillsides.
Within the green necklace, That also resonated very clearly as we worked with
the Development Services Department on what that vision was, reinforcing the vision
of how our green spaces serve Central Issaquah, in particular the Central
Issaquah Plan. the concept and the reality that we were looking at
how to create a public park system that supports and surrounds Central
Issaquah and that really future development area for the city, it adjoins
and supports our current residents who really surround that central Issaquah
area. And then lastly, how it also adjoins those two concentric
circles to the larger concentric circle, the larger necklace, which is
this public resource land that surrounds the community. As I mentioned
earlier, this 46 acres with its really geographic location right there at the
edge of central is a claw and really the gateway into cougar
mountain one of our 3 Alps. It fits. I can't present marks.
So I'll follow up on that so I'm looking at page 49.
44 Hillside acquisitions it doesn't actually say there's a sp it says
no locations identified. You said it talked about this specifically but it's
really hillside acquisitions in general which follows on the general there's a
general strategy item. A 2.7 for Parkland acquisitions right but it's but
it's not the specific project right. OK and then the page 54
is the green necklace and it doesn't look like this is part
of the green necklace.
That map identifies current public lands. So given that this isn't an
existing public land, we certainly didn't want to identify it or market
on that map. Well, that map does identify proposed major public space
or connection, right? And as part of that, it identifies a lot
of areas that are not currently owned by the city. Right.
That map also is focused on that map happens to be the necklace that's looking
at the priorities within the central Issaquah area within the central squad plan again, not
as a not as a Debate, but if you look at chapter 7 of the
strategic plan that goes in further into the green necklace And talks about some of
the other themes and goals of the green necklace the introduction really tries to point
out that that that map that you saw on the prior page that really is
looking at what the necklace looks like to support Central Issaquah and the Central Issaquah
plan, there are these concentric circles that also, as we engage with the community, the
green necklace was really meant not to just serve Central Issaquah, but to be that
connection out. You mentioned access to talus and item 43 can't you
access talus right now through big tree Ridge trail and precipice precipice
trail from where from. Newport Newport from Newport, yes, about about 500
meters up the road. I don't know I don't know the distance.
Well, they're there. Okay, so it's roughly 500 meters from from the
Burma property to the big tree Ridge trailhead. Right From there
is a trailhead right now right on Newport from which you can
get to tell us. Yes, correct. Okay So how does that trailhead?
differ in terms of There's a whole section in here on how
to quantify project prioritization checklist, right? And it gets at what new acquisitions
have to do with how to evaluate them, right? And part of it
has to do with what it changes for access. So what would change
given that there's a trailhead 500 meters up the road? So it would
change a number of things. So first it would change a more direct access
from Tallis down to a portion of town that the Big Bear Trailhead doesn't
necessarily address and more the Tibbetts area, Tibbetts Valley Park, the commercial, both existing
and future commercial space in that area. It also becomes a direct connection to
the Tibbetts Transit Center. which is also, in essence, becomes a default trailhead. So
in a lot of ways, that access point, we're now not just relying on
that trailhead off of Newport, but now that transit center could function as a
trailhead on weekends during the busiest times and for the busiest need. A couple
of other questions around the CFT funds that you mentioned. One is that you mentioned
McCary Woods, which I always get a smile from because Maureen was a good friend
of mine. That was 40 acres and I believe the out-of-pocket expense to the city
was about $800,000. How is it that we were able to spend $800,000 and get
40 acres and we're talking about at a minimum 3.8 million for a comparable size
parcel? That's a great question. I wasn't here at the time. I could imagine that
either it was maybe not under the threat of developability at the time. I'm not
sure what its developable nature is. There's a lot of factors that factor into price
per acre. In this case, we are... pursuing a acquisition at the highest point of
proposed development. So big difference. And then the last is the second CFT question, which
is when you mentioned CFT funds, isn't it also the case that we have to
be careful with CFT funds because the King County Equity Initiative specifically targets the use
CFT funds towards equity situations and that's that map that we heard reference to earlier
that does not include really any place east of Lake Washington right it's all historically
underserved areas north in Seattle and north and south of Seattle right so the access
to CFT funds seems like as the county moves towards this new land processes is
going to leave us disadvantaged for CFT funds No, and as Christy True had
mentioned in her public comment, not necessarily. In fact, not at all. The map,
the equity map is a new initiative as part of LCI that the county
looked at allowing for those cities, those small areas that were identified as equity
in need, could be eligible to apply for grants and not have to come
up with the local match. In this case, as we are
already pursuing our funding strategy and should we choose to proceed
with this purchase, we would be presenting an application into that
CFT fund with a 50% match in place. So it would
have no bearing on eligibility or lack of eligibility for this
project. Okay, thank you. Yep. Any questions? Let's see,
I've got, I'm going to go to Deputy Council President Bautiste first
and then to Council Member Hunt. Thank you for the presentation, Jeff.
Could you, from a connection standpoint, could you just tell me a
little bit more about Harvey Manning Park and the Cougar Mountain Regional
Wildland area? Sure, in terms-- Connection points, so is that, I guess,
just trying to better understand how this
acquisition impacts those two parks. See if
I can maybe visually reflect that.
So a little context for this map the the southern portion where you're
seeing the smaller residential lots That's the what would be the northern edge
of talus the talus neighborhood Harvey Manning Park And sorry for my chicken
scratch. That's my handwriting apologize Harvey Manning Park is the existing park I don't
have exact acreage, one acre and a half-ish that supports the
Tallis neighborhood. This property allows for, as I was saying earlier,
that connection down to the valley floor, Tibbetts Valley Park and
the transit center that I was mentioning earlier. It's located right
in this area. The 12.5 acres that you see in blue that
would identify the property that King County would be purchasing. There is a significant size
ravine that actually separates the 12.5 acres from the 33 acres. Harvey Manning Park certainly
is a trailhead that could then go into, so the Cougar Mountain Park area, the
King County managed Cougar Mountain Park, regional park, is really west of
that 12.5 acres. The trailhead on Newport that was mentioned
earlier sits to the north along Newport on the other
side of that ravine that Council President March had mentioned
in terms of that trailhead. Thank you. Council Member Hunt.
So a quick question about the trailhead location. Could you explain if the
property were to be acquired where the where you as parks director would
envision the trailhead being in relation particularly to the transit center? Could you
describe that or point it out on the map? Absolutely. Point out
where the transit center is? Transit center is where you would envision access
through the property. You bet. So forgive me as I venture over here.
Don't talk because we won't be able to hear you. Okay. I'll point
and then I'll come back and talk. Thank you. So those awkward
hands were trying to demonstrate the transit center where that's located. This 33
acre piece and really this, let me get my directions, this sort of
south eastern side really becomes the point with which we could create a
much more direct trail access up from the the Transit Center and and really
from the valley floor and eventually central Issaquah up into into Cougar Mountain. And I
have a follow-up question to Council President Martz question regarding the parks plan and forested
hillsides not specifically calling out this property. Within the city limits are there other Issaquah
Alps forested hillside properties of this size that are undeveloped open space and currently privately
owned? From what we
can tell on the the the Issaquah
Alps facing slopes Within Issaquah, this would
represent the largest remaining privately held property
More questions remember winter Steiner Goodman checking
in remember interesting. All right. Thank you.
It's impossible to argue against the value
of this land into the city as
a park there's it's I do appreciate all
the comments that came earlier and agree that
the benefits but also the opportunity to avoid
another outcome is are are very Stark And though,
as I said earlier in the evening, I talked about the need to find housing
for a lot more people coming here, hillsides in Issaquah, something like this as almost
a keystone property as this appears to be, I think is worthy of our consideration
even to kind of take it off the market for development. Jeff, there's been
a lot of numbers kicked around this evening, lots of them, right? So I
want to summarize it really quick and then I'm going to get to a
couple of pointed questions. Those 46 acres are being offered for $11 million.
County is indicated and we're going to consider an MOU with them in
this tonight possibly to buy those western 12 and a half acres and
that leaves those 33 and a half for us, which the price to
us would be roughly $10.6 million. We heard earlier from Finance that
we'll get the Trust for Public Land in their generosity is offered
an interest-free bridge loan of $3 million to reduce the amount of
cash that we have to come up at closing, but still we
would be obligated to repay the $3 million. This is a $10.6
million acquisition consideration by the city. extremely unprecedented at the price.
