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Meeting concluded — minutes pending. The agenda below is what the City posted; minutes haven't been published yet. Issaquah approves Council minutes at the next meeting and ships them embedded in that next meeting's packet, so they typically land here 1–3 weeks after the meeting. Transcript and recording will appear once the City posts the YouTube video and our pipeline catches it.
City Council Regular Meeting Auto captions

Monday, June 6, 2022

7:00 PM · 2h 22m · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Topics tracked across meetings:
Minutes of May 27, 2022 2/4
Electric Scooter Share Pilot Program Memorandum of Understanding [30 min.] AB 8364 2/4
Community Investment Strategy Direct Administration [60 min.] AB 8422 2/4
Informational Update: Public Records Receive Report ID 1080 2/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 26, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 6, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 5, 2022
American Tower Affidavit of Agent Authority for Backup Generator AB 8401 2/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 26, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 6, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 5, 2022
Board & Commission Extended Recruitment Appointments Confirm; Adopt Ordinance AB 8412 2/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 26, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 6, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 5, 2022
Position Reclassifications AB 8418 2/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 26, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 6, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 5, 2022
2023-2028 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program AB 8331 4/5
Solid Waste Contract AB 8220 4/4
Washington State Arts Commission Grants for Creative District Program AB 8391 2/2
Section
Topic
3. SPECIAL BUSINESS
3a
LGBTQIA+ Pride Month Proclamation ID 1189
packet pp.5
Staff report:
WHEREAS, the month of June was designated Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred in June of 1969 and are generally recognized as the catalyst of the LGBTQIA+ Rights Movement; and
3b
Juneteenth Day Proclamation ID 1196
packet pp.7
Staff report:
PROCLAMATION Whereas, Juneteenth recognizes and commemorates the day of June 19, 1865 when enslaved African-Americans in Texas were informed by Major General Gordon Granger that they were “free,” ending 246 years of chattel slavery; and Whereas, on June 19, 1866, one year after Major Granger’s announcement, the freed African American men and women in the state of Texas held the first “Juneteenth,” or African American Independence Day celebration, and Juneteenth celebrations would later spread to all corners of the country; and Whereas, we acknowledge the evils of slavery and its aftermath; and Whereas, we acknowledge African American contributions and achievements within this community, both past and present; and Whereas, during this Juneteenth event, we celebrate our African-American community members; and Whereas, we commit to working together toward equity for all in expanding…
7. CONSENT CALENDAR
7a
Accounts: Payables and Payroll of June 6, 2022, $ 3,893,748.89 ID 0998
Approve · packet pp.9–49
Topics: Budget
Staff report:
Finance Department P.O. Box 1307 Issaquah, WA 98027 PH: 425-837-3050 www.issaquahwa.gov
7b
Minutes: City Council Special Study Session, March 29, 2022
Approve · packet pp.51–52
Staff report:
• Appreciated sample project impacts • Requested more complete
7c
Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, April 18, 2022
Approve · packet pp.53–58
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR c) 04-18-22 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page (0000) CITY OF ISSAQUAH City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM Council Chambers April 18, 2022 MINUTES 135 E. Sunset Way
7d
Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, May 16, 2022
Accept Grant; Authorize Agreement · packet pp.59–62
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR d) 05-16-22 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page (0000) CITY OF ISSAQUAH City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM Council Chambers May 16, 2022 MINUTES 135 E. Sunset Way
7g
State Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) Supplemental AB 8373
Accept Grant; Authorize Agreement · packet pp.73–106
Topics: Public Safety
Staff report:
This is a supplemental grant award to the existing Emergency Management Planning Grant. The state opened applications for jurisdictions earlier this year to apply for unallocated funding from 2020 and 2021. These funds require a 1:1 match, and work must be completed by Sept. 30, 2022.
7h
Amendment to Interlocal Agreement with King County for Landmark Designation and Protection Services AB 8381
Authorize · packet pp.107–115
Staff report:
In 2000, the City entered into an interlocal agreement with King County to provide Issaquah assistance with respect to historic preservation. The full agreement (Exhibit A) is attached to the agenda bill. On behalf of Issaquah, the King County Landmarks and Heritage Commission, which consists of nine members appointed by the County Executive, reviews landmark nominations and determines designation of landmarks. An Issaquah representative is present when nominations include properties located in Issaquah. Since establishing the agreement, approximately 7 buildings within Issaquah city limits have been designated landmarks.
7i
Repealing IMC 2.76, Travel Reimbursement AB 8389
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.117–119
Topics: Land Use
Staff report:
At the Aug. 2, 2021 Council meeting the City Council approved a resolution establishing a new Travel and Meals Policy, Resolution No. 2021-14. This policy repealed the previous policy in the Issaquah Administrative Manual, but did not address an outdated policy in Chapter 2.76 the Issaquah Municipal Code. Proposal The Administration recommends adopting the proposed ordinance repealing Chapter 2.76, Travel Reimbursement, of the Issaquah Municipal Code (Exhibit A). This Chapter was originally adopted in 1980 and has been usurped by the recently approved Resolution No. 2021-14, which adopted a new Travel and Meals Policy. By repealing Chapter 2.76, the proposed ordinance will eliminate the inconsistency between the IMC and Resolution No. 2021-14.
7j
Washington State Arts Commission Grants for Creative District Program AB 8391
Accept Grant; Authorize Agreement · packet pp.121–138
Topics: BudgetArts & Culture
Staff report:
The Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA) awarded Issaquah the designation of certified Creative District in June 2020. Issaquah was the eighth city in the state to be awarded this designation and the first in King County. The certification is an endorsement of the arts and culture assets and activities that exist in Issaquah and also is intended to attract more artists, entrepreneurs, creative businesses and jobs to the community. The creative district creates a synergy of cultural activity that attracts local visitors and tourists. ArtsWA has created a comprehensive program to help support communities with this designation - providing technical assistance and training as well as grant funding opportunities, such as the ones that are the subject of this agenda bill.
7k
2022 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Funding Recommendations AB 8394
Approve · packet pp.139–219
Topics: BudgetTourism
Staff report:
In the midst of the recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the City recognizes that tourism and tourism-related industries have been greatly impacted. These businesses and not-for-profit organizations are integral to the local economy and community.
7l
Agreement with Healthcare Delivery Services for Jail Inmate Medical Services AB 8400
Authorize · packet pp.221–235
Staff report:
Jail medical services are critical to ensure proper medical screening prior to an inmate’s entry into the facility and to provide inmates with onsite routine and urgent medical attention, diagnoses, treatment, and medication distribution.
7m
Costco Reciprocal Parking Lot Agreement for Issaquah Farmer's Market AB 8406
Authorize · packet pp.237–241
Topics: Transportation
Staff report:
The City of Issaquah entered into a Reciprocal Parking Agreement in 2007 with Costco for the use of Costco's parking during the Issaquah Farmers Market. Each year this document is reviewed and amendments are made. This year is the 15th year of the agreement between the City and Costco. The 15th Amendment allows the Issaquah Farmers Market to continue using the Costco parking garage for customer and vendor parking.
8. PUBLIC HEARING
8a
2023-2028 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program AB 8331
Conduct Public Hearing · 40 min · packet pp.243–292
Topics: Transportation
Staff report:
RCW 35.77.010 requires all cities to develop and adopt a six-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) consistent with the comprehensive plan. State law requires the City review and update its TIP every year, following one or more public hearings. The deadline for adoption is July 1. Within 30 days of adoption, the TIP is required to be filed with the Washington State Secretary of Transportation. The TIP is a planning document that allows the State to identify the financial needs to support transportation within the state.
9. REGULAR BUSINESS
9a
Solid Waste Contract AB 8220
Authorize · 40 min · packet pp.293–395
Staff report:
The City’s current solid waste collection contract was obtained through a very competitive process conducted in 2011. At that point in time, Cleanscapes (now Recology) was rapidly expanding and aggressively competing for contracts. In that environment, new contracts were often at lower rates than the previous contract and/or incorporated very significant enhancements such as Recology’s store, expanded residential recycling opportunities, commercial recycling, and embedded compostables collection at no additional ratepayer cost.
10. GOOD OF THE ORDER
10a
Upcoming Council Meetings
0:12 good evening everyone and welcome to the
0:15 june 6 city council meeting to order i'm
0:18 calling us to order now as a reminder we
0:20 continue to have a remote aspect to our
0:22 meetings
0:23 both staff and members of the public may
0:25 be participating in tonight's meeting
0:27 remotely via webex
0:30 council member ray will not be with us
0:31 this evening he has an excused absence
0:34 the first item on our agenda tonight is
0:36 the pledge of allegiance and i welcome
0:38 you to join me in the pledge of
0:39 allegiance
0:42 i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
0:45 united states of america
0:47 and to the republic for which it stands
0:50 one nation under god
0:52 indivisible with liberty and justice for
0:55 all
0:57 thank you
0:58 we have a couple of special business
1:01 items today and i'm just going to check
1:03 with the clerk would you like me to move
1:04 to the podium or should i do them from
1:07 where i am tonight
1:09 okay
1:12 okay
1:14 great thank you
1:16 so under special business we have id
1:19 1189
1:21 lgbtqia plus pride month
1:24 proclamation
1:26 and tonight
1:28 i have uh susan vossler with east side
1:31 pride joining us virtually to accept the
1:34 lgbtqia plus pride month proclamation
1:39 thank you nice to see you again susan
1:42 hello
1:44 thank you at the end of the proclamation
1:46 i'll also invite you to speak uh if you
1:48 would like to this evening so thanks for
1:50 joining us
1:53 whereas the month of june was designated
1:55 pride month to commemorate the stonewall
1:57 riots which occurred in june of 1969
2:01 and are generally recognized as the
2:03 catalyst of the lgbtqia plus rights
2:06 movement and whereas city council and
2:09 staff have committed to make issaquah an
2:11 inclusive and welcome welcoming
2:13 community for all
2:15 including the lgbtqi plus community
2:19 and whereas all members of the issaquah
2:21 community
2:22 including those who are lesbian gay
2:24 bisexual transgender queer or
2:27 questioning
2:28 intersex and asexual have the right to
2:31 feel safe
2:33 not to be discriminated against and to
2:35 live without the threat of violence or
2:37 harassment
2:38 and whereas supporting issaquah's
2:41 lgbtqia plus community also aligns with
2:44 the city's strategic plans guiding
2:46 principles of both people and equity
2:49 and whereas the lgbtqia plus community
2:53 has made great strides
2:55 however work remains in order to achieve
2:57 full equality inclusion and acceptance
3:01 whereas issaquah is strengthened by and
3:03 thrives upon the rich diversity of
3:05 ethnic cultural racial gender and sexual
3:08 identities of all its residents
3:10 all of which contribute to the vibrant
3:12 character of our city
3:14 now therefore i mary lou paulie mayor of
3:16 the city of isqa do hereby proclaim the
3:18 month of june to be
3:20 lgbtqia plus pride month in the city of
3:23 issaquah and i encourage all residents
3:26 to eliminate prejudice everywhere it
3:28 exists
3:29 respect the rights of all people
3:31 recognize the contributions and
3:33 achievements of the lgbtqia plus
3:35 community and to celebrate the great
3:37 diversity of our city
3:40 thank you
3:42 susan
3:44 we'll be making sure that you get this
3:45 proclamation and i'd like to see if
3:47 there's anything you'd like to say
3:48 tonight
3:49 yes thank you yes we'd love to receive
3:51 it and put it on our website so thank
3:53 you for that all right uh thank you to
3:55 the city of issaquah for this 2022 pride
3:58 proclamation for recognizing that
4:01 lgbtqia plus citizens are still
4:03 marginalized and discriminated against
