get us started
okay welcome everyone i council
president walsh
called the august 8th committee of the
whole meeting to order
our first agenda item is as always is
public comment
so there are multiple public comment
opportunities at tonight's meeting first
there's this public
general public comment opportunity at
the beginning of the meeting or you can
make comments after the presentation and
council questions question and answer
period
for each of tonight's agenda items
members of the public may address
council at this time in person or
virtually those who signed up in advance
to make comments will be called on first
if you're joining us virtually and would
like to make comments please raise your
virtual hand if you're on the phone
press star 3. if you've joined by
computer or smartphone look for the hand
icon this varies by device one option
may be to go the participant panel and
choose the raise hand icon in the lower
right hand corner if you are in the room
and did not sign up i will ask for other
speakers before closing this portion of
the meeting
so i will wait a moment and see if
anyone wishes to raise their hand
so clerk has anyone signed up to speak
or indicated a desire to speak this
evening
council president no one has signed up
prior to the meeting and
i do not see any virtual hands raised we
have no attendees
excellent okay then we will move swiftly
on to our next agenda item which is id
1233
recognition of rob hunt on retirement as
the executive director of village
theater so i'm going to proceed over to
the lectern and call him up and
see what we can do about this
this is way too tall for me
excellent join me back here
so
um
tonight we recognize rob hunt on his
retirement from village theater uh
you've made a significant just minorly
significant contribution to our
community through your leadership and
service
since
1979 you've worked tirelessly to grow
village theater and make it into the
cultural and artistic powerhouse that it
is today
from the city's perspective issaquah's
economic vitality and downtown core has
been greatly enhanced by your service
and so we wanted to thank you
and give you this retirement plaque
which reads in recognition of your
outstanding dedication and over 43 years
of service in the arts your city
appreciates you
let's
take a picture
there you go
there you go
[Applause]
do you have any words you'd like to
share oh just uh thanks for all of the
support the city of issaquah has given
for two village theater over the years
with
all of our buildings and all of our
programming and just the general support
uh it's been really great to to work in
issaquah and although i live in bellevue
i will continue to come to issaquah for
my entertainment and uh restaurants and
that kind of thing because this is kind
of my home so i appreciate everything
you've done and
thank you for for this honor thank you
very much
okay well that is always nice to be able
to recognize someone for their service
the next item on our agenda is id
1149 the 2023 2024 budget revenue
forecast and mid-year update and for
that it will be presented by our cfo
robert hamoud
there you go
thank you council president walsh just
give me one second here to put the
presentation up
okay so tonight is uh one of the first
looks and i apologize it's august 8th i
know
this is one of the first looks
at the budget
for
the upcoming so
just
want to have the caveat as you see the
slides tonight um all the data is very
preliminary we have you know a lot of
different things going on i'm going to
discuss kind of the factors we're
looking at right now and also keep in
mind too because
we're full accrual here at the city that
our finances off
often lag one or two months behind like
for example and so some of our revenue
sources do as well as far as the
reporting of sales tax um so
this is our you know best shot at it
mid-year here um through the end of july
and this is the snapshot i'm going to
show tonight and also some of the
assumptions we're working on to build
the budget as we go forward for 2023 and
2024.
and so right now
just to summarize revenues are coming in
stronger than anticipated especially in
utility tax
b o community planning and development
fees
we're having as i know mini's office is
experiencing pretty strong uh
permitting and construction inspections
this year
uh b o has been very strong we're seeing
and that's the business and operations
tax so we're seeing a lot of stronger
reporting for our local business
community
we're also seeing
utility taxes are increasing as well or
utility tax revenue is increasing so
we're seeing higher usage especially
with return to work for some of our
major companies within the city we're
seeing more usage on utilities and of
course the tax on top of that reflects
uh the revenue increases we're seeing so
a lot of that's the return to work and
just the economy picking up um compared
to this point last year recreations and
parks fees are also returning to
precopite level of activity so we're
seeing a lot more signups and groups
we're also seeing a lot more facility
rentals events are happening of course
events were still very limited this time
last year so we're seeing
if not a normal summer very very close
to one
expenditures though are they're expected
to finish about 1.9
under the amended appropriation for 2022
so that's due to staff vacancies and
right now
i'm going to talk a little bit about the
vacancy impact but it has decreased
since the beginning of the year so
staff is making progress again with our
human resources staff is fully staffed
doing a lot of recruiting right now and
we are filling those positions so that
that vacancies gap is decreasing as we
go forward
so this is the high level i'm going to
dig into the numbers a little bit on
future slides here but this is the high
level forecast so you can see
our actuals from 2020 um to our forecast
you can see the difference the gray is
the amended budget so this is after the
budget amendment that you ratified
earlier this year after the adopted
budget and then the forecast and you can
see
back to kind of the summary i gave on
the previous slide the revenues are
above our estimate and again just
because we are seeing very strong
business activity this year compared to
last year and expenditures
again are slightly down but almost all
of that is attributed at this point on
the general fund to vacancies but again
the city is making progress on the
vacancies
so current economic conditions
right now we have the best way to phrase
it is mixed economic signals consumer
price index for the seattle
cpiu this is what the city uses to
measure is up 10.1 from june 2022 over
june 2021 that's driven by higher energy
housing construction and food cost
however and the us pdp has also
contracted two consecutive quarters
negative 1.6 percent in the first q of
22 negative 0.9 percent in the second
quarter
however the unemployment rate has
decreased in july to 3.5 percent that's
the lowest point since february of 2020.
and also the median home sales price in
issaquah in june was 1.1 million dollars
it's eight percent higher than it was in
june so that means half the the homes
that were sold in june were higher than
1.1 half were below 1.1
but however the home sales themselves
were down 19 percent
and just a side note uh we saw and we
also saw with our real estate excise tax
transactions which against a special
revenue fund but we have seen a lot of
commercial real estate purchases and
activity since the beginning of the year
some very large ones and that's
that is showing strong growth that's
very very hard to project or predict
that market that market runs a little
bit differently than the residential
market does
so budget revenue forecast and at any
time you have questions during this just
please raise your hand and let me know
and i will answer those questions as we
go forward
you can see i won't go through every
single one just hit the highlights here
you can see that property tax forecast
is pretty flat
again property tax doesn't grow much
year over year because we don't have a
lot of new construction
uh happening within the city we have
some that will come online in the next
couple of years but the base is pretty
consistent so right now we're seeing
it's the same as forecast about 10.1
million
sales tax you can see it's higher it's
about our forecast is about a million
dollars higher than it was in the
amended budget and what we're seeing on
sales tax is very interesting when we go
back to how the economy is doing we're
seeing um
really you know still a huge strength in
anything business related so in the
business we call it business to business
when local businesses make equipment
purchases data purchases anything else
is taxable we see that we're seeing a
lot of activity since the beginning of
the year
we are also seeing restaurants are
essentially
they're pretty flat right now so the
restaurant industry looks like it's a
little flat granted our sales tax
numbers again they lagged two months so
the most recent numbers we have were
through
may at this point so
excuse me june at this point so they do
lag a little bit so we haven't gotten
the summer numbers yet as we go forward
however
what we're seeing with sales tax as well
is retail sales were up a little bit
we're not sure if that's because of
increased activity or because prices
went up because of inflation we don't
know how much of a trend that is
something we're going to monitor through
the end of the year
where we're seeing a little bit of a
slowdown that we're going to watch
through the end of the year right now
but it's still within our kind of margin
of forecast is construction sales tax
and anything related on that
think sales tax with say
buying new equipment buying new drywall
for a project and also the lumber yard
at home depot anything that's picked up
at home depot's taxable here the lumber
yard generates very large numbers uh
for that company and we're watching that
we're kind of watching the trends of
that at that it's starting to that
construction sector starting to soften a
little bit but again we're lagging two
months behind so we don't have the full
summer construction season numbers until
a few months from now to see how that
actually panned out some of it could
have been the weather because the
weather was still slow going into may
excuse me
bno again i said
large increase again we're seeing a lot
of business activity return to the city
utility tax follows that
and then again planning fees the
community development planning fees were
up parks fees are up again just seeing a
lot of
activity compared to this time last year
with the resumption of group activities
youth camps and rentals
and intergovernmental rentals
intergovernmental revenues you can see
just a slight decrease that's just due
to the amount of grants we received in
2021 compared to 2022 at this point
so again i already kind of went through
this
a bit
before we move on we do have one
question council member a actually it's
two sure two two questions um the first
one is um sort of a math problem so our
our sales tax rate is one percent right
we get one percent of the sales tax no i
wish we did
.85 for the base rate okay that answers
my question thank you
um and then my second one is um would it
be really interesting to have 2019 uh
revenue on here so pre-pandemic um do
you know kind of how our forecast for
2022 is looking compared to 2019
pre-pandemic i consider you a chart with
that information that would be awesome
yes thank you
yeah just a side note if you're looking
at the affordable housing sales tax
that's because the city does receive the
full 1.1 percent um with the
the base sales tax where you see 0.85
per rcw county receives 0.15 of that
and so our expenditure forecast right
now year to date
we're on track through june 30th about
49.9 percent you can see everybody's
tracking um to their budget what were
in the fire service obviously that's a
contract so again we're billed i believe
quarterly on that so that's why it's a
little slightly higher if we already
made the payment what we are monitoring
again are the vacancies so we're making
sure that the vacancy number you know
could affect our year-to-date year-end
but again the city is making a lot of
progress with that um we've reduced the
amount of vacancies almost in half from
this time of last year so they are
dramatically going down
so again it's about 30 34 as of last
week
and again we have other positions
expected to be filled in upcoming months
also the expenditure forecast that i
showed in the previous page includes the
newport pedestrian crossing that council
added to the general fund budget
and then we are seeing inflation this is
one thing i did forget to mention
earlier we are seeing inflation
beginning to impact capital projects and
some contracts there's a construction
cost index the morton instant cost index
that's used regionally here
pretty much to index
for all the materials we build in the
capital project the q1 numbers are way
up we're still waiting for the q2 will
come out in september we're assuming
it's probably going to be higher than q1
we're hoping that you know inflation is
peaking by the end of the year but
that's one of the uncertainties that
we're looking at going forward building
this budget
and so the long-term forecast i just
wanted to talk about this a little bit
how we came up with these assumptions so
we're looking at what 2023 and 2024
which would comprise the biennial budget
what would be built in there so you're
going to see higher increases built in
the first year because of the inflation
cost of living other assumptions that we
have on benefits and services and
supplies increases
we slightly lower that for 24 because we
think most of the inflation this year
would be experienced in cost for next
year going down after that and then we
assume about
four percent or so increases going
forward after that for each year so the
revenue line again
includes for 2022 you're going to see