There may be something else in the history, but not in my seven
years of sitting here. And we also heard this evening that based upon,
the Finance Director kept saying fund balance, and if you were confused by
that, if you're not familiar like we are, cash on hand. So she
talked quite a bit about the cash on hand that we have.
And so I'm gonna use that phrase instead of fund balance. That between the cash
on hand, and she also talked about what type of debt we would qualify for,
we have enough of a line of credit. Between cash on hand and our available
line of credit, we have access to money to do this. And remarkably, with
only perhaps minimally impacting, well, let's say the signalization on 43rd for Providence
Point, which by the way, however, it does impact it. We also heard
during the budget this evening about all the new positions we just authorized,
but there also were two requests for public safety for police positions that
are not funded in this budget. that to use our cash on
hand and perhaps to make loan payments using our cash flow
takes away from our ability to hire additional people. The cost
to us to do this, to use this funding has a
direct impact on other things that are also important to the
city, such as hiring police officers. That, it's really, if someone asked me,
"Hey, should we get a 46-acre park?" I'd say yes. Councilmember Winterstein, is this a
teeing up questions? I'm getting to my point. Thank you. I have the floor. I'm
not yielding the floor yet. Because I think my, what I'm trying to get to
the point is that this is a very big ask. And if you said it's
10.6 and that was it, I would say no. Sorry, it's too big. If you
said eight, I'd say it's too big. If you said five, I'd say it's too
big. As a matter of fact, when we were first considering this, I was thinking,
boy, maybe two, maybe three. Now, by the math that you've come up with, you
think long-term, if everything works out okay, it would be 3.8 to us. So I
sit here and go, okay, that's beyond my stretch number. I think it's a keystone
property. I think we're in a very unique situation that maybe we can get our
hands on this. But I see a risk between 3.8 and 10.6. And there are,
you have identified, I think, five potential funding sources for us to cover that gap.
To or to actually receive some back the biggest one which is that land, you
know conservation initiative or LCI now I think there was an individual here this evening.
I don't know if The woman from King County from LCI program is still here,
but I did very much appreciate Her presence because Things like this have to go
through they have to go through people they have to go through a process right
and so there has to be County staff that are like the idea. But then
it has to go to the advisory committee. Now we haven't heard a lot about
the advisory committee, but could you, I'm gonna ask you a couple questions about these
funders because in my mind, I'm gonna based upon how well you convince me that
we actually have a chance to get this money, how strongly I believe we can
actually get it down to 3.8 million. That's gonna be a key factor in my
decision. So this big one, LCI, is the biggest one of all. I know where
the money comes from. I know it's about, it's borrowing money against future property taxes
that the county's gonna collect. I think it's a wonderful program and I'm grateful that
it's available to us. So the We understand that
the county staff has to have some support for what we're doing. I
think that's been represented very well here today. Tell me about the advisory
committee that would be receiving our application. When would this take place? And
of the advisory committee that you think that would be involved with reviewing
this, how familiar are they with this potential acquisition? That's my first
question. Okay. So we work with the committee on an annual basis for our
applications, for a number of things. I know the committee has, as they come
out every year and tour prospective sites, they have seen this site, they're aware
of the site, they're aware of Bergsma as a property. So it is not
a, it would It would not be an application that would be a new site
for them. So when would the question be in front of them? When would
they be considering our application? So as I had identified earlier, applications will be
filled out this first quarter. They'll be due March 6th of next year.
Okay, okay, so we're just about three months away from applications are due and so
you've had some contact there's some familiarity with the Advisory Committee You know with this
parcel land is there gonna be any change on that committee? Do we know is
there any like? Reappointments or changes, you know people turnover is is a risk to
two issues like this is the same be the same committee No turnover, okay All
right. And I will say, I think there was a public comment tonight, which I
really appreciated. I appreciated the words that were brought forward by one of those existing
committee members who spoke, you know, very glowingly about what this opportunity represents. And that
was very meaningful to me. Thank you for those words. It helps me quite a
bit to know that there's a committee that's familiar, the ones that are going to
assess our application are still going to be there, and at least one member there
has willingly, openly expressed their strong support for this project. Now, they've got to go
through the process, and we have to respect that. I've got that. Now, after that,
however, they're just making a recommendation, right? And that recommendation is going to... King
County Council. Then it goes to the County Council. I would need to... Okay. And
so in what timeframe would the King County Council be assessing that? So they're looking
at reviewing those applications, at least how county has spelled it out right now, July
1st. They would be reviewing those applications and making decisions. I would need to phone
a friend and ask Kirstie True if there was any other details on that process.
Sorry, Christy. Thank you. With respect to that process, the committee's
recommendation is very heavily weighted. And as far as I know,
I cannot think of a time when the executive and the
council have not supported the advisory committee's recommendations. So I think once
that goes through that you're in really solid ground there. And I would say Jeff
is correct that this is going to be a very highly competitive application. And because
there's so much more money that's going to be available this next year, we're really
going to be looking for especially city projects to be coming through the doors that
March 6th application deadline nears. Okay. And still on that same topic, then what are
the key criteria that are going to be considered for these funds, and
how do we line up? How will this application score, Jeff? How do
you think, based upon what you know, how will this do? Do you
have those criteria? I have... as county has submitted or provided in this PowerPoint
presentation, what looks to be considerations for those bond projects. I'm not sure if they
finalized criteria, but they certainly, this project falls right in line with that. I'm not
an odds maker and I'm not going to try and be that, but certainly when
you look at, is it an acquisition that can occur in late 19 or sooner?
In that case, it's already happened. I think we meet that in spades.
That's certainly the second bullet. Is it highly likely to happen, to
be successful? Yes. Is the match secured? Yes, absolutely. That match would
already be underway. Before you go off that one, Jeff, I'm sorry.
If we would be asking for $5.327 million, could you explain that?
How is the match there? If... Do you explain that
for me? Because we were getting a bridge loan of three million. I just didn't
understand how there'd be a match. Yeah, well, I think in terms of completing the
transaction and that that transaction's already would have occurred as we're submitting this application, as
we are presenting our funding strategy, I think Go ahead, Kristi. Yeah, I would just
say this is not an unusual situation actually for these kinds of acquisitions, especially on
large parcels where there are several different funds that are coming together. And certainly, you
know, the city's interest and what it's willing to put forward as match as well
as the commitment for the additional grant. funds. I mean, we're all in on helping
the city to identify those other grants and support those grant sources. So I think
it's, I'm very optimistic that these various sources will be able to come together and
having the 5 million roughly from CFT is going to be very, very attractive. to
the other grant funds, particularly the state grant funds. They're going to look at what's
already been assembled and a commitment from CFT and view that very positively because everybody
wants to then kind of be the next chunk of money to come in to
make it a final deal. Yeah, I appreciate that. So clearly here we're talking about,
you know, certain basic terms. I'm sure there's others very critical about the property and
its attributes as well. We're not seeing any of those. But I do appreciate
that answer quite a bit. I think I just learned that from a matching
perspective, just our plan to apply for those other funds from the state RCO
office and perhaps the county carbon credit program is sufficient per this application to
qualify as this 50% match that's required. Okay. Okay. And the reason
about my question too, so it would probably be in front of the county council
before the end of the year. That's what we anticipate. Okay. It'd be
part of a supplemental towards the maybe fourth quarter. Okay. And that's
pretty critical as well. There are four county council seats that are
up for election in 2019. And I think I heard during audience
comments earlier today, All four, three or maybe all four of those up for reelection
were at least, were visited and had offered their verbal support in recognition for this
program. So in my mind, I puzzled this together that we have a staff person
in yourself who's familiar with this, who's providing some coaching through the process. We had
an advisory committee that's largely aware of this. already that as currently in panel would
be those that are evaluating our application. And we have terms of criteria that at
least at this level, not at the technical, maybe the land itself that we're seeing,
but in terms of the timing and the funding and the match, those are real
critical things. Those criteria, it looks like we line up with very well.