4:06 i am speaking to you to you today as a
4:09 mother of a transgender young adult son
4:11 a beautiful and generous citizen of our
4:14 world
4:15 i'm also speaking to you as a founding
4:17 board member of eastside pride we are a
4:20 new nonprofit organization with the
4:22 mission to foster unity celebrate
4:24 diversity and build bridges across
4:26 communities we want to educate connect
4:29 and most of all celebrate our lgbtqia
4:32 plus community
4:34 we often hear the hateful demoralizing
4:36 words spoken about the lgbtqia community
4:39 in the news eastside pride wants to make
4:41 sure the voices of support
4:44 love and belonging are far louder
4:47 thank you for your support and we look
4:48 forward to our continued collaboration
4:50 with the city of issaquah in making all
4:52 lgbtqia plus citizens feel welcome and
4:55 respected
4:57 thank you
4:58 thank you susan and thank you for
5:00 joining us tonight uh councilmember hall
5:02 and i have really enjoyed working with
5:03 eastside pride you have a very
5:07 engaged and excited and interesting
5:10 group to work with and you've been very
5:11 helpful in having us think through our
5:14 ways forward so thank you so much
5:17 most welcome thank you
5:19 the next item
5:21 on the agenda this evening i'm going to
5:22 move down to the podium it is the
5:24 juneteenth day proclamation this is item
5:27 id 1196
5:44 thanks tisha
5:45 uh tony feel free to come up with me if
5:48 you want and do we have uh shea here
5:51 tonight
5:53 okay great in case you have not met them
5:55 the chair and vice chair of our equity
5:58 board shay is unable to join us tonight
6:00 she is the chair she was hoping to join
6:02 us virtually and we have vice chair tony
6:04 curry here with us in person this
6:06 evening he will be accepting the
6:08 proclamation
6:09 thank you tony and the same as when i'm
6:12 done with the proclamation i'd love to
6:13 offer you the microphone thank you
6:16 whereas june
6:18 juneteenth recognizes and commemorates
6:21 the day of june 19 1865
6:24 when enslaved african americans in texas
6:27 were informed by major general gordon
6:29 granger that they were free
6:32 ending 246 years of chattel slavery
6:35 and whereas on june 19 1866
6:39 one year after major granger's
6:41 announcement the freed african-american
6:44 men and women in the state of texas held
6:46 the first juneteenth or african-american
6:50 independence day celebration and
6:52 juneteenth celebrations would later
6:54 spread spread to all corners of the
6:56 country
6:57 and whereas we acknowledge the evils of
6:59 slavery and its aftermath and we
7:02 acknowledge african-american
7:04 contributions and achievements within
7:06 this community both past and present
7:09 and whereas during this juneteenth event
7:11 we celebrate our african-american
7:13 community members
7:15 and whereas we commit to working
7:16 together toward equity for all in
7:19 expanding economic educational and
7:22 career opportunities for everyone in our
7:24 community
7:25 now therefore i'm mary lou pauli mayor
7:27 of the city of issaquah do hereby
7:29 proclaim june 19 2022 to be the first
7:34 official juneteenth day celebration in
7:36 the city of issaquah i encourage all
7:39 residents to eliminate prejudice
7:41 everywhere and join me in this
7:43 celebration thank you tony thank you
7:47 thank you very much and thank you for
7:48 being here tonight thank you for having
7:50 me the mic is yours thank you
7:52 i'm just going to make a quick
7:54 few comments um
7:56 this is so as not as a member of the
7:59 equity board but as a member
8:01 as a
8:02 as a community member of issaquah this
8:04 moment is very special to me and i hope
8:07 is special to everyone whether
8:09 regardless of race creed gender this is
8:12 an american holiday it's a celebration
8:15 and my family where i grew up in los
8:17 angeles california where i learned about
8:20 this day it was a day to celebrate it
8:23 was a day that we as american citizens
8:25 became a part of being whole but it
8:28 wasn't just about the 13th amendment for
8:30 us it's about the 14th
8:33 which is that's when we became
8:36 american
8:37 citizens
8:38 and it's all about i mean we talk about
8:40 we look at the flag and we say liberty
8:42 and justice for all that's why i love
8:45 the month of june not because just my
8:47 birthday but also because it's a great
8:50 month this is the month where we
8:51 celebrate pride month this is a month
8:54 that we became
8:56 a true
8:57 united states of america so i invite if
9:02 you're a business owner if you're a
9:04 community community community member of
9:07 this great issaquah society don't look
9:10 at this as a day to celebrate this it's
9:13 the black people's holiday or something
9:15 like that
9:16 this is a holiday that belongs to
9:19 everyone every single united states
9:23 citizen regardless of race this is the
9:27 day that we can hand not to our children
9:30 not to our children's children
9:32 but our children's children's children
9:35 so we can say this is the day we took a
9:36 stand
9:37 and we're going to say
9:39 this
9:40 is the united states of america this is
9:42 the day that we start having those
9:44 conversations we start learning about
9:46 each other
9:48 and not just our differences and what
9:50 makes us great but what makes us
9:53 whole and so
9:54 thank you mayor paulie thank you esteem
9:56 council it's a great day i love it thank
9:59 you thank you
10:02 i just love hanging around tony
10:06 tony's amazing our equity board is doing
10:09 a fabulous job and i was notified that
10:11 shea has been able to join us virtually
10:13 so i'd like to ask shea if she would
10:15 like to share some words with you today
10:16 as well shay would you like to join us
10:21 i'd love to thank you mayor paulie i
10:23 appreciate it and thank you for the
10:25 beautiful proclamation thank you tony
10:27 for your words thank you council members
10:29 for joining us tonight um
10:32 i just want to say that much like tony i
10:35 agree it is an american holiday and i'm
10:37 so happy that we've decided to adopt it
10:39 for our city and we are willing to do
10:42 the work to make this a great event for
10:45 our citizens i appreciate all of you
10:48 participating and encouraging everyone
10:51 to be a part of this kind of event it's
10:54 so important not only for our city but
10:56 to demonstrate to other cities other
10:58 states and even other countries
11:01 how we work together and how we do
11:04 believe that everyone should have equal
11:07 rights and feel
11:09 important and feel welcomed especially
11:12 in the city of issaquah
11:15 shea thank you so much and thank you for
11:17 all the amazing work you're doing for
11:18 our community
11:28 is a really nice way to start the
11:29 meeting
11:31 um i also have another proclamation that
11:34 i added just based on local events and
11:37 really feeling a need that our community
11:40 and our council needed to say something
11:42 so the last proclamation which is not on
11:44 tonight's agenda
11:46 but because we were unfortunate to have
11:49 a recipient with us tonight i'd like to
11:51 issue this proclamation this evening
11:53 mary harris who many of you have met
11:56 is representing a local
11:58 chapter of mom's demand action and she
12:00 is joining us virtually tonight to
12:02 accept this additional proclamation it
12:04 is on gun violence awareness day
12:06 proclamation thank you for being with us
12:09 mary
12:14 whereas every day approximately 124
12:17 americans are killed by gun violence and
12:19 there are over 45 000 homicides every
12:22 year and whereas americans are 26 times
12:26 more likely to be killed with guns than
12:28 people in other high-income countries
12:32 and whereas protecting public safety is
12:34 the mayor's highest responsibility
12:37 and gun violence prevention is more
12:39 important than ever as the covet-19
12:41 pandemic continues to exacerbate gun
12:44 violence after significantly increased
12:46 gun sales
12:47 increased calls to suicide and domestic
12:50 violence hotlines and an increase in gun
12:52 violence across our country
12:55 and whereas in january 2013
12:58 hadiya pendleton was tragically shot and
13:00 killed at age 15 and to recognize her
13:03 birthday in june people across the
13:05 united states have annually recognized
13:08 the first friday of june as national gun
13:11 violence awareness day by wearing orange
13:13 in tribute to hadiya pendleton and other
13:16 victims of gun violence and the loved
13:18 ones of these victims
13:20 and whereas we renew our commitment to
13:22 reduce gun violence and pledge to do all
13:25 we can to keep firearms out of the wrong
13:27 hands and encourage responsible gun
13:29 ownership to help keep our community
13:32 safe
13:32 now therefore i mary lee paulie mayor of
13:35 the city of israel
13:36 did hereby proclaim that june 3rd 2022
13:39 was going to be gun violence awareness
13:41 day and mary thank you so much for
13:42 joining us tonight this is a really
13:44 difficult time in the country it really
13:50 thank you mayor paulie and thank you
13:51 council for continuing to
13:54 support this very important topic
13:57 um i've had the privilege of speaking
13:59 with you before
14:00 and i unfortunately am here again today
14:04 with that privilege to share with you
14:05 this message that
14:07 our nation continues to see
14:09 unprecedented numbers of mass shootings
14:11 that devastate communities
14:14 and shake our sense of safety in america
14:17 in our local community gun violence
14:19 often takes a very personal toll in the
14:22 form of suicide and domestic violence
14:25 in our schools our children are aware
14:28 that the threat of gun violence is real
14:31 we can all agree the national toll of
14:34 gun violence impacts our communities and
14:37 it's time to say
14:39 enough
14:40 we must encourage our elected officials
14:42 to focus on conversations surrounding
14:45 responsible gun ownership
14:48 i welcome anyone who is interested in
14:51 learning more about our local group of
14:53 moms demand action to reach out or text
14:57 the word commit
14:59 64433 to find out more about how to
15:02 volunteer to get involved and make an
15:05 impact
15:06 thank you very much for this honor and
15:08 for the proclamation
15:10 thank you mary i wonder if i could get
15:12 you to just repeat your text message
15:14 again that was great
15:17 the word commit
15:18 to six four four three three
15:22 thank you and thank you for everything
15:24 your team has been doing and working
15:26 with the city to heighten awareness in
15:28 this great work
15:29 thank you mary thank you very much
15:33 the next item on our agenda this evening
15:35 is audience comments and members of the
15:37 public may address counsel at this time
15:39 in person or virtually those who signed
15:41 up in advance to make comments will be
15:43 called on first and if you're joining us
15:45 virtually and would like to make
15:46 comments
15:47 please raise your virtual hand this is
15:50 maybe possible if you're on the phone by
15:52 pressing star 3
15:54 and if you have joined by a computer or
15:56 smartphone look for a hand icon this can
15:58 vary by device
16:00 one option may be to go to the
16:02 participant panel and choose the raise
16:04 hand icon in the lower right hand corner
16:06 if you're in the room and did not sign
16:08 up i will ask for other speakers before
16:10 closing this portion of the meeting
16:13 there is also a public hearing tonight
16:16 on ab-8331
16:18 the
16:20 2023-2028 six-year transportation
16:22 improvement program
16:24 comments on this item must be made under
16:26 the public hearing occurring later in
16:28 the meeting
16:29 city clerk has anyone signed up to speak
16:31 for general audience comments or
16:33 indicate a desire to speak this evening
16:35 yes
16:36 thank you so as a reminder
16:39 so for those making comments please make
16:41 sure to direct your comments at the
16:42 whole council and not individuals
16:45 and while this is not a question and
16:47 answer session we will contact you to
16:49 follow up if needed
16:51 when you are recognized unmute your
16:52 microphone for virtual attendees or step
16:55 up to the lectern for in-person
16:57 attendees state your name address and
17:00 relationship to the city
17:01 please speak clearly and pause
17:03 frequently and limit your comments to
17:05 five minutes if you are attending
17:07 virtually and do not respond after your
17:09 name or phone number is called
17:11 or if your connection is lost
17:13 unexpectedly the meeting will need to
17:14 proceed and you are encouraged to rejoin
17:16 the meeting if abel
17:18 personal attacks obscene language
17:20 derogatory remarks and disrupt
17:22 disruptive behavior will not be
17:24 permitted
17:26 citizen comments written and verbal are
17:28 an important aspect of the public
17:30 process and the city takes comments
17:32 seriously we thank you for taking the
17:34 time to address us this evening
17:36 city clerk can you please identify the
17:37 first person who signed up to speak
17:39 yes mark clemens mark in just a moment
17:42 here i'll make you a panelist and you
17:44 should have the option to unmute and
17:46 turn your video on if you so choose
17:57 you guys see me
17:59 yes you can
18:02 so thank you madam mayor and city
18:03 council for the city's continued support
18:05 of the downtown issaquah association i'd
18:08 like to take the five minutes tonight
18:10 just to highlight some of the recent hip
18:11 happenings at dia and end with an
18:14 invitation
18:15 ds programs and events have brought
18:17 thousands of additional foot traffic to
18:19 the downtown community so far in 2022.