that drop to 2023 that includes the arp
of funding because we put the arpa
funding in the general fund so that 66.2
includes that second trench of the arpa
funding that was over 4 million dollars
so when you take that out you can see
plus growth that's how it drops from
2022 to 2023
and the expenditure side does include
the arp as well but it's more staggered
because that's multiple years that we're
spending on those funds
and so you can see the total ending fund
balance and again
it is preliminary in the year there's a
lot of different factors that could
happen i'm going to show you on a future
slide here
what our assumptions are as far as our
capacity during the budget and during
the budget deliberations
but right now you can see the designated
fund balance we are forecasting
we're using the council target of 15 we
are forecasting
the designated fund balance does include
the arpa funding in it we are obviously
going to spend it down
in future years undesidated fund balance
you can see there
does include
some spend down but also growth with
those revenues over expenditures so we
are spending it but of course there's
our we're trying to keep the revenues
over the expenditures so you could see
that that gap there but this does not
include any new funding this year this
is just if we included our assumptions
on the baseline and they held
so again just base increases new no new
additional
a one-timer ongoing spend and i'm going
to show you a little more detail in the
next slide
any questions on this so far
great
so i went over this here
and yeah just a side note here on the
summary
utility tax is tied to rate increases i
know
there is a for example puget sound
energy did come out with the proposal
for a large rate increase i know that's
being debated by the states so we kind
of took
a little lower increase that they're
proposing
and that utility tax would be on top of
that rate so we
were kind of estimating what we're
receiving in electricity bills the past
couple years forecasting that out with
the rate increase in there same thing
with the solid waste contract how that's
built into the rates maybe taking a
little bit from demand in future years
but with
certain core utilities you're talking
water you're talking wastewater you're
talking even
most electricity and same thing with
solid waste
there's not a lot of you know when rates
go up people tend to pay that there's
not a lot of drop off in demand for
those services that's unless there's an
economic factor there
so
utility tax is very consistent through
our forecast sales tax is trickier sales
tax we are anticipating it a slowdown of
the growth so not
not a contraction but a slowdown of the
growth because there has been
large-scale construction projects the
past few years there's activity
there's still projects in the future but
fewer projects right now so if another
costco came in or another large project
we would update the forecast to
incorporate those projects and we work
with
cpd to to try to have the best crystal
ball we can with some of that but sales
tax is cyclical it's very hard for
example to project auto sales like auto
sales right now
um have been struggling because of the
computer chip but if there's an over
supply
might be discounted we might see growth
in the next few years so there's a lot
of those items
that we're looking at with this
forecast but like i said if you look at
property tax and utility tax those are
your your solid revenues going into the
future sales tax again harder to project
and we also assume in our forecast the
approve that council would approve the
annual one percent property tax increase
in there each year
so the
this is the preliminary budget chart and
i have to do it asterisk just subject to
change
this is our best guess right now but as
revenues become clear we get another
couple months of revenues get another
couple months of expenditures
this could change so again this is our
best shot at this point in august we
have till december
to lock down all the numbers per statute
so if there's any fundamental change to
this obviously we'll come back to you
before that happens and again we're
targeting november passage of the budget
so any new information we would notify
the council immediately but this is our
best
estimate at this point again with the
assumptions that i outlined earlier in
my presentation
and so i want you to look at the
basically so the baseline again
is again what we're assuming all those
assumptions on the revenue side
we have the designated restricted
revenues because affordable housing
sales tax
that again because it's a full one
percent not at 0.85 that's why the
forecast is 2.4 to 2.5 million a year so
it's a little higher than you would see
on the the sales tax growth forecasting
expenditures you can see ongoing and one
time
so
we have some one-time expenditures that
already built into 23 and 24 in the
baseline then we also have ongoing
expenditures
um that
that are also in there too so one time
would be one-time projects that were
already approved there were multiple
years and i believe there's some limited
term employees that were approved for 23
24 in there so that is
what those numbers represent then you
see the designated or restricted
expenditures and again that's the arp
expenditures
one-time funds you can see 23
and 24. and so we're looking at this
potential proposed scenario in 2023 when
you go down the categories here and you
can see the ongoing capacity so again
this is the difference between just the
ongoing you take the ongoing categories
and revenue
i don't know why my phone did that i
apologize
and ongoing expenditures
and so this is the ongoing capacity so
you can see the difference we're we're
seeing between that 59.4 number for
baseline ongoing revenues for 23
and
56.5
for expenditures
in 2023 gives you that 2.9 million
so again that's separate from the
designated restricted expenditures for
our bus so we're just doing what what
that ongoing capacity is that's 2.9
million is what we're looking at
um
we have talked about the fund balance
and spending down the fund balance so
we're offering a scenario here
what would reduce to the 15 percent
target we have additional ongoing
capacity of 2.1 million
additional one-time capacity of 10.5
million and so you see the impact on
fund balance you see the nd fund balance
of 22.9 million if you were to do that
designated to 12.8 undesignated at 10.1
and so it gets you down to about 16 the
first year and then down to fifteen
percent the second year
any questions on this
okay councilmember d michelle
um
so i'm looking at the affordable housing
um
sales tax and so it
as i'm understanding it as i'm reading
it every year we're going to get about
2.4 million dollars
and then that will go into the
designated fund balance
um and just build until we decide to
spend it that's correct okay so if
there's a spending plan attached to it
obviously that would do that one one
side note i do want to make on that
revenue source is because it is sales
tax it is subject to cycles in the
economy
it is
more sensitive to ups and downs
so that is something where we have a
spending plan we would you know
obviously designate a reasonable reserve
on that as well
okay uh um so when i look at the you
know the uh projected designated fund
balance
it looks like it's going down but
we're putting maybe over three years
time we're putting like seven point five
seven
and a half million dollars in there
um
it's just i just wondering
if we have
is it are the does the designated fund
balance go down because we've got other
plans for that fund or
right so again it goes down on the
designated fund balance
there were some items on that designated
fund balance
that do drop off in 24. i can come back
to you with a list of those items that
do okay that would be helpful yeah thank
you so much yes
but robert they're unrelated to the
affordable housing unrelated to
affordable housing that's correct
right right the affordable housing sales
tax
nothing has been designated from that
sales tax at this point right okay
thanks
robert would it be valid to say that one
of the reasons why the designated fund
balance decreases is because of the
large arpa expenditures that are in that
designated fund balance so as much as
we're going up because of the affordable
housing revenue we're going down more
than that because of the arpa
expenditures correct
um i need to
produce the list to you for the detail i
just want to make sure that we identify
those out but i'll give that to you but
that's certainly a big piece of it yes
yeah okay okay thanks anything else
questions nope okay let's move on
thank you
and so i think i went through all of
these assumptions here and again
subject to change as we say but at this
point this is the the best information
available to us um
to calculate that capacity there are
some adjustments to the capacity that
staff is looking at right now in terms
of benefit options in terms of what's
happening with labor negotiations that
could impact that that number that 2.9
number that i i did reflect on the
previous slide
and that's all i have
okay so at this point we've got time for
questions and then we can go to public
comment and come back for
i don't know if there's really any
deliberation on this so much as just
providing any additional questions that
we have and if just one moment i'm gonna
ask and see if council member hunt has
any questions so we can make sure she's
part of the conversation that's a no
yes
i didn't see what your hand
signal was
no
no question
okay
sounds good okay then uh councilmember
joe
thank you kel's president
uh robert thanks for the presentation
some good information there that keeps
us on
task and keeps our mind on where we're
going i i know that we're changing our
budget from a single year budget to a
biennial and i know there you've gone
through some of the challenges that we
will experience i know that we're going
to have some additional sessions
this budget time period
can you give us an update on how your
department's doing on the added work and
and that transition to a biennial budget
yeah really appreciate uh that question
councilmember joe uh it's not just a
department it's a team effort so it's
all departments in the city adjusting to
that so we've had trainings we've had a
you know a lot more discussions than we
probably normally would at this point
but i think that people are
understanding it it's it's more of you
know what are you going to do the first
year how's the second year going to look
so i think it's it's certainly
a change from press practice but it's
not out of the ordinary we're hoping
that our training materials and kind of
our internal discussions have have made
it a smooth process so far
thank you and then just one follow-up
question looking ahead
a year
the
mid
budget
examination that we do in the in the off
years um we try to keep that short and
simple and just have it be a review
what kinds of things would you recommend
to the council for us to watch out for
so that we don't let that mid-year
review get out of hand or get too
onerous uh as as we look toward uh the
future of the budget
that's a very good question i can't
remember joe i believe
at least in my opinion as a cfo i would
certainly say reinventing the entire
budget process mid-year it's supposed to
be just a review
statutorily you don't even have to pass
an amendment we would advise one but
unless if revenues or expenditures are
far off then that would be
the time to talk about it say revenues
are higher than expenditures we have
additional spending capacity then we
would maybe talk about some enhancements
at that point but if it's pretty much on
track or within the margin of error that
we're looking at the budget then again
we wouldn't request any fundamental
changes at that point
thank you very much you're welcome
okay i am not seeing any other questions
so i'm going to take a moment and see if
there are any public comments related to
id 1149
2023 2024 budget revenue forecast and
mid-year update
so if anybody is online and would like
to comment um if you're on the phone you
can press star three if you've joined by
computer smartphone you can look for the
hand icon
or make a comment to our clerk hosting
the meeting do we have anybody who has
signed up or indicated a desire to speak
council president walsh we have no
virtual attendees at the moment
okay and no one in attendance here has
indicated an interest to speak
um so we have an opportunity to i guess
ask is there anything else that you need
on this subject before we move on to the
next topic
i'm not at this time again we have more
time with the council in upcoming weeks
for updated budget information we're
working internally right now
with uh wally and the mayor on the
proposals from the departments and
vetting that out
okay fantastic well thank you for the
presentation oh we've got one from
council member marks
yeah just just to comment on on the
information we've seen in front of us i
mean we we just seem to have a real
persistent
uh over supply
of money
and under expenditure and i just want to
point out that we don't have to spend it
all right we could restructure how we
revenue
to
take in less money and uh rather than
you know we don't have to spend it just
because we collect it we could um look
at
uh lowering our our incomes and uh
providing less of a
burden on our residents so i think we
should have a conversation about you
know if you have consistently these
consistent huge surpluses that we have
to keep dumping money into a
fund for some future day purposes
it's not obvious to me that that's the
best stewardship of our communities
money
thank you
and if i can just add council president
members of the council it's going to
come to an end
i don't want to steal our thunder but we
have phil will have filled all our
vacancies and that i think will do that
we are looking at a budget right now
that expenditures will exceed revenues
and so one of the questions will be for
