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City Council Committee of the Whole Auto captions

Monday, August 8, 2022

6:30 PM · 2h 16m · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Topics tracked across meetings:
Good of the Order 1/15
Recommendation on Proposed Updates of the Issaquah Municipal Code, Title 18, (A) ID 1225 8/10
Title 18 Land Use Code AB 8398 1/6
City Hall Planning: Space Needs Assessment Results ID 1315 1/2
Topic
2. AGENDA ITEMS
2a
Public Comment Public comment on individual agenda items will also be accepted following Council Q&A
2b
Recognition of Robb Hunt on Retirement as Executive Director of Village Theatre ID 1233
5 min · packet pp.5–24
Topics: Tourism
Staff report:
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 General Fund budget revenues finished $13.4 million higher than expenditures. A key driver was the decrease in Personnel Services expenditures due to 54 full-time positions vacated in 2021, representing nearly 22% of all budgeted full-time positions in the City. As of August 2022, 12 % of City positions are still vacant, leading to a projected slight underspend for 2022 of about $1.2 million or 1.9% of total General Fund expenditures.
2c
2023-24 Budget: Revenue Forecast & Midyear Update ID 1149
30 min · Robert Hamud, Chief Financial Officer · packet pp.25–46
Topics: Budget
Staff report:
The city is currently undertaking a large overhaul of the Title 18, the City’s land use code. This update is being guided by various city adopted policies in the following documents: Strategic Plan, Comprehensive Plan & Olde Town Subarea Plan, Central Issaquah Plan, Parks Strategic Plan, Mobility Master Plan, Climate Action Plan and Title 18 Ad Hoc Committee created Goals, Policy Changes, and Desired Outcomes Document. This update also incorporates updates that are to ensure consistency with State Law and other best management practices. However, during community conversations at various Boards and Commission meetings there were items that came up that are outside the scope of the current Title 18 update. These items have been captured in the future updates list (white board) and are attached to this memo.
2d
Title 18 Land Use Code – Future Updates List (‘White Board’) ID 1225
60 min · Deputy Council President Zach Hall
Topics: Land Use
2f
Good of the Order
0:00 get us started
0:06 okay welcome everyone i council
0:08 president walsh
0:10 called the august 8th committee of the
0:12 whole meeting to order
0:15 our first agenda item is as always is
0:18 public comment
0:20 so there are multiple public comment
0:22 opportunities at tonight's meeting first
0:24 there's this public
0:26 general public comment opportunity at
0:28 the beginning of the meeting or you can
0:30 make comments after the presentation and
0:32 council questions question and answer
0:34 period
0:35 for each of tonight's agenda items
0:38 members of the public may address
0:39 council at this time in person or
0:41 virtually those who signed up in advance
0:44 to make comments will be called on first
0:46 if you're joining us virtually and would
0:48 like to make comments please raise your
0:50 virtual hand if you're on the phone
0:52 press star 3. if you've joined by
0:54 computer or smartphone look for the hand
0:56 icon this varies by device one option
0:59 may be to go the participant panel and
1:01 choose the raise hand icon in the lower
1:04 right hand corner if you are in the room
1:06 and did not sign up i will ask for other
1:08 speakers before closing this portion of
1:10 the meeting
1:11 so i will wait a moment and see if
1:14 anyone wishes to raise their hand
1:17 so clerk has anyone signed up to speak
1:20 or indicated a desire to speak this
1:21 evening
1:23 council president no one has signed up
1:25 prior to the meeting and
1:27 i do not see any virtual hands raised we
1:29 have no attendees
1:31 excellent okay then we will move swiftly
1:34 on to our next agenda item which is id
1:37 1233
1:39 recognition of rob hunt on retirement as
1:42 the executive director of village
1:43 theater so i'm going to proceed over to
1:46 the lectern and call him up and
1:48 see what we can do about this
1:58 this is way too tall for me
2:02 excellent join me back here
2:06 tonight we recognize rob hunt on his
2:09 retirement from village theater uh
2:11 you've made a significant just minorly
2:14 significant contribution to our
2:16 community through your leadership and
2:18 service
2:19 since
2:20 1979 you've worked tirelessly to grow
2:23 village theater and make it into the
2:26 cultural and artistic powerhouse that it
2:28 is today
2:30 from the city's perspective issaquah's
2:33 economic vitality and downtown core has
2:36 been greatly enhanced by your service
2:38 and so we wanted to thank you
2:41 and give you this retirement plaque
2:44 which reads in recognition of your
2:46 outstanding dedication and over 43 years
2:49 of service in the arts your city
2:52 appreciates you
2:54 let's
2:55 take a picture
3:00 there you go
3:02 there you go
3:05 [Applause]
3:07 do you have any words you'd like to
3:08 share oh just uh thanks for all of the
3:11 support the city of issaquah has given
3:13 for two village theater over the years
3:15 with
3:16 all of our buildings and all of our
3:17 programming and just the general support
3:20 uh it's been really great to to work in
3:22 issaquah and although i live in bellevue
3:25 i will continue to come to issaquah for
3:27 my entertainment and uh restaurants and
3:30 that kind of thing because this is kind
3:31 of my home so i appreciate everything
3:34 you've done and
3:35 thank you for for this honor thank you
3:38 very much
3:54 okay well that is always nice to be able
3:56 to recognize someone for their service
4:00 the next item on our agenda is id
4:04 1149 the 2023 2024 budget revenue
4:08 forecast and mid-year update and for
4:11 that it will be presented by our cfo
4:13 robert hamoud
4:15 there you go
4:18 thank you council president walsh just
4:20 give me one second here to put the
4:21 presentation up
4:44 okay so tonight is uh one of the first
4:46 looks and i apologize it's august 8th i
4:49 know
4:49 this is one of the first looks
4:52 at the budget
4:54 for
4:55 the upcoming so
4:56 just
4:57 want to have the caveat as you see the
4:59 slides tonight um all the data is very
5:02 preliminary we have you know a lot of
5:04 different things going on i'm going to
5:05 discuss kind of the factors we're
5:07 looking at right now and also keep in
5:09 mind too because
5:10 we're full accrual here at the city that
5:13 our finances off
5:14 often lag one or two months behind like
5:16 for example and so some of our revenue
5:18 sources do as well as far as the
5:19 reporting of sales tax um so
5:22 this is our you know best shot at it
5:24 mid-year here um through the end of july
5:28 and this is the snapshot i'm going to
5:29 show tonight and also some of the
5:31 assumptions we're working on to build
5:33 the budget as we go forward for 2023 and
5:36 2024.
5:39 and so right now
5:40 just to summarize revenues are coming in
5:42 stronger than anticipated especially in
5:44 utility tax
5:46 b o community planning and development
5:49 fees
5:51 we're having as i know mini's office is
5:53 experiencing pretty strong uh
5:56 permitting and construction inspections
5:58 this year
5:59 uh b o has been very strong we're seeing
6:01 and that's the business and operations
6:02 tax so we're seeing a lot of stronger
6:04 reporting for our local business
6:06 community
6:07 we're also seeing
6:09 utility taxes are increasing as well or
6:11 utility tax revenue is increasing so
6:13 we're seeing higher usage especially
6:15 with return to work for some of our
6:18 major companies within the city we're
6:20 seeing more usage on utilities and of
6:22 course the tax on top of that reflects
6:25 uh the revenue increases we're seeing so
6:26 a lot of that's the return to work and
6:28 just the economy picking up um compared
6:31 to this point last year recreations and
6:34 parks fees are also returning to
6:36 precopite level of activity so we're
6:38 seeing a lot more signups and groups
6:39 we're also seeing a lot more facility
6:41 rentals events are happening of course
6:43 events were still very limited this time
6:44 last year so we're seeing
6:47 if not a normal summer very very close
6:49 to one
6:50 expenditures though are they're expected
6:52 to finish about 1.9
6:54 under the amended appropriation for 2022
6:57 so that's due to staff vacancies and
6:59 right now
7:00 i'm going to talk a little bit about the
7:01 vacancy impact but it has decreased
7:03 since the beginning of the year so
7:05 staff is making progress again with our
7:08 human resources staff is fully staffed
7:10 doing a lot of recruiting right now and
7:11 we are filling those positions so that
7:13 that vacancies gap is decreasing as we
7:16 go forward
7:20 so this is the high level i'm going to
7:22 dig into the numbers a little bit on
7:23 future slides here but this is the high
7:25 level forecast so you can see
7:28 our actuals from 2020 um to our forecast
7:32 you can see the difference the gray is
7:33 the amended budget so this is after the
7:36 budget amendment that you ratified
7:38 earlier this year after the adopted
7:40 budget and then the forecast and you can
7:42 see
7:43 back to kind of the summary i gave on
7:45 the previous slide the revenues are
7:47 above our estimate and again just
7:49 because we are seeing very strong
7:51 business activity this year compared to
7:53 last year and expenditures
7:55 again are slightly down but almost all
7:57 of that is attributed at this point on
7:59 the general fund to vacancies but again
8:02 the city is making progress on the
8:03 vacancies
8:09 so current economic conditions
8:12 right now we have the best way to phrase
8:15 it is mixed economic signals consumer
8:17 price index for the seattle
8:19 cpiu this is what the city uses to
8:21 measure is up 10.1 from june 2022 over
8:26 june 2021 that's driven by higher energy
8:29 housing construction and food cost
8:32 however and the us pdp has also
8:34 contracted two consecutive quarters
8:36 negative 1.6 percent in the first q of
8:38 22 negative 0.9 percent in the second
8:41 quarter
8:42 however the unemployment rate has
8:44 decreased in july to 3.5 percent that's
8:46 the lowest point since february of 2020.
8:50 and also the median home sales price in
8:52 issaquah in june was 1.1 million dollars
8:55 it's eight percent higher than it was in
8:56 june so that means half the the homes
8:59 that were sold in june were higher than
9:01 1.1 half were below 1.1
9:04 but however the home sales themselves
9:06 were down 19 percent
9:08 and just a side note uh we saw and we
9:10 also saw with our real estate excise tax
9:13 transactions which against a special
9:16 revenue fund but we have seen a lot of
9:18 commercial real estate purchases and
9:20 activity since the beginning of the year
9:22 some very large ones and that's
9:24 that is showing strong growth that's
9:26 very very hard to project or predict
9:29 that market that market runs a little
9:31 bit differently than the residential
9:33 market does
9:38 so budget revenue forecast and at any
9:40 time you have questions during this just
9:42 please raise your hand and let me know
9:44 and i will answer those questions as we
9:46 go forward
9:47 you can see i won't go through every
9:48 single one just hit the highlights here
9:50 you can see that property tax forecast
9:52 is pretty flat
9:54 again property tax doesn't grow much
9:56 year over year because we don't have a
9:57 lot of new construction
9:59 uh happening within the city we have
10:00 some that will come online in the next
10:02 couple of years but the base is pretty
10:04 consistent so right now we're seeing
10:06 it's the same as forecast about 10.1
10:08 million
10:09 sales tax you can see it's higher it's
10:11 about our forecast is about a million
10:13 dollars higher than it was in the
10:14 amended budget and what we're seeing on
10:17 sales tax is very interesting when we go
10:19 back to how the economy is doing we're
10:22 seeing um
10:23 really you know still a huge strength in
10:26 anything business related so in the
10:27 business we call it business to business
10:29 when local businesses make equipment
10:31 purchases data purchases anything else
10:33 is taxable we see that we're seeing a
10:35 lot of activity since the beginning of
10:37 the year
10:38 we are also seeing restaurants are
10:40 essentially
10:41 they're pretty flat right now so the
10:43 restaurant industry looks like it's a
10:44 little flat granted our sales tax
10:46 numbers again they lagged two months so
10:48 the most recent numbers we have were
10:50 through
10:53 may at this point so
10:55 excuse me june at this point so they do
10:57 lag a little bit so we haven't gotten
10:59 the summer numbers yet as we go forward
11:02 however
11:03 what we're seeing with sales tax as well
11:05 is retail sales were up a little bit
11:08 we're not sure if that's because of
11:10 increased activity or because prices
11:12 went up because of inflation we don't
11:14 know how much of a trend that is
11:15 something we're going to monitor through
11:17 the end of the year
11:18 where we're seeing a little bit of a
11:20 slowdown that we're going to watch
11:21 through the end of the year right now
11:23 but it's still within our kind of margin
11:24 of forecast is construction sales tax
11:27 and anything related on that
11:29 think sales tax with say
11:32 buying new equipment buying new drywall
11:34 for a project and also the lumber yard
11:36 at home depot anything that's picked up
11:38 at home depot's taxable here the lumber
11:40 yard generates very large numbers uh
11:42 for that company and we're watching that
11:45 we're kind of watching the trends of
11:46 that at that it's starting to that
11:48 construction sector starting to soften a
11:50 little bit but again we're lagging two
11:52 months behind so we don't have the full
11:54 summer construction season numbers until
11:56 a few months from now to see how that
11:58 actually panned out some of it could
12:00 have been the weather because the
12:01 weather was still slow going into may
12:05 excuse me
12:07 bno again i said
12:08 large increase again we're seeing a lot
12:10 of business activity return to the city
12:12 utility tax follows that
12:14 and then again planning fees the
12:16 community development planning fees were
12:18 up parks fees are up again just seeing a
12:20 lot of
12:21 activity compared to this time last year
12:23 with the resumption of group activities
12:26 youth camps and rentals
12:29 and intergovernmental rentals
12:31 intergovernmental revenues you can see
12:32 just a slight decrease that's just due
12:34 to the amount of grants we received in
12:36 2021 compared to 2022 at this point
12:41 so again i already kind of went through
12:43 this
12:44 a bit
12:45 before we move on we do have one
12:47 question council member a actually it's
12:48 two sure two two questions um the first
12:51 one is um sort of a math problem so our
12:54 our sales tax rate is one percent right
12:57 we get one percent of the sales tax no i
12:59 wish we did
13:00 .85 for the base rate okay that answers
13:03 my question thank you
13:05 um and then my second one is um would it
13:07 be really interesting to have 2019 uh
13:10 revenue on here so pre-pandemic um do
13:13 you know kind of how our forecast for
13:14 2022 is looking compared to 2019
13:18 pre-pandemic i consider you a chart with
13:20 that information that would be awesome
13:21 yes thank you
13:24 yeah just a side note if you're looking
13:26 at the affordable housing sales tax
13:27 that's because the city does receive the
13:29 full 1.1 percent um with the
13:32 the base sales tax where you see 0.85
13:35 per rcw county receives 0.15 of that
13:40 and so our expenditure forecast right
13:42 now year to date
13:44 we're on track through june 30th about
13:45 49.9 percent you can see everybody's
13:48 tracking um to their budget what were
13:52 in the fire service obviously that's a
13:53 contract so again we're billed i believe
13:55 quarterly on that so that's why it's a
13:57 little slightly higher if we already
13:58 made the payment what we are monitoring
14:01 again are the vacancies so we're making
14:03 sure that the vacancy number you know
14:05 could affect our year-to-date year-end
14:07 but again the city is making a lot of
14:09 progress with that um we've reduced the
14:12 amount of vacancies almost in half from
14:14 this time of last year so they are
14:16 dramatically going down
14:19 so again it's about 30 34 as of last
14:22 week
14:23 and again we have other positions
14:25 expected to be filled in upcoming months
14:28 also the expenditure forecast that i
14:30 showed in the previous page includes the
14:32 newport pedestrian crossing that council
14:34 added to the general fund budget
14:37 and then we are seeing inflation this is
14:39 one thing i did forget to mention
14:40 earlier we are seeing inflation
14:41 beginning to impact capital projects and
14:44 some contracts there's a construction
14:46 cost index the morton instant cost index
14:49 that's used regionally here
14:51 pretty much to index
14:53 for all the materials we build in the
14:54 capital project the q1 numbers are way
14:56 up we're still waiting for the q2 will
14:58 come out in september we're assuming
15:00 it's probably going to be higher than q1
15:02 we're hoping that you know inflation is
15:04 peaking by the end of the year but
15:05 that's one of the uncertainties that
15:07 we're looking at going forward building
15:08 this budget
15:11 and so the long-term forecast i just
15:13 wanted to talk about this a little bit
15:15 how we came up with these assumptions so
15:18 we're looking at what 2023 and 2024
15:21 which would comprise the biennial budget
15:24 what would be built in there so you're
15:26 going to see higher increases built in
15:28 the first year because of the inflation
15:30 cost of living other assumptions that we
15:32 have on benefits and services and
15:34 supplies increases
15:36 we slightly lower that for 24 because we
15:38 think most of the inflation this year
15:41 would be experienced in cost for next
15:42 year going down after that and then we
15:45 assume about
15:46 four percent or so increases going
15:48 forward after that for each year so the
15:50 revenue line again
15:53 includes for 2022 you're going to see
15:55 that drop to 2023 that includes the arp
15:57 of funding because we put the arpa
15:59 funding in the general fund so that 66.2
16:02 includes that second trench of the arpa
16:04 funding that was over 4 million dollars
16:07 so when you take that out you can see
16:09 plus growth that's how it drops from
16:11 2022 to 2023
16:14 and the expenditure side does include
16:16 the arp as well but it's more staggered
16:18 because that's multiple years that we're
16:19 spending on those funds
16:22 and so you can see the total ending fund
16:24 balance and again
16:25 it is preliminary in the year there's a
16:27 lot of different factors that could
16:28 happen i'm going to show you on a future
16:30 slide here
16:32 what our assumptions are as far as our
16:34 capacity during the budget and during
16:36 the budget deliberations
16:38 but right now you can see the designated
16:39 fund balance we are forecasting
16:42 we're using the council target of 15 we
16:44 are forecasting
16:45 the designated fund balance does include
16:47 the arpa funding in it we are obviously
16:50 going to spend it down
16:51 in future years undesidated fund balance
16:54 you can see there
16:57 does include
16:58 some spend down but also growth with
17:01 those revenues over expenditures so we
17:02 are spending it but of course there's
17:04 our we're trying to keep the revenues