18:22 the design committee has hung over 100
18:24 flower baskets beautifying front and
18:27 sunset and led a citywide cleanup with
18:30 partners serving over a thousand
18:31 volunteer hours the economic vitality
18:34 committee managed the installation of
18:36 two parklets along front street everyone
18:38 is invited to try out and answer a brief
18:41 survey there and the promotional
18:43 committee has worked on a communications
18:44 campaign that highlights the businesses
18:46 and programs
18:47 to the of the downtown regionally
18:50 the outreach committee has worked with
18:52 over 100 visual and performance artists
18:54 during diaz programming to showcase
18:56 their work
18:57 i leave each of you with an invitation
18:59 this saturday
19:01 evening during the art walk and music
19:02 stroll from 6 to 7 30 dear will be
19:05 celebrating the issaquah valley trolley
19:07 team volunteers at the historic shell
19:10 station
19:11 thank you
19:13 thank you mark nice to see you
19:15 city clerk is there anyone else signed
19:17 up this evening
19:22 mayor i don't see anyone else virtually
19:25 uh indicating a desire to speak
19:28 is there anyone in the audience with us
19:29 today who would like to speak
19:32 okay
19:34 um so thank you very much everyone it
19:37 was nice to hear from mark at dia about
19:40 the happenings update and an invite for
19:42 future events
19:43 as a reminder at any point in time
19:45 written comments can be submitted to
19:47 city council at isquelwa.gov
19:50 council president walsh do you have any
19:52 email comments received during the last
19:54 couple of weeks that you would like to
19:55 summarize summarize on any of tonight's
19:57 agenda topics
19:59 thank you madam mayor we have one email
20:02 that we received about 20 minutes ago so
20:04 i'm going to try and quickly summarize
20:07 one resident has
20:09 concerns about two items on the consent
20:11 agenda
20:12 that was related to the inter-local
20:14 agreement for historic preservation
20:17 asking us to
20:19 keep that close rather than
20:21 [Music]
20:23 give
20:23 management away i guess and then also
20:27 the use of the costco parking lot for
20:28 the farmer's market concerned about the
20:31 budgetary requirement of that and that
20:34 concludes comments we've received thank
20:36 you council president we will move on to
20:39 committee regional reports and we'll
20:40 start with council member joe
20:42 thank you madam mayor
20:45 may 10th the council mobility and
20:46 infrastructure committee met we'll be
20:48 having two items coming before the
20:50 council this evening on the solid waste
20:52 contract and the tip
20:54 may 20th the ltch committee met and went
20:58 through the proposals for the ltch
21:00 funding and that agenda bill is in the
21:03 con in your packet under the uh consent
21:06 agenda as well
21:07 may 24th uh
21:09 council member hunt and council
21:12 president walsh and i met with
21:13 representative bill ramos and
21:15 representative lisa callan to get a
21:17 legislative update on
21:19 the items that were in front of the
21:21 legislature this last session and had a
21:24 brief preview of some of the items that
21:25 were coming this next session
21:28 may 25th was the
21:31 cascade water alliance meeting the main
21:33 item there was in an agreement to
21:36 allow a company to have a transmission
21:39 easement over their cascade water
21:41 property
21:43 for a battery
21:44 facility
21:46 and that will result in additional
21:48 revenue to cascade without having a
21:50 market market impact on the operations
21:53 at all
21:54 may 25th i attended the puget sound
21:57 regional council general meeting uh two
21:59 items of importance service and adoption
22:01 the supplemental budget uh and work
22:04 program for 2022 and 2023. there was a
22:07 regional transportation plan that was
22:09 approved
22:10 and then there was a voice vote on the
22:13 election of new officers for the puget
22:15 sound regional council that concludes my
22:17 report thank you thank you councilmember
22:19 joe councilmember d michelle
22:23 there we go thank you mr paulie on may
22:25 18th i attended the regional transit
22:27 committee meeting and our regional
22:30 transfer committee unanimously adopted
22:32 the metro connects report which details
22:34 possible funding sources to close the
22:36 agency's projected funding gap over the
22:39 next 30 years the sound cities
22:41 association as well as our city staff
22:44 are keeping close watch on metro's
22:45 funding proposals and how they might
22:47 impact city taxing authority and our own
22:50 capital finance planning metro's
22:52 financial situation continues to be
22:54 volatile with revenues coming in higher
22:56 than projected and the addition of
22:58 federal infrastructure funds
23:00 general manager terry white also
23:02 announced that metro's ridership is
23:04 steadily increasing to pre-pandemic
23:07 levels and is now
23:09 approximately 200 000 riders per day
23:13 the east side human services forum will
23:15 meet this thursday and the east side
23:17 transportation partnership has a
23:19 scheduled meeting for this friday and
23:20 that concludes my report thank you
23:23 councilmember d michelle
23:24 uh council member hunt thank you madam
23:27 mayor the planning development and
23:29 environment committee will meet tomorrow
23:31 june 7th and we have two items on our
23:33 agenda the title 18
23:36 zoning and uses which is our land use
23:38 code and then we have amendments to
23:39 title 16
23:41 stormwater manual and floodplains
23:45 meetings that have happened over the
23:46 last couple weeks on may 19th there was
23:48 a meeting of the wyra eight salmon
23:50 recovery council i wasn't able to attend
23:52 so i sent in my comments in advance but
23:54 the council approved
23:56 5.7 million dollars in grant funding to
23:58 habitat restoration projects for salmon
24:01 and
24:02 as well as priority assessment
24:04 activities and education and outreach
24:06 council also approved funding to
24:07 synthesize available data about um
24:10 predation impacts to juvenile salmon
24:12 which is a ongoing issue of concern and
24:15 the next meeting of the wyra8 salmon
24:17 recovery council will be july 21st
24:20 also having to do with salmon on june
24:22 2nd i attended a lake smamish artificial
24:25 light abatement discussion and this was
24:28 a scoping discussion having to do with a
24:30 budget proviso that was in the last
24:32 legislature's budget for
24:36 lake sammamish artificial light
24:38 abatement
24:39 representative ramos worked with a
24:41 number of wyrate salmon recovery council
24:44 representatives as well as king
24:45 conservation district and um the kokanee
24:48 work group to have a budget proviso that
24:52 would help pilot a project to reduce
24:54 light pollution on lake smamish and
24:57 hopefully this is the first step towards
24:59 making a
25:01 model ordinance and policy that could be
25:03 useful
25:05 across the state potentially and
25:06 certainly in other areas to reduce light
25:09 pollution
25:10 so i wanted to also thank issaquah staff
25:12 that attended doug gurmek and the
25:14 community planning and development
25:15 director minnie dollywall were there to
25:17 talk about the code that we have been
25:18 working on as part of title 18 having to
25:20 do with this light pollution issue and
25:22 that was very helpful
25:26 then on june 1st i attended the regional
25:29 water quality committee meeting
25:31 and
25:32 the main
25:33 topic of conversation that i wanted to
25:35 convey to my fellow council members and
25:38 mayor is having to do with a
25:40 conversation that we had at our caucus
25:42 meeting that we then carried into that
25:43 meeting which was about the clean water
25:45 plan so this is a king county water plan
25:48 that will have a big impact on what
25:50 wastewater projects go forward and
25:53 therefore ultimately on what the
25:55 ratepayers see in terms of the rates
25:57 and the
25:58 caucus put together a list of guiding
26:01 principles
26:03 largely concerned with making sure that
26:04 the scope is limited to wastewater
26:08 concerned about affordability concerned
26:10 also about
26:11 the rates overall and affordability in
26:13 this region and another increasing rate
26:15 for ratepayers also about service
26:18 levels and equity and this guiding
26:20 principles document will go to the pick
26:23 public issues committee for sound cities
26:25 association who we expect will weigh in
26:28 on that and that will that is on the
26:29 agenda for the sound cities association
26:32 public issues committee for
26:34 um this week on wednesday
26:36 so um
26:39 the next meeting of the uh regional
26:42 water quality committee will be on july
26:44 6th and then one other meeting to report
26:46 out is that there will be a king
26:48 conservation district advisory committee
26:49 meeting on june 14th that concludes my
26:51 report
26:52 thank you councilmember hunt
26:53 councilmember ray is not with us this
26:55 evening he has excused absence i'm going
26:57 to move to councilmember mertz
26:59 thank you madam mayor uh so it's still a
27:02 little bit more than two weeks away but
27:03 i just have to mention the first council
27:05 services safety and parks community
27:07 meeting is going to be the day after our
27:10 next council meeting so for those of you
27:12 who have been patiently and excitedly
27:13 waiting uh the time is well nigh it's
27:17 going to be at 6 30 pm wednesday june
27:19 22nd that is a different date
27:21 because of holiday schedule
27:24 that it would normally occur the agenda
27:25 is still to be determined
27:28 then the
27:29 psrc gmpb met last thursday from 10 til
27:32 noon included in the conversation was a
27:35 regional housing strategy implementation
27:37 discussion
27:39 discussion on the state housing support
27:41 for local planning
27:43 and then a really interesting
27:44 sub-regional housing group panel
27:46 presentation including
27:48 a ha shape arch and skip which are all
27:54 more more recent or longer standing
27:57 sub-regional housing organizations arch
28:00 of course
28:01 being the one that we're a member of and
28:03 lindsey masters talking about the long
28:05 and rich history
28:07 of arts the other groups are are a
28:08 little bit more recent but it was a it
28:10 was an interesting conversation about
28:12 just how much is spooling up right now
28:14 to try to address
28:16 the enorm is
28:17 crushing
28:19 housing challenges that we have as a
28:21 region
28:23 then sca pic
28:24 will meet next wednesday from 7 till 9.
28:27 it's going to be a
28:28 virtual meeting included is the clean
28:31 water plan guiding principles
28:35 future actions so sca has come up with
28:38 draft principles
28:40 for
28:42 a clean water plan i encourage everyone
28:44 to take a look what i'd like to do is um
28:47 this is a potential future action so
28:49 there's a little bit of time but i would
28:50 ask my fellow council members to look at
28:52 pages 16 to 18 of the pick packet and at
28:55 the next full council meeting i will
28:57 take a couple of minutes at the um for
28:59 good of the order um to get feedback
29:01 from you all that i can share with pick
29:04 then there's also going to be a
29:06 conversation about conservation futures
29:08 ballot measure
29:09 and king county utility rates but no
29:11 action planned on either of those this
29:13 concludes my report
29:14 thank you councilmember mertz thanks for
29:16 the heads up
29:17 deputy council president hall
29:19 uh thank you a quick one this evening uh
29:21 just to report that the next meeting of
29:22 the eastside fire and rescue board of
29:24 directors is this coming thursday at 4
29:26 pm in person at our headquarters on
29:28 newport way
29:30 important agenda items include an update
29:32 on core connect implementation in our
29:34 service areas and a presentation on the
29:36 recommendation of the new fire chief
29:39 selection ad-hoc committee and i know
29:41 you're all eagerly awaiting um what the
29:44 results of that are so we'll be sure to
29:46 update you all on
29:47 uh new fire chief next steps um after
29:50 that board discussion um and we'll
29:51 update you at the next council meeting
29:53 and thank you very much
29:54 thank you deputy council president
29:55 council president walsh
29:58 thank you
30:00 the king county affordable housing
30:01 committee met on may 18th and we
30:04 continued our big conversation of
30:07 hey how do we handle affordable housing
30:09 in the community
30:11 we discussed and provided feedback on
30:14 the growth management planning council's
30:16 accountability framework so basically
30:19 hey
30:20 you say you're going to build affordable
30:22 housing but maybe we should hold you
30:24 accountable to actually doing so and
30:27 having the code reflect what you say
30:29 you're going to do
30:30 and then the jurisdictional housing
30:33 needs allocation so right now
30:37 the state level department of commerce
30:40 says hey there's going to be this many
30:42 people who move in
30:43 who you know need housing
30:47 and allocate that this year they're
30:49 going to allocate it at the county level
30:52 there was a hope that they were going to
30:53 allocate it smaller at the city level
30:56 but that's not going to happen and it's
30:58 going to come in late and so we have to
31:01 not only
31:02 take that and create
31:04 the
31:05 housing needs allocation for each of the
31:08 cities but then take that down and
31:10 create the affordable housing needs
31:12 allocation so there's just a large
31:15 conversation about whether that should
31:17 be more allocated to areas that are
31:19 already more naturally affordable or
31:21 whether it should be
31:22 split up and have more
31:25 affordable requirements for areas that
31:27 haven't um
31:28 provided their fair share in the past
31:31 so that conversation will continue at
31:34 our next meeting
31:35 and then
31:36 tomorrow city administrator bob quits
31:38 and i will meet with the issaquah school
31:41 district board leadership and the
31:43 superintendent the only item on our
31:45 agenda for that meeting is to discuss
31:47 the timing of the superintendent
31:49 transition we will obviously have an
31:52 opportunity to say thank you to
31:54 superintendent thiele but we also are
31:57 eager and excited to develop that new
32:00 relationship so understanding what those
32:02 opportunities are will be our
32:03 conversation tomorrow that concludes my
32:05 report
32:06 thank you council president the next
32:08 item on the agenda this evening is the
32:10 mayor's report there will not be an
32:13 executive session this evening
32:16 the city of issaquah recently nominated
32:18 ryan remy for the 2022
32:21 association of washington city's center
32:24 for quality communities that's a
32:26 mouthful scholarship so we are delighted
32:29 to hear that ryan was selected as a
32:30 scholarship winner ryan is a member of