We know finally there's going to be county council members that approve
or deny the application from the advisory committee. Those are the points
I'm trying to make very, very clear because I will tell you
that that assessment is, I consider a positive one. And so I
appreciate that. We seem to have a very good sense of the players involved, the
timings involved, and the timing and when these things are gonna happen. I will say
also, I really appreciated earlier the bringing up of the equity portion of that. And
it's good to know about that program. But just to get clarification about that
as well, that the lands already identified perhaps for this equity, whatever you want
to call it, they don't really have any more points. They just don't have
the burden of having to come up with the match funds. So It's not
like they would score and be more competitive than us, but they just,
because of their location, don't have the match requirement. - That's correct. -
Okay, all right, that helps pretty good. I do have some additional questions
about the other funding sources, but for the moment, I'm glad to yield
the floor to others who may have some questions. - More questions? Looks
like you're on, Councilmember Winterson. - Okay. Thank you. Jeff, I
appreciate it earlier. Fantastic. I had asked Jeff,
I said, obviously the LCI, we know them,
they know us. And I asked Jeff to help me with this. What
about that other $1.5 million in your plan? How much risk is associated with those?
And one way to assess that is to understand, have we applied for monies from
these organizations before? And if so, how did we do? So you've partially answered that.
You talked about when it comes to the Wildlife and Recreation Program, local parks acquisition
program, fund or whatever it's called. In the past, we've received a million
dollars for money related to Confluence Park, about $500,000 for Central Park, and
I think there was another $500,000 in there for Central Park as well.
So those are wins. But Jeff, just a little, so We probably haven't
figured it out yet, but it would be probably an ask around those
same amounts around half a million, 500,000 for that. What do you see
are the risks and our challenges for that fund, the local parks acquisition?
Specifically local parks acquisition? I think similar risks as to
the LCI program exist, perhaps on a recognizing that we
are competing at a state level for those grants. But
as I said, we will work very closely with RCO
staff Once the application materials are posted, those aren't yet, as
I said earlier, we'd be submitting a waiver of retroactivity once
we understand what the grant is, once we understand what the
grant maximum is, once we begin to understand what portion typically in
the local parks fund itself a certain percentage has to go towards acquisition
so that bodes very well and that we would we would be submitting
an app an acquisition grant for local parks it's hard to it's hard
to quantify or or nail down what those risks are until we begin to understand
what the actual application materials are what would be the time frame for that what
year would we do that that would be a 2020 application process okay and and
you talked about where we've been successful um do we have examples of grant
applications to this fund for local parks acquisition where we haven't been successful uh
i would need to research that um we haven't we haven't submitted in my
time Okay. The other fund was the Urban Wildlife Habitat. You talked about a couple
wins. I was trying to catch all of those. I think it would have been
great to see them on a slide, but I was trying to catch them anyway.
You talked about a couple from 2006. McCary Woods, Inge Johnson, there was maybe another
one in there, but they all seem to go back quite a ways. Now that
seems to be one where maybe our odds aren't as good. It's been a long
time. the people involved with that decision-making? I don't know. These are the questions. Help
me understand kind of the people in the process and, you know, what are the
risks for us as relates to applying for an urban wildlife habitat grant? So the
same RCO office administers both grants, so it wouldn't be a different group of players
per se. I could certainly confirm this, but My guess is the city has not
applied for urban wildlife habitat in In that period of time. I'm given some of
the turnover that happened within the department and and other things and Urban Wildlife
Habitat is actually a, in my assessment, this project, given its
size, given the urban setting, that grant is specifically, we'd be
competing for candidate projects that have to be of a size
and a scale such as this in an urban area. That's
a pretty small field. Again, I can't Vegas doesn't have odds,
but this would be a really strong candidate within that applicant pool.
Okay, so this one's a little bit different compared to the local
parks acquisition in that we don't have current experience with that. We
have... I professionally have experience applying in Sammamish, the Beaver Lake Preserve, I'll be
specific, right north of Beaver Lake Park. That was one of the city's first
successful grant acquisitions, and that was Urban Wildlife Habitat grant process that I led.
Okay, and then for the last, well, the second to last one, the Land, Water,
Conservation Fund, I only caught the one in 2011. You said we got about a
half a million for Confluence Park. Were there others? Do you know of other applications
where we haven't been successful? I do not know. No. do you do you think
we've was that there's there only been one if we had other applications in that
area i would need to confirm that i'm not certain in your professional experience have
you been there into that one before i sure have yes in the city of
kent where i recently was lake meridian park dock replacement we were successful in receiving
lwcf funds okay okay and then the last one i wanted to ask about was
the carbon credit program sounds like that's brand new So that one
is just, we don't have any information. We know based upon the
description of that fund that it's something we might have a
good application for but we have no experience with the people in the process and
the decision making there yeah that's a that's different that's not an application program that's
a credit program that as staff is beginning to prepare that and see what that
looks like we've been meeting with them they are very excited about again 46 acres
of treed, heavily wooded, forested hillside in an urban
area. I think it's an immensely strong candidate to
allow interested private sector to purchase carbon credits, to purchase mitigation
credits off of that property. That with these other grants, we would already
have conservation easements on that site. It is a new program and it's
one that we would follow and want this property, should we proceed with
it, to be considered. As I mentioned earlier, when you look proportionally at
this funding strategy, 78% of these funding sources come from
the LCI application. Of the remaining 22%, I would certainly
say that the carbon program is the smallest portion that
we would anticipate of receiving funds, but we feel like
it's such a... the site is such a strong candidate, it would
be worth pursuing that funding source. I want to point out one thing
because this is a great conversation and I just want to emphasize as
your staff representative that we were asked to pursue a scenario for consideration
of what it would take to purchase this property. and asked to
do so in a really complex situation. A development application is
in. What is before you is through a lot of hard
work, our best option. And I don't mean to say that as a
threat. I'm just saying as staff, we did our darndest to see what a scenario
would look like to even consider purchase of this property. It is ambitious. It's going
to require a lot of funding sources to make happen should we consider to proceed
with this. Should we not consider to proceed with this? We again desired to
do our work on your behalf to see what it would take to purchase
this property. Questions? If there are no additional questions, would someone care to make
a motion? Council Member Hunt. Actually, before you make a motion, I just want
to clarify an earlier comment that I made. I did mention earlier that when Council
is voting tonight and we are short staffed a little bit with five out of
seven if they're voting on an ordinance they needed to have four council members to
vote in favor for an ordinance to pass this is not an ordinance this vote
requires three council members out of five in order to pass so the way we're
going to proceed is we'll have a motion Council will have time to talk amongst
themselves and deliberate where they are on the issue and talk to how they're going
to vote. And then I'll call for the vote when their deliberations are complete. Is
there a motion? - Ms. Member Hunt. - I move to authorize the mayor
to enter into and execute all necessary documents to acquire the 46-acre site on Cougar
Mountain known as the Bergsma property in the amount of $11 million in partnership with
the Trust for Public Lands in King County and direct the administration to draft an
agenda bill with a recommended financing option to come before the full council for decision
at the January 7th, 2019 council meeting. - Is there a second? - Second. It's
been moved and seconded. Discussion? Council Member Hunt. Issaquah thrives as a welcoming community, creating
a sustainable legacy that honors our rich history and passion for the natural environment. This
will probably sound familiar to some of you in the audience and definitely will sound
familiar to all of us up on the dais because that is the vision that's
put forward in our draft strategic plan. And I think that this vision speaks to
three main reasons why I believe we should go forward with the acquisition this evening.
And that is for our history as a city that has valued conservation in the
past, our current population, our current communities, passion for the natural environment and our nature
as a welcoming city that will soon be welcoming more residents and wants to provide
a sustainable legacy for people that will be coming to Issaquah in the future and
for our children that live in Issaquah today. In terms of history, this parcel,
as was shown on the map, it fits between Harvey Manning Park and the Cougar
Mountain Regional Wildland Park. It fits like a puzzle piece that completes this network of
green spaces. Harvey Manning was a naturalist. He wrote hiking guides He was a
strong proponent of making sure that people were able to enjoy nature and I think
that it's a it's a fitting continuation of our history that we are considering adding
this parcel which is adjacent to Harvey Manning Park at this time and Harvey Manning
Park is connects with talus and That it would connect talus down to the valley
floor and it really fits like this puzzle piece that makes up the existing
forested hillsides. I also think that we, in our recent history, have direction
from past council in terms of those things that we need to value
and preserve going forward. In the early 1990s and 1993 to be exact,
there was the Treasurer's List and this is an appendix a land use appendix that
is referred to in our comprehensive plan of the city. And in this treasurer's list,
there are a number of different important things that the community valued at that time
and that the community, I believe, still values today and will continue to value into
the future. It includes the Issaquah Alps in their natural state, it's very clear, and
it includes things like wildland for wildlife as well as the clouds and mists that
float down over the Issaquah Alps. And I think that this is a very creative
document for city planning, but at the same time it requires us to be creative
in terms of how do we actually preserve these treasures. And I think that we
should do everything to preserve them and nothing to diminish them as we go forward.