the council how much ongoing
expense do you want to use with one-time
money and we're likely not going to
suggest very much so we'll continue to
spend down palm balance on one time
but i think we will have an ongoing
issue so more to come over the next
several weeks
okay then i guess i was confused by what
i saw because i saw putting money into
rainy day funds over multiple years and
i didn't see that slowing down so and i
think that is attributable to one-time
expenditures versus ongoing expenditures
so that will be the discussion we'll
have on the council
because because the administration's not
going to propose
these increased operational costs being
used for those one-time dollars so
we'll continue to have strategies to
spend that down
over time
thanks
looks like an interesting conversation
to come
you want you have a comment yep
and also just really quick to say thank
you very much to you and um susie for
all your work um on this i'm sure it's
taken many many hours even just to get
here and many many more um to come so
just know that this council really
appreciates all the work that you're
doing especially ahead of our first
biennial budget so thank you very much
thank you we appreciate it too
okay and with that i think we can move
on to the next item on our agenda which
is id 1225
title 18 land use code future updates
list formerly known as the whiteboard
and before we go to this topic in the
presentation i just wanted to call on
member joe for a quick disclosure
thank you
i wanted to let the council know and any
members of the public
know that
my employer is
in bellevue and we do
we're a membership organization for
residential construction
and
so
i want to disclose that that's
there and that tonight as we look at
title 18 there may be some
topics in this
subject area that could impact
my
our areas that my membership sometimes
delves into
i want
the public to know that i've reviewed
the materials and i've
looked at the
subject matter tonight i believe that
it's
largely legislative
in nature and has a wide impact on
the entire city rather than an impact on
any particular project
or
benefiting any particular
builder or developer
in the city of that being said i wanted
to make that disclosure and if anyone
has a
wants to
have me not be part of this discussion i
certainly understand that but i feel
that after looking at the material
that i will be
unbiased and
open-minded as to the topic and subject
matter and be using my very best
legislative judgment
as we discuss this
thank you
okay
and seeing no other comments then i'm
going to call
community planning and development
director minnie dallywall for the staff
presentation
thank you good evening council members
and members of the community um so this
is an item which we're now calling land
use codes future updates list uh and in
parentheses we started out with a number
of names but we landed on whiteboard at
one point
um
so as we've worked as you all know uh
we've been working on the title 18
update uh for the last year and a half
or a few months
and through those conversations that
that have
occurred with the community with the
boards and commissions with the uh
council committee there have been a lot
of topics that have come up that uh
aren't within the scope of the project
so we started capturing those in a list
so we didn't forget them or lose them
they were important
things that we had heard
and discussed with everyone
so tonight we're seeking your input
on which items from this list should we
tee up for the budget cycle in 2023 and
2024
um
and
as you know this whole
little bit of background i think i got
some comments or questions
uh via email uh to to do a little bit of
historical check-in of how we came about
with the golden outcomes chart so i'm
going to try and cover in my
presentation
um the current update you know obviously
it's being guided by all our adopted
plans strategic plan comprehensive plan
central essequal plan park strategic
mobility master plan climate action plan
and of course
the great amount of work the title 18 ad
hoc committee did when the goals and
outcomes
uh document was created so um you know
this
journey for the city started in 2019
with the selection of some
consultants to do some work then it was
halted in 2020 uh while the committee
was formed and the work occurred in
terms of uh what are the goals and
outcomes for this current title 18
update um
so we took that
and then the council uh authorized the
contract for the consultants in april of
2021
um which the all of these plans and
documents and most importantly the the
title 18 goals and outcomes
guided the update
and like i said some of these things are
as we dove into it were outside the
current scope
we've given you the list and it's
organized by the six topic areas which
is similar to what our title 18 code
update is so the natural environment
landscape and open space zoning and uses
building and design
the fifth category is a little bit of a
miscellaneous item but we've called it
zoning and development standards but it
includes affordable housing transfer
development rights
landmarks and parking
and then of course the sixth
topic area process and procedures we're
still under discussion with ppc so
that last item
we're going to have those conversations
with planning and policy commission in
august this month
um
and then each of these items on the list
we've given it a number and a title um
the committee the planning development
and
environment committee asked us to put it
in the format of intent what's the
intent of this
item what's the desired outcome
we've added some staff suggested actions
for that particular uh item
and then um
also uh the committee discussed of
whether we should it's uh you know it's
covered under the existing golden
outcomes document or not so we've
included that information for you to
discuss tonight and then if it's
connected to any of the city's adopted
plans
um
the um
committee the your council committee
discussed the process to use for
prioritizing this and they came up with
these three items
items that are most strongly associated
with the golden outcomes document
the connection to the city's adopted
plans such as central esquiplin
master mobility plan and uh the metric
of effort needed for this um
for the for a particular topic
um
and we also wanted to kind of highlight
some of the big things that are on the
docket to uh
cover and for the next two years
uh we have in front of us a periodic
update of the entire comprehensive plan
that's a huge major effort uh you know
the current law is we have to do this
every eight years it was extended
by a house bill to every 10 years but
the list update is due
end of 2024.
um we're expecting 225 000 grant for
this work from department of commerce we
have some other budget asks that will
come to you uh related to this topic
um we also received a grant of hundred
thousand dollars from department of
commerce um
that you all authorized and we have
kicked off our work on the housing
strategies plan with eco northwest as
the selected consultant for that uh
grant work
and of course thank you for funding the
transit study um so there's 300 000 that
you give us and we did an rfp and
selected a consultant to undertake that
work so that's ongoing will continue for
the next two years
and then of course the the concurrency
and the traffic model update
um so that's already that's not the
items on the whiteboard list but just uh
that's on the work plan
um
before you move on to that i want to
make sure that we have a clear
understanding of what it means to
prioritize and what the future updates
list what we're kind of considering here
so can you talk about
basically we've got title 18 and it's
current scope we've got stuff that's
currently on the future updates list but
what you're asking here is
for
some feedback
on
whether some of those should be
prioritized in kind of the 2023
2024 time frame as far as
work effort from staff but also
potentially a preview of budget is there
any other way to kind of frame that so
that we understand
what these items are and why we're
considering them tonight
yeah so um so like i said the these
items that came through the
conversations with title 18 update um
and so
the the assumption isn't to not ever
handle this list that we'll work on this
list in a methodical more thoughtful way
um but also what
what you know there's a 32 list item
we're not done with the sixth bucket
discussions with bpc so it's a long list
um and so we're asking council to be
thoughtful about you know there's a
funding which wins should these be tee
up for your discussion on the budget and
also um just from
the bandwidth for boards and commissions
uh staffing and you know to do a good
job on on some of these items so how do
how do we pick how does you know which
which is the highest priority for
council that one should be funded and
two within the next two years we want to
capture it and get it done
okay and then just another clarifying
question all of the items on this list
relate to
title 18 and our land use code so even
if there's something on there that's
like related to affordable housing it's
not talking about
building affordable housing or anything
like that it's related to the code that
would support
potential affordable housing um or
something like that correct yeah so our
ask is to keep your discussion about
items in title 18 that should be
prioritized there may be a couple of
items in there like urban forestry
program that came through the
conversations but not necessarily the
code update
um so for our purposes of discussion
tonight if we can prioritize the code
related items
which is majority of them except for one
or two like that
thank you i just wanted to make sure we
had that before going into these lists
so should i walk through what each of
the items is at a very high level we
included the more details in in your
plan but um for the first topic natural
environment there's stream buffers um in
this slide i kind of show what it's
covered under the existing goals and
outcomes and which um
which is the highest um you know the
closest long-range plan that um
that it uh references
um so we are updating our stream buffers
there's a in your chart i've kind of
gone over what we are actually doing uh
we're in the process of you know
creating a technical memo that uh
analyzes the best available science
related to buffers
uh but regardless of that we have some
studies that were done in 2003 and 2006
that did more of on the grounds
assessment for streams
um
so this item would update those uh would
expand the list to other fish bearing
streams and and you know um
so that's that item
noise code update uh we just referenced
the state law for that there were there
were some comments during the the update
that perhaps if you're looking at
lighting we should look at noise
number three is the sustainability
points based system so i'll explain that
a little bit
what's happening on the building energy
code
scenario so
the state law was changed um it's going
to take effect next year july 2023 where
commercial and
buildings are required
to to be energy efficient and there's a
whole list of things that comes with
that building code and it deals with
heat pumps it deals with you know the
lighting standards in an open office
space it talks about a bunch of things
um but it sits in building code which is
title 16 of our um issaquah municipal
code so that we're going to update we're
not asking for any funding or
prioritization that's just a requirement
we have to do
with this current code update we've had
conversations with planning and policy
commission as a stop gap measure so
anything over 20 000 square feet
building we're going to require it to be
third party certified as lead gold so
that is planning policy commission's
recommendation on that so beyond that if
we want to take
a look at how to create more sustainable
buildings that are below 20 000
create a nissan based sustainability
score based system we did a peer city
research shared that with ppc and it's
really looking at um
what what does that mean a lot of our
cities have an incentive based uh you
know deep green incentives where it's
really trading more development capacity
for sustainable buildings so i'm not
sure if that's uh the right approach for
esto club but if you know looking at
what incentives would make sense for
issaquah and also those ones that will
won't get you know
you that'll be more used so they will
get the outcome of more sustainable
buildings but and also
coupling that with not just new
development but existing buildings
that's where you're going to get the
most
moving the needle in the right direction
for reducing greenhouse gases so that's
that item number three
um
and open space there was a desire to
have a prohibited plants list we're
going to have a reference to noxious
weeds and all that but not create a more
plant pellet we're going to update the
tree list
and one of the environmental board
members is helping us
with some details on that list and then
the next one is urban forestry program
that's a discussion you'll have with the
budget and parks department as well
the third topic area zoning and uses um
cluster housing uh came up you know this
is again part of the diversity of
housing
uh item uh that we're studying with the
um for happy grand housing action
implementation grant that we just
mentioned and then of course number
seven is emergency shelters and
transitional housing so this became
state law as part of house bill 1220. we
are going to take care of this this is a
requirement
there's a comp plan element you know we
have to change our housing element but
also our code requirements so allowing
shelters and and such facilities
wherever hotels are permitted so
that's number seven
um there we also heard um
uv commercial retail zone to allow
multi-family development allow cafes in
residential zones prohibits self-storage
facilities we should have a more robust
discussion about impervious surface