17:06 over the expenditures so you could see
17:08 that that gap there but this does not
17:09 include any new funding this year this
17:12 is just if we included our assumptions
17:14 on the baseline and they held
17:16 so again just base increases new no new
17:19 additional
17:20 a one-timer ongoing spend and i'm going
17:22 to show you a little more detail in the
17:24 next slide
17:26 any questions on this so far
17:30 great
17:33 so i went over this here
17:38 and yeah just a side note here on the
17:40 summary
17:42 utility tax is tied to rate increases i
17:44 know
17:45 there is a for example puget sound
17:47 energy did come out with the proposal
17:49 for a large rate increase i know that's
17:51 being debated by the states so we kind
17:52 of took
17:53 a little lower increase that they're
17:54 proposing
17:56 and that utility tax would be on top of
17:58 that rate so we
18:00 were kind of estimating what we're
18:01 receiving in electricity bills the past
18:03 couple years forecasting that out with
18:05 the rate increase in there same thing
18:07 with the solid waste contract how that's
18:08 built into the rates maybe taking a
18:10 little bit from demand in future years
18:13 but with
18:14 certain core utilities you're talking
18:16 water you're talking wastewater you're
18:19 talking even
18:20 most electricity and same thing with
18:22 solid waste
18:24 there's not a lot of you know when rates
18:26 go up people tend to pay that there's
18:28 not a lot of drop off in demand for
18:29 those services that's unless there's an
18:31 economic factor there
18:34 utility tax is very consistent through
18:36 our forecast sales tax is trickier sales
18:39 tax we are anticipating it a slowdown of
18:42 the growth so not
18:44 not a contraction but a slowdown of the
18:45 growth because there has been
18:47 large-scale construction projects the
18:48 past few years there's activity
18:51 there's still projects in the future but
18:52 fewer projects right now so if another
18:55 costco came in or another large project
18:57 we would update the forecast to
18:58 incorporate those projects and we work
19:00 with
19:01 cpd to to try to have the best crystal
19:03 ball we can with some of that but sales
19:05 tax is cyclical it's very hard for
19:08 example to project auto sales like auto
19:10 sales right now
19:11 um have been struggling because of the
19:13 computer chip but if there's an over
19:15 supply
19:16 might be discounted we might see growth
19:18 in the next few years so there's a lot
19:20 of those items
19:21 that we're looking at with this
19:23 forecast but like i said if you look at
19:25 property tax and utility tax those are
19:27 your your solid revenues going into the
19:30 future sales tax again harder to project
19:34 and we also assume in our forecast the
19:36 approve that council would approve the
19:38 annual one percent property tax increase
19:40 in there each year
19:47 so the
19:48 this is the preliminary budget chart and
19:50 i have to do it asterisk just subject to
19:52 change
19:53 this is our best guess right now but as
19:54 revenues become clear we get another
19:57 couple months of revenues get another
19:59 couple months of expenditures
20:02 this could change so again this is our
20:04 best shot at this point in august we
20:06 have till december
20:08 to lock down all the numbers per statute
20:12 so if there's any fundamental change to
20:14 this obviously we'll come back to you
20:15 before that happens and again we're
20:17 targeting november passage of the budget
20:19 so any new information we would notify
20:22 the council immediately but this is our
20:23 best
20:24 estimate at this point again with the
20:26 assumptions that i outlined earlier in
20:28 my presentation
20:30 and so i want you to look at the
20:32 basically so the baseline again
20:34 is again what we're assuming all those
20:35 assumptions on the revenue side
20:38 we have the designated restricted
20:39 revenues because affordable housing
20:40 sales tax
20:42 that again because it's a full one
20:44 percent not at 0.85 that's why the
20:46 forecast is 2.4 to 2.5 million a year so
20:50 it's a little higher than you would see
20:51 on the the sales tax growth forecasting
20:54 expenditures you can see ongoing and one
20:56 time
20:58 we have some one-time expenditures that
21:00 already built into 23 and 24 in the
21:02 baseline then we also have ongoing
21:04 expenditures
21:05 um that
21:07 that are also in there too so one time
21:10 would be one-time projects that were
21:11 already approved there were multiple
21:13 years and i believe there's some limited
21:15 term employees that were approved for 23
21:16 24 in there so that is
21:20 what those numbers represent then you
21:22 see the designated or restricted
21:24 expenditures and again that's the arp
21:25 expenditures
21:27 one-time funds you can see 23
21:30 and 24. and so we're looking at this
21:32 potential proposed scenario in 2023 when
21:36 you go down the categories here and you
21:38 can see the ongoing capacity so again
21:40 this is the difference between just the
21:42 ongoing you take the ongoing categories
21:45 and revenue
21:47 i don't know why my phone did that i
21:49 apologize
21:50 and ongoing expenditures
21:53 and so this is the ongoing capacity so
21:55 you can see the difference we're we're
21:57 seeing between that 59.4 number for
22:00 baseline ongoing revenues for 23
22:02 and
22:03 56.5
22:05 for expenditures
22:07 in 2023 gives you that 2.9 million
22:11 so again that's separate from the
22:12 designated restricted expenditures for
22:14 our bus so we're just doing what what
22:16 that ongoing capacity is that's 2.9
22:18 million is what we're looking at
22:21 we have talked about the fund balance
22:23 and spending down the fund balance so
22:25 we're offering a scenario here
22:28 what would reduce to the 15 percent
22:30 target we have additional ongoing
22:32 capacity of 2.1 million
22:35 additional one-time capacity of 10.5
22:37 million and so you see the impact on
22:39 fund balance you see the nd fund balance
22:41 of 22.9 million if you were to do that
22:44 designated to 12.8 undesignated at 10.1
22:49 and so it gets you down to about 16 the
22:51 first year and then down to fifteen
22:53 percent the second year
23:02 any questions on this
23:07 okay councilmember d michelle
23:11 so i'm looking at the affordable housing
23:15 sales tax and so it
23:18 as i'm understanding it as i'm reading
23:20 it every year we're going to get about
23:22 2.4 million dollars
23:25 and then that will go into the
23:27 designated fund balance
23:29 um and just build until we decide to
23:32 spend it that's correct okay so if
23:34 there's a spending plan attached to it
23:35 obviously that would do that one one
23:38 side note i do want to make on that
23:40 revenue source is because it is sales
23:42 tax it is subject to cycles in the
23:44 economy
23:45 it is
23:46 more sensitive to ups and downs
23:49 so that is something where we have a
23:51 spending plan we would you know
23:53 obviously designate a reasonable reserve
23:54 on that as well
23:56 okay uh um so when i look at the you
24:00 know the uh projected designated fund
24:03 balance
24:04 it looks like it's going down but
24:06 we're putting maybe over three years
24:09 time we're putting like seven point five
24:11 seven
24:11 and a half million dollars in there
24:16 it's just i just wondering
24:20 if we have
24:21 is it are the does the designated fund
24:23 balance go down because we've got other
24:25 plans for that fund or
24:28 right so again it goes down on the
24:31 designated fund balance
24:32 there were some items on that designated
24:34 fund balance
24:36 that do drop off in 24. i can come back
24:39 to you with a list of those items that
24:40 do okay that would be helpful yeah thank
24:43 you so much yes
24:45 but robert they're unrelated to the
24:46 affordable housing unrelated to
24:48 affordable housing that's correct
24:49 right right the affordable housing sales
24:51 tax
24:52 nothing has been designated from that
24:53 sales tax at this point right okay
24:56 thanks
24:57 robert would it be valid to say that one
25:00 of the reasons why the designated fund
25:01 balance decreases is because of the
25:03 large arpa expenditures that are in that
25:06 designated fund balance so as much as
25:09 we're going up because of the affordable
25:11 housing revenue we're going down more
25:13 than that because of the arpa
25:14 expenditures correct
25:16 um i need to
25:17 produce the list to you for the detail i
25:19 just want to make sure that we identify
25:21 those out but i'll give that to you but
25:23 that's certainly a big piece of it yes
25:24 yeah okay okay thanks anything else
25:28 questions nope okay let's move on
25:30 thank you
25:36 and so i think i went through all of
25:38 these assumptions here and again
25:40 subject to change as we say but at this
25:42 point this is the the best information
25:44 available to us um
25:46 to calculate that capacity there are
25:48 some adjustments to the capacity that
25:50 staff is looking at right now in terms
25:52 of benefit options in terms of what's
25:54 happening with labor negotiations that
25:56 could impact that that number that 2.9
25:58 number that i i did reflect on the
26:00 previous slide
26:02 and that's all i have
26:05 okay so at this point we've got time for
26:08 questions and then we can go to public
26:11 comment and come back for
26:13 i don't know if there's really any
26:14 deliberation on this so much as just
26:17 providing any additional questions that
26:19 we have and if just one moment i'm gonna
26:23 ask and see if council member hunt has
26:25 any questions so we can make sure she's
26:27 part of the conversation that's a no
26:30 yes
26:34 i didn't see what your hand
26:36 signal was
26:38 no question
26:40 okay
26:42 sounds good okay then uh councilmember
26:44 joe
26:46 thank you kel's president
26:48 uh robert thanks for the presentation
26:50 some good information there that keeps
26:52 us on
26:53 task and keeps our mind on where we're
26:55 going i i know that we're changing our
26:58 budget from a single year budget to a
27:00 biennial and i know there you've gone
27:03 through some of the challenges that we
27:04 will experience i know that we're going
27:06 to have some additional sessions
27:08 this budget time period
27:11 can you give us an update on how your
27:13 department's doing on the added work and
27:16 and that transition to a biennial budget
27:19 yeah really appreciate uh that question
27:21 councilmember joe uh it's not just a
27:23 department it's a team effort so it's
27:25 all departments in the city adjusting to
27:27 that so we've had trainings we've had a
27:29 you know a lot more discussions than we
27:30 probably normally would at this point
27:32 but i think that people are
27:33 understanding it it's it's more of you
27:35 know what are you going to do the first
27:36 year how's the second year going to look
27:38 so i think it's it's certainly
27:40 a change from press practice but it's
27:42 not out of the ordinary we're hoping
27:45 that our training materials and kind of
27:47 our internal discussions have have made
27:49 it a smooth process so far
27:54 thank you and then just one follow-up
27:55 question looking ahead
27:57 a year
27:59 the
28:00 mid
28:01 budget
28:02 examination that we do in the in the off
28:04 years um we try to keep that short and
28:07 simple and just have it be a review
28:10 what kinds of things would you recommend
28:11 to the council for us to watch out for
28:14 so that we don't let that mid-year
28:16 review get out of hand or get too
28:18 onerous uh as as we look toward uh the
28:22 future of the budget
28:23 that's a very good question i can't
28:25 remember joe i believe
28:27 at least in my opinion as a cfo i would
28:30 certainly say reinventing the entire
28:32 budget process mid-year it's supposed to
28:34 be just a review
28:36 statutorily you don't even have to pass
28:38 an amendment we would advise one but
28:40 unless if revenues or expenditures are
28:42 far off then that would be
28:44 the time to talk about it say revenues
28:46 are higher than expenditures we have
28:47 additional spending capacity then we
28:49 would maybe talk about some enhancements
28:51 at that point but if it's pretty much on
28:53 track or within the margin of error that
28:54 we're looking at the budget then again
28:56 we wouldn't request any fundamental
28:58 changes at that point
29:01 thank you very much you're welcome
29:06 okay i am not seeing any other questions
29:10 so i'm going to take a moment and see if
29:13 there are any public comments related to
29:17 id 1149
29:19 2023 2024 budget revenue forecast and
29:23 mid-year update
29:25 so if anybody is online and would like
29:27 to comment um if you're on the phone you
29:30 can press star three if you've joined by
29:32 computer smartphone you can look for the
29:34 hand icon
29:36 or make a comment to our clerk hosting
29:40 the meeting do we have anybody who has
29:42 signed up or indicated a desire to speak
29:45 council president walsh we have no
29:47 virtual attendees at the moment
29:50 okay and no one in attendance here has
29:53 indicated an interest to speak
29:56 um so we have an opportunity to i guess
30:00 ask is there anything else that you need
30:02 on this subject before we move on to the
30:03 next topic
30:05 i'm not at this time again we have more
30:07 time with the council in upcoming weeks
30:09 for updated budget information we're
30:11 working internally right now
30:14 with uh wally and the mayor on the
30:17 proposals from the departments and
30:18 vetting that out
30:20 okay fantastic well thank you for the
30:22 presentation oh we've got one from
30:25 council member marks
30:27 yeah just just to comment on on the
30:29 information we've seen in front of us i
30:31 mean we we just seem to have a real
30:33 persistent
30:34 uh over supply
30:37 of money
30:39 and under expenditure and i just want to
30:42 point out that we don't have to spend it
30:44 all right we could restructure how we
30:46 revenue
30:48 take in less money and uh rather than
30:51 you know we don't have to spend it just
30:53 because we collect it we could um look
30:56 uh lowering our our incomes and uh
30:59 providing less of a
31:01 burden on our residents so i think we
31:03 should have a conversation about you
31:05 know if you have consistently these
31:07 consistent huge surpluses that we have
31:08 to keep dumping money into a
31:11 fund for some future day purposes
31:14 it's not obvious to me that that's the
31:16 best stewardship of our communities
31:17 money
31:19 thank you
31:22 and if i can just add council president
31:24 members of the council it's going to
31:25 come to an end
31:27 i don't want to steal our thunder but we
31:30 have phil will have filled all our
31:33 vacancies and that i think will do that
31:36 we are looking at a budget right now
31:39 that expenditures will exceed revenues
31:41 and so one of the questions will be for
31:43 the council how much ongoing
31:46 expense do you want to use with one-time
31:48 money and we're likely not going to
31:50 suggest very much so we'll continue to
31:52 spend down palm balance on one time
31:55 but i think we will have an ongoing
31:56 issue so more to come over the next
31:59 several weeks
32:03 okay then i guess i was confused by what
32:05 i saw because i saw putting money into
32:08 rainy day funds over multiple years and
32:10 i didn't see that slowing down so and i
32:14 think that is attributable to one-time
32:15 expenditures versus ongoing expenditures
32:18 so that will be the discussion we'll
32:19 have on the council
32:21 because because the administration's not
32:22 going to propose
32:24 these increased operational costs being
32:26 used for those one-time dollars so
32:29 we'll continue to have strategies to
32:31 spend that down
32:33 over time
32:35 thanks
32:38 looks like an interesting conversation
32:40 to come
32:42 you want you have a comment yep
32:45 and also just really quick to say thank
32:47 you very much to you and um susie for
32:49 all your work um on this i'm sure it's
32:51 taken many many hours even just to get
32:53 here and many many more um to come so
32:55 just know that this council really
32:57 appreciates all the work that you're
32:58 doing especially ahead of our first
33:00 biennial budget so thank you very much
33:02 thank you we appreciate it too
33:05 okay and with that i think we can move
33:07 on to the next item on our agenda which
33:10 is id 1225
33:12 title 18 land use code future updates
33:15 list formerly known as the whiteboard
33:18 and before we go to this topic in the
33:20 presentation i just wanted to call on
33:23 member joe for a quick disclosure
33:25 thank you
33:26 i wanted to let the council know and any
33:28 members of the public
33:31 know that
33:32 my employer is
33:35 in bellevue and we do
33:37 we're a membership organization for
33:40 residential construction
33:42 and
33:45 i want to disclose that that's
33:47 there and that tonight as we look at
33:50 title 18 there may be some
33:52 topics in this
33:54 subject area that could impact
34:02 our areas that my membership sometimes
34:05 delves into
34:08 i want
34:09 the public to know that i've reviewed
34:11 the materials and i've
34:13 looked at the
34:15 subject matter tonight i believe that
34:16 it's
34:17 largely legislative
34:19 in nature and has a wide impact on
34:22 the entire city rather than an impact on
34:24 any particular project
34:27 benefiting any particular
34:30 builder or developer
34:32 in the city of that being said i wanted
34:34 to make that disclosure and if anyone
34:36 has a
34:40 wants to
34:41 have me not be part of this discussion i
34:42 certainly understand that but i feel
34:44 that after looking at the material
34:46 that i will be
34:48 unbiased and
34:50 open-minded as to the topic and subject
34:52 matter and be using my very best
34:54 legislative judgment
34:56 as we discuss this
34:58 thank you
35:01 okay
35:02 and seeing no other comments then i'm
35:04 going to call
35:06 community planning and development
35:07 director minnie dallywall for the staff
35:11 presentation
35:13 thank you good evening council members
35:15 and members of the community um so this
35:17 is an item which we're now calling land
35:20 use codes future updates list uh and in
35:23 parentheses we started out with a number
35:25 of names but we landed on whiteboard at
35:27 one point
35:30 so as we've worked as you all know uh
35:33 we've been working on the title 18
35:34 update uh for the last year and a half
35:37 or a few months
35:40 and through those conversations that
35:42 that have
35:43 occurred with the community with the
35:45 boards and commissions with the uh
35:46 council committee there have been a lot
35:48 of topics that have come up that uh
35:51 aren't within the scope of the project
35:53 so we started capturing those in a list
35:56 so we didn't forget them or lose them
35:58 they were important
35:59 things that we had heard
36:02 and discussed with everyone
36:04 so tonight we're seeking your input
36:08 on which items from this list should we
36:11 tee up for the budget cycle in 2023 and
36:15 2024
36:18 and
36:20 as you know this whole
36:22 little bit of background i think i got
36:24 some comments or questions
36:26 uh via email uh to to do a little bit of
36:29 historical check-in of how we came about
36:31 with the golden outcomes chart so i'm
36:33 going to try and cover in my
36:34 presentation
36:35 um the current update you know obviously
36:37 it's being guided by all our adopted
36:40 plans strategic plan comprehensive plan
36:43 central essequal plan park strategic
36:46 mobility master plan climate action plan