And we should use that guidance from past councils about what our community values. Present
day, we definitely have a community that feels strongly that this is an important, that
the natural spaces and having access to open spaces is important. I think one of
the biggest issues at stake here is the view shed. I think everyone in Issaquah
really values the views and having views of beautiful forested hillsides and the serenity and
the peace that comes from that. I will say that I recently struck up a
conversation with somebody at the gas station Blues and he was he had lived in
Issaquah a long time and I had never met him before and we struck up
a conversation because he was talking about how beautiful the light was at the sunset
and I think that this is something that the community really values and it's something
that unites us as a community and and it's something that everyone values in a
different way, but I think a lot of people, whether or not you choose to
mountain bike or choose to hike, everybody can enjoy looking up at the mountainsides and
the beauty that they provide. Then also access. I recall being on the Planning Policy
Commission and looking at some of these maps of the green necklace and the open
space. I recall there being fuzzy lines and fuzzy dotted lines and some arrows. I
think that part of that green necklace vision is really that as we go forward,
if we are able to make these connections, we will make those connections. This is
one of those connections. I distinctly recall there being some, room for making sure that
we can connect those open spaces like the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park to the
valley floor and I think that this as an access point for people on the
valley floor to go into the urban areas is truly unique and really important. I
also I walked with my family from yesterday night from the
transit center to the precipice trail. I just checked on Google Maps too,
it's about half a mile. With my daughter who's four years old, she
was taking notes. So it took us about 19 minutes. I don't think it would
take that long if you were going without a four-year-old. But I thought for families,
this is actually a really important thing. There's also a small parking lot there, but
this is the transit center. So this is a major hub for transit. And I
think that in terms of having that transit center right there, having an access point,
directly next to the transit center, that took us the time it took to cross
the street. I think that took about three minutes, but again, you could probably get
there faster if you didn't have a four-year-old. I do think actually this makes a
huge difference in terms of having access to that trail. I think that having the
green necklace connected to these other hiking trails is so important and this is truly
a unique opportunity to realize that part of the vision. And then lastly, for
our future as a growing city, as a welcoming city, we will shortly be a
city, most likely we will shortly be a city of 50,000 people. As was stated
earlier, the region is expected to grow by 1.8 million by 2050. And as we
welcome more people, in particular also to the transit-oriented development that will be right next
to this next to this access point. I think that we need to make sure
that they continue to enjoy the quality of life that we enjoy and they continue
to enjoy the beautiful forested hillsides and the beautiful views. So many people here spoke
today about how important it is for their children to continue to enjoy hiking and
that connection with nature. I think it's very important today and will continue to be
just that important and more important as we welcome more people to the community who
will also want to and should be able to access nature and the hiking trails.
And I also lastly wanted to thank so much Christy True for coming this evening
and giving us more information. And for our partners, there has been a lot of
discussion today about the funding and we will have more opportunities to discuss the specifics
around the funding and also to reach out to the community and make sure that
the community understands the funding, that funding doesn't need to be decided tonight. But I
do appreciate all the information that was put forward. And I really appreciate all of
our partners, Trust for Public Lands, King County. And I know that there's a lot
of complexity that has gone into this. At the same time, I think that the
true beauty of this deal is in its simplicity. This is open space. It will
be open space for the future and it will be forested hillside for people to
enjoy today and for the future of Issaquah to enjoy. So for our history
as a city that has valued conservation and for our current population and
our current community that so values nature and for our future as a
welcoming city that we want to provide a sustainable legacy for, I strongly
and unequivocally think that we should support this open space acquisition this evening.
Thank you, Council Member Hunt. Council Member Goodman. Thank you. I want
to thank Council Member Hunt for making the motion and for all of the work
that she's done on this topic. In addition to all the other people who have
worked so hard for nearly two years, the 2,600 people who have signed on for
their support of this, and to the staff and all of our hope to be
funding partners and potential funding partners. And I'm not going to repeat what
Councilmember Hunt said, although I will say that I agree with every single
word that she said. We heard tonight from Doug McClellan, somebody who is familiar
and worked with the City of Issaquah for decades, and from a couple of other
folks as well, that Issaquah has been a leader in land preservation for decades and
decades, and that this is another landmark project that we have in front of us,
and that I believe that we have an opportunity, an extraordinary opportunity tonight
to exert and exhibit our fine leadership again with this proposed acquisition. We
also heard tonight that this is bold. I don't know how many times
we heard the word bold. Bold, bold, bold. This is big. This is
courageous, and we need to have courage. And I don't disagree with that. It is
a big project. It is a significant project. It is a significant amount of money.
And as we heard, and I think nobody would disagree up here, regardless of what
your opinions are, that there is risk. There is risk with the acquisition of property
with the money that we're talking about that potentially we may not get
all of the funds for it. Luckily, we are healthy in our funds,
and I think we can be creative, and I also have great confidence
in the ability of our staff to seek grant funding. We've been very
successful, as you've heard tonight. That's just not people blowing smoke. That's fact. Over many
decades we've been very, very successful. Part of that is because of our city staff
and part of that is because we have people who have worked in our community
for a long time who have been our advocates and have worked with our funding
partners and have terrific reputations. And some of those people spoke tonight and some of
those people are part of the Save Cougar Mountain who are now getting their feet
wet and have gotten their feet wet and learn what it takes to
bring a lot of people together and support a project. One of the
reasons that I believe we have over 2,600 names in support of this
project is because it is seen as a regional amenity. fortunately or unfortunately, it is
in our city limits. And so where we find ourselves as being, we find ourselves
needing to be leaders in this effort because we need to be the leader both
in our efforts to seek funding partners and also to sort of put our money
where our mouth is because we need to be the leader because it is in
our jurisdiction. And that was part of the reason for the resolution in August. And
I do believe today that we need to continue to show that we are willing
to put our money where our mouth is in order for us to get others
in the region to support us. This is a regional, will be a regional amenity,
and the region will support it. And I believe our partners, both King County and
the state, will support it because it is seen as a regional amenity.
So I'm very supportive of this, very excited that we're here tonight. And I couldn't
be more proud of all of the people who have worked so very, very hard
to bring us to this point where we are tonight. And as Council Member Hunt
said, we will be talking about this again in early January and talking about more
details about funding. So very supportive. Thank you, Council Member Goodman. Oh, Deputy Council President
Patis. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a lot of thoughts about
this. It's been a long hard road and this is such
a unique and amazing opportunity, yet a difficult decision based on
the cost. Issaquah is known for its beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers,
and streams, and its trails. When I'm out talking with community
members, that's what I hear the most about. Our residents and
surrounding neighbors love to come to Issaquah for a lot of different
reasons. It's a great city, it has great schools, but predominantly what
I hear about is the people in Issaquah love the environmental piece
of what we offer as a city and they don't want to
lose that. We're growing and we're going to continue to grow. And right now
we have a really unique opportunity that may not come around again. And through hard
work and partnership development, we may be able to preserve 46 acres on Cougar Mountain.
And we've heard from the community to me and both here and when I've been
out in the community loud and clear that this is incredibly important and this is
all incredibly positive. However, this acquisition comes at a really great cost, as you've
heard tonight. And as I look across all of the elements of our city
government that have funding needs, especially in the areas of capital projects, this makes
the decision really difficult. Issaquah has a longstanding history of open space acquisitions and
partnership development. And I've been listening very carefully as we've talked about all
the hard work that has gone into not only the partnership development, but all
of the funding strategies and all the hard work that has been done. And
very key to me, we talked about, you know, worst case scenario and what
would the risk mitigation be. if all of these pieces didn't come together. So I've
listened very, very carefully to all of this and this is, I think, one of
the greatest things that maybe I've gotten to vote on. Definitely it is the greatest
thing that I've gotten to vote on and that has brought me to a yes
vote. tonight, I'll be supporting this agenda bill and I'm proud to
vote to preserve open space and all the connectivity that this is going
to give in terms of the green necklace. This is a legacy.
for our children and I think it's going to have a monumental impact on
our city and as we look into the future and we get to look
at, hopefully look at a forested hillside, I think that we'll always remember that.