limits
and then school sighting in compact
school design so that's all under this
topic three
topic four um sustainable development
you know it kind of carries through in
multiple uh topic areas so we've carried
through in all of them uh but we kind of
talked about this already um
neighborhood visions uh this is already
um i think called out and one of our
plans to have these robust discussions
with two neighborhoods uh per year um so
we wanted to put that in here
there's also eco-friendly materials uh
discussion
of course there's the inter tie between
the building code and the land use code
what can we do now we're going to
attempt to fix a few things here but but
this needs to be a thoughtful discussion
because technologies changes and you
know other things happen with building
materials so
we also learned about the view shed you
know we there's a desire to protect the
views the regulations are very tricky on
that
so in order to do a good job with that
we do need to have a full dedicated view
shed study that really looks at from
each point vantage point and what what
some of the protections and regulations
could mean
uh way finding regulations
again we heard
even though we require these through
block connections and other things it's
hard for people to know
that this is um
a public space
we're going to put some you know signage
requirements for new things that come in
but a more holistic connection of these
passageways and through
through block connections
and even trails and other things
is probably needed is what we heard
universal design regulations you know um
again these these are things we need to
kind of uh do a more complete check in
uh we heard about the strict
architectural style that we have in our
regulations now that perhaps we need to
look at more of a form-based code and
not um
not look at architectural style
um
uh with the form-based code in this case
would be bill two lines you know the the
form of the code and how that interacts
rather than more about uh pick one of
the five styles approach um
and this can be you know broad city-wide
central or portion of central
uh so this number 19 item needs to be
more
discussed it could be tied in with a
portion of central that really is
providing this alternate form of housing
which is missing from and improving our
diversity of housing choices and using
this as a pilot project
so a lot a lot a lot more
you know discussions to kind of form
what what that does really mean and what
what we need to accomplish there
number 20 um was one of the things that
director dollywood looks like we have a
question on the previous slide
yeah on the previous slide thank you
very much can you um go over again what
number 17 is the universal design
regulations i'm not sure i'm clear i'm
not sure i clearly understand what that
is yeah you know this
we have some some of these regulations
sprinkled throughout title 18 but then
we have our building code that really
has an ada component to it and a lot of
times it really isn't um
there's a lot of nuances in that so we
kind of took that out from here and let
the building code regulate that because
it's more
geared towards this is what it means
and
and we need to kind of figure out if we
need to go above and beyond the building
code requirements for some of the
accessibility requirements
do you know what universal design is
would you like
director dollywell to
can you put forth a small explanation
you know i am so my understanding of
this um
and i could be wrong um
and because from where it came from the
discussions were more about
if you have a play space area and some
you know a trail design should it be
someone in a wheelchair accessible can
use it or not use it and
and if you have a play equipment uh you
know how how do you get all of those and
that's pretty regulated under the
building code um
but it it's possible that we had these
regulations in title 18 where prior to
them making into the building code
but because there was a you know this
was a separate thing that we put in here
to do for the research of do we need to
go above and beyond what's already in
the building code
okay thank you very much much clearer
um
so
number 20 is what the committee uh
prioritized for um you know there were
three things that they prioritized so
this one was align the code with adopted
housing strategies
and like us mentioned the grant that we
received and the work that we have
already started uh
on this topic is really looking at three
different strategies six and eight and
nine i believe so looking at um
um you know condos and and what are the
detriments there
how do we have uh uh inclusionary zoning
you know beyond just the three districts
uh in central issaquah
um
and then uh diversity of housing uh
choices so we'll be studying that and
coming up with um discussions with the
planning and policy commission and
ultimately for council as part of the
grant but then there are other things
that came up during these conversations
you know missing middle being one of
them
uh single family zoning being you know
what are we doing for that um so all of
this is a broader topic that's going to
look at the housing strategies the
adopted housing strategies that the city
has
number 21
is transfer of development rights our
interlocal with king county has expired
we had a good discussion with the
committee
to take a look at that again with king
county limited to
issaquah creek basin outside the city
limits but also tie it with the um
i've given you an acronym but it's
really
uh l clip program where the city gets to
keep some of the taxes that county would
get for increased assessed value
um so that's number 21
and then from 22 all the way to
uh 30 or 31 are really parking related
uh topics um
that um we did a little bit different
um approach with parking in terms of
just not just going to the boards and
commissions but there were a lot of
affinity group meetings with the vision
partners and others and local businesses
that that addressed the that parking
conversation
and through that it became obvious that
you know solving the parking
uh to just not have any minimums and
just establish your maximum standard
were
much more complicated um we don't have
transit now we some of these parking
requirements uh obviously we don't want
to pave additional area for parking and
and not have sustainable development but
at the same time
uh it needs to be thoughtfully
considered so we've added all of these
things that we perhaps
we need more uh detailed conversations
in in this on the whiteboard to come
back and tackle some of these things
and then topic six were still in the
process we've added one which came up
about 5g poles
you know a lot of cities have these
pre-made design options for city-owned
poles that people can choose from so it
addresses the aesthetic
concerns that the city has had
previously but it provides better
connectivity so um so that's number 32.
that pretty much concludes high-level
you know discussion about what's on the
list it's evolving um and it will you
know we'll add more things if
they need to be added as we
uh conclude our conversation with the
planning and policy commission
but because of the budget and the items
that need to be funded and the timing of
that we've brought it forward to you
to start thinking about which
of these items should we include in our
proposed budget
for the next two years
okay city administrator
maybe thank you man excellent
presentation let me just maybe amplify a
little bit on that
back at your
planning retreat on july 16th this was a
major topic
and so we asked that the the council
committee reviewed this so we asked to
include this this evening is the
topic for the community the whole
this is meant to be a resource
discussion uh we're not asking the
council to make any decisions taking any
sides
we're just trying to sort through
of these you know how big is the
breadbasket if it's a really big bread
basket
we may not have the resources to do all
that even
with all the fund balance we may have
we're certainly concerned about just
planning staff there's a comprehensive
plan update that needs to happen next
year a number of things that many
touched on this evening which are
already just part of the work plan so
again we appreciate
the council identifying this is a a
policy issue and a resource issue
back on july 16th but tonight we're
really just trying to get a sense of
urgency for how many of these projects
so that we can come back to in a few
weeks
hopefully with an appropriate budget
allocation both
dollars for outside help as well as if
we need to make additional staffing
changes in our community planning and
development department
thank you
okay so just as far as process i'm going
to see if there are any
following questions from the
presentation then i'm going to see if
there's any public comment
and then council member hunt i'm hoping
you'll kind of start the conversation
with some of the
topics that came up in the pde meeting
committee meeting
so starting out are there any questions
coming off of the presentation that
didn't get asked during
councilmember ray
thank you council president um
so i i understand the goal around trying
to figure out how much we can do
but i'm also struck with what are the
really are the constraints i mean i mean
we can't
expand infinitely even with the bestest
consultants in the world there's still a
limit to how much we can do
and then i was thinking it's a
comprehensive plan update year and
that's going to put a workload on ppc
and then there's the other boards and
commissions that we would probably want
to have engaged in this too do you have
a sense of you know
what what our capacity even looks like
so because otherwise we're gonna say we
want to do it all
um
or nearly all so i mean just give us
give us some um some bumpers here
yeah um you know
again it's going to depend on which
which topics you choose
if you choose a very big broad one then
i would say our capacity is to tackle
one or two
uh and if we choose the smaller ones
maybe three uh but not more than three
um
that's perfect that's exactly what's
just looking for just you know just
bring us in a little bit before we go
too crazy
and if i can just add um you know we're
hearing from you we're hearing from the
boards and commissions
a fear that
this is all going to get lost in the
shuffle and so we just want to make sure
that we're staging appropriately
i think i agree with many just on sort
of the broad assessment of things but
you all came to us at the administration
saying this is really important
and so we also we well we'll thank you
for letting us put bumpers on this but
ultimately you're the ones who set the
bumpers so uh we're trying to marry all
that together uh and whatever
information and feedback we get from you
tonight will certainly help that
deputy council president hall did i see
you wanted to ask a question okay
um
so when we're talking about
prioritizing
some of these tasks
is this
are we talking about it solely from the
lens of what we want to accomplish over
the next biennial budget or what we want
to get started
over the next biennial budget years or
is that a policy
question for council to consider
does the administration have any
thoughts on that you know again i think
we're looking
to just get feedback tonight
i think this is a workload of the 30 odd
items that's a multiple year workload is
it two years three years five years
i don't think we're prepared to say that
tonight but um you know if you were to
say the comp plan's enough
let's put all this aside and let's have
that conversation 12 months from now
that's something or as many said if you
think the staff can do two or three here
are here are four or five maybe you can
think of an administration come back
with a budget proposal and we'll talk
some more about it in the fall
yeah i think you bring up a good point
in terms of
you know is it do the work do the
research and then figure out what we
want to do
whether we're going to finish in two
years or
we you know we put them on the list for
next two years but it doesn't mean
if we have the time after the compliment
conversations we obviously can take it
on but it could straggle more than two
years
people lose momentum too sometimes when
you're having those conversations if you
drag it out too much but
um
but it is something
to keep you know as you all think of
yes in the two years are you you give
giving us like start the work and finish
it or start the work and start working
with the community and then
it you know that that'll inform the
research will inform how much what the
next steps might be for some of these
topics more elaborate ones
okay so any other
questions that we want to ask before
going to public comment
i'm not seeing any
um so at this point i am going to call
for public comment on this topic and
again if anybody is online on the phone
wants to press star 3 if you're on a
computer smartphone you can look for the
hand icon and i will first call for
anyone in the room who would like to
make a public comment
okay
okay
so connie if you'll press the button on
there so that it turns red
there thank you
my name is connie oh there we go my name
is connie marsh i live up on squawk
and i have been through this before
this is the old school council retreat
that came out with
41 priorities that then the council
would put dots on and staff would sit in
the corner with their jaws gaping saying
wow the council has a lot of ideas
and how are we ever going to get
anything done and that happened every
year
for year after year after year
and it was playing whack-a-mole
it was so hard to watch because staff
would run like crazy
trying to keep up with what every
different council member
wanted
and
we wouldn't get very far
and so that changed and
it got tightened up so that we created a
strategic plan so that we would not play
whack-a-mole
every year
and here we are
playing whack-a-mole
again
so i do not see a good future with a
list of 32.