36:50 and of course
36:51 the great amount of work the title 18 ad
36:54 hoc committee did when the goals and
36:56 outcomes
36:57 uh document was created so um you know
37:00 this
37:01 journey for the city started in 2019
37:04 with the selection of some
37:06 consultants to do some work then it was
37:08 halted in 2020 uh while the committee
37:10 was formed and the work occurred in
37:13 terms of uh what are the goals and
37:15 outcomes for this current title 18
37:16 update um
37:18 so we took that
37:20 and then the council uh authorized the
37:23 contract for the consultants in april of
37:26 2021
37:27 um which the all of these plans and
37:29 documents and most importantly the the
37:33 title 18 goals and outcomes
37:36 guided the update
37:39 and like i said some of these things are
37:41 as we dove into it were outside the
37:44 current scope
37:47 we've given you the list and it's
37:49 organized by the six topic areas which
37:51 is similar to what our title 18 code
37:53 update is so the natural environment
37:56 landscape and open space zoning and uses
37:58 building and design
38:01 the fifth category is a little bit of a
38:02 miscellaneous item but we've called it
38:04 zoning and development standards but it
38:06 includes affordable housing transfer
38:08 development rights
38:09 landmarks and parking
38:12 and then of course the sixth
38:14 topic area process and procedures we're
38:16 still under discussion with ppc so
38:19 that last item
38:21 we're going to have those conversations
38:22 with planning and policy commission in
38:24 august this month
38:27 and then each of these items on the list
38:30 we've given it a number and a title um
38:32 the committee the planning development
38:34 and
38:35 environment committee asked us to put it
38:37 in the format of intent what's the
38:39 intent of this
38:41 item what's the desired outcome
38:43 we've added some staff suggested actions
38:46 for that particular uh item
38:49 and then um
38:50 also uh the committee discussed of
38:53 whether we should it's uh you know it's
38:55 covered under the existing golden
38:56 outcomes document or not so we've
38:58 included that information for you to
39:00 discuss tonight and then if it's
39:02 connected to any of the city's adopted
39:04 plans
39:06 the um
39:08 committee the your council committee
39:10 discussed the process to use for
39:12 prioritizing this and they came up with
39:14 these three items
39:16 items that are most strongly associated
39:18 with the golden outcomes document
39:21 the connection to the city's adopted
39:23 plans such as central esquiplin
39:27 master mobility plan and uh the metric
39:29 of effort needed for this um
39:32 for the for a particular topic
39:36 and we also wanted to kind of highlight
39:38 some of the big things that are on the
39:40 docket to uh
39:42 cover and for the next two years
39:45 uh we have in front of us a periodic
39:47 update of the entire comprehensive plan
39:50 that's a huge major effort uh you know
39:52 the current law is we have to do this
39:54 every eight years it was extended
39:56 by a house bill to every 10 years but
39:59 the list update is due
40:01 end of 2024.
40:03 um we're expecting 225 000 grant for
40:07 this work from department of commerce we
40:09 have some other budget asks that will
40:11 come to you uh related to this topic
40:14 um we also received a grant of hundred
40:16 thousand dollars from department of
40:18 commerce um
40:19 that you all authorized and we have
40:22 kicked off our work on the housing
40:24 strategies plan with eco northwest as
40:27 the selected consultant for that uh
40:29 grant work
40:31 and of course thank you for funding the
40:33 transit study um so there's 300 000 that
40:36 you give us and we did an rfp and
40:38 selected a consultant to undertake that
40:40 work so that's ongoing will continue for
40:43 the next two years
40:44 and then of course the the concurrency
40:46 and the traffic model update
40:48 um so that's already that's not the
40:50 items on the whiteboard list but just uh
40:53 that's on the work plan
40:56 before you move on to that i want to
40:59 make sure that we have a clear
41:01 understanding of what it means to
41:03 prioritize and what the future updates
41:05 list what we're kind of considering here
41:07 so can you talk about
41:10 basically we've got title 18 and it's
41:12 current scope we've got stuff that's
41:14 currently on the future updates list but
41:16 what you're asking here is
41:18 for
41:19 some feedback
41:22 whether some of those should be
41:24 prioritized in kind of the 2023
41:27 2024 time frame as far as
41:30 work effort from staff but also
41:32 potentially a preview of budget is there
41:36 any other way to kind of frame that so
41:38 that we understand
41:40 what these items are and why we're
41:42 considering them tonight
41:44 yeah so um so like i said the these
41:47 items that came through the
41:48 conversations with title 18 update um
41:51 and so
41:52 the the assumption isn't to not ever
41:56 handle this list that we'll work on this
41:58 list in a methodical more thoughtful way
42:01 um but also what
42:04 what you know there's a 32 list item
42:06 we're not done with the sixth bucket
42:08 discussions with bpc so it's a long list
42:11 um and so we're asking council to be
42:14 thoughtful about you know there's a
42:16 funding which wins should these be tee
42:18 up for your discussion on the budget and
42:21 also um just from
42:23 the bandwidth for boards and commissions
42:26 uh staffing and you know to do a good
42:28 job on on some of these items so how do
42:31 how do we pick how does you know which
42:33 which is the highest priority for
42:34 council that one should be funded and
42:37 two within the next two years we want to
42:39 capture it and get it done
42:41 okay and then just another clarifying
42:43 question all of the items on this list
42:46 relate to
42:48 title 18 and our land use code so even
42:50 if there's something on there that's
42:52 like related to affordable housing it's
42:54 not talking about
42:56 building affordable housing or anything
42:58 like that it's related to the code that
43:01 would support
43:03 potential affordable housing um or
43:06 something like that correct yeah so our
43:08 ask is to keep your discussion about
43:10 items in title 18 that should be
43:12 prioritized there may be a couple of
43:14 items in there like urban forestry
43:16 program that came through the
43:17 conversations but not necessarily the
43:19 code update
43:21 um so for our purposes of discussion
43:23 tonight if we can prioritize the code
43:25 related items
43:27 which is majority of them except for one
43:29 or two like that
43:33 thank you i just wanted to make sure we
43:34 had that before going into these lists
43:40 so should i walk through what each of
43:42 the items is at a very high level we
43:44 included the more details in in your
43:46 plan but um for the first topic natural
43:49 environment there's stream buffers um in
43:52 this slide i kind of show what it's
43:54 covered under the existing goals and
43:55 outcomes and which um
43:58 which is the highest um you know the
44:00 closest long-range plan that um
44:03 that it uh references
44:05 um so we are updating our stream buffers
44:08 there's a in your chart i've kind of
44:10 gone over what we are actually doing uh
44:12 we're in the process of you know
44:14 creating a technical memo that uh
44:16 analyzes the best available science
44:18 related to buffers
44:20 uh but regardless of that we have some
44:22 studies that were done in 2003 and 2006
44:25 that did more of on the grounds
44:27 assessment for streams
44:30 so this item would update those uh would
44:33 expand the list to other fish bearing
44:35 streams and and you know um
44:38 so that's that item
44:39 noise code update uh we just referenced
44:42 the state law for that there were there
44:44 were some comments during the the update
44:46 that perhaps if you're looking at
44:47 lighting we should look at noise
44:49 number three is the sustainability
44:51 points based system so i'll explain that
44:53 a little bit
44:54 what's happening on the building energy
44:58 code
44:59 scenario so
45:02 the state law was changed um it's going
45:05 to take effect next year july 2023 where
45:08 commercial and
45:11 buildings are required
45:13 to to be energy efficient and there's a
45:16 whole list of things that comes with
45:17 that building code and it deals with
45:20 heat pumps it deals with you know the
45:22 lighting standards in an open office
45:24 space it talks about a bunch of things
45:26 um but it sits in building code which is
45:29 title 16 of our um issaquah municipal
45:33 code so that we're going to update we're
45:34 not asking for any funding or
45:36 prioritization that's just a requirement
45:38 we have to do
45:40 with this current code update we've had
45:42 conversations with planning and policy
45:43 commission as a stop gap measure so
45:46 anything over 20 000 square feet
45:48 building we're going to require it to be
45:50 third party certified as lead gold so
45:52 that is planning policy commission's
45:54 recommendation on that so beyond that if
45:57 we want to take
45:58 a look at how to create more sustainable
46:01 buildings that are below 20 000
46:03 create a nissan based sustainability
46:05 score based system we did a peer city
46:08 research shared that with ppc and it's
46:10 really looking at um
46:13 what what does that mean a lot of our
46:15 cities have an incentive based uh you
46:18 know deep green incentives where it's
46:20 really trading more development capacity
46:22 for sustainable buildings so i'm not
46:25 sure if that's uh the right approach for
46:27 esto club but if you know looking at
46:29 what incentives would make sense for
46:32 issaquah and also those ones that will
46:35 won't get you know
46:36 you that'll be more used so they will
46:39 get the outcome of more sustainable
46:40 buildings but and also
46:42 coupling that with not just new
46:43 development but existing buildings
46:46 that's where you're going to get the
46:47 most
46:48 moving the needle in the right direction
46:49 for reducing greenhouse gases so that's
46:52 that item number three
46:55 and open space there was a desire to
46:57 have a prohibited plants list we're
46:59 going to have a reference to noxious
47:02 weeds and all that but not create a more
47:04 plant pellet we're going to update the
47:06 tree list
47:07 and one of the environmental board
47:09 members is helping us
47:11 with some details on that list and then
47:13 the next one is urban forestry program
47:16 that's a discussion you'll have with the
47:19 budget and parks department as well
47:22 the third topic area zoning and uses um
47:25 cluster housing uh came up you know this
47:28 is again part of the diversity of
47:30 housing
47:32 uh item uh that we're studying with the
47:36 um for happy grand housing action
47:39 implementation grant that we just
47:40 mentioned and then of course number
47:42 seven is emergency shelters and
47:44 transitional housing so this became
47:46 state law as part of house bill 1220. we
47:49 are going to take care of this this is a
47:51 requirement
47:52 there's a comp plan element you know we
47:54 have to change our housing element but
47:56 also our code requirements so allowing
47:59 shelters and and such facilities
48:01 wherever hotels are permitted so
48:04 that's number seven
48:06 um there we also heard um
48:10 uv commercial retail zone to allow
48:12 multi-family development allow cafes in
48:15 residential zones prohibits self-storage
48:17 facilities we should have a more robust
48:20 discussion about impervious surface
48:21 limits
48:23 and then school sighting in compact
48:25 school design so that's all under this
48:27 topic three
48:30 topic four um sustainable development
48:33 you know it kind of carries through in
48:34 multiple uh topic areas so we've carried
48:37 through in all of them uh but we kind of
48:39 talked about this already um
48:42 neighborhood visions uh this is already
48:44 um i think called out and one of our
48:46 plans to have these robust discussions
48:49 with two neighborhoods uh per year um so
48:54 we wanted to put that in here
48:56 there's also eco-friendly materials uh
48:59 discussion
49:00 of course there's the inter tie between
49:02 the building code and the land use code
49:05 what can we do now we're going to
49:06 attempt to fix a few things here but but
49:09 this needs to be a thoughtful discussion
49:11 because technologies changes and you
49:13 know other things happen with building
49:15 materials so
49:17 we also learned about the view shed you
49:20 know we there's a desire to protect the
49:22 views the regulations are very tricky on
49:26 that
49:27 so in order to do a good job with that
49:30 we do need to have a full dedicated view
49:33 shed study that really looks at from
49:35 each point vantage point and what what
49:38 some of the protections and regulations
49:40 could mean
49:41 uh way finding regulations
49:44 again we heard
49:46 even though we require these through
49:47 block connections and other things it's
49:49 hard for people to know
49:50 that this is um
49:52 a public space
49:54 we're going to put some you know signage
49:56 requirements for new things that come in
49:58 but a more holistic connection of these
50:01 passageways and through
50:03 through block connections
50:05 and even trails and other things
50:07 is probably needed is what we heard
50:10 universal design regulations you know um
50:13 again these these are things we need to
50:16 kind of uh do a more complete check in
50:19 uh we heard about the strict
50:21 architectural style that we have in our
50:23 regulations now that perhaps we need to
50:25 look at more of a form-based code and
50:27 not um
50:28 not look at architectural style
50:32 uh with the form-based code in this case
50:34 would be bill two lines you know the the
50:37 form of the code and how that interacts
50:40 rather than more about uh pick one of
50:42 the five styles approach um
50:45 and this can be you know broad city-wide
50:48 central or portion of central
50:50 uh so this number 19 item needs to be
50:53 more
50:54 discussed it could be tied in with a
50:56 portion of central that really is
50:58 providing this alternate form of housing
51:01 which is missing from and improving our
51:03 diversity of housing choices and using
51:05 this as a pilot project
51:08 so a lot a lot a lot more
51:12 you know discussions to kind of form
51:13 what what that does really mean and what
51:16 what we need to accomplish there
51:19 number 20 um was one of the things that
51:22 director dollywood looks like we have a
51:24 question on the previous slide
51:26 yeah on the previous slide thank you
51:27 very much can you um go over again what
51:31 number 17 is the universal design
51:33 regulations i'm not sure i'm clear i'm
51:35 not sure i clearly understand what that
51:36 is yeah you know this
51:39 we have some some of these regulations
51:41 sprinkled throughout title 18 but then
51:43 we have our building code that really
51:45 has an ada component to it and a lot of
51:49 times it really isn't um
51:52 there's a lot of nuances in that so we
51:55 kind of took that out from here and let
51:57 the building code regulate that because
51:59 it's more
52:00 geared towards this is what it means
52:04 and
52:06 and we need to kind of figure out if we
52:08 need to go above and beyond the building
52:10 code requirements for some of the
52:12 accessibility requirements
52:19 do you know what universal design is
52:20 would you like
52:21 director dollywell to
52:23 can you put forth a small explanation
52:26 you know i am so my understanding of
52:29 this um
52:30 and i could be wrong um
52:32 and because from where it came from the
52:34 discussions were more about
52:36 if you have a play space area and some
52:39 you know a trail design should it be
52:41 someone in a wheelchair accessible can
52:43 use it or not use it and
52:45 and if you have a play equipment uh you
52:48 know how how do you get all of those and
52:50 that's pretty regulated under the
52:52 building code um
52:54 but it it's possible that we had these
52:56 regulations in title 18 where prior to
52:59 them making into the building code
53:02 but because there was a you know this
53:04 was a separate thing that we put in here
53:06 to do for the research of do we need to
53:08 go above and beyond what's already in
53:10 the building code
53:12 okay thank you very much much clearer
53:18 number 20 is what the committee uh
53:21 prioritized for um you know there were
53:23 three things that they prioritized so
53:25 this one was align the code with adopted
53:27 housing strategies
53:30 and like us mentioned the grant that we
53:33 received and the work that we have
53:35 already started uh
53:37 on this topic is really looking at three
53:40 different strategies six and eight and
53:42 nine i believe so looking at um
53:46 um you know condos and and what are the
53:49 detriments there
53:50 how do we have uh uh inclusionary zoning
53:54 you know beyond just the three districts
53:56 uh in central issaquah
53:59 and then uh diversity of housing uh
54:02 choices so we'll be studying that and
54:05 coming up with um discussions with the
54:07 planning and policy commission and
54:08 ultimately for council as part of the
54:10 grant but then there are other things
54:12 that came up during these conversations
54:14 you know missing middle being one of
54:16 them
54:17 uh single family zoning being you know
54:19 what are we doing for that um so all of
54:22 this is a broader topic that's going to
54:24 look at the housing strategies the
54:26 adopted housing strategies that the city
54:28 has
54:30 number 21
54:32 is transfer of development rights our
54:35 interlocal with king county has expired
54:37 we had a good discussion with the
54:39 committee
54:40 to take a look at that again with king
54:43 county limited to
54:45 issaquah creek basin outside the city
54:47 limits but also tie it with the um
54:51 i've given you an acronym but it's
54:52 really
54:53 uh l clip program where the city gets to
54:56 keep some of the taxes that county would
54:58 get for increased assessed value
55:01 um so that's number 21
55:04 and then from 22 all the way to
55:08 uh 30 or 31 are really parking related
55:13 uh topics um
55:15 that um we did a little bit different
55:18 um approach with parking in terms of
55:20 just not just going to the boards and
55:22 commissions but there were a lot of
55:24 affinity group meetings with the vision
55:26 partners and others and local businesses
55:29 that that addressed the that parking
55:31 conversation
55:32 and through that it became obvious that
55:36 you know solving the parking
55:38 uh to just not have any minimums and
55:40 just establish your maximum standard
55:42 were
55:43 much more complicated um we don't have
55:46 transit now we some of these parking
55:49 requirements uh obviously we don't want
55:52 to pave additional area for parking and
55:54 and not have sustainable development but
55:56 at the same time
55:57 uh it needs to be thoughtfully
55:59 considered so we've added all of these
56:01 things that we perhaps
56:02 we need more uh detailed conversations
56:05 in in this on the whiteboard to come
56:07 back and tackle some of these things
56:10 and then topic six were still in the
56:13 process we've added one which came up
56:16 about 5g poles
56:18 you know a lot of cities have these
56:19 pre-made design options for city-owned
56:22 poles that people can choose from so it
56:25 addresses the aesthetic
56:27 concerns that the city has had
56:28 previously but it provides better
56:31 connectivity so um so that's number 32.