I wanted to really thank all of the active and vocal community members all the
hard work that has been done and the trust for public land king county
council members, the administration, Jeff and everybody in the Parks Department.
This has just been a complicated process to put together and
I do really feel like this is just a one-time, very
unique opportunity and that's why it was important to me. at
a lot of sleepless nights over this, including one last night. I was
up until about 2 o'clock in the morning. But I wanted to hear
from everybody this evening, and those are my thoughts. Thank you, Council Member
Batiste. More comments? Council President Martz. So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to
oppose this measure this evening. Next week, we're going to get... the as
part of the strategic plan we're going to get a look at the 22 objectives
and 80 plus action items and we're going to talk about the fact that those
are our 5 year goals and that we're not going to have enough money to
do all of those things. and whatever we think we can get done in the
next five years, we're going to be able to get less of it done if
this winds up being even 3.8, much less $10.6 million. It is true that strategic
land acquisitions is one of the elements in our strategic plan. There are 21 others.
Additionally, We talked a little bit about the park plan. This is real, this park
strategic plan is really near and dear to my heart. We spent so much time
with this. We had an initial version, we didn't like it. We went back, we
got a better one. There's 51 items in here that relate to our city. And
I don't know exactly how much it costs, but I know there's $40 million in
parks and recreation projects in the central capital improvement
plan. Sorry, too many CIPs. There's $475
million in transportation projects in the capital improvement plan. The challenges
in front of us are staggering and they dwarf the monies that we have left
over in the ending fund balance right now, which is sort of greasing the skids
on this a little bit. And so I think this is an important project. I
believe I've been consistent in my concern around the cost for this project. I told
folks in front of you August 6th that the money mattered to me, the dollar
amount mattered to me. And I have said numerous times that my biggest concern was
that we would have a project in front of us that would require us to
take a substantial risk on the dollars coming in. I thank Jeff and the staff.
They've done a great job in discussing that risk and quantifying that risk. And I
appreciate that that's gotten a majority of my fellow council members to yes on this.
However, I just feel the magnitude when I think of that $40 million that's in
this plan. And, you know, it may well be that, yep, number 43 does show
an arrow going from Talis down to the valley but there's 50 other parts to
this plan and I think that our city deserves a discussion of the prioritization of
those 51 elements and of the 475 million dollars in transportation infrastructure that we have
in front of us so for those reasons I'm going to be a no this
evening thank you thank you council president councilmember winterstein yeah uh thank you I APPRECIATED
THE COMMENTS EARLIER. I LOVE THE COMMENTS ABOUT THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE
FROM COUNCILMEMBER HUMDAY. I THINK THAT WAS A VERY GOOD NARRATIVE AND I'M GOING TO
GO BACK AND LISTEN TO IT AGAIN LATER ON. IT WAS SO WELL TOLD. I
said this earlier, this has always felt like a keystone opportunity to me. I've been
driving up and down or walking or riding up and down Newport Way since 1984.
And I tell you, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I realized
that something could even happen to that land. I always wondered who owned that. And
what a amazing thought to think we actually have an opportunity to preserve it. But
as my colleague, Council Member Martz, I think properly points out, we have
to weigh it against other commitments and other duties and obligations that we
have to our citizens. This represents one very, very important element, and I
acknowledge that and actually and I accept that. At the same
time, I think due to some very good financial discipline by the city over the
years, you saw what our finances looked like. I think we also have a fairly
good economy here right now. And when those things come together at the same time,
when an opportunity like this in front of us, to me, this has the feeling
of a very unique opportunity that we should not miss. And I
was very clear earlier that getting this was
important, but the financial side is equally important.
From what I heard earlier this evening, I
feel pretty good about you know, the first 5.2 million, you
know, that we're going to go after. I feel not quite so good about
the next one and a half million. We heard about where the city has
had recent success and other sources where the city hasn't had any recent success.
And so now I was hoping to come in this evening and just
be blown away about all the potential opportunities for grant funding. I'm not
quite there, but now that I've had a chance to think about this,
for the reasons that have been articulated by Vicky and others up here this
evening, and what I've always felt about this, that I'm going to vote in
favor of this tonight. And I haven't asked for everybody wearing a green shirt.
Our work isn't done. right we've uh jeff has done a great job but
all of you and and boy you've pounded some great pavement and done and you've
done some heavy lifts and i i'm just very impressed i'm just I was, it
was thrilling to hear all that you have done and accomplished. And we have more
to do. And I would ask, and we were challenged by David Kapler earlier this
evening. He said that himself. We've got more to do to help make this happen.
Not only acquire it, but also to preserve it and make it a place that
truly does become part of the fabric of the DNA here in Issaquah. And so
that's my ask. Actually, I would love it if Save Cougar Mountain group representatives come
back in the future and ask us what can we do or what army do
we need to assign or how's it going over there or we heard about another
funding source. This is all complex stuff, but it does take a community to do
challenging projects like this. I've appreciated your dedication. I've never had so many sets of
eyes looking at me at one time in this room. And I know I can
feel your passion. I can feel your energy. I want to grab that. I want
to bottle that up, and I want to make it part of the success of
this going forward. Thank you. So before I call for the vote, I just wanted
to let everybody know because you've been so patient, three hours and 20 minutes in,
restraining yourselves. I can tell there is a lot of excitement in the room. What
I'm going to do is read through the motion again and call for the vote
and then I'll call for a 10-minute recess so you can be as loud as
you want and hug as many people as you want. So if there's no further
discussion, all those in favor of authorizing the mayor to enter into and execute all
necessary documents to acquire the 46-acre site on Cougar Mountain, known as the Bergsma property,
in the amount of $11 million in partnership with the Trust for Public Land and
King County, and directing the administration to draft an agenda bill with a recommended financing
option to come before the full council for the decision at the January 7th, 2019
council meeting, signify by saying aye.
Those
opposed?
Nay.
Motion
carries
5
to
1
and
we'll
take
a
10-minute
recess.
4
to
1
and
we'll
take
a
10-minute
recess.
And we are back from our recess. The next item under regular business this
evening is AB 7689, amending IMC 3.63, school impact fees to allow flexibility in
adopting the fees. This item is coming out of the council services and safety
committee. And I'd like to invite policy planning manager Trish Heinenen to make a
presentation. Hi, Trish. Hi, thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm presenting part of these together
because One of them came from the other one, so they're connected sort of as
cousins, but I know you'll be deliberating them individually. But most of this is together
sort of comparing and contrasting. We've been doing impact fees since 1995 because growth management
allowed us to. We've been doing them every year until 2016 was the last year
that impact It only took us one night to do them. In 2017, you expressed
some concern that the district was discounting the fee by what you thought was you
didn't completely understand why they were taking that extra discount from King County what King
County was allocating so you asked that we work on this more this year and
so that's what we've been doing this year you also had a meeting with the
district where you talked about the fees and how they were calculated and we had
several several meetings with services and then also with you to try to explain, to
have the school board and the school district explain how they're doing their discounting, how
they're doing their calculation, and how that fits into their six-year capital plan. As I
said, there's two agenda bills before you. The first one is one that was asked
for in one of the first services meetings, and that is if we did want
to have a higher or lower impact fee then set by the school district six-year
capital plan, could we do that right now? And the answer from the attorney was
no, you need to change the code to allow the flexibility. And so that's where
the new agenda bill for flexibility came, to just allow us to do that. We
don't have to adopt a higher or lower, but this gives us the tool to
do that if we choose to. The second agenda bill is the same old, same
old that actually sets the new fee for January of next year. And so... With
that, that's all I have. I think that's all I have. Oh, we have the
new fee. Well, no, because that's the second one. We're not doing that one yet.
So the first one before you is just to allow the flexibility for the city
of Issaquah to adopt a school impact fee that's higher or lower than what is
set in the school district's capital facility six-year plan. That's what's before you tonight. Thank
you, Trish. This evening, Deputy Council President Batiste is standing in for the
committee chair that was reviewing this item. And did you have some
opening comments? Sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I'm going to give
a little bit more of an overview. So AB 7689, which is
amending the impact fees to allow flexibility in adopting the fees, This
AB provides an amendment to the IMC that would provide the City Council with the
flexibility to set school impact fees higher or lower than proposed by the Issaquah School
District in their capital facilities plan. It gives Council the option to set the fee
above or below and what had been talked about was in order to ensure that
such fees reflect a proportionate share of the cost of system improvements reasonably related to
new development in the city. This AB is followed by another AB, which we've talked
about, that would actually be a vote on changing the impact fees. So this first
one is only on the flexibility. The committee had asked for a clarification to be
made to Section 2 of the ordinance, which has to do with fee calculations and
the application fee, to clarify that there are different school impact fees for single-family and
multi-family developments, and the added language is as follows. The fee shall be uniform for
each single family type and multi-family type of new development occurring within the boundaries
of the City of Issaquah. The Services and Safety Committee unanimously recommended adoption of
the proposed ordinance with the change noted above. Thank you. Were there any questions
for staff? I did forget to ask that. Any questions for staff on this?