i do not see a good future
with
a list that is not prioritized by
this is state law
we have to do it priority one we have to
do it there isn't a choice we have to
fund that what does that look like
number two
this is in our comprehensive plan
already this is a strategic plan goal
that we have prioritized for the last
for the next five years we have that we
spent years
doing that
and now we want to
have our 32 things now
the code
needs a lot of work because we didn't do
anything for 10 years i would rather
see the code
[Music]
every year
have
first the state law updates have to do
that we have to stay up to date that way
and then you could prioritize
one or
two items
just for the code every year so that we
have a more consistent rolling update of
the code
most of the items that are on this list
with a few
little little different ones
actually our policy questions and
decisions that need the rigors of the
comprehensive plan update which we are
already doing so my third tier
that would be
third i guess
would be is this something we want to
put a check mark by
and then we want to feed this through
the comprehensive plan update to see if
it has legs in the community
and if it has legs in the community
through a comprehensive plan update then
you get the policy language put in
and then you feed that again through
your next update of your strategic plan
so that everybody on the council
has
a narrow five-year focus on what the
city wants to accomplish and you move
forward slowly
and incrementally what i'm seeing is we
struggled to get the central issaquah
plan for years and years and now we are
somehow losing focus on this 30-year
plan that we had and we're looking at
other things
okay that's whack-a-mole
so i am
adamantly opposed to this style of list
making i am adamantly opposed to great
ideas and they may be great ideas but
they must go through
our established slow moving
excruciating non-private process called
government
and
you need
to remember you're representing us
who live here you can't see us that's
why i came down today because it is more
of an impact if you have to look
at your people
right
it is not
your government it is
our government and we had finally gotten
set in a bit of a system
and now we have
kovid and we're playing whack-a-mole
again so i have one
smallish
detail which is stream buffers the
language has changed and i sent in an
email i never got a response
uh it indicates that we are assessing
our best available science
in this code update
and
i wanted that all along but i had never
gotten a real affirmation of what that
would look like so i would like to
understand what that actually
means
the stream assessments are a physical
study that does need to be done
ours is too old but what state law
requires is that our code update be
based in best available science which it
currently is not so i'm curious as to
what that detail means i believe we're
talking state law for that stream buffer
so
tier one priority one state law i'm not
going to repeat i'm assuming you got it
i sent an email
and uh i'm gonna listen thank you
thank you connie
um
do we have anyone online who has
indicated a desire to speak
uh council president walsh we have
nobody attending online
okay fantastic can i ask somebody to go
and
remute the microphone so we don't get
any echo no no you sit down we've got
oh can you
fantastic
okay so at this point before we start in
on our discussion because the
planning development and environment
committee has had robust conversations
about this i want to make sure
to have council member hunt kind of
start us off and maybe summarize some of
that conversation which might answer
some of the questions that we have in
the first place so councilmember hunt
thank you council president walsh
um and please do let me know if you have
trouble hearing me because i know i've
been having a little bit of internet
issues but hopefully you can hear me
yeah so we can hear you but we will
definitely let you know and i'll let you
know if there are any questions that
come up during your comments
great thank you the planning development
and environment committee met on august
4th which was last thursday and i do
think that the staff memo that was in
our packet for this evening captured the
main highlights of that conversation
very well and i wanted to recognize the
staff for that because it was a very
quick turnaround i think they had about
one day before the packet went out to
capture that conversation
we started fairly high level and we
discussed
some ways that we could going forward
prioritize this list of future updates
for title 18 our land use code
and we started with wanting to make sure
that
firstly
anything that needs to be done for state
law that that would be done we did have
a discussion about how previously
items that were necessary to comply with
state law got pulled out of the process
entirely such as the sign
code update
previously so those would be dealt with
first and then
as far as the prioritization at the
policy level that we proposed
we proposed using a framework where
items that were closely aligned with our
existing goals and outcomes document
would be prioritized first this would
allow us to
more closely finish the original what we
consider to be the original scope of the
title 18 work plan
um and we still
felt that that goals and outcomes chart
has been really helpful for us in
determining
um what we want to see from this update
and and we still felt that those goals
and out
outcomes are valid and and that we
haven't um
changed in terms of wanting to have
those outcomes from the update so we
thought um we thought we would recommend
prioritizing that first and then looking
at other existing plans that the city
has adopted such as
the
climate action plan also the master
mobility plan
and i also wanted to flag that
two council members council member hall
and council member d michelle sent in
questions ahead of time and um for us to
consider as a committee and both of
those questions had to do with alignment
to other plans um the central issaquah
plan and the master mobility plan
specifically the transit aspect of that
so we thought that as a second tier
looking how closely
these land use goals
align with our existing plans would be
that second tier
and then um potentially
also looking at metrics of efforts to
make sure that we're doing the items
that we can achieve um
with the capacity that that staff has
and the resources that we have
so um
we were then we we started very high
level we had that as a as a general
framework and i think we were all in
agreement as a committee that that made
sense to us
uh then we were asked by the
administration to prioritize the between
one and three
items using that system so we we had a
conversation about that
the items that we felt
were
the most closely aligned to the
goals and outcomes charts and that would
be very important in terms of achieving
our vision for efficient land use
and
meeting our goals for environmental
protection
as well as
increasing housing diversity so just for
reference these are goals
three which is conserve and protect
environmentally critical areas goal two
which is provide adequate parking while
utilizing land efficiently and goal six
which is increased housing diversity
using those we prioritized
um items having to do with parking which
would be items 24 and 30 from the
future updates list those have to do
with the minimum and maximum parking as
well as transit accessible parking
and then item 20 which is missing middle
housing it this is expanded even in that
chart to include other housing related
issues and is really about aligning our
housing stock with our housing strategy
work plan
and then
item one which is the stream buffer um
work item to update with um state the
state
system for
a washington state department i believe
um issue for classifying streams so that
we have the very best available science
and as minnie has explained we are
updating and providing a technical memo
on how the current
um stream buffer
works but we also want to make sure that
we are updating that um in the next go
around
so that was our recommendation um
and
i also just wanted to thank the council
members that sent in those questions in
advance they did help inform our
conversation
and i also wanted to add one more thing
which is we did consider if we wanted to
remove any items
from the list and um council president
walsh suggested and i think the
committee agreed that we we ultimately
did not want to remove any items or
pull any items into the
current update but we also uh wanted to
if possible have the pure city review
literature review for those those items
that we are going to be
proposing for
the
2023-2024 budget so those would be the
parking related items and the housing
related items and i think this could
also be helpful if we did accelerate
that pure city review part of the work
um to show that we do
intend to follow through on this list of
updates that they are future updates
they aren't going on a whiteboard and
um you know to be dealt with at some
[Music]
future you know far future day we are
committed to doing these
items and i think that
getting ahead on the pure city review
would help with that um because we are
committed to
to this work
thanks
okay thank you council member hunt so
with that i think what the
administration is looking for from us is
just some general feedback like we said
we have this long list of 32 items and
we're not making any decisions right now
but we are coming into budget season
where resources will need to be
allocated
and trying to provide some feedback to
the administration on
how does the council coming out of that
summer retreat where we talked about
budget priorities how do we then take
and put our well not really our money
where our mouths are but further
emphasize
or prioritize within that larger bucket
of hey title 18 future updates is
important well
now we have to actually face the music a
little bit and look at the
individual line items so
does anyone want to start the
conversation here or anybody have any
other questions for council member hunt
councilmember d michelle
um i think my question is more for
city administrator bob kwitz
so
my concern or my top priority is the
transit study and but
we've talked about parking be involved
in that and my question to many today
was about transit demand management and
so i guess my question
is how expansive is that transit study
going to be whether the parameters
around i don't know if we can answer
that question right now but
it seems like a lot could go into that
transit study
related to
transit but maybe we're defining the
transit study very narrowly so
can you give me just a preview of
what the
parameters of that study might be
well as you know council member d
michelle i can answer just about any
question you pose a formal form or
another but andrea schneider the deputy
city administrator is on the line and
my guess is she could answer it more
concisely certainly
and
perhaps be more precise to your question
so
deputy city administrator are you able
to
chime in
good evening
hi this is andrea and minnie may be able
to chime in as well but the transit
study
is
the intent of it is to find out what
what
capital projects we need to do to
increase
access to transit
so that may include
[Music]
improvements to our roadway system or
other connections for first-class mile
connections
it will also importantly include
things that we need to do for
um
readying ourselves for the light rail
and what we need to do with station area
planning um and considerations there so
i think those are those are the general
topics
associated with with transit there may
be also some policies we need to
consider that could help guide those
investments
and guide our planning for transit
but
but i think generally that's what the
transit study intends
on doing
okay thank you very much so um so the
issue of parking then would it sounds
like
parking policy would be outside of
yes okay thank you
and uh councilmember hunt you had a
comment or question
thank you council president walsh
yes i had a comment in response to that
question which is the
planning development environment
committee also
considered some
items such as the urban forestry related
item on the future updates list and
because we
concluded that
a lot of the work that will be done
under that item isn't directly related
to the title 18 land use we
um title 18 land use code we did not
prioritize those we did prioritize
specifically those items that we thought
um closely aligns with the scope of that
goals and outcomes chart from the
original title 18 update
um
but i just wanted to point out that we
did discuss things like urban forestry
and they are on that list
not prioritizing them in this process
doesn't mean that they aren't
prioritized it's just that um and and we
had a conversation about how important
urban forestry is for example
um but not prioritizing at them in this
process is because we
at least in that conversation felt that
the solutions for that will probably be
um
more staff capacity or
arborist for example things like that
which would not be a code update and
that we had
addressed the code update part in the
original title 18 scope so i think um
why i mention that is because i think
council member d michelle's
question uh is potentially similar there
are definitely elements of transit that
will need to be
um
worked on outside of the title 18
scope um and so i think i think just
recognizing that is is helpful for this
conversation thanks
and i'll further throw in looking at
that transportation demand management on
the future updates list as number 27
it's really about
providing clarity to city regulations
for businesses that are required to
create a transportation management plan
and clear criterion threshold so there
are portions of that that relate to code
but obviously there's a whole lot more
that we as a city
want to do related to
transportation demand management and
transit studies and all of those things
so does that
clarify okay
any other questions comments council
president walsh i just wanted to mention
stephen if you do i just joined the
online meeting so who worked on the
master mobility plan and is uh very
keyed in on the transit study if you
have any further questions for him on
parking or transit
great
no
okay
yes yep general
all right yeah i'll start off uh general
comments then so
um in terms of um how i'm thinking the
city should approach uh the title 18
feature updates list i guess no longer
the whiteboard is um i was thinking you
know what's required by state law and
what is required is kind of this first
threshold that we have to meet so
there are a few that were kind of called
out in the chart i didn't think there
were more than a few
um that that word that way but that's
obviously first and foremost uh should
be a priority as we're considering these
moving forward and then the second was
um like i alluded to uh before the pde
meeting which was alignment with uh
plans um the central isquad plan being
uh a really important one there as we're
trying to when we're talking about um