56:34 that pretty much concludes high-level
56:38 you know discussion about what's on the
56:39 list it's evolving um and it will you
56:43 know we'll add more things if
56:45 they need to be added as we
56:47 uh conclude our conversation with the
56:49 planning and policy commission
56:51 but because of the budget and the items
56:53 that need to be funded and the timing of
56:55 that we've brought it forward to you
56:57 to start thinking about which
56:59 of these items should we include in our
57:01 proposed budget
57:03 for the next two years
57:05 okay city administrator
57:07 maybe thank you man excellent
57:09 presentation let me just maybe amplify a
57:10 little bit on that
57:12 back at your
57:14 planning retreat on july 16th this was a
57:16 major topic
57:18 and so we asked that the the council
57:21 committee reviewed this so we asked to
57:22 include this this evening is the
57:25 topic for the community the whole
57:26 this is meant to be a resource
57:29 discussion uh we're not asking the
57:31 council to make any decisions taking any
57:32 sides
57:33 we're just trying to sort through
57:35 of these you know how big is the
57:37 breadbasket if it's a really big bread
57:39 basket
57:40 we may not have the resources to do all
57:42 that even
57:44 with all the fund balance we may have
57:46 we're certainly concerned about just
57:48 planning staff there's a comprehensive
57:51 plan update that needs to happen next
57:52 year a number of things that many
57:54 touched on this evening which are
57:56 already just part of the work plan so
57:58 again we appreciate
58:00 the council identifying this is a a
58:02 policy issue and a resource issue
58:04 back on july 16th but tonight we're
58:07 really just trying to get a sense of
58:09 urgency for how many of these projects
58:11 so that we can come back to in a few
58:12 weeks
58:13 hopefully with an appropriate budget
58:15 allocation both
58:16 dollars for outside help as well as if
58:18 we need to make additional staffing
58:20 changes in our community planning and
58:21 development department
58:23 thank you
58:25 okay so just as far as process i'm going
58:29 to see if there are any
58:31 following questions from the
58:32 presentation then i'm going to see if
58:35 there's any public comment
58:37 and then council member hunt i'm hoping
58:40 you'll kind of start the conversation
58:42 with some of the
58:44 topics that came up in the pde meeting
58:47 committee meeting
58:49 so starting out are there any questions
58:52 coming off of the presentation that
58:54 didn't get asked during
58:56 councilmember ray
58:58 thank you council president um
59:01 so i i understand the goal around trying
59:04 to figure out how much we can do
59:06 but i'm also struck with what are the
59:08 really are the constraints i mean i mean
59:10 we can't
59:12 expand infinitely even with the bestest
59:15 consultants in the world there's still a
59:16 limit to how much we can do
59:18 and then i was thinking it's a
59:20 comprehensive plan update year and
59:23 that's going to put a workload on ppc
59:26 and then there's the other boards and
59:27 commissions that we would probably want
59:29 to have engaged in this too do you have
59:31 a sense of you know
59:34 what what our capacity even looks like
59:37 so because otherwise we're gonna say we
59:38 want to do it all
59:40 or nearly all so i mean just give us
59:42 give us some um some bumpers here
59:47 yeah um you know
59:50 again it's going to depend on which
59:52 which topics you choose
59:54 if you choose a very big broad one then
59:57 i would say our capacity is to tackle
59:59 one or two
1:00:01 uh and if we choose the smaller ones
1:00:03 maybe three uh but not more than three
1:00:10 that's perfect that's exactly what's
1:00:11 just looking for just you know just
1:00:14 bring us in a little bit before we go
1:00:16 too crazy
1:00:17 and if i can just add um you know we're
1:00:20 hearing from you we're hearing from the
1:00:21 boards and commissions
1:00:23 a fear that
1:00:25 this is all going to get lost in the
1:00:26 shuffle and so we just want to make sure
1:00:29 that we're staging appropriately
1:00:31 i think i agree with many just on sort
1:00:34 of the broad assessment of things but
1:00:36 you all came to us at the administration
1:00:38 saying this is really important
1:00:40 and so we also we well we'll thank you
1:00:42 for letting us put bumpers on this but
1:00:44 ultimately you're the ones who set the
1:00:46 bumpers so uh we're trying to marry all
1:00:48 that together uh and whatever
1:00:51 information and feedback we get from you
1:00:52 tonight will certainly help that
1:00:58 deputy council president hall did i see
1:01:00 you wanted to ask a question okay
1:01:05 so when we're talking about
1:01:06 prioritizing
1:01:08 some of these tasks
1:01:12 is this
1:01:13 are we talking about it solely from the
1:01:15 lens of what we want to accomplish over
1:01:17 the next biennial budget or what we want
1:01:19 to get started
1:01:21 over the next biennial budget years or
1:01:23 is that a policy
1:01:25 question for council to consider
1:01:27 does the administration have any
1:01:28 thoughts on that you know again i think
1:01:30 we're looking
1:01:31 to just get feedback tonight
1:01:35 i think this is a workload of the 30 odd
1:01:38 items that's a multiple year workload is
1:01:41 it two years three years five years
1:01:44 i don't think we're prepared to say that
1:01:45 tonight but um you know if you were to
1:01:48 say the comp plan's enough
1:01:50 let's put all this aside and let's have
1:01:51 that conversation 12 months from now
1:01:54 that's something or as many said if you
1:01:55 think the staff can do two or three here
1:01:58 are here are four or five maybe you can
1:02:00 think of an administration come back
1:02:01 with a budget proposal and we'll talk
1:02:03 some more about it in the fall
1:02:07 yeah i think you bring up a good point
1:02:09 in terms of
1:02:10 you know is it do the work do the
1:02:12 research and then figure out what we
1:02:14 want to do
1:02:16 whether we're going to finish in two
1:02:17 years or
1:02:19 we you know we put them on the list for
1:02:21 next two years but it doesn't mean
1:02:23 if we have the time after the compliment
1:02:25 conversations we obviously can take it
1:02:27 on but it could straggle more than two
1:02:29 years
1:02:32 people lose momentum too sometimes when
1:02:34 you're having those conversations if you
1:02:35 drag it out too much but
1:02:38 but it is something
1:02:40 to keep you know as you all think of
1:02:43 yes in the two years are you you give
1:02:45 giving us like start the work and finish
1:02:48 it or start the work and start working
1:02:50 with the community and then
1:02:52 it you know that that'll inform the
1:02:54 research will inform how much what the
1:02:56 next steps might be for some of these
1:02:58 topics more elaborate ones
1:03:05 okay so any other
1:03:08 questions that we want to ask before
1:03:10 going to public comment
1:03:12 i'm not seeing any
1:03:15 um so at this point i am going to call
1:03:17 for public comment on this topic and
1:03:21 again if anybody is online on the phone
1:03:23 wants to press star 3 if you're on a
1:03:25 computer smartphone you can look for the
1:03:28 hand icon and i will first call for
1:03:32 anyone in the room who would like to
1:03:35 make a public comment
1:03:44 so connie if you'll press the button on
1:03:46 there so that it turns red
1:03:48 there thank you
1:03:52 my name is connie oh there we go my name
1:03:54 is connie marsh i live up on squawk
1:03:57 and i have been through this before
1:04:02 this is the old school council retreat
1:04:06 that came out with
1:04:09 41 priorities that then the council
1:04:12 would put dots on and staff would sit in
1:04:14 the corner with their jaws gaping saying
1:04:17 wow the council has a lot of ideas
1:04:21 and how are we ever going to get
1:04:22 anything done and that happened every
1:04:27 for year after year after year
1:04:30 and it was playing whack-a-mole
1:04:33 it was so hard to watch because staff
1:04:36 would run like crazy
1:04:38 trying to keep up with what every
1:04:40 different council member
1:04:42 wanted
1:04:45 we wouldn't get very far
1:04:48 and so that changed and
1:04:51 it got tightened up so that we created a
1:04:55 strategic plan so that we would not play
1:04:59 whack-a-mole
1:05:01 every year
1:05:03 and here we are
1:05:04 playing whack-a-mole
1:05:06 again
1:05:07 so i do not see a good future with a
1:05:10 list of 32.