Is there a motion? Yes. I would move to adopt ordinance
number 2855 amending IMC 3.63 to allow more flexibility to set school
impact fees differently than proposed in the school district's capital facilities six-year
plan. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded.
I do want to remind the council, we'll have a discussion next, but I do
want to remind you that because this is an ordinance and there are five of
you tonight, it does take four of you to pass the ordinance. Discussion? Council Member
Hunt? Okay. Council Member Hunt. I am in support of this this evening because I
think that This particular change allows us the flexibility to change the
impact fees. And as our city grows and as the needs of
our city grows, I think that having that flexibility is in the
best interest of our community. So I am in support. Thank you.
Any other discussion? Deputy Council President Patis. So I would be in
support of... of this going forward. We've talked
about this over two different years. This has come through
services and safety several different times and I think it's a continuing question.
So what we talked about in committee was two things and one was
allowing this flexibility which needed to be done if the impact fees were
going to be changed. But in regard to this first AB, I
think allowing that flexibility not only now but into the
future is important. Thank you. Councilmember Winterstein? I'd actually, I
want to make an amendment to the motion and I'll
say, I'll make the amendment and then have a few
comments. I would move that we alter the language in
paragraph 3.63.070 paragraph B and change the
phrase system improvements to school facilities and
further make the same change in paragraph
3.63.080 paragraph A change the phrase system
improvements to school facilities. Is there a
second? second it moved in second councilmember winterstein i appreciate it just
a clarification the uh when i first read this bill i was in the imc
and even the summary in the on the bill itself i was alarmed because my
mind went to a different place for what system improvements may mean or not and
it and i read it many times i realized oh my gosh this seems to
extend to even those type of improvements that we have responsibility for such as police
and parks and others that we collect impact fees i had a conversation uh with
the um the count city count um legal counsel and the um and then you
know he thank you jim for providing the definition and then a proposed that proposed
alternative language I do agree that I think it makes the language more clear and
less ambiguous and people are less likely to make the mistake and interpretation that I
was making, which and so that's the only purpose for this proposed change. It makes
the language is very consistent with the other parts of the entire portion of the
IMC. Is there questions or discussions on the amendment to the motion? Council Member Goodman.
Thank you. Is there a definition of system improvements and school facility somewhere? Is
it in here? I didn't see it. It's not in the bill, but Jim provided
it in an email that I think you were CC'd onto. So sorry I didn't
provide that or have that for me right in front of me right now. Sorry.
That was my same question. I didn't have that definition. Jim, let me try to
dig it up. It's defined in the RCWs. That's where it comes from. I think
Jim would like to provide some information. The term system improvements is defined in
the RCW. It's not defined in the code. The term school facilities is defined
in the code and So that's why I'm suggesting that the
definition of system improvements in the RCW is for schools school facilities and
school facilities are defined in the city code. So it was okay to
make the change in the language. It really means the same thing. It
just clarifies it. I guess my question would be whether I think Steve
Crawford's here from the school district if he has any concerned
about okay thanks is there any other discussion um
i'm gonna actually have the um deputy clerk read
the movement to amend uh the amendment reads as
follows amend 3.63.070b by deleting system improvements and replacing
it with school facilities and the same in imc
3.63.080a That's correct, Council Member Winterstein. All those in favor,
say aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries unanimously. Is there any other further
discussion or amendments? Not seeing any. All those in favor of adopting
ordinance number 2855, amending IMC 3.63 to allow more flexibility to set
school impact fees differently than proposed in the school district's capital facility
six-year plan, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? that carries five
and oh five oh the next item on our agenda this evening is ab7640
amending school impact fees also coming out of council services and safety committee and
trish can continue with her presentation okay um the change to the This agenda
bill was actually to set the fees, and the Services Committee voted
two to one to have the higher fee put in the ordinance
with only the 50% discount that's the school district and the King
County requirement, not the additional 10% that's in the six-year capital plan
of the school district. So I haven't read how much more the...
the fees in your ordinance are than what is proposed by the Issaquah School District.
We also got a letter at that last services meeting and the attorney was asked
if that changed any of what he believed was already told to you all. His
legal advice and he responded to you all that nothing had changed. It was all
the same as was in his memo from last year. So those were the only
two things that happened at the last services meeting.
For this agenda bill, I believe Deputy Council President Batiste is standing in for
the Committee Chair for Services. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I'm going to give
you an overview once again. And so we have a really good understanding of
this. This has been something we've been talking about for a couple of years.
The school impact fees and the additional discount from the Issaquah School District, as I've
said, has been discussed at length over the last two years. The discounted amount of
the fee includes the legal amount of the discount that is built into the calculation
from King County. However, the district often makes additional discounts. So this came before services
and safety last year prior to the council vote. And then that came... Then that
was voted on and then in April of 2018, the city council and the school
district had a special meeting with this topic on the agenda. Then council
and at that time council had expressed their concerns regarding
the district's policy to discount the impacts from new development.
For 2019, the proposed fees, they still incorporated discount. However,
the discount had been reduced from 70% to 60% for
2019. The 2019 fees has been before services and
safety over the last several months, several different committee meetings on
this. and has included much deliberation and also presentations from the Issaquah School District, which
thank you for being at so many of those meetings. As you can see from
the agenda bill, services had many questions surrounding the 2019 fees. In our last committee
meeting in November, the committee received a letter from the school board as was just
mentioned. We were able to ask final questions and also ask for some clarifications from
the city attorney. AB 7640 now comes forward 3-0. In the committee
meeting, I had abstained from voting, asking for additional clarification surrounding several
different topics that we had discussed in committee. There were a few
areas that seemed to be a little gray, and I had asked
for additional information from the city attorney, which we've now received.
So this the committee is now recommending the adoption of the ordinance
to increase the school impact fees as identified in the Issaquah School
District's 2018 capital facilities plan except only applying the 50% discount required
by the King County formula which you can see the numbers that
are proposed by the Services Committee there on the screen. Thank you.
Is there a motion by Councilmember Hunt? I would move to adopt
ordinance number 2856 amending subsection 3.6 3.100 a of the Issaquah municipal
code to revise the amount of the school impact fee imposed by
the city. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?
Council President Martz, did I see Council Member Hunt after? So I'm going to oppose
this measure. I think that it's been well established that the Issaquah School District is
one of the most fiscally prudent districts in the state. They consistently do more with
less. They build their schools at cost less per pupil than at other schools. I
didn't oppose the earlier measure because I think it's fine that we want to be
able to, at some future date, if there were a school board that had funding
that we thought was out of whack, we could do that. But this is their
schools, their facilities, their funding formula. This is a minuscule portion of the overall funding,
but it does relate to their funding. ongoing relationship with Olympia and legislative issues
and so at this time because I I believe that there there's no
evidence that they're not a well-run district that knows how to manage their
growth I would oppose our uh moving away from their recommendation thank you
council member Hunt thank you um I I I think that this is
a complicated issue and I respect Council Member Martz's points as well as I definitely
respect as well the partnership with the school district and that the school district has
come before our Services and Safety Committee many times to speak to our committee. And
I think that they, I really appreciated that partnership and I appreciated the information that
was provided. for me i think that because we on council make a lot of
decisions that affect land use and that affect development and affect the rate of growth
in the city and the way that the city grows and this in turn affects
the need for schools as well as a number of other services i think because
we are making those sorts of decisions and because two we have the ability to
set the the impact fees i think that as we've heard there's a
growing need for for schools and um i believe that the growth should
to the extent possible pay for growth um and so i do
approve of not allowing an additional discount and so i am support
am in support of not allowing that additional discount for the city
and i i think that as the city grows and as more
development comes in that growth should provide for the future needs of
those schools and that's why i'm in support Thank you. Other
council members? Council Member Goodman. Thank you. I'm going to
support the Service and Safety Committee's recommendation. You know, one
of the, very simply, I was surprised at the rationale
that was given why the why the extra discount and the
district's rationale was to lessen the cost of housing development in their district boundaries
in order to keep home developers actively building in the district. I don't know
that we need any extra incentive, particularly in the city of Issaquah. I don't
think getting extra housing right now is something that our community expects us to
try to be encouraging especially then just get discounting fees and like Councilmember
Hunt said I think our community does expect if we've heard many many times
that to a large the largest extent possible try to have development pay for
itself which can't completely pay for itself that's illegal but it I just think
that the rationale here is a little bit inconsistent with what our community expects
right now their deputy council president Patis So this has been
an ongoing topic of conversation. I've sat on services and
safety last year when this had come up and then
services and safety this year as we had discussed this
and seemed meeting after meeting. And one of the stumbling
blocks for me in regard to this has been that I want
to make sure that the city is being a really good partner to the Issaquah
School District and for all the reasons that Council Member Martz had talked about.