title 18 whiteboard or title 18 we've
been talking a lot about you know how
are we effectively using our land here
in isequa too and we went through a huge
effort in the central isquad plan um so
making sure that stays present now the
central squad playing a mobility master
plan live in the
goals and outcomes chart which is great
um and helps call out those kinds of
things and as you see in
the staff suggested actions for many of
these actions it talks about evaluating
the policy and then also evaluating what
peer cities are doing in the area i
think one thing that also needs to be
captured in there is that
a lot of community engagement that's
going to have to go into each of these
so our plans are our north star right
that help tell us what what we should
think about
next in terms of exploring policy
and bettering outcomes here in issaquah
but not all the plans and not every item
in each plan has the kind of community
buy-in that would allow us to be
comfortable to adopt a policy right away
right the climate action plan was a good
example when we passed that we had some
people come in last minute worried about
i think it was along the lines of
natural gas and our goals around natural
gas and our response to them was well
this is just our plan this is you know
what we what we hope to go through and
as we go through the items it involves
intense community conversations around
what we can do what's working elsewhere
what's providing good outcomes in other
cities
and creating successful you know
opportunity for residents but then what
works in issaquah right you know in some
cases it might not work in his squad in
some cases it does
so um recognizing that you know wally or
city administrator bob quite said you
know how big is the bread basket going
to be or what are those bumpers on there
i think some of the major ones are
you know recognizing the amount of work
that's going to need to go into
communicating with the community and
engaging with the community as we
explore
a focused set of
priorities over the next two years
is really important one so i see
um you know what's required as kind of
this first priority and then the
planning development environment
committee thank you very much for your
work on putting together your
recommendations i think
that those
are very aligned with i see the ischool
climate action plan and the central
isquad plan
so i see these as being good strategies
to begin
over the next few years and into the
budget but i don't necessarily see
if we can go much more beyond this
because of the amount of work that it
will take to engage with the community
and make sure that we're adopting you
know policy that works here in issaquah
so those are my thoughts i hope it's
it's helpful i'm kind of seeing it as
what's required and then the pde
recommendations which i appreciate your
hard work on thanks
looking around seeing if i see any other
comments
okay i'm gonna chime in on mine so
um
obviously i've delved into this deeply
on the pde and having been on the ad hoc
before that um
i think i really just want to
take a step back and say my goodness
we've been working on title 18 for a
long time and i really wish we could tie
a bow on this and say it was done
but while we're going to get to one
stage of done
that doesn't mean we have satisfied
all of our desires to
get our code right so that we're
building the right environment for our
community going forward and so if you
view this as
first of all finishing an existing
project i would argue in some ways that
with our goals and outcomes chart having
been adopted kind of at the beginning of
this saying hey we're going to work on
and improve some of our housing options
and we had a goal related to
having adequate parking but effective
land use and we're not actually getting
those done
so i very much agree with the
concept that those should be prioritized
in
phase two of the title 18 work um
i'd also say this was a community
generated list
and so we are absolutely not going to
put this aside
they need to continue moving on and then
when i look back to our strategic plan
you know there's a lot in there related
to title 18. so in the growth and
development section says across the city
there are a variety of public amenities
housing types educational and other
services that contribute to a livable
community potential actions are identify
and implement code changes and
activities to address neighborhood-based
and community-wide gaps in amenities and
services as well as develop code
amendments to address missing middle and
other housing option needs so those in
many ways speak to this idea that
housing and amenities and the way our
environment is built is very important
to our community we've gotten that
feedback over the years i think one of
the areas that maybe we haven't gotten a
lot of feedback on is parking but i
include that in there
because
you can't have effective land use for
housing without being effective on how
you use your parking especially when we
look at that
central issaquah area
large majority of that is parking lots
and if we're going to be able to build
housing there we have to be effective in
what's required and
not required
for parking
so those those are the reasons why i
think highlighting those two are really
important i'd also further emphasize
that staff had started a good set of
conversations with the community vision
partners and
other business sectors as well as some
of the community associations about
parking
requirements and minimum maximums and
how it relates to title 18 and so that
conversation's already kind of started i
don't want to lose
the feedback that was received from that
and have it become stale
so that's another reason why i would
include that so i very much agree with
the suggestions from the pd
that
aligning the code with the adopted
housing strategy is item 20. parking
related items that were 24 and 30 and
then also the stream buffers on item one
are super important and i hope that when
we provide this type of feedback
it
isn't
limiting in
hey if we have the resources to do more
absolutely looking at
what the
what aligns with our other plans
is super important but to me
those are items that
gosh i really wish would have gotten
done within title 18 and they didn't and
so i really think those need to be
prioritized
as first come out of the second stage
okay now i'm gonna go back and see if i
can get any other comments from
any other council members
council member d michelle
all right well uh when i i wanna
take to heart very much uh connie
marshall's comments um i
i personally am looking at the existing
work program items and i'm thinking
these are huge items
just
alone and so
the comprehensive plan i i have a sister
who works on comprehensive plans and so
i know
that is a huge outreach effort that
needs to be done we need to involve our
community in that completely
that's something that we have to do
under state requirements and it's
something we ought to be doing
um and the housing strategies plan we
all know how urgent housing strategy is
at this point in our history transit
study concurrency update all of those
need to be done and they need to be done
well
so
i appreciate the pde
recommendations and i think if we have
the capacity
yes let's look at those the parking
would be my top priority there because
again it relates to both the housing
strategies and the transit study
but the others certainly are
well-founded as well but if we're going
to
take on these major projects in addition
to completing title 18 review
i want those done well and so i
i would say
my expectation would be let's
concentrate on those major
items first if we have the capacity
let's do additional ones as recommended
by pde
and but if our staff capacity is not
there i want those four items done first
and done well so that would be
my input on to this topic thank you
yeah
councilman ray
thanks council president
so i haven't been on council as long as
councilmember mart's but it's but it's
been a long time and as long as i've
been on the council we have been talking
about redoing title 18 because of the
problems it creates for our community
and for the developers
and so we talk about boy i wish we had
gotten further but if you ever stop and
look back down the hill that we just
climbed up
how far we've come and thank you to many
and your team for all the work they did
the work that ppc did the work the
environmental board did the equity board
it took a lot of people and a lot of
effort the ad hoc committee
um it took a lot of people in a lot of
um a lot of effort to get to this point
so
there's still a lot to do and and i
think there will always be a lot to do
because the world will continue to
evolve around us but i just want to take
a minute and you know bask in the fact
that
we moved the needle and we we talked and
ringed our hands for a long time saying
we can't do this because it's way too
big well you know if you chunk it we can
we can move it so thank you for all the
great great effort and and there's still
a lot left to do and i i actually think
that this will
this uh
potential future work will never go away
i think we'll just add new things to it
and we'll prioritize them and we'll
evolve this plan over time
based on the needs of the community and
um external drivers so thank you for all
that that
the team has done to get us to this
point
director dollywell can i ask you a
question um
councilmember d michelle was talking
about you know staff allocation whether
we have time one of the things that the
pde
committee talked about was obviously
this was a very short turnaround between
that meeting and this meeting so we
couldn't ask to get a sense of what's
the required effort and kind of staff
allocation that would be required for
these but that's something that you're
planning to do um in order to assess
whether or not there's budget for this
and then can you talk about the
difference between
staff resource versus monetary resource
and
hiring consultants are any of these
things that you would think would be
more appropriate for consultants or
staff
yeah you know there are some items on
there that are less staff intensive per
se it'll still take community
conversations and all that and you know
the public outreach piece staff will
still be involved but they're more
technical so stream buffers you know on
the grounds assessment evaluating with
the king county's stream
studies in our so we can just hire a
consultant to really take a deeper dive
into that and get that done right so
whereas
uh housing ms you know single-family
neighborhoods is going to be a huge
undertaking and you those need to be
really thoughtful conversations with the
community so
uh yes that can vary it can also vary
based on the scope of each of these
items so right now it's just a list of
what the things we heard from the
community but they haven't been scoped
out exactly you know like the form based
code could mean a huge thing it could
mean a slice of
you know do it as a demonstration so we
can flush out
uh and develop our work programs over
the coming years in more depth but
um because of the comprehensive plan
update which is a huge thing in front of
us right so
most of our energy is going to be
focused on getting that right because
it's an 18 you know it's our 20-year
plan
we're gonna do it every eight years so
it's not every day you know uh but for
the other part we're going to learn a
few things as we implement our title 18
that we've just gone through so our plan
there is to have a check-in every year
of a housekeeping kind of things that
aren't policy conversations i mean some
things on this list are policy
conversations but to answer your
question level of effort you know it
could be high for all of them
uh depending on how deep and and
exhaustive we want to do it but our
general approach would be you know we
did this big effort with title 18
there's going to be fatigue with the
boards and commissions to just take a
breather
um from that as they get ready and gear
up for the policy conversations in the
comp plan uh so we don't want to
overwhelm our boards and commission
they've done a fabulous job really
digging into a deep
you know very
complicated matter and and synthesizing
that into and giving us policy direction
and that
um
but yeah it's going to vary based on the
scope of the proj the the things but if
i had to pick out of the three that you
have on your list the housing
uh diversity and single family is going
to be a high high effort
from a public outreach and really doing
it well
concept and then
the stream buffers is more
consultant heavy
parking i think we're going to come back
to the pde you guys asked us to do peer
city research
that'll kind of set the framework of
what you know how much more
uh from a public outreach and business
uh outreach we need to do so those two
are more on the heavy side stream buffer
is probably not on the is more
consulting heavy
deputy council president
just really quickly want to again
reiterate that even these next
next up policy conversations for the
title 18 future items list are going to
take a while so we've already heard
you know the scope of work um could take
a while
our ability to engage with the community
on an intimate level um to have good
outcomes is going to take a while we
have the comp plan update next year
we've also one thing we haven't
mentioned yet we've talked a lot about
updating and better aligning the cip the
capital improvement program with the
mobility master plan that's going to be
a huge effort too so i think just kind
of we just all need to to understand and
be okay with the fact that this is going
to take a while and reassure the
community that these are still policy
conversations that are priorities for
our community to have um and that
i think maybe if we have this kind of
once a year touch point that you were
saying about here's our just kind of the
cleanup items these things are still on
our radar and these house some of this
has evolved a little bit because some of
these things are really cutting edge
policy conversations in terms of
they're only being utilized in a handful
of cities across the country and
outcomes are just starting to be
measured and the best available science
that we talk about even just for parking
or for housing density or anything like
that is going to change year over year
as cities continue to experiment so i
think we just need to be okay with the
fact that this is going to take a long
time but we're committed to to getting
through this in a deliberate manner so
and again thank you to the title 18 ad
hoc committee for all your work
including former council member goodman
and all the staff who've put so much
time into our current title 18 update
not not even considering the the
whiteboard prep for us so thank you
councilmember d michelle
you know minnie i just want to thank you
very much for recognizing the fatigue
that our boards and commissions might be
having as well i i hadn't thought about
that aspect of it but you're right
they've been doing monumental work
and we need to be cognizant that they
are volunteers
and that they work in the evening
usually after they've