1:05:12 i do not see a good future
1:05:16 a list that is not prioritized by
1:05:20 this is state law
1:05:22 we have to do it priority one we have to
1:05:25 do it there isn't a choice we have to
1:05:27 fund that what does that look like
1:05:29 number two
1:05:30 this is in our comprehensive plan
1:05:33 already this is a strategic plan goal
1:05:35 that we have prioritized for the last
1:05:38 for the next five years we have that we
1:05:40 spent years
1:05:42 doing that
1:05:43 and now we want to
1:05:45 have our 32 things now
1:05:49 the code
1:05:50 needs a lot of work because we didn't do
1:05:52 anything for 10 years i would rather
1:05:56 see the code
1:05:58 [Music]
1:06:01 every year
1:06:05 first the state law updates have to do
1:06:07 that we have to stay up to date that way
1:06:10 and then you could prioritize
1:06:13 one or
1:06:14 two items
1:06:16 just for the code every year so that we
1:06:18 have a more consistent rolling update of
1:06:22 the code
1:06:23 most of the items that are on this list
1:06:26 with a few
1:06:28 little little different ones
1:06:30 actually our policy questions and
1:06:32 decisions that need the rigors of the
1:06:35 comprehensive plan update which we are
1:06:37 already doing so my third tier
1:06:40 that would be
1:06:43 third i guess
1:06:44 would be is this something we want to
1:06:47 put a check mark by
1:06:49 and then we want to feed this through
1:06:52 the comprehensive plan update to see if
1:06:54 it has legs in the community
1:06:57 and if it has legs in the community
1:06:59 through a comprehensive plan update then
1:07:02 you get the policy language put in
1:07:05 and then you feed that again through
1:07:07 your next update of your strategic plan
1:07:11 so that everybody on the council
1:07:14 a narrow five-year focus on what the
1:07:17 city wants to accomplish and you move
1:07:20 forward slowly
1:07:22 and incrementally what i'm seeing is we
1:07:25 struggled to get the central issaquah
1:07:28 plan for years and years and now we are
1:07:32 somehow losing focus on this 30-year
1:07:34 plan that we had and we're looking at
1:07:36 other things
1:07:38 okay that's whack-a-mole
1:07:41 so i am
1:07:42 adamantly opposed to this style of list
1:07:46 making i am adamantly opposed to great
1:07:49 ideas and they may be great ideas but
1:07:52 they must go through
1:07:54 our established slow moving
1:07:57 excruciating non-private process called
1:08:01 government
1:08:03 you need
1:08:04 to remember you're representing us
1:08:08 who live here you can't see us that's
1:08:10 why i came down today because it is more
1:08:12 of an impact if you have to look
1:08:15 at your people
1:08:17 right
1:08:18 it is not
1:08:20 your government it is
1:08:22 our government and we had finally gotten
1:08:25 set in a bit of a system
1:08:27 and now we have
1:08:29 kovid and we're playing whack-a-mole
1:08:30 again so i have one
1:08:34 smallish
1:08:36 detail which is stream buffers the
1:08:39 language has changed and i sent in an
1:08:42 email i never got a response
1:08:44 uh it indicates that we are assessing
1:08:47 our best available science
1:08:50 in this code update
1:08:54 i wanted that all along but i had never
1:08:56 gotten a real affirmation of what that
1:08:58 would look like so i would like to
1:09:00 understand what that actually
1:09:02 means
1:09:03 the stream assessments are a physical
1:09:05 study that does need to be done
1:09:08 ours is too old but what state law
1:09:10 requires is that our code update be
1:09:13 based in best available science which it
1:09:15 currently is not so i'm curious as to
1:09:17 what that detail means i believe we're
1:09:20 talking state law for that stream buffer
1:09:24 tier one priority one state law i'm not
1:09:27 going to repeat i'm assuming you got it
1:09:30 i sent an email
1:09:32 and uh i'm gonna listen thank you
1:09:36 thank you connie
1:09:40 do we have anyone online who has
1:09:43 indicated a desire to speak
1:09:48 uh council president walsh we have
1:09:49 nobody attending online
1:09:51 okay fantastic can i ask somebody to go
1:09:56 remute the microphone so we don't get
1:09:57 any echo no no you sit down we've got
1:10:02 oh can you
1:10:06 fantastic
1:10:10 okay so at this point before we start in
1:10:13 on our discussion because the
1:10:16 planning development and environment
1:10:18 committee has had robust conversations
1:10:21 about this i want to make sure
1:10:23 to have council member hunt kind of
1:10:26 start us off and maybe summarize some of
1:10:28 that conversation which might answer
1:10:30 some of the questions that we have in
1:10:32 the first place so councilmember hunt
1:10:37 thank you council president walsh
1:10:39 um and please do let me know if you have
1:10:42 trouble hearing me because i know i've
1:10:44 been having a little bit of internet
1:10:46 issues but hopefully you can hear me
1:10:49 yeah so we can hear you but we will
1:10:51 definitely let you know and i'll let you
1:10:52 know if there are any questions that
1:10:54 come up during your comments
1:10:56 great thank you the planning development
1:10:59 and environment committee met on august
1:11:01 4th which was last thursday and i do
1:11:04 think that the staff memo that was in
1:11:06 our packet for this evening captured the
1:11:08 main highlights of that conversation
1:11:10 very well and i wanted to recognize the
1:11:12 staff for that because it was a very
1:11:14 quick turnaround i think they had about
1:11:16 one day before the packet went out to
1:11:18 capture that conversation
1:11:20 we started fairly high level and we
1:11:23 discussed
1:11:24 some ways that we could going forward
1:11:26 prioritize this list of future updates
1:11:29 for title 18 our land use code
1:11:32 and we started with wanting to make sure
1:11:36 firstly
1:11:37 anything that needs to be done for state
1:11:39 law that that would be done we did have
1:11:41 a discussion about how previously
1:11:44 items that were necessary to comply with
1:11:46 state law got pulled out of the process
1:11:49 entirely such as the sign
1:11:51 code update
1:11:52 previously so those would be dealt with
1:11:55 first and then
1:11:56 as far as the prioritization at the
1:11:59 policy level that we proposed
1:12:02 we proposed using a framework where
1:12:04 items that were closely aligned with our
1:12:07 existing goals and outcomes document
1:12:10 would be prioritized first this would
1:12:13 allow us to
1:12:15 more closely finish the original what we
1:12:18 consider to be the original scope of the
1:12:20 title 18 work plan
1:12:23 um and we still
1:12:25 felt that that goals and outcomes chart
1:12:28 has been really helpful for us in
1:12:30 determining
1:12:32 um what we want to see from this update
1:12:34 and and we still felt that those goals
1:12:36 and out
1:12:37 outcomes are valid and and that we
1:12:40 haven't um
1:12:41 changed in terms of wanting to have
1:12:43 those outcomes from the update so we
1:12:45 thought um we thought we would recommend
1:12:48 prioritizing that first and then looking
1:12:50 at other existing plans that the city
1:12:53 has adopted such as
1:12:56 climate action plan also the master
1:12:58 mobility plan
1:12:59 and i also wanted to flag that
1:13:02 two council members council member hall
1:13:04 and council member d michelle sent in
1:13:07 questions ahead of time and um for us to
1:13:10 consider as a committee and both of
1:13:12 those questions had to do with alignment
1:13:14 to other plans um the central issaquah
1:13:17 plan and the master mobility plan
1:13:19 specifically the transit aspect of that
1:13:22 so we thought that as a second tier
1:13:24 looking how closely
1:13:26 these land use goals
1:13:28 align with our existing plans would be
1:13:30 that second tier
1:13:32 and then um potentially
1:13:34 also looking at metrics of efforts to
1:13:36 make sure that we're doing the items
1:13:38 that we can achieve um
1:13:41 with the capacity that that staff has
1:13:44 and the resources that we have
1:13:47 so um
1:13:48 we were then we we started very high
1:13:51 level we had that as a as a general
1:13:53 framework and i think we were all in
1:13:55 agreement as a committee that that made
1:13:57 sense to us
1:13:59 uh then we were asked by the
1:14:00 administration to prioritize the between
1:14:03 one and three
1:14:04 items using that system so we we had a
1:14:07 conversation about that
1:14:09 the items that we felt
1:14:12 the most closely aligned to the
1:14:15 goals and outcomes charts and that would
1:14:18 be very important in terms of achieving
1:14:20 our vision for efficient land use
1:14:25 meeting our goals for environmental
1:14:26 protection
1:14:27 as well as
1:14:30 increasing housing diversity so just for
1:14:32 reference these are goals
1:14:34 three which is conserve and protect
1:14:36 environmentally critical areas goal two
1:14:38 which is provide adequate parking while
1:14:40 utilizing land efficiently and goal six
1:14:43 which is increased housing diversity
1:14:45 using those we prioritized
1:14:47 um items having to do with parking which
1:14:50 would be items 24 and 30 from the
1:14:53 future updates list those have to do
1:14:55 with the minimum and maximum parking as
1:14:57 well as transit accessible parking
1:15:00 and then item 20 which is missing middle
1:15:03 housing it this is expanded even in that
1:15:05 chart to include other housing related
1:15:08 issues and is really about aligning our
1:15:11 housing stock with our housing strategy
1:15:14 work plan
1:15:15 and then
1:15:17 item one which is the stream buffer um
1:15:20 work item to update with um state the
1:15:25 state
1:15:26 system for
1:15:27 a washington state department i believe
1:15:29 um issue for classifying streams so that
1:15:32 we have the very best available science
1:15:34 and as minnie has explained we are
1:15:36 updating and providing a technical memo
1:15:38 on how the current
1:15:41 um stream buffer
1:15:43 works but we also want to make sure that
1:15:45 we are updating that um in the next go
1:15:47 around
1:15:48 so that was our recommendation um
1:15:54 i also just wanted to thank the council
1:15:55 members that sent in those questions in
1:15:57 advance they did help inform our
1:15:59 conversation
1:16:01 and i also wanted to add one more thing
1:16:03 which is we did consider if we wanted to
1:16:05 remove any items
1:16:07 from the list and um council president
1:16:10 walsh suggested and i think the
1:16:12 committee agreed that we we ultimately
1:16:15 did not want to remove any items or
1:16:18 pull any items into the
1:16:20 current update but we also uh wanted to
1:16:25 if possible have the pure city review
1:16:28 literature review for those those items
1:16:31 that we are going to be
1:16:33 proposing for
1:16:36 2023-2024 budget so those would be the
1:16:39 parking related items and the housing
1:16:40 related items and i think this could
1:16:42 also be helpful if we did accelerate
1:16:44 that pure city review part of the work
1:16:48 um to show that we do
1:16:50 intend to follow through on this list of
1:16:52 updates that they are future updates
1:16:54 they aren't going on a whiteboard and
1:16:57 um you know to be dealt with at some
1:17:00 [Music]
1:17:01 future you know far future day we are
1:17:04 committed to doing these
1:17:05 items and i think that
1:17:08 getting ahead on the pure city review
1:17:10 would help with that um because we are
1:17:12 committed to
1:17:14 to this work
1:17:16 thanks
1:17:17 okay thank you council member hunt so
1:17:21 with that i think what the
1:17:23 administration is looking for from us is
1:17:26 just some general feedback like we said
1:17:29 we have this long list of 32 items and
1:17:32 we're not making any decisions right now
1:17:35 but we are coming into budget season
1:17:36 where resources will need to be
1:17:38 allocated
1:17:39 and trying to provide some feedback to
1:17:43 the administration on
1:17:45 how does the council coming out of that
1:17:48 summer retreat where we talked about
1:17:50 budget priorities how do we then take
1:17:54 and put our well not really our money
1:17:56 where our mouths are but further
1:17:58 emphasize
1:18:00 or prioritize within that larger bucket
1:18:03 of hey title 18 future updates is
1:18:06 important well
1:18:07 now we have to actually face the music a
1:18:09 little bit and look at the
1:18:11 individual line items so
1:18:14 does anyone want to start the
1:18:16 conversation here or anybody have any
1:18:19 other questions for council member hunt
1:18:22 councilmember d michelle
1:18:24 um i think my question is more for
1:18:27 city administrator bob kwitz
1:18:32 my concern or my top priority is the
1:18:33 transit study and but
1:18:37 we've talked about parking be involved
1:18:39 in that and my question to many today
1:18:41 was about transit demand management and
1:18:44 so i guess my question
1:18:46 is how expansive is that transit study
1:18:49 going to be whether the parameters
1:18:51 around i don't know if we can answer
1:18:52 that question right now but
1:18:54 it seems like a lot could go into that
1:18:56 transit study
1:18:59 related to
1:19:00 transit but maybe we're defining the
1:19:03 transit study very narrowly so
1:19:05 can you give me just a preview of
1:19:08 what the
1:19:09 parameters of that study might be
1:19:12 well as you know council member d
1:19:14 michelle i can answer just about any
1:19:15 question you pose a formal form or
1:19:17 another but andrea schneider the deputy
1:19:19 city administrator is on the line and
1:19:22 my guess is she could answer it more
1:19:25 concisely certainly
1:19:28 perhaps be more precise to your question
1:19:32 deputy city administrator are you able
1:19:35 chime in
1:19:45 good evening
1:19:46 hi this is andrea and minnie may be able
1:19:49 to chime in as well but the transit
1:19:51 study
1:19:53 the intent of it is to find out what
1:19:59 capital projects we need to do to
1:20:01 increase
1:20:02 access to transit
1:20:05 so that may include
1:20:07 [Music]
1:20:08 improvements to our roadway system or
1:20:10 other connections for first-class mile
1:20:12 connections
1:20:13 it will also importantly include
1:20:16 things that we need to do for
1:20:19 readying ourselves for the light rail
1:20:21 and what we need to do with station area
1:20:23 planning um and considerations there so
1:20:26 i think those are those are the general
1:20:28 topics
1:20:29 associated with with transit there may
1:20:31 be also some policies we need to
1:20:33 consider that could help guide those
1:20:35 investments
1:20:36 and guide our planning for transit
1:20:40 but i think generally that's what the
1:20:41 transit study intends
1:20:43 on doing
1:20:47 okay thank you very much so um so the
1:20:50 issue of parking then would it sounds
1:20:53 parking policy would be outside of
1:20:57 yes okay thank you
1:21:00 and uh councilmember hunt you had a
1:21:02 comment or question
1:21:06 thank you council president walsh
1:21:08 yes i had a comment in response to that
1:21:11 question which is the
1:21:13 planning development environment
1:21:14 committee also
1:21:15 considered some
1:21:17 items such as the urban forestry related
1:21:20 item on the future updates list and
1:21:23 because we
1:21:25 concluded that
1:21:27 a lot of the work that will be done
1:21:29 under that item isn't directly related
1:21:31 to the title 18 land use we
1:21:34 um title 18 land use code we did not
1:21:38 prioritize those we did prioritize
1:21:40 specifically those items that we thought
1:21:43 um closely aligns with the scope of that
1:21:45 goals and outcomes chart from the
1:21:47 original title 18 update
1:21:50 but i just wanted to point out that we
1:21:52 did discuss things like urban forestry
1:21:54 and they are on that list
1:21:55 not prioritizing them in this process
1:21:57 doesn't mean that they aren't
1:21:59 prioritized it's just that um and and we
1:22:02 had a conversation about how important
1:22:03 urban forestry is for example
1:22:06 um but not prioritizing at them in this
1:22:08 process is because we
1:22:10 at least in that conversation felt that
1:22:12 the solutions for that will probably be
1:22:17 more staff capacity or
1:22:20 arborist for example things like that
1:22:22 which would not be a code update and
1:22:24 that we had
1:22:25 addressed the code update part in the
1:22:27 original title 18 scope so i think um
1:22:31 why i mention that is because i think
1:22:33 council member d michelle's
1:22:35 question uh is potentially similar there
1:22:37 are definitely elements of transit that
1:22:39 will need to be
1:22:42 worked on outside of the title 18
1:22:45 scope um and so i think i think just
1:22:47 recognizing that is is helpful for this
1:22:50 conversation thanks
1:22:53 and i'll further throw in looking at
1:22:55 that transportation demand management on
1:22:58 the future updates list as number 27
1:23:01 it's really about
1:23:05 providing clarity to city regulations
1:23:08 for businesses that are required to
1:23:10 create a transportation management plan
1:23:13 and clear criterion threshold so there
1:23:16 are portions of that that relate to code
1:23:18 but obviously there's a whole lot more
1:23:20 that we as a city
1:23:22 want to do related to
1:23:24 transportation demand management and
1:23:25 transit studies and all of those things
1:23:29 so does that
1:23:30 clarify okay
1:23:32 any other questions comments council
1:23:36 president walsh i just wanted to mention
1:23:38 stephen if you do i just joined the
1:23:39 online meeting so who worked on the
1:23:41 master mobility plan and is uh very
1:23:43 keyed in on the transit study if you
1:23:45 have any further questions for him on
1:23:47 parking or transit
1:23:49 great
1:24:00 yes yep general
1:24:02 all right yeah i'll start off uh general
1:24:05 comments then so
1:24:06 um in terms of um how i'm thinking the
1:24:09 city should approach uh the title 18
1:24:12 feature updates list i guess no longer
1:24:14 the whiteboard is um i was thinking you
1:24:17 know what's required by state law and
1:24:19 what is required is kind of this first
1:24:21 threshold that we have to meet so
1:24:23 there are a few that were kind of called
1:24:24 out in the chart i didn't think there
1:24:26 were more than a few
1:24:27 um that that word that way but that's
1:24:30 obviously first and foremost uh should
1:24:32 be a priority as we're considering these
1:24:34 moving forward and then the second was
1:24:36 um like i alluded to uh before the pde
1:24:39 meeting which was alignment with uh
1:24:41 plans um the central isquad plan being
1:24:44 uh a really important one there as we're