and and i think that that's critically important and that was a stumbling block for
me but as i've thought about this more and more and how much we've now
talked about this we talked about this last year we had a special meeting about
it and then it's come forward into several different services and safety committee meetings this
year. So I think that we definitely have given the school board an opportunity to
come and talk about any impact this would have. I know that question has been
asked. I've asked that question a few times and so I very much appreciate the
school board coming and working through all of this with us. That's been very important
to me. So, but we have had many opportunities to talk about this and many
touch points. And I do understand the complexity for the school district because different cities
as we just talked about and as Council Member Goodman had just brought up, different
cities have different needs. But this is something that has been coming forward. It does
not sound like that this makes a notable change in terms of the budget or
process. That was what I think I had heard during the committee meetings. And I
wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to ask those questions because again, I
do really value the partnership and I want to make sure that that the school
district had an opportunity to talk to us about that. I do think what it
comes down to is that there's a funding source, a small one that's been untapped
and it's critically important to have development pay for the impact. that it's having so
I'll be supporting this measure. Thank you. Council Member Winterstein. Yeah, I'm going to oppose
the measure. I think an increase from 8,700 to 15, almost 3,000 is very significant.
of course that will just drive up prices of houses anyway. And if you
want to kind of discourage growth, then yeah, you drive up prices. I'm not
sure that that's our intent here, but I hope that it's not. The idea
of, you know, growth, you know, paying for its impact, absolutely, I
subscribe to that. I think this is a very significant increase already,
and I'm going to kind of defer to the comprehensive judgment that
the school district applied for their entire district in coming up with
this number and oppose the ordinance as currently worded. is
there any other discussion hearing none i'll call for the vote um all
those in favor of adopting ordinance number 2856 amending subsection 3.63.100 per n
a of the issaquah municipal code to revise the amount of the school
impact fee imposed by the city signify by saying aye aye aye opposed
no i understand that fails three to two it required four votes to
pass The next item on
the agenda is AB 7687, Request for
Right-of-Way Encumbrance, TALIS Parcel 9. This item
is coming out of the Council Infrastructure
Committee, and I'd like to invite Economic
and Development Services Director Keith Niven to
make a presentation. Thank you, Madam Mayor,
City Council. Keith Niven, Director of Economic
Development and Development Services. So, Agenda Bill
7687 is a request to encumber both public right-of-way and
city property with wall tiebacks by a property developer. And the administration
is recommending denial on this request. But because use of city right-of-way
and city property is a City Council decision, the property owner asked
for us to forward this forward to the City Council
for a decision even though the administration is not supporting it. So
to get you oriented, this is SR 900 down here. West is
to the left. As you go up Talus Drive, Talus Drive
T's into Shangri-La and Parcel 9 sits basically just west of the
T intersection. The request for the encumbrance tiebacks are actually up here
on the south and west ends, which is actually Shangri-La as it
bends around the property is called Foothills Drive. So you're going to
see a reference to Foothills Drive. That's the extension. This road as
it goes up to parcels seven and eight which is the very top of talus.
So Here's a section of the roadway. I couldn't couldn't put all this on one
graphic So I apologize first I'm going to show you the right-of-way and what what
utilities are in that right-of-way and then I'm going to show you a where the
requests for the tie backs are. So this is, as I mentioned, this is Foothills
Drive as it heads up to Parcels 7 and 8. And this is, I think
it's called Stony Creek. This goes over to the bridges in Tallis. And then right
here is the city's water reservoir. And as you can see, we
have water lines, sewer lines, storm lines. And what this graphic
doesn't show in the eastern portion of the right-of-way, there's also
dry utilities. So gas, power, and Comcast are all within the
right-of-way. of Foothills Drive. So here's the exhibit that shows the tiebacks.
As you can see, so the wall, the proposed wall runs along here.
It's in parcel nine. And all these lines that extend back through
the right-of-way and actually beyond the right-of-way are the wall tiebacks. So as
you can see, they basically encumber all of the right-of-way for this entire
length. They also extend onto city property, which is the green.
And they also are proposing to extend them onto
this parcel on the south side of Stony Creek.
And this is HOA property. So they'd have to get, so before we could
approve this permit, they have to get your approval to go on city property
and city right of way. They'd also have to get the HOA to agree
to these encumbrances on HOA property. So as you can see, and if you
go think back to that previous slide, the water line runs in here, the sewer
line runs in here, the storm line runs in here, and then the private utilities
are basically in the outer five feet. There was, as, so Mr. Hill testified to
this earlier and he provided a letter. I don't know if it was the same
letter because I didn't get a copy of what was submitted tonight. I apologize. But
basically what they're asking for, and I wanted to make sure that you recognize that
we did get this letter on Friday. The request was to require further consideration of
the request for the encumbrance. It identified a joint interest of
stabilization and expediency, identifying that you have to design a wall
that doesn't have the tiebacks will take more time. There is
a situation where staff did approve a small wall with tiebacks
as part of the original grading plan for parcel 9. They
identified that as a precedent. We don't believe that set precedent. And we can
get into that if you would like to. Contrary to, I think, the comment
that Mr. Hill provided earlier, I don't think you can say there's no
risk. Basically, there are going to be private structures within the right-of-way, as
was identified in his letter from 1130. The risks are very low, but
there are risks because there are private structures within the right-of-way. So I'm
going to stop talking and see if I don't know if Council Member Hunt wants
to say anything from committee since I think she's sitting in for Council Member Ramos.
We're missing a lot of chairs today. So Council Member Hunt, did you have some
comments you wanted to share from committee? Yes. So at
committee, the committee's recommendation was unanimous and it was to
adhere to the recommendation of the administration. The committee discussed
that the city's past policy and practice in terms of
what has been done previously, that this denial would be
in line with that and then also the that if the
city didn't denied this um then we would also not have the additional
liability or the additional risk associated with having structural elements in our city's
right-of-way so i think those were the two main reasons discussed by the
committee and the reason for the unanimous recommendation to go with the administration's
denial recommendation thank you are there any questions Councilmember Wintersong.
Thank you Keith. Couple questions. First of all, what's that bottom chart? I don't
think I have that in the packet. The green bars on the bottom there.
What is that? This chart? Yeah. So this is an exhibit showing the actual
wall itself in profile. Does that make sense? All right. Okay. Okay. Actually, I
was so focused on the upper part of that that I was missing that.
Okay. So the from the upper part, that looks a little bit different than
the picture I have in my packet. So this is a little bit different because
the clarity was better. This was provided by the applicant for infrastructure. So I substituted
this for tonight because it's a better clarity. It should be the same graphic as
what was in the previous infrastructure presentation but this shows up better on our screen
than the previous one did so I just did a swap. Okay the version I
have in front of me has some information I can't see up there I want
to ask you about it. Okay. It's got four highlights it says tie back depth
CB and then it has 17.5 for another one at 18.8 three another one
at nineteen point six two and another one at twenty four point seven nine
so those I'm interpreting to be that where the depth of that tie back
would be relative to the road surface yes and those those tie backs are
going in at a slant and So they are actually, they are higher,
closer to the wall. - So what are those depths? At the least
depth or average depth or maximum depth? - So where are you reading
that? - Well, no, okay, I get they're angled into the ground, right?