32:33 the issue youth advisory board and we
32:35 hope to honor him at a future council
32:37 meeting congratulations ryan and thank
32:39 you for your service to the city of
32:41 issaquah
32:42 the city recently purchased the 20-acre
32:45 squawk mountain estates parcels for
32:47 conservation and connectivity purposes
32:49 small applause for the council this is
32:52 pretty exciting
32:53 squawk mountain estates is a wonderful
32:55 addition to our protected public lands
32:57 around issaquah
32:59 by preserving riparian habitat from
33:01 potential development and by becoming
33:03 stewards of a key connector between the
33:05 nearby state park and the downtown
33:07 community we continue to progress with
33:09 our climate goals and making more of our
33:11 natural environment accessible to folks
33:14 in our community
33:16 we have a city-wide performance
33:17 dashboard the city of issaquah has
33:19 launched its first
33:21 citywide performance dashboard in
33:23 october of 2020 the city council adopted
33:26 a set of measures aligned to the our
33:29 issue strategic plan and intended to
33:31 support elected officials city staff and
33:34 community members in tracking progress
33:36 toward the future vision outlined in the
33:38 plan
33:39 our performance measures provide key
33:41 indicators of city health
33:43 strong infrastructure
33:44 economic and social social environmental
33:48 and vitality
33:49 they should be viewed over the long term
33:51 and will provide feedback on whether the
33:53 actions we take on an annual and
33:55 multi-year basis are improving the
33:56 outcomes for all community members
33:58 across our city the dashboard is live
34:01 now and on the city website
34:04 a little plug here for the civil service
34:06 commission the city is looking to fill
34:08 one current and one potential vacancy on
34:10 the civil service commission do you know
34:12 anyone interested please encourage them
34:15 to apply the long-standing civil service
34:18 commission ensures that law enforcement
34:20 officers are recruited through open
34:22 competition
34:24 hired and promoted on the basis of merit
34:26 and are demoted suspended removed from
34:29 office or discharged only for cause
34:32 qualified candidates must be a citizen
34:34 of the united states aged 18 years or
34:36 older
34:37 an issaquah resident for at least three
34:39 years and a registered voter in king
34:41 county
34:42 the time commitment on this commission
34:44 is an average of an hour a month
34:45 currently the vacant position currently
34:48 open has a term that expires in on april
34:51 30th of 2024
34:53 applications will be
34:55 accepted through june 17th at
34:57 issaquah.gov
35:00 apply and as we talked about earlier in
35:03 the proclamation on pride month
35:05 each year the month of june is
35:07 designated as pride month to commemorate
35:09 the stonewall riots which occurred in
35:11 june of 1969
35:13 and generally recognized as the catalyst
35:16 for the beginning of this movement
35:17 movement
35:18 the city is hosting a virtual event
35:20 called honoring pride month on june 23rd
35:23 at 6 30 pm
35:25 hear from local professionals and
35:26 members of the lgbtqia plus community as
35:30 we engage in a meaningful dialogue to
35:32 help us shape a better future where
35:34 everyone belongs and feels welcome
35:36 registration is available through the
35:38 city website
35:39 regional partners are hosting additional
35:41 events throughout the month and if you'd
35:43 like to know what they are please visit
35:44 theisquaw.gov
35:46 pride
35:47 on our website for more event
35:49 information
35:51 and juneteenth
35:53 also known as freedom day liberation day
35:55 or emancipation is now an annual holiday
35:58 observing the end of slavery in the
36:00 united states and marks our country's
36:02 second independence day
36:04 the city is hosting an evening of
36:06 learning and reflection on june 20th at
36:09 5 pm at the issaquah senior center
36:12 food trucks will be available
36:14 regional partners are hosting additional
36:16 events throughout this month and again
36:17 you can visit our website at
36:19 issaquah.gov
36:21 juneteenth and get some additional event
36:24 information
36:25 there's a couple of other upcoming
36:26 community events the state parks is
36:29 having a free pass day june 11th and
36:31 12th
36:32 at washington state parks washington
36:34 department of fish and wildlife and the
36:37 department of natural resources
36:39 these free passes are in honor of
36:41 national get outdoors day and free
36:44 fishing day
36:45 these parks will also be free on june
36:47 19th for juneteenth
36:50 and please save the date for the return
36:52 of isco's down home 4th of july
36:54 celebration
36:55 the event will commence with the parade
36:57 at 11 a.m and family fun activities will
37:00 be available in memorial field until 2
37:02 p.m
37:03 and the last is just to note that city
37:05 hall will be closed on june 20th for the
37:08 june juneteenth holiday that concludes
37:11 the mayor's report
37:13 the next item of business we have this
37:15 evening is the consent calendar which
37:17 was distributed to council in advance
37:19 and if authorized the items on the
37:21 consent calendar will be considered
37:23 together and approved by one motion
37:26 uh city clerk had one correction to one
37:30 of the consent calendar items and so
37:32 i'll turn it over to tisha to explain
37:34 what that is yes just to put on the
37:37 record that a correction was submitted
37:39 to consent calendar item b the city
37:41 council special study session minutes of
37:43 march 29th the proposed revision was
37:46 provided to the city council by email
37:48 and is also included at your desks
37:50 making a slight change to the council
37:52 feedback provided under
37:54 uh item c on the march 29 study session
37:57 with adoption of the consent calendar
37:59 this evening the revised version of the
38:01 minutes would be approved
38:03 thank you very much city clerk have the
38:05 payables and payrolls been reviewed they
38:07 have yeah thank you
38:09 yes
38:11 does any council member desire to remove
38:13 any item from the consent calendar and
38:15 consider it under regular business
38:20 can i get someone to make a motion
38:23 uh council president i'd like to move to
38:25 approve the
38:27 minutes as corrected
38:31 second can we go further than that
38:33 yeah i think we can go further
38:35 you could move to approve the consent
38:37 calendar
38:38 yes
38:39 thank you the consent calendar with the
38:41 minutes as
38:43 uh corrected
38:45 that motion i'll suck okay it's been
38:47 moved and seconded is there any council
38:49 discussion
38:51 did we get the wording right city court
38:53 thanks
38:55 so hearing none the motion before the
38:56 council is to approve the consent
38:58 calendar as presented all those in favor
39:00 signify by saying aye
39:01 aye
39:06 return it i hate that those opposed
39:09 that passes unanimously six though
39:12 the next item of business this evening
39:14 is our public hearing on ab-8331
39:18 it's the
39:19 2023-2028 six-year transportation
39:22 improvement program and we will be
39:23 conducting the public hearing this
39:25 evening
39:26 i'd like to invite transportation
39:27 engineer manager john mortensen to make
39:30 a brief presentation welcome john
39:33 thank you mayor uh thank you very much
39:35 madam mayor i'm john morton
39:37 transportation engineering manager thank
39:39 you everyone for
39:41 being here tonight to listen i'm going
39:43 to share my screen for my presentation
40:06 i'm john mortensen the transportation
40:08 engineering manager here at the city of
40:10 issaquah tonight here to give you a
40:12 brief presentation on the six-year
40:14 transportation improvement program
40:17 the purpose of this item is to
40:20 [Music]
40:22 hold a public hearing and adopt a
40:25 six-year transportation improvement
40:27 program
40:28 the rcw 35.77.010
40:33 requires that
40:35 cities like the city of esqua
40:37 hold a public hearing and adopt a
40:39 transportation improvement program
40:43 a little background on the
40:45 the transportation improvement program
40:47 it is a subset of the capital
40:49 improvement plan
40:51 the capital improvement plan is adopted
40:53 by council
40:55 every other year so it's adopted on odd
40:58 years and the transportation improvement
41:00 program
41:02 is adopted every year as required by
41:04 state law
41:06 a lot of the
41:08 decisions that go into the
41:09 transportation improvement program come
41:11 from a variety of things but
41:14 real guiding
41:15 criteria for us is the mobility master
41:18 plan and applying the guiding principles
41:20 in the mobility master plan
41:22 as well as looking at what the are the
41:25 potential funding sources we've got
41:27 a list of projects that we do want to
41:30 get done but sometimes
41:32 when we put together the tip we have to
41:33 look at what are the funding sources
41:36 because we need to bring in external
41:38 money and a lot of times our funding
41:40 partners are looking for something very
41:42 specific
41:44 this is a
41:45 little chart or a picture that
41:49 was put together for the capital
41:50 improvement plan i really like how it
41:52 shows how the transportation improvement
41:54 program fits in related to the city's
41:58 various plans including the
41:59 comprehensive plan
42:01 the capital improvement plan
42:03 and the different things like the park
42:05 strategic plan esquire climate action
42:07 plan you can see the list on there
42:09 but
42:11 as you can see from this picture the tip
42:13 or the transportation improvement
42:14 program it's one small component of a
42:17 lot of the stuff that we're trying to do
42:19 here at the city of esqua
42:22 background on this item sense
42:25 the capital improvement plan was adopted
42:27 by the council last spring last summer
42:31 the administration worked with the
42:33 transportation advisory board to look at
42:36 some of our project descriptions and
42:38 start making some revisions to some of
42:40 those projects to incorporate the
42:42 guiding principles in the mobility
42:43 master plan
42:45 then at the transportation advisory
42:48 board meeting on
42:50 in february we met with the tab to
42:52 confirm that we got the feedback right
42:55 before starting to assemble the
42:58 transportation improvement program
43:00 in april met with the
43:03 environmental board
43:05 to get the feedback
43:08 on from the environmental board about
43:10 how it impacted the natural environment
43:13 on may 10th
43:15 met with the new mobility and
43:17 infrastructure committee
43:20 here in this room
43:21 and then
43:23 last month
43:25 at the may transportation advisory board
43:28 gave the tab an update on where the
43:32 tip was at they're very interested in it
43:35 tonight is june 6 where we're holding a
43:38 public hearing with a scheduled adoption
43:41 of the tip on
43:43 june 21st
43:46 at the
43:48 some of the feedback from the
43:49 transportation advisory board is they
43:51 had some concern about
43:53 roadway widening projects that are in
43:55 future years those are projects that are
43:58 part of the city's current concurrency
44:00 system and required to meet the city's
44:02 level of service with future growth
44:05 and so that's why those projects are in
44:07 there the
44:11 another feedback from the transportation
44:13 advisory board is they would like to
44:15 meet with the
44:17 environmental board and begin talking
44:19 about how to
44:21 integrate the mobility master plan and
44:23 the isoqua climate action plan a little
44:26 bit better
44:27 since the isquad climate action plan is
44:29 recently adopted
44:31 and the tab would really like to have
44:32 some feedback in the
44:36 tip that will be put before the council
44:39 in a year
44:42 when we met with the environmental board
44:45 some of the feedback that we got from
44:47 the environmental board were
44:49 just questions about the project
44:51 selection and prioritization
44:54 wanting to know about the impacts to the
44:56 natural environment
44:58 the environmental board is interested in
45:01 having a
45:02 information on greenhouse gas emissions
45:04 generated by projects
45:08 really they would really like to see
45:09 promotion of alternative modes of
45:11 transportation
45:12 and to consider wildlife corridors when
45:15 planning and designing transportation
45:16 projects
45:19 the mobility and infrastructure
45:21 committee some of the feedback that we
45:23 received was
45:24 comments on the timing and process that
45:27 felt a little bit rushed
45:29 with where we're trying to get it done
45:31 before our state deadline
45:34 some of the same concerns about future
45:36 years projects with roadway widening the
45:39 projects that are tied to the city's
45:40 concurrency system
45:44 the talked about the capital finance
45:46 implementation plan which will be coming
45:49 forward
45:50 to the council at a
45:52 future meeting
45:54 and
45:55 talked a little bit about the
45:57 project to create a
45:59 new crossing inside of the regional
46:01 growth center which we're calling the
46:03 central west palm multimodal
46:05 crossing project
46:08 when we look at the different types of
46:10 projects that go into the tip i really
46:12 like to just break them into little
46:14 buckets or categories to help me think
46:16 about what we're trying to do for
46:18 mobility and transportation
46:20 there's the annual projects those are
46:22 the projects that we do every year
46:24 projects that are underway that began
46:27 before the mobility master plan and
46:29 we're continuing to execute those
46:30 projects
46:32 mandated projects which are projects
46:34 that
46:35 are needed for asset maintenance or
46:38 safety
46:39 those kind of projects
46:41 new priority projects where we're really
46:43 trying to apply the guiding principles
46:45 in the mobility master plan and then
46:47 long-term projects ones that for various
46:50 reasons are on the
46:52 transportation improvement program but
46:54 they're not in the next six years but
46:56 they're ones that we would like to get
46:57 done in the future
47:00 some of the projects that are in the
47:02 transportation improvement program in
47:04 the category of projects underway are
47:06 the two projects on newport way the
47:09 first one is
47:10 between sr 900 and 54th it's a project
47:14 that will
47:17 build
47:18 bicycle and pedestrian facilities a new
47:20 shared use path that will be part of the
47:22 mountains to sound greenway corridor
47:24 that will eventually go from seattle
47:27 through mercer island to bellevue
47:29 issaquah and keep going towards the
47:31 mountains and further
47:34 as well as some safety improvements
47:36 trying to reduce speed on newport way
47:39 as a
47:40 this was a project that came as a result
47:42 or this really
47:45 became a really high priority project
47:47 after a
47:49 fatality at a crosswalk in 2015.