1:24:46 trying to when we're talking about um
1:24:49 title 18 whiteboard or title 18 we've
1:24:51 been talking a lot about you know how
1:24:52 are we effectively using our land here
1:24:54 in isequa too and we went through a huge
1:24:57 effort in the central isquad plan um so
1:25:00 making sure that stays present now the
1:25:01 central squad playing a mobility master
1:25:03 plan live in the
1:25:06 goals and outcomes chart which is great
1:25:08 um and helps call out those kinds of
1:25:09 things and as you see in
1:25:13 the staff suggested actions for many of
1:25:16 these actions it talks about evaluating
1:25:18 the policy and then also evaluating what
1:25:21 peer cities are doing in the area i
1:25:23 think one thing that also needs to be
1:25:25 captured in there is that
1:25:27 a lot of community engagement that's
1:25:29 going to have to go into each of these
1:25:31 so our plans are our north star right
1:25:33 that help tell us what what we should
1:25:36 think about
1:25:37 next in terms of exploring policy
1:25:40 and bettering outcomes here in issaquah
1:25:42 but not all the plans and not every item
1:25:44 in each plan has the kind of community
1:25:46 buy-in that would allow us to be
1:25:48 comfortable to adopt a policy right away
1:25:50 right the climate action plan was a good
1:25:52 example when we passed that we had some
1:25:53 people come in last minute worried about
1:25:56 i think it was along the lines of
1:25:58 natural gas and our goals around natural
1:25:59 gas and our response to them was well
1:26:01 this is just our plan this is you know
1:26:03 what we what we hope to go through and
1:26:05 as we go through the items it involves
1:26:07 intense community conversations around
1:26:09 what we can do what's working elsewhere
1:26:11 what's providing good outcomes in other
1:26:13 cities
1:26:14 and creating successful you know
1:26:16 opportunity for residents but then what
1:26:18 works in issaquah right you know in some
1:26:20 cases it might not work in his squad in
1:26:22 some cases it does
1:26:24 so um recognizing that you know wally or
1:26:27 city administrator bob quite said you
1:26:29 know how big is the bread basket going
1:26:31 to be or what are those bumpers on there
1:26:33 i think some of the major ones are
1:26:36 you know recognizing the amount of work
1:26:38 that's going to need to go into
1:26:40 communicating with the community and
1:26:42 engaging with the community as we
1:26:44 explore
1:26:45 a focused set of
1:26:48 priorities over the next two years
1:26:50 is really important one so i see
1:26:53 um you know what's required as kind of
1:26:56 this first priority and then the
1:26:59 planning development environment
1:27:00 committee thank you very much for your
1:27:01 work on putting together your
1:27:02 recommendations i think
1:27:04 that those
1:27:05 are very aligned with i see the ischool
1:27:08 climate action plan and the central
1:27:09 isquad plan
1:27:11 so i see these as being good strategies
1:27:14 to begin
1:27:15 over the next few years and into the
1:27:17 budget but i don't necessarily see
1:27:19 if we can go much more beyond this
1:27:22 because of the amount of work that it
1:27:24 will take to engage with the community
1:27:25 and make sure that we're adopting you
1:27:27 know policy that works here in issaquah
1:27:28 so those are my thoughts i hope it's
1:27:30 it's helpful i'm kind of seeing it as
1:27:32 what's required and then the pde
1:27:34 recommendations which i appreciate your
1:27:35 hard work on thanks
1:27:40 looking around seeing if i see any other
1:27:43 comments
1:27:45 okay i'm gonna chime in on mine so
1:27:50 obviously i've delved into this deeply
1:27:52 on the pde and having been on the ad hoc
1:27:56 before that um
1:27:58 i think i really just want to
1:28:00 take a step back and say my goodness
1:28:03 we've been working on title 18 for a
1:28:05 long time and i really wish we could tie
1:28:08 a bow on this and say it was done
1:28:12 but while we're going to get to one
1:28:13 stage of done
1:28:15 that doesn't mean we have satisfied
1:28:18 all of our desires to
1:28:22 get our code right so that we're
1:28:23 building the right environment for our
1:28:26 community going forward and so if you
1:28:29 view this as
1:28:30 first of all finishing an existing
1:28:33 project i would argue in some ways that
1:28:36 with our goals and outcomes chart having
1:28:39 been adopted kind of at the beginning of
1:28:41 this saying hey we're going to work on
1:28:44 and improve some of our housing options
1:28:47 and we had a goal related to
1:28:51 having adequate parking but effective
1:28:53 land use and we're not actually getting
1:28:55 those done
1:28:56 so i very much agree with the
1:28:59 concept that those should be prioritized
1:29:02 phase two of the title 18 work um
1:29:07 i'd also say this was a community
1:29:09 generated list
1:29:10 and so we are absolutely not going to
1:29:13 put this aside
1:29:15 they need to continue moving on and then
1:29:19 when i look back to our strategic plan
1:29:22 you know there's a lot in there related
1:29:25 to title 18. so in the growth and
1:29:27 development section says across the city
1:29:29 there are a variety of public amenities
1:29:31 housing types educational and other
1:29:33 services that contribute to a livable
1:29:35 community potential actions are identify
1:29:38 and implement code changes and
1:29:39 activities to address neighborhood-based
1:29:42 and community-wide gaps in amenities and
1:29:44 services as well as develop code
1:29:46 amendments to address missing middle and
1:29:48 other housing option needs so those in
1:29:52 many ways speak to this idea that
1:29:56 housing and amenities and the way our
1:29:59 environment is built is very important
1:30:02 to our community we've gotten that
1:30:03 feedback over the years i think one of
1:30:06 the areas that maybe we haven't gotten a
1:30:08 lot of feedback on is parking but i
1:30:11 include that in there
1:30:13 because
1:30:15 you can't have effective land use for
1:30:16 housing without being effective on how
1:30:20 you use your parking especially when we
1:30:22 look at that
1:30:24 central issaquah area
1:30:27 large majority of that is parking lots
1:30:29 and if we're going to be able to build
1:30:31 housing there we have to be effective in
1:30:35 what's required and
1:30:38 not required
1:30:40 for parking
1:30:42 so those those are the reasons why i
1:30:44 think highlighting those two are really
1:30:47 important i'd also further emphasize
1:30:49 that staff had started a good set of
1:30:54 conversations with the community vision
1:30:56 partners and
1:30:58 other business sectors as well as some
1:31:01 of the community associations about
1:31:04 parking
1:31:07 requirements and minimum maximums and
1:31:09 how it relates to title 18 and so that
1:31:11 conversation's already kind of started i
1:31:13 don't want to lose
1:31:14 the feedback that was received from that
1:31:17 and have it become stale
1:31:19 so that's another reason why i would
1:31:21 include that so i very much agree with
1:31:24 the suggestions from the pd
1:31:29 aligning the code with the adopted
1:31:30 housing strategy is item 20. parking
1:31:33 related items that were 24 and 30 and
1:31:35 then also the stream buffers on item one
1:31:38 are super important and i hope that when
1:31:41 we provide this type of feedback
1:31:46 isn't
1:31:47 limiting in
1:31:49 hey if we have the resources to do more
1:31:52 absolutely looking at
1:31:54 what the
1:31:56 what aligns with our other plans
1:31:59 is super important but to me
1:32:01 those are items that
1:32:03 gosh i really wish would have gotten
1:32:05 done within title 18 and they didn't and
1:32:08 so i really think those need to be
1:32:10 prioritized
1:32:12 as first come out of the second stage
1:32:15 okay now i'm gonna go back and see if i
1:32:17 can get any other comments from
1:32:20 any other council members
1:32:23 council member d michelle
1:32:26 all right well uh when i i wanna
1:32:30 take to heart very much uh connie
1:32:31 marshall's comments um i
1:32:34 i personally am looking at the existing
1:32:36 work program items and i'm thinking
1:32:38 these are huge items
1:32:42 alone and so
1:32:44 the comprehensive plan i i have a sister
1:32:47 who works on comprehensive plans and so
1:32:49 i know
1:32:50 that is a huge outreach effort that
1:32:52 needs to be done we need to involve our
1:32:54 community in that completely
1:32:57 that's something that we have to do
1:32:58 under state requirements and it's
1:33:00 something we ought to be doing
1:33:02 um and the housing strategies plan we
1:33:04 all know how urgent housing strategy is
1:33:07 at this point in our history transit
1:33:10 study concurrency update all of those
1:33:12 need to be done and they need to be done
1:33:16 i appreciate the pde
1:33:19 recommendations and i think if we have
1:33:21 the capacity
1:33:23 yes let's look at those the parking
1:33:24 would be my top priority there because
1:33:27 again it relates to both the housing
1:33:28 strategies and the transit study
1:33:31 but the others certainly are
1:33:33 well-founded as well but if we're going
1:33:39 take on these major projects in addition
1:33:41 to completing title 18 review
1:33:44 i want those done well and so i
1:33:48 i would say
1:33:49 my expectation would be let's
1:33:51 concentrate on those major
1:33:53 items first if we have the capacity
1:33:56 let's do additional ones as recommended
1:33:59 by pde
1:34:01 and but if our staff capacity is not
1:34:03 there i want those four items done first
1:34:06 and done well so that would be
1:34:09 my input on to this topic thank you
1:34:15 councilman ray
1:34:16 thanks council president
1:34:19 so i haven't been on council as long as
1:34:21 councilmember mart's but it's but it's
1:34:23 been a long time and as long as i've
1:34:25 been on the council we have been talking
1:34:26 about redoing title 18 because of the
1:34:29 problems it creates for our community
1:34:31 and for the developers
1:34:34 and so we talk about boy i wish we had
1:34:36 gotten further but if you ever stop and
1:34:38 look back down the hill that we just
1:34:39 climbed up
1:34:41 how far we've come and thank you to many
1:34:43 and your team for all the work they did
1:34:45 the work that ppc did the work the
1:34:47 environmental board did the equity board
1:34:49 it took a lot of people and a lot of
1:34:51 effort the ad hoc committee
1:34:52 um it took a lot of people in a lot of
1:34:54 um a lot of effort to get to this point
1:34:57 there's still a lot to do and and i
1:34:59 think there will always be a lot to do
1:35:00 because the world will continue to
1:35:01 evolve around us but i just want to take
1:35:04 a minute and you know bask in the fact
1:35:07 we moved the needle and we we talked and
1:35:09 ringed our hands for a long time saying
1:35:11 we can't do this because it's way too
1:35:12 big well you know if you chunk it we can
1:35:15 we can move it so thank you for all the
1:35:17 great great effort and and there's still
1:35:19 a lot left to do and i i actually think
1:35:21 that this will
1:35:22 this uh
1:35:23 potential future work will never go away
1:35:26 i think we'll just add new things to it
1:35:27 and we'll prioritize them and we'll
1:35:29 evolve this plan over time
1:35:31 based on the needs of the community and
1:35:33 um external drivers so thank you for all
1:35:36 that that
1:35:37 the team has done to get us to this
1:35:39 point
1:35:42 director dollywell can i ask you a
1:35:43 question um
1:35:46 councilmember d michelle was talking
1:35:47 about you know staff allocation whether
1:35:50 we have time one of the things that the
1:35:54 committee talked about was obviously
1:35:56 this was a very short turnaround between
1:35:59 that meeting and this meeting so we
1:36:01 couldn't ask to get a sense of what's
1:36:04 the required effort and kind of staff
1:36:07 allocation that would be required for
1:36:09 these but that's something that you're
1:36:11 planning to do um in order to assess
1:36:15 whether or not there's budget for this
1:36:17 and then can you talk about the
1:36:19 difference between
1:36:21 staff resource versus monetary resource
1:36:26 hiring consultants are any of these
1:36:28 things that you would think would be
1:36:29 more appropriate for consultants or
1:36:31 staff
1:36:34 yeah you know there are some items on
1:36:36 there that are less staff intensive per
1:36:39 se it'll still take community
1:36:41 conversations and all that and you know
1:36:42 the public outreach piece staff will
1:36:45 still be involved but they're more
1:36:46 technical so stream buffers you know on
1:36:49 the grounds assessment evaluating with
1:36:51 the king county's stream
1:36:54 studies in our so we can just hire a
1:36:56 consultant to really take a deeper dive
1:36:58 into that and get that done right so
1:37:01 whereas
1:37:02 uh housing ms you know single-family
1:37:05 neighborhoods is going to be a huge
1:37:07 undertaking and you those need to be
1:37:09 really thoughtful conversations with the
1:37:10 community so
1:37:12 uh yes that can vary it can also vary
1:37:15 based on the scope of each of these
1:37:17 items so right now it's just a list of
1:37:19 what the things we heard from the
1:37:20 community but they haven't been scoped
1:37:22 out exactly you know like the form based
1:37:24 code could mean a huge thing it could
1:37:27 mean a slice of
1:37:28 you know do it as a demonstration so we
1:37:30 can flush out
1:37:31 uh and develop our work programs over
1:37:34 the coming years in more depth but
1:37:36 um because of the comprehensive plan
1:37:38 update which is a huge thing in front of
1:37:41 us right so
1:37:43 most of our energy is going to be
1:37:44 focused on getting that right because
1:37:46 it's an 18 you know it's our 20-year
1:37:49 we're gonna do it every eight years so
1:37:51 it's not every day you know uh but for
1:37:54 the other part we're going to learn a
1:37:55 few things as we implement our title 18
1:37:57 that we've just gone through so our plan
1:38:00 there is to have a check-in every year
1:38:02 of a housekeeping kind of things that
1:38:05 aren't policy conversations i mean some
1:38:06 things on this list are policy
1:38:08 conversations but to answer your
1:38:10 question level of effort you know it
1:38:12 could be high for all of them
1:38:14 uh depending on how deep and and
1:38:17 exhaustive we want to do it but our
1:38:20 general approach would be you know we
1:38:22 did this big effort with title 18
1:38:23 there's going to be fatigue with the
1:38:25 boards and commissions to just take a
1:38:26 breather
1:38:27 um from that as they get ready and gear
1:38:30 up for the policy conversations in the
1:38:31 comp plan uh so we don't want to
1:38:33 overwhelm our boards and commission
1:38:35 they've done a fabulous job really
1:38:37 digging into a deep
1:38:39 you know very
1:38:40 complicated matter and and synthesizing
1:38:43 that into and giving us policy direction
1:38:45 and that
1:38:47 but yeah it's going to vary based on the
1:38:50 scope of the proj the the things but if
1:38:52 i had to pick out of the three that you
1:38:54 have on your list the housing
1:38:57 uh diversity and single family is going
1:38:58 to be a high high effort
1:39:01 from a public outreach and really doing
1:39:03 it well
1:39:05 concept and then
1:39:07 the stream buffers is more
1:39:09 consultant heavy
1:39:11 parking i think we're going to come back
1:39:12 to the pde you guys asked us to do peer
1:39:15 city research
1:39:16 that'll kind of set the framework of
1:39:18 what you know how much more
1:39:20 uh from a public outreach and business
1:39:23 uh outreach we need to do so those two
1:39:26 are more on the heavy side stream buffer
1:39:28 is probably not on the is more
1:39:30 consulting heavy
1:39:36 deputy council president
1:39:38 just really quickly want to again
1:39:40 reiterate that even these next
1:39:42 next up policy conversations for the
1:39:44 title 18 future items list are going to
1:39:47 take a while so we've already heard
1:39:49 you know the scope of work um could take
1:39:51 a while
1:39:52 our ability to engage with the community
1:39:54 on an intimate level um to have good
1:39:57 outcomes is going to take a while we
1:39:58 have the comp plan update next year
1:40:00 we've also one thing we haven't
1:40:02 mentioned yet we've talked a lot about
1:40:03 updating and better aligning the cip the
1:40:06 capital improvement program with the
1:40:08 mobility master plan that's going to be
1:40:11 a huge effort too so i think just kind
1:40:13 of we just all need to to understand and
1:40:16 be okay with the fact that this is going
1:40:17 to take a while and reassure the
1:40:19 community that these are still policy
1:40:21 conversations that are priorities for
1:40:23 our community to have um and that
1:40:26 i think maybe if we have this kind of
1:40:28 once a year touch point that you were
1:40:30 saying about here's our just kind of the
1:40:32 cleanup items these things are still on
1:40:34 our radar and these house some of this
1:40:36 has evolved a little bit because some of
1:40:38 these things are really cutting edge
1:40:40 policy conversations in terms of
1:40:43 they're only being utilized in a handful
1:40:45 of cities across the country and
1:40:47 outcomes are just starting to be
1:40:48 measured and the best available science
1:40:51 that we talk about even just for parking
1:40:54 or for housing density or anything like
1:40:55 that is going to change year over year
1:40:57 as cities continue to experiment so i
1:40:59 think we just need to be okay with the
1:41:01 fact that this is going to take a long
1:41:02 time but we're committed to to getting
1:41:04 through this in a deliberate manner so
1:41:07 and again thank you to the title 18 ad
1:41:10 hoc committee for all your work
1:41:11 including former council member goodman
1:41:13 and all the staff who've put so much
1:41:15 time into our current title 18 update
1:41:18 not not even considering the the
1:41:19 whiteboard prep for us so thank you
1:41:24 councilmember d michelle
1:41:25 you know minnie i just want to thank you
1:41:27 very much for recognizing the fatigue
1:41:29 that our boards and commissions might be
1:41:31 having as well i i hadn't thought about
1:41:34 that aspect of it but you're right
1:41:36 they've been doing monumental work
1:41:39 and we need to be cognizant that they
1:41:41 are volunteers
1:41:43 and that they work in the evening
1:41:45 usually after they've
1:41:46 done a been at work all day long so i