done a been at work all day long so i
appreciate those comments and i think
that is something that we need to take
into consideration thank you
okay i am not seeing any other comments
and so i would ask does the
administration have what they need to
take this to the next step
uh yes and i just want to take a minute
to say thank you to all of you
as i was hearing you all talk trying to
think of the best way to explain this
we're patting our head and we're rubbing
our tummy at the same time
you know we don't have to do everything
completely linear
because we have an outstanding council
outstanding staff outstanding citizen
boards and commissions we don't have to
just do one thing and then wait and then
go to the next so it is a little bit
different than perhaps what other
councils have done as far as
prioritization because clearly this
council has not said do these things and
do them now it's
let's integrate them into the work that
we're doing and the partnership between
the staff the administration the council
is really outstanding and i guess i just
want to take the second to say this is
not something that happens in every
community uh around
and that we're able to have these kind
of conversations at the very high level
that we're having them the people who
really win is this community because
it's no longer going to be as one of the
council members said i guess wisconsin
member ray title 18 we're waiting we're
waiting we're waiting um we can pat our
head and rub our tummy we can finish up
title 18 we can start staging things we
could do it in a way that is respectful
to everyone's time and resources so
thank you this is this is a great way
for us as all partners to govern and so
just wanted to mention that it's really
exciting
excellent director dollywell do need
anything else no i think we got what we
needed okay
i love ending things on that type of a
note we'll take it
um so our final item on our agenda
tonight is id 1236 city council
connections with boards and commissions
and so this one is actually going to be
presented by deputy council president
hall so i'll let him
start off and then we'll just kind of go
into a conversation there's no real
presentation on this per se but more of
a conversation amongst the council
members
uh thank you council president walsh and
i'll um after
some quick opening remarks and
opportunity for questions from council i
guess i'll turn it back to you in case
there's any public commenters um on this
item too but um
hey everybody it's um time to revisit
the issue of um the council
relationships with boards and
commissions so as you remember
um when we were originally having our
transition discussion about our
transition from study sessions to
committees this this item came up and we
started to talk a little bit about what
what is supposed to be the role between
the committees and the boards and
commissions
um and that item was kind of tabled as
we went through the committee process
and uh establishing the committees as
that was a big hall for the council
obviously
also more recently the transportation
advisory board leadership has expressed
an interest in learning how they can be
more effective
and useful to decision makers better
understanding what the role is between
the transportation advisory board and
the mobility and infrastructure
committee and because of kind of the
size and scope of these policy questions
i wanted to make sure we brought it to
the full council for a discussion about
this item and you know this was an
opportunity for us to talk about it
before the recess so um
there are um a couple um kind of problem
statements then that um we've teased out
from these um
questions that were left unanswered from
our original conversation during the
transition from study sessions to
committees and also what this most
recent situation with tab has brought up
in terms of
boards and commissions may not
necessarily be able to clearly see how
their voice connects into the decision
process so that's one that boards and
commissions might not feel as useful as
they can be decision makers and then
also we've heard a couple times now that
there is a lack of opportunity for
collaboration between the council
and strengthening working relationships
between the council and our boards and
commissions
so from that
we kind of have two
policy questions um that i think could
frame a useful discussion tonight so the
first of which is
really what is the most productive and
useful
way to
you know understand our roles and
expectations of one another but then
also
of interacting with one another in
public policy development and then the
other is this other discussion around
well what is the best way to collaborate
and
you know we've heard
some ideas
the welcome back boards and commissions
initiative as boards and commissions are
coming back
to in-person meetings has been part of
this
and kind of establishing more
connections
between the council and the boards and
commissions that way so it that it could
be the council's wish that we consider
something like that or we consider doing
something more like that once a year
where a council member goes to a border
commission to say thank you and and um
but there's also been the idea of well
and this came up when we were
transitioning from study sessions to
committees well maybe we should have
joint meetings between the committee and
the board and commission which brings up
a couple questions one
is that the role of council committees
but then also can we logistically do
that so the mobility and infrastructure
committee has one boarding commission
that makes recommendations for it pde i
think has
two or three it's a lower amount and um
services and safety chaired by
councilmember martz would have a million
right so i mean there are not
necessarily a million but you know what
i mean so so that also presents another
question there so there are kind of
those two high-level questions um and
then
some potential actions
that we've scripted out here on this
memo
so
that address the problem statements that
came before again these are just some
potential actions to start a discussion
we could do all of them we could do none
of them we could do one or two of them
so anyways just wanted to kind of lay
the groundwork there for a discussion um
if you have any questions
on this this would be a good time for
although first i'll go to council
president walsh if there's anything else
you wanted to add
flair into this conversation no i'll
keep my comments to
discussion i think you framed it very
well so are there any questions for
deputy council president hall on kind of
that presentation before we go to
community comments and then back to
discussion
looks like no
questions i'm not saying anything from
councilmember hunt so um
i'm gonna open to community comments
again if there's anybody on the line on
the phone star three on the computer or
smart
phone look for your hand icon in the
presentation and i will ask our
intrepid
connie marsh if you would come in
press the button
give us your comments thank you
okay connie marsh again and let's see 22
years of going to boards and commissions
and watching the interface between
council and boards and commissions
and um so i'm gonna i'm gonna give you
my perspective which is
boards and commissions feed into council
it is not a collaborative venture
because council is supposed to be
getting
the information
not
persuading
a board and commission of a particular
point of view
so i think that the the board and
commission will flow to council if
council has concerns they feed it back
to the board and commission and say
these are the concerns we have will you
do a review you you did this just
recently
now the things that make the
boards and commissions the crankiest is
when they work and work and work and
work and then they have no idea what
happens to what they've done they can't
see how their voice has threaded through
to the decision
making and
they don't want to watch the council
meetings to see
the communication between many of the
boards to council is awkward
and only a few are they supposed to
write a letter to counsel
formally stating a position
parks board for example that's a very
foreign concept to them because it feeds
through their staff and then it just
disappears and so they very rarely have
a picture of what their opinions have
have done
so i would formalize
the um
the
transmittal of opinions to counsel from
boards and commissions so that they
clearly know that they can
write an opinion letter and it is
appropriate now parks board does not
report to council they report to mayor
as part of their charter so there might
be some cleanup in all of that to make
it consistent
now
now that you have the subcommittees in
the past once a year you would have a
couple of people from the boards and
commissions come and talk about their
work of the year and talk about the
difficulties and things that were good
or bad it's almost a formality and i
don't know
but it did make people feel better and
then somehow with all this excess money
we now have
we used to have a party for all
volunteers every year to tell them hot
dog you guys have put in all this time
and energy so we're going to give you a
hot dog i mean i don't think they ever
went above hot dogs but maybe they did
um and so i think i think having a
street party for the volunteers is an
awesome idea and it helps create an
informal conversation
with the council members one at a time
in the individual board members where
you can talk about your dogs or you
could talk about a city issue without it
being
awkward or seemingly have a flow in the
wrong direction from a whole committee
so
i read i read
some of the suggestions and went no
canoodling between council and
and boards and commissions because
you're gonna
it's gonna it's gonna
that's backwards council has a lot of
influence boards and commissions sit
there and say well you know what do you
think the council is thinking and it's
like
we are trying to understand what the
community representatives are thinking
that is the point of having boards and
commissions so i know i came off like a
hot frying pan for that but it's a it's
important
okay thank you
you connie and
clerk do we have anybody on the line
indicating a desire to speak
uh no council president we have no uh
virtual attendees
okay then we can move on to
comments conversations etc
do we have any council members that
would like to start off
councilmember joe thank you for
the transportation advisory board
i was looking at the the code 2.92.050
a
1.
and
there's supposed to be a work plan
that's created every year and
at least annually the work plans to
be presented to the city council
to be finalized
prior to being finalized by the tab so
that could be a way that is in the code
for
the city council to meet at least with
the tab committee without having to
change anything that we're necessarily
doing
right now and so that would
um
you know take the committee our
committee out of the the loop there in
terms of any other
things because it's it's in the code
unless we want to change the code itself
um
just another note i think that
connie marsh brings up a good point that
there's nothing that necessarily would
prevent an individual council member
from meeting with any member of the tab
for instance there nine members on there
and you could have
nine separate meetings if you wanted to
you could just meet with the chair of
the vice chair and
reach some goals that we that i think i
expressed during the
conversation of the
moving over to
committees in terms of building a
rapport understanding how
each
individual works and how they
learn best and and make sure that the
work of the
individuals on tab was was being
honored respected
recognized
and or seen through the
thread of the work that goes on such
that they could understand how their
work came and influenced
or had an impact on the final decision
that was being made so i think with
those two pieces together putting
the onus on the individual members from
the mobility and infrastructure
committee to meet with tab members and
the annual report that should be
presented
to the council
the work plan i think that would be
enough
interaction for
the mobility infrastructure committee
and the tab
thank you
thank you anybody else want to provide
feedback thoughts councilmember d
michelle
so when i um
first got on council in november of 2019
my goal was to visit every boarding
commission and
i have to say that i heard some
wonderful conversations and it was a
great education and then along came
colvit so i didn't get to visit
everybody um you know we can do the same
thing because
many of the boards and commissions are
televised and you can watch the video
um but there's nothing like being there
in person and
listening to the nuances of the of the
um conversation for for those that
aren't
um
[Music]
there was one suggestion here that
um perhaps a city council member could
be a liaison to a board border
commission
i i think the point is well taken that
we don't want to create a situation
where boards and commissions are looking
to an individual or looking to the
council for direction we do want to hear
their take on the issue not our take
because we get our opportunity to to
give our take
so um
i think more opportunities for in-person
interactions uh
us i you know i had forgotten about
those parties that the that
they used to hold for volunteers i think
maybe that is a tradition that we'd want
to restart again
um
i
think that as individuals we can decide
whether we want to sit in on a bordering
commission meeting
but i think possibly in our rules of
procedures we should have some
guidelines for that
you know
around not trying to influence or not
um involving ourselves in the directly
in the discussions
so
i you know i always think it's great for
people to be talking to each other i
think it's great for us to create
relationships
i just think that we have to be careful
about how that's done and we have to
have clear
parameters for how those discussions are
held so that
boards and commissions remain
independent and give us independent
input
the other point i think that is well
taken is what happens to their input and
again how well are we communicating with
them we received your input this is how
it made a difference
just
closing that communications loop i think
would be a really important
improvement to the process for some of
our boards and commissions so
those are my comments thank you
and thank you for bringing the topic up
uh councilmember ray
thank you very much
um
not really quite a 100 sure how to go
here but
um first thing is i think it's really
important and we've talked about it to
recognize the contributions all the
boards and commissions it's not a
trivial amount of work and in some areas
it's a significant amount of work that
being said i think the council and the
boards and commissions have a very
different role and i think we need to um
recognize and respect that role
and
um
and part of that is the boards and
commissions are managed and staffed by
the administration not by
the council they're they're really a