47:52 the newport way maple to sunset project
47:55 is another project on newport way this
47:58 time between maple and sunset which is
48:02 it'll
48:03 construct new pedestrian and bicycle
48:06 facilities roundabouts at three
48:08 intersections which would be
48:10 dogwood holly and juniper as well as
48:13 constructing a second southbound lane
48:16 from maple to 900 feet south of hawley
48:21 the northwest sammamish road
48:23 non-motorized project which is a project
48:25 when we did the capital improvement plan
48:27 last year really rose to the top is a
48:31 huge priority for the community
48:33 we're in the design process right now
48:36 and working on coming up with the design
48:39 to connect the neighborhood south of
48:41 lake samamish
48:43 to the lake samamish state park
48:46 and the
48:47 highlands signal pole painting project
48:50 is the final project in the underway
48:52 category for the annual projects these
48:55 are projects we work on every year
48:57 they're part of a program the ada
49:00 improvements project is one of them
49:01 where we will do different improvements
49:04 inside the public right-of-way to make
49:06 to remove barriers and make our
49:08 transportation system work for users
49:11 with disabilities that could be
49:12 constructing curb ramps
49:15 installing new pedestrian push buttons
49:17 that signals if you're at a new traffic
49:20 signal not an old one you see the
49:22 pedestrian push button if you push and
49:24 hold it for about three seconds it'll
49:26 start talking to you it'll tell you to
49:28 wait and it'll tell you when the walk
49:29 signs on to cross to help
49:31 pedestrians who are visually impaired be
49:33 able to cross
49:34 something that we work on
49:36 the pavement management program where
49:38 the city
49:39 as well as the annual concrete
49:41 maintenance program the city takes care
49:43 of the streets and the pavement and the
49:45 concrete
49:46 that's an annual project and the
49:49 recent strategic small capital project
49:51 where we make small improvements to the
49:53 mobility system to try and help
49:55 people get to places this is a project
49:58 that came out of the
49:59 strategic plan where we identified a
50:02 need to
50:03 make small improvements that could make
50:05 a big difference in the community
50:08 for the mandated responsibilities a lot
50:10 of those are the annual projects
50:14 but other ones that we have are looking
50:16 at when we need to replace the black
50:18 nugget retaining wall
50:20 as well as various
50:22 landslide repair projects that we have
50:24 and when we look at bridges that need to
50:27 be either replaced or rehabilitated that
50:31 and those fit under the
50:33 bucket of mandated responsibilities
50:37 and then the last project is or the last
50:39 category is the
50:41 new priority project and
50:43 the only project we have in this
50:45 category is the central esqua multimodal
50:48 crossing of i-90
50:51 the recommendation
50:53 is to approve the resolution adopting
50:56 the 2023 through 2028 transportation
51:00 improvement program as proposed
51:02 at the
51:03 regular council meeting on june 21st
51:08 for timing and next steps tonight is the
51:11 public hearing where the public will be
51:13 able to provide feedback on the
51:15 transportation improvement program
51:18 scheduled adoption on june 21st
51:22 then once the the tip is adopted between
51:26 then and
51:28 when we work on the capital improvement
51:30 plan to work with the boards and
51:33 commissions
51:34 to incorporate the issaquah climate
51:36 action plan into the next capital
51:39 improvement plan update as well as
51:41 to incorporate equity into
51:44 how we prioritize our projects here at
51:46 the city of esqua
51:48 and next spring is when the city will be
51:51 updating the big six-year capital
51:54 improvement plan
51:55 including the transportation improvement
51:57 program
51:59 does the council have any questions
52:01 thank you for the presentation um before
52:04 we go to questions i'm just going to go
52:05 over to chair
52:07 joe who is the mobility and
52:09 infrastructure committee chair and see
52:10 if there were any
52:11 other comments you wanted to provide
52:12 about the committee work or if john
52:14 covered it so floor is yours thank you
52:17 madam mayor and uh mr mortensen thank
52:19 you for all of your hard work and i know
52:21 that you
52:22 went to our committee and then went on
52:25 a number of other means to make sure
52:26 that
52:27 uh our boards and commissions were keyed
52:29 into what we were doing and also
52:32 the board the transportation board
52:34 expressed a desire to learn more about
52:36 the tip and be connected with the
52:38 council a little bit more as we're
52:40 looking at that project in the future i
52:41 thought that was a good feedback from
52:44 that board and i hope that we were able
52:46 to do that and make that connection in
52:48 the future the only question i had i i
52:51 guess in general the the committee
52:53 looked at this and and is not
52:54 recommending any changes to it
52:57 but could you talk a little bit about
52:58 the board the bridge
53:00 improvement that's going to be done and
53:02 why we're looking at the load on that
53:04 particular old bridge
53:08 yes that is thank you for that question
53:11 council member joe
53:12 that is the bridge on gilman that
53:15 crosses issaquah creek as part of the
53:18 2022 work plan
53:20 we did some evaluation on that bridge
53:24 and determined that
53:25 it does not meet the current seismic
53:27 criteria and
53:29 that it also needs to be load rated for
53:32 heavy emergency vehicles
53:34 and as a result of that we have applied
53:36 for a grant with the washington
53:38 department of transportation to do a
53:40 seismic upgrade which would also
53:44 take care of the load rating for the
53:46 gilman bridge and so it's a project
53:49 originally we're looking at it thinking
53:51 that we'd be able to wanting to seismic
53:53 upgrade and i should add that it's not a
53:56 bridge replacement project it is a
53:58 project that would
54:00 rehabilitate the existing bridge this
54:02 bridge is pretty neat it was designed by
54:05 i can't remember his first name but the
54:07 last name is lacy and if you're driving
54:09 to seattle on i-90 the bridge that you
54:12 drive over is named after the
54:14 engineer who designed this bridge here
54:16 in issaquah he worked for the washington
54:18 department of transportation and so i
54:20 think it's got a really neat history i
54:21 believe it's the oldest bridge in the
54:23 city of isquain
54:24 i think it'll be an exciting project to
54:26 get to
54:27 hopefully we get the funding to be able
54:28 to rehabilitate that remove the load
54:31 limit and have it meet the current
54:33 seismic criteria
54:35 thank you so much appreciate it i'm glad
54:38 that we're looking at
54:40 the way our system works
54:42 in the event of an earthquake or other
54:43 natural disasters so we can make sure
54:44 that our first responders are able to
54:46 get
54:47 to the
54:48 victims and the people that need help
54:51 we want to make sure those bridges are
54:52 up and running as as much as possible so
54:55 do appreciate that look at that project
54:58 that really concludes the
55:00 report back from the committee i know
55:02 that other council members
55:05 on that committee may have other
55:06 comments
55:07 barb d michelle and and uh
55:10 you know what's your name
55:15 zach hall were both
55:17 very
55:18 uh instrumental in the conversation that
55:20 we had on the tenth if they have
55:22 anything to add as well we'll certainly
55:23 open that up to to their comments thank
55:26 you a little humor is good any other
55:28 questions from council members
55:30 uh councilman mertz
55:32 the engineer in me always is interested
55:35 to hear
55:36 when things don't meet um uh standards
55:38 or specifications i note that the signs
55:42 at that bridge say weight limit but
55:44 doesn't say what the weight limit is
55:46 do we have do we currently
55:48 have a weight limit on that bridge
55:50 different than what it is on gilman and
55:52 should we have signage to that effect or
55:55 it seems um
55:57 a bit mysterious that it says weight
55:58 limit but it doesn't have a specific
56:00 number
56:01 done
56:02 well when i saw the signs that were
56:03 supposed to go up they did have a number
56:05 so what i'm going to do is on my way
56:07 home afterwards i'm going to drive over
56:09 the bridge and take a look oh thank you
56:11 for that dude
56:13 small town there we go thank you john
56:16 that's awesome other questions
56:18 council president
56:21 i've got a few do you want me to no go
56:23 down questions okay
56:25 one at a time we'll have john answer but
56:27 we'll get through all your questions so
56:29 i noted in the
56:32 in the memo
56:34 that
56:35 tr041 the front street streetscape and
56:38 tr042 the elder festival street
56:42 it's listed as basically pushed off
56:45 beyond the six-year time period because
56:48 you've said that you won't have the
56:50 necessary staff and i'm trying to
56:53 understand from a
56:55 policy perspective and the budgeting
56:59 authority
57:01 how that
57:03 how that decision comes out at a
57:06 at a staff level versus coming to us and
57:11 saying we know that this was on your
57:13 previous priorities list
57:16 we don't think we're going to have the
57:18 staff
57:18 should we leave it in there because
57:21 we're going to adjust the budget
57:23 i'm just i'm having a hard time
57:24 understanding how that was decided and
57:27 how
57:28 that fell off
57:30 versus
57:31 say other projects that also obviously
57:34 would require staff
57:38 good question and
57:42 one of the things that we're really
57:44 trying to
57:45 when we put together a plan for the
57:47 council we're really trying to look
57:50 do a better job of looking at what we
57:53 can realistically do and getting that
57:55 done
57:56 now
57:58 ultimately as members of the council you
58:01 guys set the budget and
58:03 then we respond to it this is what's
58:05 proposed in the six-year tip that when
58:08 we look at what we're trying to get done
58:10 i would add for the two street straight
58:13 projects there is a current project that
58:15 is underway that will continue we're not
58:17 stopping the current work the future the
58:20 work and i can't remember if it was in
58:22 23 or 24
58:24 it wasn't funded in the cip it was
58:27 something that we put in because
58:30 last year we put into the cip and tip
58:32 because we knew
58:34 that we had some momentum going
58:37 based on
58:38 the straightery and the project that
58:40 we're working on
58:42 and
58:44 so as we looked at the work plan and we
58:46 looked at our priorities we prioritized
58:49 keeping the projects that are underway
58:52 projects that would be good for existing
58:54 funding although i will say at the end
58:56 of the day it's it's you as members of
58:58 the council who get to make that
59:00 decision
59:01 not
59:02 me can i add to that john as well since
59:06 i kind of gave it directive out to staff
59:08 as well
59:09 um we're really working hard to true up
59:12 what we can do with the number of staff
59:14 that we have so that we are not over
59:16 promising and under-delivering
59:18 but if you approve the tib if you have
59:21 the option in the budget
59:23 the tib first year of the tab is what
59:25 we're going to propose in the budget
59:26 you have the option to ask to do it
59:28 differently that's where you can say
59:31 as a council make a recommendation that
59:33 you want to add
59:34 these things back in and tell us what it
59:36 will cost so we can consider adding it
59:38 back in
59:39 so i've asked them to be extremely
59:42 cautious this year in making sure there
59:44 are hiring shortages
59:46 engineers are hard to get almost
59:48 everything is hard to get so so this is
59:51 what we realistically can afford to do
59:53 but you can change these projects you
59:54 can do it during your budget session so
59:57 depending on the value to you i
1:00:00 appreciate both of those answers and the
1:00:03 uh looking toward being accurate and not
1:00:07 over promising and under delivering
1:00:09 that's never a fun place to be so
1:00:11 um the
1:00:13 next two questions you know i'm always
1:00:16 going to ask you about the concrete
1:00:17 management program and the pavement
1:00:19 management program they are areas dear
1:00:21 to my heart we should not build before
1:00:24 we are able to maintain so
1:00:26 um with the pavement management program
1:00:29 i know we had
1:00:30 two fairly large projects in the last
1:00:34 year that
1:00:36 did not get appreciated very much from
1:00:39 the community in how they were
1:00:41 ultimately delivered and so i'm
1:00:43 wondering if the administration in
1:00:46 proposing this level of budget has taken
1:00:49 into account what we learned from some
1:00:52 of those difficult projects in the last
1:00:54 year that didn't deliver toward i think
1:00:57 what we had expected them to
1:00:59 and so
1:01:00 have we learned from them have we do we
1:01:03 have a plan to modify our work and is
1:01:05 the funding
1:01:07 allocated according to that idea
1:01:10 i was going to switch over to the city
1:01:13 administrator because i think you're
1:01:14 referring to the product fail that
1:01:17 happened last year in several areas and
1:01:19 we don't have bennett with us tonight so
1:01:22 wally you want to take a stab at it sure
1:01:24 mayor members of the council council
1:01:26 president um
1:01:27 as i think john has alluded to uh
1:01:30 certainly the last 12 months 18 months
1:01:32 has been very difficult on lots of
1:01:33 levels
1:01:34 getting good product as far as a payment
1:01:37 has been an issue having the firms that
1:01:40 are the lowest responsible bidder have
1:01:42 appropriate staff
1:01:43 to do that those have all been
1:01:44 challenged so
1:01:46 we're also challenged by the staff we
1:01:49 have to go through the process of
1:01:50 bidding the projects and managing the
1:01:52 projects as you know the council
1:01:54 allocated additional staff resources in
1:01:56 the 2022 budget to help us with this
1:01:58 specific issue uh to have an additional
1:02:01 inspector uh
1:02:03 help with these projects and and help uh