1:41:48 appreciate those comments and i think
1:41:50 that is something that we need to take
1:41:51 into consideration thank you
1:41:58 okay i am not seeing any other comments
1:42:02 and so i would ask does the
1:42:05 administration have what they need to
1:42:07 take this to the next step
1:42:09 uh yes and i just want to take a minute
1:42:11 to say thank you to all of you
1:42:15 as i was hearing you all talk trying to
1:42:17 think of the best way to explain this
1:42:19 we're patting our head and we're rubbing
1:42:21 our tummy at the same time
1:42:23 you know we don't have to do everything
1:42:25 completely linear
1:42:27 because we have an outstanding council
1:42:29 outstanding staff outstanding citizen
1:42:31 boards and commissions we don't have to
1:42:33 just do one thing and then wait and then
1:42:35 go to the next so it is a little bit
1:42:37 different than perhaps what other
1:42:39 councils have done as far as
1:42:40 prioritization because clearly this
1:42:42 council has not said do these things and
1:42:44 do them now it's
1:42:46 let's integrate them into the work that
1:42:48 we're doing and the partnership between
1:42:50 the staff the administration the council
1:42:52 is really outstanding and i guess i just
1:42:54 want to take the second to say this is
1:42:56 not something that happens in every
1:42:58 community uh around
1:43:00 and that we're able to have these kind
1:43:02 of conversations at the very high level
1:43:04 that we're having them the people who
1:43:06 really win is this community because
1:43:08 it's no longer going to be as one of the
1:43:10 council members said i guess wisconsin
1:43:12 member ray title 18 we're waiting we're
1:43:14 waiting we're waiting um we can pat our
1:43:16 head and rub our tummy we can finish up
1:43:17 title 18 we can start staging things we
1:43:20 could do it in a way that is respectful
1:43:22 to everyone's time and resources so
1:43:24 thank you this is this is a great way
1:43:27 for us as all partners to govern and so
1:43:30 just wanted to mention that it's really
1:43:32 exciting
1:43:35 excellent director dollywell do need
1:43:36 anything else no i think we got what we
1:43:40 needed okay
1:43:41 i love ending things on that type of a
1:43:44 note we'll take it
1:43:46 um so our final item on our agenda
1:43:50 tonight is id 1236 city council
1:43:54 connections with boards and commissions
1:43:56 and so this one is actually going to be
1:43:58 presented by deputy council president
1:44:01 hall so i'll let him
1:44:03 start off and then we'll just kind of go
1:44:05 into a conversation there's no real
1:44:07 presentation on this per se but more of
1:44:09 a conversation amongst the council
1:44:12 members
1:44:14 uh thank you council president walsh and
1:44:16 i'll um after
1:44:18 some quick opening remarks and
1:44:20 opportunity for questions from council i
1:44:21 guess i'll turn it back to you in case
1:44:22 there's any public commenters um on this
1:44:25 item too but um
1:44:27 hey everybody it's um time to revisit
1:44:29 the issue of um the council
1:44:32 relationships with boards and
1:44:34 commissions so as you remember
1:44:36 um when we were originally having our
1:44:39 transition discussion about our
1:44:40 transition from study sessions to
1:44:42 committees this this item came up and we
1:44:44 started to talk a little bit about what
1:44:46 what is supposed to be the role between
1:44:48 the committees and the boards and
1:44:49 commissions
1:44:50 um and that item was kind of tabled as
1:44:52 we went through the committee process
1:44:54 and uh establishing the committees as
1:44:56 that was a big hall for the council
1:44:58 obviously
1:44:59 also more recently the transportation
1:45:01 advisory board leadership has expressed
1:45:06 an interest in learning how they can be
1:45:08 more effective
1:45:10 and useful to decision makers better
1:45:12 understanding what the role is between
1:45:15 the transportation advisory board and
1:45:16 the mobility and infrastructure
1:45:18 committee and because of kind of the
1:45:20 size and scope of these policy questions
1:45:22 i wanted to make sure we brought it to
1:45:24 the full council for a discussion about
1:45:27 this item and you know this was an
1:45:29 opportunity for us to talk about it
1:45:30 before the recess so um
1:45:32 there are um a couple um kind of problem
1:45:35 statements then that um we've teased out
1:45:38 from these um
1:45:40 questions that were left unanswered from
1:45:42 our original conversation during the
1:45:44 transition from study sessions to
1:45:45 committees and also what this most
1:45:47 recent situation with tab has brought up
1:45:51 in terms of
1:45:52 boards and commissions may not
1:45:54 necessarily be able to clearly see how
1:45:55 their voice connects into the decision
1:45:57 process so that's one that boards and
1:45:59 commissions might not feel as useful as
1:46:01 they can be decision makers and then
1:46:03 also we've heard a couple times now that
1:46:05 there is a lack of opportunity for
1:46:06 collaboration between the council
1:46:08 and strengthening working relationships
1:46:10 between the council and our boards and
1:46:12 commissions
1:46:13 so from that
1:46:15 we kind of have two
1:46:18 policy questions um that i think could
1:46:21 frame a useful discussion tonight so the
1:46:24 first of which is
1:46:25 really what is the most productive and
1:46:27 useful
1:46:28 way to
1:46:30 you know understand our roles and
1:46:31 expectations of one another but then
1:46:34 of interacting with one another in
1:46:35 public policy development and then the
1:46:37 other is this other discussion around
1:46:39 well what is the best way to collaborate
1:46:42 you know we've heard
1:46:44 some ideas
1:46:45 the welcome back boards and commissions
1:46:47 initiative as boards and commissions are
1:46:49 coming back
1:46:50 to in-person meetings has been part of
1:46:53 and kind of establishing more
1:46:55 connections
1:46:56 between the council and the boards and
1:46:58 commissions that way so it that it could
1:47:00 be the council's wish that we consider
1:47:02 something like that or we consider doing
1:47:04 something more like that once a year
1:47:05 where a council member goes to a border
1:47:07 commission to say thank you and and um
1:47:10 but there's also been the idea of well
1:47:13 and this came up when we were
1:47:14 transitioning from study sessions to
1:47:15 committees well maybe we should have
1:47:17 joint meetings between the committee and
1:47:19 the board and commission which brings up
1:47:21 a couple questions one
1:47:22 is that the role of council committees
1:47:24 but then also can we logistically do
1:47:27 that so the mobility and infrastructure
1:47:29 committee has one boarding commission
1:47:30 that makes recommendations for it pde i
1:47:32 think has
1:47:33 two or three it's a lower amount and um
1:47:36 services and safety chaired by
1:47:39 councilmember martz would have a million
1:47:40 right so i mean there are not
1:47:42 necessarily a million but you know what
1:47:43 i mean so so that also presents another
1:47:45 question there so there are kind of
1:47:46 those two high-level questions um and
1:47:51 some potential actions
1:47:52 that we've scripted out here on this
1:47:57 that address the problem statements that
1:47:59 came before again these are just some
1:48:01 potential actions to start a discussion
1:48:04 we could do all of them we could do none
1:48:05 of them we could do one or two of them
1:48:08 so anyways just wanted to kind of lay
1:48:09 the groundwork there for a discussion um
1:48:12 if you have any questions
1:48:14 on this this would be a good time for
1:48:16 although first i'll go to council
1:48:17 president walsh if there's anything else
1:48:18 you wanted to add
1:48:20 flair into this conversation no i'll
1:48:22 keep my comments to
1:48:24 discussion i think you framed it very
1:48:26 well so are there any questions for
1:48:30 deputy council president hall on kind of
1:48:32 that presentation before we go to
1:48:34 community comments and then back to
1:48:37 discussion
1:48:39 looks like no
1:48:40 questions i'm not saying anything from
1:48:44 councilmember hunt so um
1:48:47 i'm gonna open to community comments
1:48:50 again if there's anybody on the line on
1:48:52 the phone star three on the computer or
1:48:55 smart
1:48:57 phone look for your hand icon in the
1:48:59 presentation and i will ask our
1:49:02 intrepid
1:49:05 connie marsh if you would come in
1:49:07 press the button
1:49:09 give us your comments thank you
1:49:12 okay connie marsh again and let's see 22
1:49:16 years of going to boards and commissions
1:49:18 and watching the interface between
1:49:20 council and boards and commissions
1:49:22 and um so i'm gonna i'm gonna give you
1:49:25 my perspective which is
1:49:28 boards and commissions feed into council
1:49:31 it is not a collaborative venture
1:49:35 because council is supposed to be
1:49:37 getting
1:49:38 the information
1:49:43 persuading
1:49:45 a board and commission of a particular
1:49:47 point of view
1:49:49 so i think that the the board and
1:49:51 commission will flow to council if
1:49:54 council has concerns they feed it back
1:49:57 to the board and commission and say
1:49:59 these are the concerns we have will you
1:50:01 do a review you you did this just
1:50:03 recently
1:50:04 now the things that make the
1:50:07 boards and commissions the crankiest is
1:50:10 when they work and work and work and
1:50:12 work and then they have no idea what
1:50:14 happens to what they've done they can't
1:50:17 see how their voice has threaded through
1:50:21 to the decision
1:50:23 making and
1:50:25 they don't want to watch the council
1:50:27 meetings to see
1:50:29 the communication between many of the
1:50:33 boards to council is awkward
1:50:36 and only a few are they supposed to
1:50:38 write a letter to counsel
1:50:41 formally stating a position
1:50:43 parks board for example that's a very
1:50:45 foreign concept to them because it feeds
1:50:48 through their staff and then it just
1:50:51 disappears and so they very rarely have
1:50:54 a picture of what their opinions have
1:50:58 have done
1:50:59 so i would formalize
1:51:02 the um
1:51:04 transmittal of opinions to counsel from
1:51:08 boards and commissions so that they
1:51:10 clearly know that they can
1:51:12 write an opinion letter and it is
1:51:15 appropriate now parks board does not
1:51:19 report to council they report to mayor
1:51:21 as part of their charter so there might
1:51:24 be some cleanup in all of that to make
1:51:26 it consistent
1:51:28 now that you have the subcommittees in
1:51:30 the past once a year you would have a
1:51:33 couple of people from the boards and
1:51:34 commissions come and talk about their
1:51:36 work of the year and talk about the
1:51:39 difficulties and things that were good
1:51:41 or bad it's almost a formality and i
1:51:44 don't know
1:51:46 but it did make people feel better and
1:51:49 then somehow with all this excess money
1:51:52 we now have
1:51:53 we used to have a party for all
1:51:55 volunteers every year to tell them hot
1:51:59 dog you guys have put in all this time
1:52:00 and energy so we're going to give you a
1:52:02 hot dog i mean i don't think they ever
1:52:04 went above hot dogs but maybe they did
1:52:06 um and so i think i think having a
1:52:09 street party for the volunteers is an
1:52:12 awesome idea and it helps create an
1:52:14 informal conversation
1:52:17 with the council members one at a time
1:52:20 in the individual board members where
1:52:23 you can talk about your dogs or you
1:52:25 could talk about a city issue without it
1:52:27 being
1:52:29 awkward or seemingly have a flow in the
1:52:32 wrong direction from a whole committee
1:52:35 i read i read
1:52:37 some of the suggestions and went no
1:52:40 canoodling between council and
1:52:42 and boards and commissions because
1:52:44 you're gonna
1:52:45 it's gonna it's gonna
1:52:47 that's backwards council has a lot of
1:52:50 influence boards and commissions sit
1:52:51 there and say well you know what do you
1:52:53 think the council is thinking and it's
1:52:56 we are trying to understand what the
1:52:58 community representatives are thinking
1:53:01 that is the point of having boards and
1:53:02 commissions so i know i came off like a
1:53:05 hot frying pan for that but it's a it's
1:53:07 important
1:53:08 okay thank you
1:53:12 you connie and
1:53:14 clerk do we have anybody on the line
1:53:16 indicating a desire to speak
1:53:21 uh no council president we have no uh
1:53:23 virtual attendees
1:53:26 okay then we can move on to
1:53:29 comments conversations etc
1:53:33 do we have any council members that
1:53:35 would like to start off
1:53:38 councilmember joe thank you for
1:53:42 the transportation advisory board
1:53:44 i was looking at the the code 2.92.050
1:53:51 there's supposed to be a work plan
1:53:53 that's created every year and
1:53:55 at least annually the work plans to
1:53:58 be presented to the city council
1:54:01 to be finalized
1:54:03 prior to being finalized by the tab so
1:54:06 that could be a way that is in the code
1:54:09 the city council to meet at least with
1:54:11 the tab committee without having to
1:54:14 change anything that we're necessarily
1:54:15 doing
1:54:16 right now and so that would
1:54:20 you know take the committee our
1:54:23 committee out of the the loop there in
1:54:24 terms of any other
1:54:26 things because it's it's in the code
1:54:28 unless we want to change the code itself
1:54:31 just another note i think that
1:54:33 connie marsh brings up a good point that
1:54:35 there's nothing that necessarily would
1:54:37 prevent an individual council member
1:54:39 from meeting with any member of the tab
1:54:42 for instance there nine members on there
1:54:44 and you could have
1:54:46 nine separate meetings if you wanted to
1:54:49 you could just meet with the chair of
1:54:50 the vice chair and
1:54:54 reach some goals that we that i think i
1:54:56 expressed during the
1:54:57 conversation of the
1:55:00 moving over to
1:55:01 committees in terms of building a
1:55:03 rapport understanding how
1:55:08 individual works and how they
1:55:10 learn best and and make sure that the
1:55:15 work of the
1:55:16 individuals on tab was was being
1:55:20 honored respected
1:55:22 recognized
1:55:24 and or seen through the
1:55:26 thread of the work that goes on such
1:55:28 that they could understand how their
1:55:31 work came and influenced
1:55:34 or had an impact on the final decision
1:55:36 that was being made so i think with
1:55:38 those two pieces together putting
1:55:40 the onus on the individual members from
1:55:43 the mobility and infrastructure
1:55:44 committee to meet with tab members and
1:55:47 the annual report that should be
1:55:48 presented
1:55:49 to the council
1:55:51 the work plan i think that would be
1:55:53 enough
1:55:54 interaction for
1:55:55 the mobility infrastructure committee
1:55:58 and the tab
1:55:59 thank you
1:56:02 thank you anybody else want to provide
1:56:05 feedback thoughts councilmember d
1:56:06 michelle
1:56:08 so when i um
1:56:09 first got on council in november of 2019
1:56:15 my goal was to visit every boarding
1:56:17 commission and
1:56:18 i have to say that i heard some
1:56:20 wonderful conversations and it was a
1:56:22 great education and then along came
1:56:24 colvit so i didn't get to visit
1:56:26 everybody um you know we can do the same
1:56:29 thing because
1:56:31 many of the boards and commissions are
1:56:32 televised and you can watch the video
1:56:35 um but there's nothing like being there
1:56:37 in person and
1:56:39 listening to the nuances of the of the
1:56:42 um conversation for for those that
1:56:45 aren't
1:56:46 [Music]
1:56:47 there was one suggestion here that
1:56:50 um perhaps a city council member could
1:56:53 be a liaison to a board border
1:56:55 commission
1:56:56 i i think the point is well taken that
1:56:59 we don't want to create a situation
1:57:01 where boards and commissions are looking
1:57:04 to an individual or looking to the
1:57:05 council for direction we do want to hear
1:57:08 their take on the issue not our take
1:57:11 because we get our opportunity to to
1:57:13 give our take
1:57:14 so um
1:57:17 i think more opportunities for in-person
1:57:19 interactions uh
1:57:22 us i you know i had forgotten about
1:57:24 those parties that the that
1:57:26 they used to hold for volunteers i think
1:57:28 maybe that is a tradition that we'd want
1:57:30 to restart again
1:57:34 think that as individuals we can decide
1:57:36 whether we want to sit in on a bordering
1:57:39 commission meeting
1:57:40 but i think possibly in our rules of
1:57:42 procedures we should have some
1:57:44 guidelines for that
1:57:46 you know
1:57:48 around not trying to influence or not
1:57:51 um involving ourselves in the directly
1:57:54 in the discussions
1:57:57 i you know i always think it's great for
1:57:59 people to be talking to each other i
1:58:01 think it's great for us to create
1:58:02 relationships
1:58:04 i just think that we have to be careful
1:58:05 about how that's done and we have to
1:58:07 have clear
1:58:08 parameters for how those discussions are
1:58:10 held so that
1:58:12 boards and commissions remain
1:58:13 independent and give us independent
1:58:15 input
1:58:17 the other point i think that is well
1:58:18 taken is what happens to their input and
1:58:20 again how well are we communicating with
1:58:23 them we received your input this is how
1:58:25 it made a difference
1:58:27 closing that communications loop i think
1:58:30 would be a really important
1:58:32 improvement to the process for some of
1:58:34 our boards and commissions so
1:58:36 those are my comments thank you
1:58:38 and thank you for bringing the topic up
1:58:41 uh councilmember ray
1:58:44 thank you very much
1:58:46 not really quite a 100 sure how to go
1:58:48 here but
1:58:49 um first thing is i think it's really
1:58:51 important and we've talked about it to
1:58:53 recognize the contributions all the
1:58:55 boards and commissions it's not a
1:58:56 trivial amount of work and in some areas
1:58:58 it's a significant amount of work that
1:59:00 being said i think the council and the
1:59:02 boards and commissions have a very
1:59:03 different role and i think we need to um
1:59:06 recognize and respect that role
1:59:10 and part of that is the boards and
1:59:12 commissions are managed and staffed by
1:59:14 the administration not by
1:59:16 the council they're they're really a
1:59:18 extension of the administration not an
1:59:20 extension of the council though they