extension of the administration not an
extension of the council though they
advise us um we may confirm uh board and
commission appointments but we don't
make board and commission appointments
so um there's a there's there's a reason
for that they're a little bit separate
and then in looking through the rules of
procedure i and this is the council d
michelle's point in
section 8.03 paragraph 3 says however
the council should be mindful of
questions that may influence the boards
and commission and deaths interfere with
the established role of the advisory
boards in the public policy making
process so
wherever we go we've got to make sure
that
we don't um we don't overstep um
the bounds that should be in place by
the administration for managing their
boards and commissions and that we don't
influence the public policy process
by uh inadvertently asking the right the
wrong
inadvertently asking any questions right
wrong or indifferent
yeah so
um that's my thoughts
thank you uh deputy council president
hall followed by council member marks
and then council member hunt thank you
uh it just thank you so so much for
everyone who's provided input so far i
know councilmember march you're up first
i just wanted to quickly
jump in to make a clarification too
because we're hearing a lot of
you know we don't want to influence
board and commissions we don't want to
influence the public policy decision
making process the process that goes
through that uh that's great feedback um
on the second potential action how we
talk about kind of setting the table for
a useful board and commission
conversation i kind of talk a little bit
about what i mean by that though uh to
get a better sense of
is this nuanced approach something
council thinks is
productive and useful or if it's also
still fits in that category of
influencing boarding commission so when
we talk about setting the table a good
example of that in framing policy
questions a good example of that was
what councilmember hunt did back when we
were talking about the anchor parks
initiative right the question that was
to be sent to the parks board was which
anchor park should we fund with arpa
money and councilmember hunt came in and
said maybe instead we should ask them to
come forward and evaluate each anchor
park what are the reasons why we would
find with reasons why we wouldn't and
frame it that way so then council can
have a very
detailed conversation about pros and
cons for each conversation so when we
talk about framing policy questions and
setting the table for boards and
commissions that's what we mean so
for the people who are about to make
comments if you could speak to whether
you think that
is a productive
thing that the council could do or if
the people who have already made
comments before too if you could circle
back if you have any new thoughts on
that otherwise
i'll just consider that you don't have
any new thoughts on that particular item
but just wanted to set the table on that
too so um thank you and
those are my comments
great council member marks thank you
madam council president
uh completely agree with council member
ray their mayoral commissions and
uh
and boards and uh
you know one of the things that we
always have to ask ourselves i mean we
just a few minutes ago talked about what
a well-oiled machined well-oiled machine
we are right now and and uh the the
collaboration that we have between the
administration and the council it is not
always thus and um in times where
there's more difference of opinion which
could happen you know on any given issue
it's important that the boards and
commissions have their independence um
but uh so so we shouldn't go to them but
uh can they come to us um you know we've
had equity board people um come before
council recently to talk about various
things and uh
you know i wonder if there's an
opportunity
for chairs
to upon occasion come before council and
be part of some
you know
conversation where we talk about things
that are being uh keyed up they're gonna
be going out to them um we're just there
you know they're here and they get to
hear what's coming their way uh from
council i don't know exactly what that
would look like but i think in terms of
was it making the table setting the
table
i think having chairs
come here on some sort of regular basis
would absolutely still maintain their
independence but would give them more
visibility into uh
the importance that their
efforts play in what we do thank you
okay excellent uh council member hunt
you're up next
thank you council president walsh
i served on the planning policy
commission before i was on council
immediately before
and i recall
um not fully understanding in some cases
where
information where recommendations that
we made would go and how they would be
used and specifically i recall when we
were working on the central issaquah
plan and the visions in that plan which
was a big undertaking i definitely saw
that work um i saw much more context i
much more fully understood the context
around that the time sensitive nature of
that work
once i was on council and i think on
council we get different feedback we get
we understand um in some cases how
different plans will work together also
um through the budgeting process we
understand staffing constraints and so
we
we may have pieces of context that are
very important for how we will use
information in our decision making
and i think through this conversation
which i really appreciate
council deputy president hall bringing
forward through this conversation i
would like to see us
try out a way to
better provide the that context piece to
the commissions i have also heard from
commissioners um not just on the tab but
on other commissions wanting wanting to
better understand the process i think
this is a real issue and i think it
would
it would behoove us to try some some
things a little differently i um
i like the suggestions that were
in the packet i do agree we need to be
mindful that we're not influencing
the decision but rather that we're
providing
the context so that
these boards and commissions who are
working working so hard that they are
providing information that is ultimately
um useful for us as decision makers
because that is a big part of their role
for most of these commissions
so i like the um i like the suggestions
i'm open to other ways i think
councilmember martz made a a interesting
suggestion about a little bit different
way of looking at the first
suggested action which has to do with
looking at the work plans together maybe
that could be looking at the work plans
together with the chairs rather than
with the whole commission which i i
think could be a very big meeting so
maybe we could look at different
we could ask the administration for
example to look consider
um changes like that that would make it
more feasible but i do i would like to
try
um
to make some changes to our process so
that these commissions better uh are
better equipped to provide information
that we we will ultimately be using and
then also that they they feel and that
they understand their value in the
process more clearly so i think we have
an opportunity to to make those sorts of
changes
i
um
i also
tried out a little bit
for the council for the council
committee i had asked before our last
plane development environment committee
if there were council questions
that we could discuss in the committee i
think we can always do that um but i i
just wanted to flag that because it was
helpful i think to our committee that
other council members that weren't on
that committee provided questions and so
if there are those sorts of
um
context pieces or clarifying questions
that council
needs to consider that will then be
important for committees as they do
their work i think
i think that would also be important for
us to consider how we can best do that
again not with
not telling the commission's
ultimately what to decide i completely
agree that that's not the role but
are there pieces of context such as how
time-sensitive something is
how we might use the information for the
parks example that council deputy
president hall
raised
in that case we had new information that
night and so you know is there new
information that's that's coming into
play and
how do we make sure that the information
we get back from the commissions kind of
addresses all of those variables
so those are my comments i i would urge
my fellow council members to let's let's
consider making it a change so that we
can try to address these um these
concerns from our commissioners who are
working so hard and then let's check in
with them and see if if that change is
working for them thanks
okay so we've heard from most of our
members i think everyone so i'm going to
go ahead and throw in some of my
comments so i also came from pbc
directly before this so
i know how hard and how
unappreciated that work is
um or rather
and not unappreciated but it's it's hard
to see that as
a board member as you're sitting there
doing the work
and all of that one thing i really
wanted to appreciate from a staff level
i know the mayor has asked staff to
really improve the communication that
goes back to the boards and commissions
to give them a sense of how their work
has continued closing that loop give
them a sense what's that next step that
council is going to take with their work
and as i've watched some of those board
and commission meetings over the last
year or so
that really feels like oh okay i can see
the future of the work that i have done
so i want to appreciate that
as one aspect of how do we
give a sense of how important this work
is and how much we value it
i'll give another plus one to the idea
of
an appreciation party for the board and
commission volunteers i think that's
another way that we can do that we can
create some of those in-person
meetings i know when i went
to two of the board and commission
meetings recently for their first
meeting back and just said oh my
goodness thank you so much for all of
the work it was very much appreciated so
i think those connections as a way to
say
thank you you're valued are very
important so we should keep that up
um what i've heard from several or from
different community members or council
members that i wanted to highlight
council member joe talked about work
plan collaboration and i particularly
like the idea of doing that with the
board and commission
chairs and vice chairs i think that's a
great way to kind of formalize that and
show a sense of hey here's what you're
going to work on and how it flows into
the council work plan i think that's a
great idea
i agree with council member hunt that
having
clarity for the board and commission
members on
how their policy flows from the borden
commission to a committee to the full
council to a decision to budget is
really important so i'd like to see us
create some kind of a chart i know
that's been discussed a few times but i
think that would be really useful for
each of the boards and commissions to
understand what that connected idea is
and then i really like
the
concept that council member martz talked
about about having the chairs come to
council and i'll add to that or write
letters to council if that's the way
they prefer to do so
just as a good way to
bring them into that conversation allow
us to thank them for the expert feedback
and show them how that pulls into the
decision-making process i think that's
really useful
one of the things that kind of came to
me on this was
gosh i really liked the idea of having a
connection between our committees and
the boards and commissions that were in
their scope area
but i really don't see any way to do
that effectively for
the ones that have the larger borden
commissions so
it's a nice idea but i think if we do
some other things around work plan
collaboration
appreciation parties do some annual once
a year council member going and saying
thank you i think that creates some of
that connectivity and hopefully if we
see how the work plan
collaborates and then we show how the
policy flows through
and then staff takes it back to the
board and commissions that creates that
closed loop sense of what you're doing
is important and here's how it's used so
those are my thoughts
so
i will see if there are any other
comments
i think everybody's had their say
and so i'll say to the administration do
you need
anything else from us or
maybe it goes back to you deputy council
president hall i don't know
uh yeah i'll take a first stab at it if
that's okay to the administrator so um
thank you all very much for the very
detailed conversation on that my hand is
cramping from taking notes from everyone
i think in terms of next steps and
correct me if i'm wrong we'll try to
kind of digest and internalize what
you've said here and work with the
council leadership to work with the
administration on what next steps are i
won't go through everything i've heard
but some of the major things that i've
heard
from this council are that
being able to close the loop and show
how board and commissioned decision
making feeds into the public policy
making process is really important
that we continue to find opera um
opportunities to appreciate and show
value
to our board and commission members
whether that be through a street party
or welcome or thank yous from council
members
and then also
to be mindful of not influencing the
public policy decision making process
too early on as it's coming to the
council so those are kind of the three
major things that i've heard but based
on the notes that i've taken and i'll
probably come back and re-watch this
conversation we'll work with the
administration on next steps and and
come back to council with something that
makes sense that's in line with
what we're doing it clearly won't be all
the things
that were described here in this memo
it'll probably be much more of a light
touch so which is what i've heard today
so does that make sense
to the administrator it does and the
only thing i would just add is
the recognition of our chief of staff
tina eggers uh
you know we we put together thank you
bags for all the members of the boards
of commissions and we've been handing
those out we asked we asked we we tried
to make the
uh july 26 event sort of a little party
recognition party for them but it was
100 degrees outside and we didn't we
didn't see as many folks as
we had hoped but but we were handing out
uh
little
notebooks and little
seed planters with uh with a nice bag
and a nice note of recognition so
i think koben's made it difficult to
obviously have people together but i do
want to recognize that we did do that
outreach this year for the boards and
commissions but
with that said we're happy to continue
to work with council leadership and
we'll move forward
excellent once again great feedback
everybody
so at this point we've got one more
agenda item which is good of the order
so looking around seeing if anybody has
anything they need to bring up
i am not seeing anything
so um after our meeting we do have a
special meeting which is an executive
session so don't go anywhere but at this
point i'm going to adjourn
our meeting at 8 46 p.m
thank you