1:02:06 mr ashby with the management of that so
1:02:08 i think we're being as proactive as we
1:02:10 can with that said uh there are still
1:02:12 staffing shortages within the city's
1:02:14 public works department there are still
1:02:15 staffing shortages within the private
1:02:17 businesses we're doing um and i think
1:02:19 we'll have to wait and see about the
1:02:20 quality of the asphalt product because
1:02:23 certainly it was inferior in some of the
1:02:24 cases not all the cases but certainly
1:02:26 some of the cases so we'll continue to
1:02:28 be as aggressive as we can
1:02:31 we want to make sure we have again
1:02:33 appropriate city staff
1:02:34 the turnover in our public works
1:02:36 department continues to be significant
1:02:38 we've had two resignations just in the
1:02:40 last three days of people who would be
1:02:42 these people working with contractors on
1:02:45 these projects
1:02:46 because in one case they've decided they
1:02:48 want to move away and do something
1:02:50 really different with their life in
1:02:51 other case they said
1:02:52 jobs too hard i'm going to go back to a
1:02:54 job that's easier and pays me more money
1:02:56 so those are just realistic things that
1:02:58 we're facing
1:02:59 we're going to continue to be aggressive
1:03:00 in the allocation of dollars
1:03:02 if we can put additional staffing toward
1:03:04 this we will
1:03:06 there's lots of staffing needs i think
1:03:08 citywide as we look at 2324
1:03:11 so we'll continue to be mindful we
1:03:13 understand the council's
1:03:14 priority in this area but there are just
1:03:16 some realistic factors some of which are
1:03:18 beyond our control
1:03:20 thank you mr
1:03:23 and then toward the concrete management
1:03:25 program
1:03:27 one of the things i really like about
1:03:28 the pavement management program is we
1:03:30 have a sense of hey if we funded at this
1:03:33 level
1:03:34 we're looking at
1:03:36 maintaining our roads for a 25-year
1:03:40 period or 40-year period we took it down
1:03:42 from a 70-year period which was
1:03:45 untenable
1:03:46 um i don't have a sense
1:03:48 with the concrete management program
1:03:51 what the scope of our need is and
1:03:54 whether we are
1:03:55 addressing that need with
1:03:59 kind of what is proposed here do we have
1:04:02 a sense of that or is there a
1:04:04 plan to
1:04:08 establish
1:04:09 a sense of how much needs to be replaced
1:04:12 how much needs to be maintained
1:04:15 council president walsh that's another
1:04:17 really good question this the concrete
1:04:19 management
1:04:21 program
1:04:22 is managed by bennett ashby he's not
1:04:24 here tonight and i'd like to offer up to
1:04:27 have him write you an email and answer
1:04:28 your question
1:04:30 but i can do you one better and answer
1:04:31 it now if you'd like council president
1:04:36 back to the last response
1:04:38 we're trying to balance the amount of
1:04:40 money that we're requesting for the
1:04:41 council with the realistic expectation
1:04:43 that there are private contractors to
1:04:45 help with this and that their city staff
1:04:46 to manage it so we will continue uh to
1:04:49 fund this at the highest level we think
1:04:52 is appropriate with those conditions
1:04:55 we will never be where you want us to be
1:04:58 because we do not have the resources to
1:05:00 do that
1:05:01 and if the council decides it's going to
1:05:03 cease any additional capital projects
1:05:05 city-wide
1:05:07 and in order to put money toward
1:05:08 pavement management we still couldn't do
1:05:10 it because we wouldn't have enough staff
1:05:12 and there wouldn't be enough companies
1:05:14 out there with the asphalt to do it so
1:05:16 we're going to continue to be as
1:05:17 aggressive as we can again with those
1:05:19 constraints as those constraints change
1:05:21 as uh city staff come on board and
1:05:25 have some tenure uh if the asphalt
1:05:27 industry loosens itself up there was a
1:05:29 concrete strike certainly that has some
1:05:31 impacts maybe perhaps not directly but
1:05:33 certainly indirectly a lot of projects i
1:05:35 see around this squad that should have
1:05:37 concrete have asphalt
1:05:39 on them instead so
1:05:41 we're going to continue to be vigilant
1:05:42 with this but it's not going to be what
1:05:44 you want it to be
1:05:46 may i add something council president
1:05:48 um several years ago when bennett came
1:05:51 on he did do an assessment of the
1:05:53 concrete needs in the city
1:05:55 and it is lengthy based on the age of
1:05:58 our city
1:05:59 um so maybe it is appropriate that we
1:06:01 get him to also just put something in
1:06:05 a memo out to council that talks about
1:06:07 the concrete program just to let you
1:06:09 know where we are but i think some of
1:06:12 workforce realities and market realities
1:06:14 that the city administrator is talking
1:06:16 about are really where we're going to
1:06:19 stopped so but yeah let's get him to
1:06:21 write something for you all
1:06:23 okay i appreciate all of the perspective
1:06:26 on all of that and understanding
1:06:28 that we are being aggressive
1:06:30 toward those ideas toward what we can um
1:06:34 i think the rest of the stuff that i
1:06:36 have is mostly comment so i will see if
1:06:39 anybody else has questions council
1:06:40 member marks
1:06:42 i would just i would just plus one on
1:06:44 getting
1:06:45 trying to get a sense of the magnitude
1:06:47 of the challenge because one of the
1:06:49 things as as you know better than i is
1:06:51 our ongoing conversations about managing
1:06:54 growth in the region
1:06:55 infrastructure issues come up and
1:06:58 understanding where the gap is
1:07:00 on concrete can help us talk
1:07:02 intelligently uh with other regional
1:07:04 leaders about what's what's missing in
1:07:06 infrastructure to support that growth
1:07:08 thanks great point
1:07:10 other uh other questions there's a
1:07:12 couple council members who haven't asked
1:07:14 questions yet and if not
1:07:16 um do you want to
1:07:19 go to the public then
1:07:21 for public comment
1:07:24 um i am now opening the public hearing
1:07:27 at 808 pm
1:07:29 and if you are
1:07:32 if you are joining us virtually and
1:07:33 would like to make comments
1:07:35 please raise your virtual hand and if
1:07:36 you're on the phone please press star
1:07:38 three
1:07:39 if you've joined by computer or
1:07:41 smartphone look for a hand icon this
1:07:43 varies by device one option may be to go
1:07:45 to the participant panel and choose the
1:07:47 raise hand icon in the lower right hand
1:07:49 corner
1:07:50 if you're in the room and did not sign
1:07:51 up i will ask for other speakers as well
1:07:54 before closing this portion of the
1:07:56 meeting
1:07:57 city clerk has anyone uh signed up to
1:07:59 speak this evening
1:08:01 mayor no one has signed up in advance to
1:08:03 make comments under the public hearing
1:08:05 um mark clemens i see your hand is
1:08:06 raised but i believe it's a carryover
1:08:08 from earlier i'm going to unmute you
1:08:11 briefly in case you wish to make
1:08:12 comments again
1:08:16 mark are you interested in making
1:08:18 comments on the tip
1:08:24 okay i see he has lowered his hand so i
1:08:26 don't see that any virtual attendees are
1:08:28 wishing to make comments
1:08:30 thank you anyone here this evening
1:08:31 wishing to make comments in person
1:08:42 if there is no objection i would like to
1:08:44 close the public hearing
1:08:48 the hearing hearing none the public
1:08:50 hearing is closed at 8 10 p.m
1:08:53 and the item is scheduled to come back
1:08:55 before city council for approval at the
1:08:57 june 21st 2022 council meeting and i
1:09:01 just going to check in with the city
1:09:02 clerk if there are council members that
1:09:04 have comments is this appropriate moment
1:09:06 in time to make it
1:09:09 mayor i don't see why you couldn't allow
1:09:11 some general comments i'll also mention
1:09:13 there is a a proposed alternative to
1:09:15 proceed with approval of the resolution
1:09:18 tonight as well
1:09:20 thank you
1:09:22 uh so let's go to comments i know at
1:09:24 least council president has some
1:09:25 comments
1:09:32 that's my head okay thank you
1:09:35 i have some comments on this item the
1:09:38 first thing i do appreciate that
1:09:41 the staff have taken a
1:09:43 approach that factors in the staff
1:09:46 capacity and that there are some very
1:09:48 real challenges with that i think having
1:09:50 a more accurate view of what we can do
1:09:52 will ultimately be helpful even if there
1:09:54 are some instances where it's
1:09:56 disappointing compared to the way the
1:09:58 tip has been presented in previous years
1:10:00 visually it's much more useful for us to
1:10:02 have a realistic representation so i
1:10:04 appreciate that and i also like i said
1:10:06 appreciate
1:10:08 that there are some very real staffing
1:10:10 and staff capacity challenges right now
1:10:12 i would ask my council colleagues to
1:10:15 consider requesting the administration
1:10:17 to make a change on the tip and that is
1:10:20 with regards to the squawk mountain
1:10:21 multimodal improvements
1:10:23 study which has
1:10:25 been put on
1:10:26 future projects list for two hundred
1:10:28 thousand dollars currently
1:10:32 this is a project that has been on
1:10:36 our radar on various plans for a long
1:10:41 from um i went back and reviewed the
1:10:44 letter that
1:10:45 the um council approved that accompanied
1:10:49 the cip and tip
1:10:51 last year um that
1:10:53 was the purpose of writing a letter with
1:10:55 the cip and trp last year was that we
1:10:57 would potentially revisit that and then
1:11:00 start from a similar spot in our
1:11:02 conversation also there's new council
1:11:04 members over time and this is a process
1:11:07 that continues year after year and so
1:11:09 it's good to have that continuity and
1:11:11 that documentation of our last
1:11:12 conversation so i did go back and look
1:11:14 at that and this project is there and
1:11:18 part of our many projects
1:11:21 it's been on our list for many different
1:11:23 lists over
1:11:24 time um
1:11:28 i i wanted to also comment on that this
1:11:32 we did receive an email comment
1:11:33 specifically about this project and
1:11:35 wanting to
1:11:36 um wanting to speed up the timeline or
1:11:40 put a timeline on it
1:11:43 and the council president
1:11:45 responded to that
1:11:48 within part that
1:11:51 the squawk mountain multimodal
1:11:52 improvements projects was placed in the
1:11:54 future years section of the tip because
1:11:56 updates to the tip and even years are
1:11:58 minor major changes to the tip are done
1:12:00 in odd years when the capital
1:12:02 improvement plan cip is also updated
1:12:05 i i think we have some evidence that we
1:12:07 can make a change we also have the
1:12:08 council president's questions earlier
1:12:10 about
1:12:11 the budget implications and what we
1:12:13 would need to do if we wanted to make a
1:12:14 change but there's also a nine million
1:12:16 dollar move reflected in this
1:12:20 in this tip compared to last year's tip
1:12:23 which has to do with tr003 the central
1:12:26 issaquah multimodal i-90 crossing and
1:12:28 basically we prioritized that project
1:12:30 and we've moved nine million dollars up
1:12:32 the timeline for that project so i do
1:12:35 believe we we can do that and it's not
1:12:39 there's there's not a reason we we
1:12:41 couldn't we just need to take that step
1:12:43 and prioritize this is a long-standing
1:12:46 issue with putting off needed
1:12:47 improvements to older neighborhoods
1:12:49 in march 2021 the city adopted the
1:12:51 master mobility plan um this has
1:12:54 established project prioritization
1:12:56 criteria it was referenced in the
1:12:58 comments earlier and the projects were
1:13:00 sorted into tables the squawk mountain
1:13:02 uphill bike lane and sidewalk project
1:13:04 was ranked in the highest priority cap
1:13:06 category so this was adopted last year
1:13:08 before the cip ntip last year
1:13:12 it's singled out and it's been singled
1:13:14 out by community members over time i
1:13:16 worry that just because we aren't
1:13:17 hearing any more about it it's because
1:13:19 it's been on the rock and roll plan
1:13:20 since 2014 and people are maybe feeling
1:13:23 like they're not getting their point
1:13:25 across but we've certainly heard about
1:13:26 it a lot over time and it's a really
1:13:28 important project for
1:13:30 this neighborhood to establish
1:13:32 connectivity where there really isn't a
1:13:33 lot of
1:13:34 sidewalk or connectivity because it is
1:13:37 an older neighborhood
1:13:41 it i think you know we need to
1:13:42 prioritize it to make it happen
1:13:45 and then i just wanted to read a few
1:13:47 things to reestablish where we were on
1:13:48 this conversation last time around from
1:13:50 that letter that i referenced earlier
1:13:52 master mobility plan identified both
1:13:54 newport way sr 900 to the 12th avenue
1:13:57 bicycle and pedestrian improvements
1:13:58 project and squawk mountain uphill bike
1:14:00 lane sidewalk project as highest
1:14:02 priorities
1:14:03 because the newport way project at that
1:14:05 time identified a funding source it was
1:14:06 included in the cip and the squawk
1:14:08 mountain project was not long-standing
1:14:10 community priorities that do not have
1:14:12 identified funding
1:14:13 funding become de-prioritized the last
1:14:15 two cips the council has deliberated on
1:14:17 and ultimately recommended elevating
1:14:19 such projects cip the supplied last
1:14:21 times the sr that um southeast 43rd way
1:14:24 signal and it applies in that last
1:14:26 year's cip to the northwest smammish
1:14:28 road non-motorized improvement project
1:14:30 so i would like to
1:14:32 ask my colleagues to consider elevating
1:14:34 this squawk mountain
1:14:36 sidewalk study it's 200 thousand dollars
1:14:38 it's currently in future projects which
1:14:40 i think sends the wrong message that
1:14:42 it's still more than six years out and i
1:14:45 would like to see it put on a timeline
1:14:47 that indicates the community that we are
1:14:49 taking it seriously i also think we have
1:14:51 evidence from our boards and commissions
1:14:53 that they would like us to align the cip
1:14:56 with the master mobility plan again this