1:59:22 advise us um we may confirm uh board and
1:59:25 commission appointments but we don't
1:59:26 make board and commission appointments
1:59:28 so um there's a there's there's a reason
1:59:30 for that they're a little bit separate
1:59:32 and then in looking through the rules of
1:59:34 procedure i and this is the council d
1:59:37 michelle's point in
1:59:38 section 8.03 paragraph 3 says however
1:59:42 the council should be mindful of
1:59:43 questions that may influence the boards
1:59:45 and commission and deaths interfere with
1:59:47 the established role of the advisory
1:59:49 boards in the public policy making
1:59:50 process so
1:59:52 wherever we go we've got to make sure
1:59:56 we don't um we don't overstep um
2:00:00 the bounds that should be in place by
2:00:03 the administration for managing their
2:00:05 boards and commissions and that we don't
2:00:07 influence the public policy process
2:00:10 by uh inadvertently asking the right the
2:00:13 wrong
2:00:14 inadvertently asking any questions right
2:00:16 wrong or indifferent
2:00:18 yeah so
2:00:19 um that's my thoughts
2:00:24 thank you uh deputy council president
2:00:26 hall followed by council member marks
2:00:29 and then council member hunt thank you
2:00:32 uh it just thank you so so much for
2:00:35 everyone who's provided input so far i
2:00:37 know councilmember march you're up first
2:00:39 i just wanted to quickly
2:00:40 jump in to make a clarification too
2:00:43 because we're hearing a lot of
2:00:46 you know we don't want to influence
2:00:47 board and commissions we don't want to
2:00:48 influence the public policy decision
2:00:50 making process the process that goes
2:00:52 through that uh that's great feedback um
2:00:55 on the second potential action how we
2:00:58 talk about kind of setting the table for
2:01:00 a useful board and commission
2:01:02 conversation i kind of talk a little bit
2:01:03 about what i mean by that though uh to
2:01:06 get a better sense of
2:01:08 is this nuanced approach something
2:01:10 council thinks is
2:01:12 productive and useful or if it's also
2:01:15 still fits in that category of
2:01:17 influencing boarding commission so when
2:01:18 we talk about setting the table a good
2:01:20 example of that in framing policy
2:01:22 questions a good example of that was
2:01:23 what councilmember hunt did back when we
2:01:25 were talking about the anchor parks
2:01:27 initiative right the question that was
2:01:29 to be sent to the parks board was which
2:01:31 anchor park should we fund with arpa
2:01:33 money and councilmember hunt came in and
2:01:34 said maybe instead we should ask them to
2:01:37 come forward and evaluate each anchor
2:01:39 park what are the reasons why we would
2:01:41 find with reasons why we wouldn't and
2:01:43 frame it that way so then council can
2:01:45 have a very
2:01:47 detailed conversation about pros and
2:01:49 cons for each conversation so when we
2:01:50 talk about framing policy questions and
2:01:52 setting the table for boards and
2:01:54 commissions that's what we mean so
2:01:57 for the people who are about to make
2:01:59 comments if you could speak to whether
2:02:01 you think that
2:02:03 is a productive
2:02:05 thing that the council could do or if
2:02:08 the people who have already made
2:02:09 comments before too if you could circle
2:02:11 back if you have any new thoughts on
2:02:12 that otherwise
2:02:14 i'll just consider that you don't have
2:02:15 any new thoughts on that particular item
2:02:17 but just wanted to set the table on that
2:02:20 too so um thank you and
2:02:22 those are my comments
2:02:23 great council member marks thank you
2:02:26 madam council president
2:02:27 uh completely agree with council member
2:02:29 ray their mayoral commissions and
2:02:34 and boards and uh
2:02:37 you know one of the things that we
2:02:39 always have to ask ourselves i mean we
2:02:41 just a few minutes ago talked about what
2:02:42 a well-oiled machined well-oiled machine
2:02:45 we are right now and and uh the the
2:02:48 collaboration that we have between the
2:02:49 administration and the council it is not
2:02:51 always thus and um in times where
2:02:53 there's more difference of opinion which
2:02:55 could happen you know on any given issue
2:02:58 it's important that the boards and
2:03:00 commissions have their independence um
2:03:02 but uh so so we shouldn't go to them but
2:03:06 uh can they come to us um you know we've
2:03:09 had equity board people um come before
2:03:12 council recently to talk about various
2:03:14 things and uh
2:03:16 you know i wonder if there's an
2:03:18 opportunity
2:03:20 for chairs
2:03:21 to upon occasion come before council and
2:03:24 be part of some
2:03:26 you know
2:03:27 conversation where we talk about things
2:03:28 that are being uh keyed up they're gonna
2:03:31 be going out to them um we're just there
2:03:33 you know they're here and they get to
2:03:35 hear what's coming their way uh from
2:03:38 council i don't know exactly what that
2:03:40 would look like but i think in terms of
2:03:42 was it making the table setting the
2:03:44 table
2:03:45 i think having chairs
2:03:48 come here on some sort of regular basis
2:03:50 would absolutely still maintain their
2:03:53 independence but would give them more
2:03:55 visibility into uh
2:03:57 the importance that their
2:04:00 efforts play in what we do thank you
2:04:05 okay excellent uh council member hunt
2:04:07 you're up next
2:04:10 thank you council president walsh
2:04:13 i served on the planning policy
2:04:14 commission before i was on council
2:04:16 immediately before
2:04:18 and i recall
2:04:20 um not fully understanding in some cases
2:04:24 where
2:04:25 information where recommendations that
2:04:27 we made would go and how they would be
2:04:29 used and specifically i recall when we
2:04:31 were working on the central issaquah
2:04:34 plan and the visions in that plan which
2:04:36 was a big undertaking i definitely saw
2:04:40 that work um i saw much more context i
2:04:43 much more fully understood the context
2:04:45 around that the time sensitive nature of
2:04:47 that work
2:04:48 once i was on council and i think on
2:04:50 council we get different feedback we get
2:04:52 we understand um in some cases how
2:04:56 different plans will work together also
2:04:58 um through the budgeting process we
2:05:00 understand staffing constraints and so
2:05:03 we may have pieces of context that are
2:05:05 very important for how we will use
2:05:08 information in our decision making
2:05:10 and i think through this conversation
2:05:13 which i really appreciate
2:05:14 council deputy president hall bringing
2:05:16 forward through this conversation i
2:05:18 would like to see us
2:05:20 try out a way to
2:05:22 better provide the that context piece to
2:05:26 the commissions i have also heard from
2:05:28 commissioners um not just on the tab but
2:05:31 on other commissions wanting wanting to
2:05:35 better understand the process i think
2:05:37 this is a real issue and i think it
2:05:39 would
2:05:41 it would behoove us to try some some
2:05:43 things a little differently i um
2:05:46 i like the suggestions that were
2:05:48 in the packet i do agree we need to be
2:05:51 mindful that we're not influencing
2:05:54 the decision but rather that we're
2:05:57 providing
2:05:58 the context so that
2:06:00 these boards and commissions who are
2:06:02 working working so hard that they are
2:06:04 providing information that is ultimately
2:06:06 um useful for us as decision makers
2:06:09 because that is a big part of their role
2:06:10 for most of these commissions
2:06:12 so i like the um i like the suggestions
2:06:15 i'm open to other ways i think
2:06:17 councilmember martz made a a interesting
2:06:20 suggestion about a little bit different
2:06:22 way of looking at the first
2:06:24 suggested action which has to do with
2:06:26 looking at the work plans together maybe
2:06:28 that could be looking at the work plans
2:06:30 together with the chairs rather than
2:06:31 with the whole commission which i i
2:06:33 think could be a very big meeting so
2:06:35 maybe we could look at different
2:06:37 we could ask the administration for
2:06:38 example to look consider
2:06:41 um changes like that that would make it
2:06:43 more feasible but i do i would like to
2:06:47 to make some changes to our process so
2:06:49 that these commissions better uh are
2:06:52 better equipped to provide information
2:06:54 that we we will ultimately be using and
2:06:56 then also that they they feel and that
2:06:59 they understand their value in the
2:07:01 process more clearly so i think we have
2:07:04 an opportunity to to make those sorts of
2:07:05 changes
2:07:09 i also
2:07:10 tried out a little bit
2:07:12 for the council for the council
2:07:15 committee i had asked before our last
2:07:17 plane development environment committee
2:07:19 if there were council questions
2:07:21 that we could discuss in the committee i
2:07:24 think we can always do that um but i i
2:07:27 just wanted to flag that because it was
2:07:29 helpful i think to our committee that
2:07:31 other council members that weren't on
2:07:32 that committee provided questions and so
2:07:34 if there are those sorts of
2:07:37 context pieces or clarifying questions
2:07:40 that council
2:07:41 needs to consider that will then be
2:07:43 important for committees as they do
2:07:45 their work i think
2:07:47 i think that would also be important for
2:07:49 us to consider how we can best do that
2:07:51 again not with
2:07:52 not telling the commission's
2:07:55 ultimately what to decide i completely
2:07:57 agree that that's not the role but
2:08:00 are there pieces of context such as how
2:08:02 time-sensitive something is
2:08:04 how we might use the information for the
2:08:07 parks example that council deputy
2:08:09 president hall
2:08:10 raised
2:08:11 in that case we had new information that
2:08:13 night and so you know is there new
2:08:16 information that's that's coming into
2:08:18 play and
2:08:20 how do we make sure that the information
2:08:22 we get back from the commissions kind of
2:08:23 addresses all of those variables
2:08:26 so those are my comments i i would urge
2:08:28 my fellow council members to let's let's
2:08:31 consider making it a change so that we
2:08:33 can try to address these um these
2:08:36 concerns from our commissioners who are
2:08:38 working so hard and then let's check in
2:08:39 with them and see if if that change is
2:08:41 working for them thanks
2:08:47 okay so we've heard from most of our
2:08:51 members i think everyone so i'm going to
2:08:53 go ahead and throw in some of my
2:08:55 comments so i also came from pbc
2:08:59 directly before this so
2:09:02 i know how hard and how
2:09:05 unappreciated that work is
2:09:08 um or rather
2:09:10 and not unappreciated but it's it's hard
2:09:12 to see that as
2:09:14 a board member as you're sitting there
2:09:16 doing the work
2:09:17 and all of that one thing i really
2:09:19 wanted to appreciate from a staff level
2:09:23 i know the mayor has asked staff to
2:09:26 really improve the communication that
2:09:28 goes back to the boards and commissions
2:09:30 to give them a sense of how their work
2:09:33 has continued closing that loop give
2:09:35 them a sense what's that next step that
2:09:37 council is going to take with their work
2:09:40 and as i've watched some of those board
2:09:41 and commission meetings over the last
2:09:44 year or so
2:09:45 that really feels like oh okay i can see
2:09:49 the future of the work that i have done
2:09:52 so i want to appreciate that
2:09:55 as one aspect of how do we
2:09:59 give a sense of how important this work
2:10:01 is and how much we value it
2:10:03 i'll give another plus one to the idea
2:10:06 an appreciation party for the board and
2:10:08 commission volunteers i think that's
2:10:10 another way that we can do that we can
2:10:12 create some of those in-person
2:10:15 meetings i know when i went
2:10:17 to two of the board and commission
2:10:19 meetings recently for their first
2:10:21 meeting back and just said oh my
2:10:23 goodness thank you so much for all of
2:10:25 the work it was very much appreciated so
2:10:27 i think those connections as a way to
2:10:31 thank you you're valued are very
2:10:33 important so we should keep that up
2:10:36 um what i've heard from several or from
2:10:39 different community members or council
2:10:41 members that i wanted to highlight
2:10:43 council member joe talked about work
2:10:45 plan collaboration and i particularly
2:10:47 like the idea of doing that with the
2:10:50 board and commission
2:10:52 chairs and vice chairs i think that's a
2:10:53 great way to kind of formalize that and
2:10:56 show a sense of hey here's what you're
2:10:59 going to work on and how it flows into
2:11:01 the council work plan i think that's a
2:11:03 great idea
2:11:05 i agree with council member hunt that
2:11:08 having
2:11:09 clarity for the board and commission
2:11:11 members on
2:11:12 how their policy flows from the borden
2:11:15 commission to a committee to the full
2:11:17 council to a decision to budget is
2:11:20 really important so i'd like to see us
2:11:22 create some kind of a chart i know
2:11:24 that's been discussed a few times but i
2:11:26 think that would be really useful for
2:11:29 each of the boards and commissions to
2:11:30 understand what that connected idea is
2:11:34 and then i really like
2:11:37 concept that council member martz talked
2:11:39 about about having the chairs come to
2:11:41 council and i'll add to that or write
2:11:43 letters to council if that's the way
2:11:46 they prefer to do so
2:11:48 just as a good way to
2:11:51 bring them into that conversation allow
2:11:54 us to thank them for the expert feedback
2:11:58 and show them how that pulls into the
2:12:00 decision-making process i think that's
2:12:03 really useful
2:12:05 one of the things that kind of came to
2:12:06 me on this was
2:12:08 gosh i really liked the idea of having a
2:12:11 connection between our committees and
2:12:14 the boards and commissions that were in
2:12:16 their scope area
2:12:18 but i really don't see any way to do
2:12:21 that effectively for
2:12:24 the ones that have the larger borden
2:12:25 commissions so
2:12:28 it's a nice idea but i think if we do
2:12:31 some other things around work plan
2:12:32 collaboration
2:12:35 appreciation parties do some annual once
2:12:39 a year council member going and saying
2:12:41 thank you i think that creates some of
2:12:44 that connectivity and hopefully if we
2:12:46 see how the work plan
2:12:48 collaborates and then we show how the
2:12:50 policy flows through
2:12:52 and then staff takes it back to the
2:12:55 board and commissions that creates that
2:12:57 closed loop sense of what you're doing
2:13:00 is important and here's how it's used so
2:13:03 those are my thoughts
2:13:06 i will see if there are any other
2:13:09 comments
2:13:10 i think everybody's had their say
2:13:13 and so i'll say to the administration do
2:13:16 you need
2:13:18 anything else from us or
2:13:20 maybe it goes back to you deputy council
2:13:22 president hall i don't know
2:13:24 uh yeah i'll take a first stab at it if
2:13:26 that's okay to the administrator so um
2:13:29 thank you all very much for the very
2:13:31 detailed conversation on that my hand is
2:13:33 cramping from taking notes from everyone
2:13:36 i think in terms of next steps and
2:13:38 correct me if i'm wrong we'll try to
2:13:39 kind of digest and internalize what
2:13:41 you've said here and work with the
2:13:43 council leadership to work with the
2:13:44 administration on what next steps are i
2:13:47 won't go through everything i've heard
2:13:48 but some of the major things that i've
2:13:49 heard
2:13:50 from this council are that
2:13:52 being able to close the loop and show
2:13:55 how board and commissioned decision
2:13:56 making feeds into the public policy
2:13:58 making process is really important
2:14:01 that we continue to find opera um
2:14:04 opportunities to appreciate and show
2:14:05 value
2:14:06 to our board and commission members
2:14:08 whether that be through a street party
2:14:10 or welcome or thank yous from council
2:14:13 members
2:14:14 and then also
2:14:16 to be mindful of not influencing the
2:14:19 public policy decision making process
2:14:21 too early on as it's coming to the
2:14:22 council so those are kind of the three
2:14:24 major things that i've heard but based
2:14:26 on the notes that i've taken and i'll
2:14:28 probably come back and re-watch this
2:14:29 conversation we'll work with the
2:14:31 administration on next steps and and
2:14:33 come back to council with something that
2:14:34 makes sense that's in line with
2:14:37 what we're doing it clearly won't be all
2:14:39 the things
2:14:40 that were described here in this memo
2:14:42 it'll probably be much more of a light
2:14:44 touch so which is what i've heard today
2:14:46 so does that make sense
2:14:47 to the administrator it does and the
2:14:49 only thing i would just add is
2:14:52 the recognition of our chief of staff
2:14:54 tina eggers uh
2:14:56 you know we we put together thank you
2:14:58 bags for all the members of the boards
2:15:00 of commissions and we've been handing
2:15:01 those out we asked we asked we we tried
2:15:03 to make the
2:15:05 uh july 26 event sort of a little party
2:15:07 recognition party for them but it was
2:15:09 100 degrees outside and we didn't we
2:15:11 didn't see as many folks as
2:15:13 we had hoped but but we were handing out
2:15:17 little
2:15:18 notebooks and little
2:15:20 seed planters with uh with a nice bag
2:15:23 and a nice note of recognition so
2:15:25 i think koben's made it difficult to
2:15:27 obviously have people together but i do
2:15:29 want to recognize that we did do that
2:15:31 outreach this year for the boards and
2:15:33 commissions but
2:15:34 with that said we're happy to continue
2:15:36 to work with council leadership and
2:15:37 we'll move forward
2:15:41 excellent once again great feedback
2:15:44 everybody
2:15:45 so at this point we've got one more
2:15:47 agenda item which is good of the order
2:15:49 so looking around seeing if anybody has
2:15:50 anything they need to bring up
2:15:53 i am not seeing anything
2:15:56 so um after our meeting we do have a
2:15:59 special meeting which is an executive
2:16:01 session so don't go anywhere but at this
2:16:04 point i'm going to adjourn
2:16:06 our meeting at 8 46 p.m
2:16:10 thank you

Attendance

Council / Members (7)
Barbara de Michele
Zach Hall
Victoria Hunt (Attended Virtually)
Russell Joe
Tola Marts
Chris Reh
Lindsey Walsh, Chair