- They're angled, yes. - So these depth numbers on this chart, 17.54,
is that, where is that measurement taken? - I believe that those are
at the, East property at the east right away edge. Okay,
so I don't know about Depths for dry and white you wet
utilities. Yes, that seems pretty deep to me What is what's the
proximity of where the normal utilities would go compared to these steps?
So it's gonna vary but there's approximately 10 feet of Delta between
the 17 feet and where the wet utilities are and So, you
know, the question is, so here's, I'm not sure what kind of rationale you're
going through in your head, Councilmember, but let me say this. What happens is,
so those tiebacks are a tensioned member, And they're actually kind of, they
go back into actually a solid surface. So they're going back until they find like
bedrock, right? But also they rely on the weight of the film material that's on
top of them. And so part of the concern that we have is let's assume
you had to excavate out a water line or a sewer line because it had
a problem. So you're now excavating down to where there's only 10 feet potentially of
fill left on top of that tieback. What we don't know is what happens, is
there going to be enough resistance to keep that tieback in place or is
that tieback going to lose its stability and potentially want to basically look like
a bungee cord and come back and hit the wall? And if that happens,
what happens to the stability of the wall? And as you can see, they're
planning to build residences along this is this is the outline
of their land plan and if they can stabilize their property they're going to want
to pursue the land plan that they have already approved you can see the proximity
of houses to that wall and the concern that we have is is
I don't disagree with Mr. Hill that the risk of hitting one of those
tiebacks is very low, but there's a risk there. And what this property owner
hasn't done is demonstrated to us that they cannot pursue a different wall design
that doesn't include tiebacks. And it seems like before they ask us to burden
our property, that we would ask them to explore other design solutions.
Understood. And since you mentioned it, you're wondering what my train of thought would be.
Yes. You actually gave me the words for that. You said, I think you were
speculating whether or not there would be risk if we go just dig down and
are just 10 feet above those bungee cords. It seems to me there should be
an engineering answer. to that scenario rather than just speculation? Can't there be
an engineering answer other than we're just thinking it might be a problem? So
you're at the infrastructure committee, your director of engineering identified a scenario that isn't
planned for. What if you have a water leak? And what if that water
leak then compromises a bed beyond just the pipe bed? So you can't-- so
the risk that's there So you're dealing with wet infrastructure that generally
behaves a certain way, but we're in a situation with property that's
been moving and there's a level of risk there that the administration
wasn't willing to feel a comfort with to recommend approval for this,
which is why we recommended denial. So is there engineering that can
be done? Absolutely. You know, when you're dealing with stuff under the surface of the
ground, what you'll find is every geotech says... We think it could be this, but
there's a chance it might not be. So... All right, just one last question. My
recollection is that the actual very upper or western edge of the slide is basically
at the edge of that road. And so if those tiebacks go all the way
into bedrock further west of that, then it's actually tying back into a surface that
did not move? It's our opinion that it's our geotech's opinion
that this property west of Foothills Drive is not moving. In the
land that did move, however, the edge of it was right there
at the eastern edge of the roadway, right? This was the headscarf.
The headscarf of the slide was east of Foothills Drive. Any additional
questions? And we've had a motion. I'm forgetting. We had a motion?
Okay, let's go for a motion. Okay. I move to
deny the request by Oratalis 90 to place wall tiebacks within public right-of-way
and into city-owned property on Foothills Drive, Northwest. Oh, thank you. Is there
a second? It's been moved and seconded. Further council discussion? Councilmember Winterstein? So
if this was denied, what alternatives does the applicant have? Their first
choice would be to design a different wall that doesn't require
tiebacks. And you think that such a design exists out there?
I know it does. The question is, is it economically feasible
for them to pursue that wall? And we don't have an
answer to that. Because you could do a casket-in-place concrete wall,
for example. Okay, thank you, Keith. Are there any other questions?
Seeing none, all those in favor of denying the request by Oratelus 90 to
place wall tiebacks within public right of way and into city-owned property on Foothills
Drive Northwest signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Next and last
item on our agenda this evening is good of the order. Do council members
have anything for good of the order? Deputy Council President Patis.
I have two things for good of the order because I forgot
to say them earlier. So I had failed to say that our
services and safety next meeting is December 11th, 2018, 6:30 in council
chambers. And I also failed to say one, One particular thing when we
were going through a budget deliberation and that was that I wanted to
echo something that Council President Martz said in terms of this has been,
we had difficulty in terms of transition and I really wanted to thank
Emily and the Mayor and everyone on the finance team and everyone who
did really, really hard work to get the budget together thank you very nice
anybody else for good of the order that's all president martz i'll mention while i
think we're waiting on one more late breaking item i'll just mention i want to
thank council member hunt who through the luck of the draw got every single item
this evening with it with an assist from council deputy president batiste but thank you
you had and they weren't they weren't all light subjects either they weren't like pro
forma kind of things they were at very heavy duty and thank you so much
for uh providing that leadership thank you i have a couple little items for good
of the order and then we will be revisiting ab7640 tonight because as the motion
was denied There is some further action that you'll have to take this evening on
that. The good of the order items, December 10th, there'll be a Council special meeting,
executive session at 5:45 p.m. in the Cougar Room to discuss a labor item. on
december 10th there will also be a council work session and potential items for that
include the citywide strategic plan update water system plan and title 18 and green necklace
resourcing plan on december 11th right and early we will have legislative breakfast at 7
30 a.m at tibbets creek manor And depending on our last work item,
there is the potential to cancel the December 17th regular council
meeting. We have approved the budget this evening. We may have
no outstanding business, but I believe we need to get through
our work on AB 7640 to know that that's the case.
So do we have a... We're going to take a five-minute
break. Okay. Thanks.
let's give the audience a break keith so we are back
on air and back in session and um we are going
back to um the motion for agenda bill should i get
the right one 7640 The vote was 3 to 2, which failed,
and I'm looking to see if anybody is looking to reconsider their vote on
that ordinance. Council President Martz. Madam Mayor, as one of the prevailers, I move
to reconsider my vote on ordinance number 2856, amending school impact fees. The vote
is on whether the vote... Sorry, is there a second? It can be seconded
by anybody. It can be anybody. Second. Second. it's been moved and seconded
the vote is on whether or not the vote is to be reconsidered on ordinance
number 2856 the motion to reconsider ordinance 2856 has been moved and seconded is there
any council discussion uh well just could we could the re for the record could
we have somebody explain what we're voting to do um uh if you vote to
reconsider the vote on the ordinance it will put the ordinance back before you for
a vote as if it wasn't adopted So it can be open for
amendment or a different vote outcome or the same vote outcome. Just
to provide some transparency in the failure of the original motion. Currently,
there would be no increase in school impact fees in 2019 over
2018 unless the council decides to reconsider the motion. Thank you. Is
there any discussion? All those in favor of
reconsidering Ordinance 2856 signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That passes unanimously. The motion
to reconsider is approved and the ordinance is now before the Council for a vote.
Madam Mayor, I move to amend Ordinance number 2856 to replace the proposed fees with
the school district's proposed 2019 impact fees as follows: Number one, $15,276
per single-family residential unit and $4,399 per multi-family residential unit. Second.
It's been moved and seconded. The motion is to amend the
ordinance to include the school district's proposed 2019 fees and is
there any council discussion? if there's no
further discussion all those in favor of amending the ordinance to include the school district's
proposed 2019 fees of fifteen thousand two hundred and seventy six dollars per single family
and three thousand three hundred and ninety nine dollars for multi-family residential unit signify by
saying that should have been four thousand three hundred and ninety nine for multifamily that's
a typo Okay, I will reread that. All those in favor
of amending the ordinance to include the school district's proposed 2019
fees of $15,276 per single family and $4,399 per multifamily residential
unit signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That passes unanimously.
The main motion to adopt ordinance number 2856 is now back
before the council. so just go to the
vote um the motion to adopt ordinance number 2856 amending subsection 3.63.100 per n a
of the iskwa municipal code to revise the amount of the school impact fee imposed
by the city as amended has been moved and seconded is there any council discussion
If there's no further discussion, all those in favor of adopting ordinance number 2856,
amending subsection 3.63.100 of the Issaquah Municipal Code to revise the amount of the
school impact fee imposed by the city as amended, signify by saying aye. -
Aye. - Those opposed? That passes unanimously. - Thank you, Council President Martz.
uh on the agenda there is no executive session and the next
item is a german there being no further business the meeting is
adjourned at 11 25. awesome thank you