1:14:58 is signaled by the master mobility plan
1:15:00 and again in the letter from last year
1:15:02 we had the same kind of comments
1:15:04 um from our boards and commissions it's
1:15:07 very similar to the comments that were
1:15:09 from the boards and commissions this
1:15:10 year so i would ask my colleagues again
1:15:13 put a timeline on this and let's elevate
1:15:16 it and show the community that we are
1:15:18 serious about doing the study and
1:15:19 ultimately doing this project for this
1:15:21 neighborhood
1:15:22 thanks other questions comments
1:15:26 uh council president
1:15:28 thank you um
1:15:30 much of what i have to say echoes i
1:15:33 think some of the things that we've
1:15:34 heard from council
1:15:36 member hunt um i think it was really
1:15:39 useful i i continued to be impressed
1:15:42 with the environmental board and their
1:15:45 engagement on topics we asked them
1:15:48 hey get involved
1:15:50 you know your voice should have
1:15:54 importance in these conversations and
1:15:58 man reading over the environmental board
1:16:00 letter and also the transportation
1:16:04 advisory board tab letter um i really
1:16:07 think they picked out the things that
1:16:10 missing or
1:16:12 were kind of pushed off and said hey
1:16:15 wait a second guys
1:16:16 that's not the way we want to go as a
1:16:19 direction so
1:16:22 my thoughts are similarly the squawk
1:16:25 mountain uphill bike lane and sidewalk
1:16:27 project
1:16:29 there were several other smaller bike
1:16:31 lanes and shared use paths and then also
1:16:33 the tab letter reference the tier 1 and
1:16:35 tier 2 sidewalk gaps
1:16:38 i think are all very important projects
1:16:42 and toward that end
1:16:45 i think
1:16:46 those are the types of things that we
1:16:49 need to be prioritizing
1:16:52 based on the master mobility plan based
1:16:54 on the environmental board's review and
1:16:58 our movement on the icap so i would also
1:17:02 be in support of looking at the squawk
1:17:04 mountain uphill bike lane sidewalk
1:17:07 and then potentially the tier 1 tier 2
1:17:09 sidewalk gaps
1:17:10 i'm also very very interested
1:17:13 i know there was this conversation about
1:17:16 okay this is a
1:17:17 off year um
1:17:20 but i'm very interested in
1:17:23 taking the time to work with the boards
1:17:26 to align the tip with the master
1:17:28 mobility plan with our icap
1:17:32 climate action plan
1:17:35 i don't know if we need to throw the
1:17:37 baby out with the bath water to kind of
1:17:40 restart and refresh but
1:17:43 i do think we need to have
1:17:45 a commitment from the administration
1:17:48 that we're going to have a clear sense
1:17:51 how the projects are
1:17:53 decided on based on those
1:17:56 plans and priorities
1:17:58 so that
1:18:00 we aren't again looking at this this
1:18:02 year and or next year and saying oh well
1:18:05 we just didn't have the time to
1:18:08 make those adjustments and i am really
1:18:12 understanding of the the staff
1:18:14 limitations but
1:18:16 it is my job and responsibility to bring
1:18:19 that up
1:18:20 representing the community as hey
1:18:23 these are the important things for us so
1:18:26 i would say squawk mountain uphill bike
1:18:30 tier one tier two sidewalk gaps and then
1:18:32 really asking the administration to
1:18:35 make sure we have a clear timeline for
1:18:36 realigning the tip with our plans next
1:18:40 so thank you for that are there any
1:18:43 other comments i have uh some comments
1:18:45 and i think the city administrator has
1:18:47 some information to provide any other
1:18:48 comments uh councilmember joe
1:18:51 thank you
1:18:52 i'll also speak in favor of moving up
1:18:55 the uh squawk mountain
1:18:57 uh project i live on squawk mountain but
1:18:59 i'm on the
1:19:00 very low uh
1:19:02 elevation side of squawk mountain where
1:19:04 i already have sidewalks but i see
1:19:06 people going up and down that hill with
1:19:08 young kids and strollers and with their
1:19:10 dogs all the time and i hope we could
1:19:12 make it more accessible for
1:19:14 people to to get back downtown and and
1:19:17 enjoy the things that make it quite
1:19:18 special
1:19:20 i'll just speak
1:19:21 briefly on the
1:19:22 uh intermodal project
1:19:25 um tr-003 central esqua multimodal i-90
1:19:29 crossing i just wanted to point out that
1:19:32 we're using arpa funds to do
1:19:36 the study for this and try to figure out
1:19:38 whether or not we can make a
1:19:41 overpass that also serves as a good
1:19:45 terminus point for
1:19:46 sound transit when they come in 2043 or
1:19:50 four or five or whatever the date might
1:19:52 be right
1:19:53 and i i just want to compliment the
1:19:55 administration for using those funds for
1:19:58 a long-term project that will help
1:20:01 connect sound transit to our city in a
1:20:04 healthy
1:20:05 and um
1:20:06 very smooth way
1:20:08 because
1:20:10 we have seen projects for sound transit
1:20:12 that have been thrust upon cities that
1:20:14 didn't work with
1:20:16 what the city vision was i just hope
1:20:18 they were able to use these funds as a
1:20:20 start to get the vision that issaquah
1:20:22 would like to see for that
1:20:24 uh crossing and the potential terminus
1:20:27 point for
1:20:28 for sound transit so that we can
1:20:30 integrate
1:20:31 affordable housing
1:20:33 housing choices
1:20:35 there that enable people to take
1:20:36 advantage of not having a car and then
1:20:39 we put electric vehicle infrastructure
1:20:41 in there
1:20:42 as part of that as well and kind of look
1:20:44 toward the future
1:20:45 down the road so i just again want to
1:20:47 compliment the administration for
1:20:49 finding a way to use those arpa funds in
1:20:51 a creative way that looks toward the
1:20:52 future thank you
1:20:54 thank you any other comments
1:20:58 okay oh sorry councilman mart's followed
1:21:00 by deputy council president
1:21:05 so i'm a little confused about there's a
1:21:08 request around the study on clock
1:21:11 mountain and then there's a different
1:21:12 request on actually getting going and so
1:21:16 um i think we we may be
1:21:18 talking about two different things i
1:21:19 mean i think it may come from the same
1:21:22 spirit um you know i think about
1:21:25 my friend jan rittenhouse
1:21:27 former council member john rittenhouse's
1:21:29 wife who walks from her house on mount
1:21:31 olympus down to the
1:21:34 down to the library where she works
1:21:36 every day and how nice it would be to
1:21:37 have proper
1:21:38 sidewalks
1:21:40 to cover that much less for all the
1:21:41 folks who who walked recreationally so
1:21:44 in that spirit i would certainly love to
1:21:46 at least see the uh study money and and
1:21:48 then again maybe a clarity on on the
1:21:50 levers that could be pulled thank you
1:21:52 thank you deputy council president hall
1:21:55 um you know i was just confused too
1:21:57 about next steps would this then be
1:22:00 something that could be an alternate
1:22:02 motion for us at the next city council
1:22:04 regular meeting or how are we
1:22:06 envisioning
1:22:08 that's a great question that's something
1:22:09 i was going to add a few comments and
1:22:11 then invite the city administrator to
1:22:13 join the conversation perfect i would
1:22:14 rather listen to his comments before
1:22:16 mine then okay great it's it when wally
1:22:18 answers that doesn't mean we're done you
1:22:20 can it could generate more questions so
1:22:23 um a couple of things here
1:22:25 um you know the study money is the most
1:22:28 important because it gives us the scope
1:22:29 and scale of what to put in those outer
1:22:31 years so what we're hearing loud and
1:22:32 clear is if you get the study done
1:22:35 and you've got a project get it in there
1:22:37 i mean i think that's been heard
1:22:39 i think it's disappointing for the
1:22:41 boards and commissions that there wasn't
1:22:42 enough staff capacity this year to go
1:22:45 through that thorough exercise of you
1:22:47 know taking this tip cip
1:22:50 and putting it through the rigors to get
1:22:52 to the mmp um it's not because the staff
1:22:54 didn't want to do it it's not because
1:22:56 they do prioritize it it's just because
1:22:58 it wasn't on the work plan for them to
1:22:59 do so we've heard loud and clear that
1:23:01 we're going through a major cip cycle
1:23:04 and we got to do it so i think that
1:23:06 message is received thank you for that
1:23:08 the process i was going to hand over to
1:23:13 city administrator to discuss because
1:23:16 i'm not sure what it means to make a
1:23:18 recommendation to revise it at this
1:23:20 point in time
1:23:21 when it's already gone through different
1:23:24 council committees it's had its public
1:23:26 hearing does it need another public
1:23:28 hearing does it need another committee
1:23:30 touch and so i was going to turn that
1:23:32 over to the city administrator and see
1:23:34 if he can walk us through that
1:23:37 thank you man members of the council
1:23:40 we're still new coming back to the
1:23:42 committee process i think from a staff's
1:23:44 perspective we thought that the
1:23:46 committee
1:23:47 time was the time to have this
1:23:48 discussion obviously full council has
1:23:51 prerogative to raise issues
1:23:53 normally it doesn't happen at a public
1:23:55 hearing there's normally just the public
1:23:57 input and then we close it and bring it
1:23:58 back but again i don't think there's any
1:24:00 there's certainly no harm to the
1:24:02 discussion this evening
1:24:03 i think what we'll need to do is come
1:24:06 and if the council is comfortable
1:24:08 without sending this back to committee
1:24:11 we can look and see what adjustments
1:24:13 need to be made
1:24:15 i think there's a focus on the one
1:24:16 project
1:24:17 i don't think that's a very big deal to
1:24:20 deal with but again we're trying to sort
1:24:22 through this uh
1:24:24 with the committee process with the
1:24:25 board and commission process so this is
1:24:27 all we're still all new to this so we'll
1:24:29 we'll sort through that
1:24:30 i think the other question
1:24:32 which is
1:24:33 not directly uh applicable but certainly
1:24:36 related and that is what are we going to
1:24:37 do different next time
1:24:40 we have not only transportation projects
1:24:41 but all capital projects
1:24:44 that i think we're hearing from the
1:24:46 council you'd like a different uh
1:24:48 viewpoint to and you put on top of that
1:24:50 the six months that your capital
1:24:51 financing task force uh did and the
1:24:54 information they have plus the money
1:24:55 we're getting from arpa
1:24:58 the mayor is preparing to come to the
1:24:59 council at the end of june with
1:25:00 recommendations so there's a lot of
1:25:02 capital project questions up in the air
1:25:06 we're going to have to look again at
1:25:07 staffing resources and come back to the
1:25:08 council
1:25:10 and propose additional resources to sort
1:25:13 through all this
1:25:14 um the way i think i'm hearing you
1:25:16 wanting to sort through this that the
1:25:18 in addition to the arpa money in
1:25:19 addition to uh whatever fund balances if
1:25:22 the council wishes to take a fresh look
1:25:25 great
1:25:25 we're happy to do that but we currently
1:25:27 don't have the resources staff resources
1:25:29 to do that so we'll figure that out and
1:25:31 and come back to you as part of the
1:25:32 budget plan so
1:25:34 it's a long answer to a relatively short
1:25:36 question and mayor i think he's coming
1:25:39 for the vote next again the plan was
1:25:41 that the pub was the public hearing we
1:25:43 were going to close the public hearing i
1:25:44 think there was perhaps an alternate
1:25:46 motion if the council wanted to take
1:25:47 action this evening but they don't
1:25:48 certainly we can come back on the 21st
1:25:51 and i guess i would just ask the council
1:25:53 are you comfortable with
1:25:54 the administration making an adjustment
1:25:56 without it going back to committee
1:25:59 or public hearing
1:26:01 the public hearing part i think we've
1:26:03 we've satisfied that
1:26:05 we can't reopen it
1:26:06 i think we've satisfied the public
1:26:08 hearing piece i think it's within the
1:26:09 council's jurisdiction to make an
1:26:10 adjustment
1:26:11 after the public hearing as long as
1:26:13 we've had it and as long as john's not
1:26:14 waving his arms
1:26:18 he we've disarmed the city attorney is
1:26:19 also on the line can
1:26:21 phone a friend yeah this might be a good
1:26:23 question for the city attorney but i do
1:26:25 remember two years ago wanting to make a
1:26:27 last-minute adjustment to correct
1:26:30 something up and i was told that we
1:26:32 needed a public hearing for that so i
1:26:34 don't know if i had right information
1:26:37 what i remember is that to change it we
1:26:39 would need to do a public hearing but i
1:26:41 defer to the city attorney as an
1:26:44 alternative and i'd be certainly happy
1:26:46 to revise the tip as an alternative we
1:26:48 could have direction to
1:26:50 not include it in the tip but to include
1:26:53 it in the budget that's going to be put
1:26:55 together because that's really the tip
1:26:58 it's a planning document what really
1:27:01 matters is what gets put in the
1:27:02 operating budget that's very true
1:27:05 uh city attorney terpin do you have a
1:27:08 observation comment
1:27:11 yes thank you
1:27:13 tonight's public hearing satisfies the
1:27:15 public hearing requirement the whole
1:27:16 purpose of the public hearing is to
1:27:18 obtain feedback and have that discussion
1:27:20 and then the council is free to make
1:27:22 changes after that without another
1:27:24 public hearing being necessary
1:27:27 all right so it sounds like we have a
1:27:30 uh it sounds so there's a couple of
1:27:32 options it can come back amended it can
1:27:34 come back as it was submitted tonight
1:27:37 but there can be a recommendation in the
1:27:38 motion a direction from council that
1:27:40 this is how they want the first year put
1:27:43 back into the put into the proposed
1:27:45 budget this year
1:27:46 is there any other questions on that
1:27:50 well great thank you for all the
1:27:51 comments
1:27:53 and thank you john
1:27:55 the next item under regular business and
1:27:57 i'm doing a time check here it's 8 30.
1:28:01 ab-8220 the solid waste contract and the
1:28:04 request before the council this evening
1:28:05 is to authorize the contract i'd like to
1:28:08 invite utilities engineering manager
1:28:09 gary schimack and consultant jeff brown
1:28:12 to make a brief presentation welcome
1:28:16 good evening thank you madam mayor and
1:28:18 council i'm just going to share my
1:28:19 screen and then get started
1:28:46 all right good evening again i am your
1:28:48 utilities engineering and environmental
1:28:50 programs division manager gary schmick
1:28:53 very excited to be here tonight to
1:28:55 present uh the 2023-24 solid waste
1:28:58 collection contract
1:29:00 uh to y'all
1:29:05 there's just a little gray block on the
1:29:06 screen and we're all kind of freaking
1:29:08 out about it
1:29:10 it's it's on mine it's live i can see
1:29:13 myself is there maybe i can
1:29:16 hide video of you oop somebody just made
1:29:18 it bigger
1:29:20 is that better
1:29:23 it shrank i think we could see all the
1:29:24 information so it's probably fine let's
1:29:26 try one more thing here no that doesn't
1:29:28 work oh there's the big one
1:29:33 that's good enough thank you gary
1:29:36 so i'll have to tell my kids i was able
1:29:38 to solve a technology problem real time
1:29:43 so thank you again um purpose
1:29:46 for tonight uh administration is
1:29:48 requesting city council authorization uh
1:29:50 for the mayor to execute the city's
1:29:52 12-year
1:29:53 solid waste contract with
1:29:56 the highest rated proponent recology
1:30:07 oops there we go
1:30:09 uh alternatives to that recommendation
1:30:12 uh add or delete
1:30:14 a specific request for proposal that
1:30:16 we've seen at previous
1:30:19 meetings
1:30:20 alternatives of some previous rfp
1:30:23 alternatives and authorize a final
1:30:25 contract with ecology without coming
1:30:28 you could direct the administration to
1:30:31 negotiate contract changes
1:30:33 with forcology and then again come back
1:30:36 or finally direct administration to
1:30:38 begin discussions with one of the other
1:30:40 vendors republic
1:30:41 or waste management
1:30:47 before i get into the background i just
1:30:49 wanted to let you know we did uh have
1:30:51 one uh error that was caught by council
1:30:53 member uh joe grammaticalair uh on page
1:30:56 47 of the contract
1:30:58 uh we were trying to say uh custom
1:31:00 tailored outreach programs and we said
1:31:03 custom tailors
1:31:04 so thank you but that has been corrected
1:31:07 and that will be in the final contract
1:31:08 so i appreciate that
1:31:10 so uh the 26th of april we presented the
1:31:14 contract at a study session
1:31:17 uh council requested
1:31:19 that we
1:31:21 go to the mobility and infrastructure
1:31:23 committee meeting on may 10th
1:31:25 and we did such and council
1:31:28 committee uh approved uh that we move
1:31:31 forward today's meeting for approval at
1:31:33 a three to zero vote
1:31:37 so the next few slides are just uh
1:31:39 highlights of what
1:31:41 we shared at the committee but also some
1:31:43 of this information was prepared at
1:31:45 presented at the council session as well
1:31:48 this information was also in the staff
1:31:51 report
1:31:52 so in terms of electric vehicles
1:31:55 we have one electric collection truck
1:31:58 that's in the current contract and will
1:32:00 be rolling out uh in the next few months
1:32:04 and we'll keep council up to date on
1:32:06 that but that's a current contract piece
1:32:08 that did come out of our negotiations
1:32:12 all electric support fields
1:32:14 will be at the start of the new contract
1:32:18 july 1st
1:32:23 by the end of 2025
1:32:26 we'll have two more electric collection
1:32:28 vehicles
1:32:29 on the streets
1:32:32 but stepping back a little bit from that
1:32:34 we will be working closely with recology
1:32:37 by june of 2024 uh to build to develop
1:32:40 that plan
1:32:41 to the phase-in of further electric
1:32:43 vehicles so what we're gonna you know
1:32:45 uh and why there's that difference in
1:32:47 the date is is the as i think uh
1:32:50 city uh administrator and mayor
1:32:51 mentioned supply chain issues and such
1:32:54 that there needs to be that lead in time
1:32:56 so we'll be coming to you with that
1:32:59 information soon after june 24th
1:33:01 as a precursor of what will be coming up
1:33:04 in 2025.
1:33:09 inclement weather
1:33:11 so the new policy is more robust than
1:33:13 what we have in the current contract
1:33:15 uh just a couple examples here if mist
1:33:18 collection due to snow
1:33:20 then double materials will be picked up
1:33:22 the following week
1:33:24 a community collection site uh for both
1:33:27 garbage and recycling if more than four
1:33:29 consecutive days of non-service and one
1:33:32 addition that we have here that will be
1:33:33 outside the contract that came up at the
1:33:36 committee meeting again going to call
1:33:38 out council member joe
1:33:39 he asked us to work with ecology staff
1:33:42 this year
1:33:43 to identify what those sites may be
1:33:45 there'll be one site but we may have
1:33:47 multiple locations depending on where
1:33:49 the issues are so we're going to work
1:33:50 with recology before the next winter
1:33:52 season and have those sites identified
1:33:53 and report back uh during our annual
1:33:56 report to council on that
1:33:59 and then if two weeks in a row are mixed
1:34:01 then uh gary's okay if we take a
1:34:03 question during the process absolutely
1:34:05 councilmember mertz
1:34:06 thank you
1:34:08 um so following a uh winter weather
1:34:11 event double
1:34:15 double what's word a double pickup
1:34:17 double collection double double volume
1:34:19 yeah how does how does that work for
1:34:20 those of us who live in bear country
1:34:22 we only have one we only have one bear
1:34:24 proof garbage container and if you put
1:34:27 more uh garbage out the bears just take
1:34:30 they're very good at it at this point
1:34:32 that is a great point i think we have
1:34:34 our i'm going to going to call virtually
1:34:36 on our consultant jeff brown to see if
1:34:38 he has a thought on that or we have
1:34:40 recology here as well
1:34:46 i don't know that i've heard of that
1:34:47 happening but i think you would
1:34:48 basically uh default back to the put the
1:34:52 garbage out uh in the morning when you
1:34:55 know the truck's coming not overnight
1:34:57 and take your containers right back
1:35:00 i don't know what else you would want to
1:35:02 do i think if you were particularly
1:35:04 concerned with a repetitive bear event
1:35:06 again the drop-off sites
1:35:08 would offer an out for that but
1:35:11 i think that's probably operationally
1:35:13 what you would do but i would turn that
1:35:15 over to recology if they had something
1:35:19 would either of you like to add a add a
1:35:22 comment to what jeff has
1:35:25 thank you this is anthony from arcology
1:35:27 thank you
1:35:28 thank you
1:35:32 thank you
1:35:34 good morning or good afternoon um
1:35:35 anthony brocado general manager of
1:35:37 ecology king county um i mean i think
1:35:39 jeff someone hit it right on the point i
1:35:41 think um
1:35:42 one just working with our customer
1:35:44 service team and communicating those
1:35:45 concerns um we could certainly make a
1:35:48 concerted effort if it seemed like there
1:35:49 was going to be more volume there'd be a
1:35:51 challenge if there was going to be a
1:35:52 little bit of a hold over but also our
1:35:54 collection sites as well would be would
1:35:56 be the next best option
1:35:58 and is there normally a fee that would
1:36:01 be um
1:36:03 foregone
1:36:04 in that situation
1:36:06 and and communicating that out is
1:36:07 important because what happens let me
1:36:09 assure you it happens
1:36:11 they build garbage nests in my property
1:36:13 what happens is we get new neighbors
1:36:16 that don't know
1:36:17 and so they move in and they don't get
1:36:19 garbage containers
1:36:21 or bear proof garbage containers and the
1:36:23 bears take all the garbage out and they
1:36:25 make a garbage nest up in the hillsides
1:36:28 and they've done it multiple times on my
1:36:29 property um and and so they just go back
1:36:32 there and chew through the garbage at
1:36:33 their at their leisure
1:36:35 so it's really important that homeowners
1:36:38 understand if there are systems in place
1:36:41 to help after a weather event
1:36:43 to communicate those systems and
1:36:45 encourage people and you know
1:36:48 if they can leave it out like within an
1:36:50 hour or two of the of of the garbage
1:36:54 trucks coming in the bears will likely
1:36:56 take it but if they leave it out the
1:36:58 night before it's a smorgasbord okay
1:37:03 well thank you
1:37:05 thank you and on that note i did we we
1:37:07 uh we were talking about other bear
1:37:09 issues um uh over email and one thing
1:37:12 that really struck me from a couple
1:37:14 other cities one in particular and uh i
1:37:16 think uh whistler uh education and
1:37:18 outreach very and that's something we
1:37:20 can do in the existing contract uh with
1:37:24 with messaging as well to starting asap
1:37:27 on on that um so i will just add to that
1:37:30 from what you were what you were saying
1:37:32 uh given the new residents coming in
1:37:34 it's it's good to do that
1:37:36 yeah i mean it's so bad they will they
1:37:38 they tore my garbage shed apart i had to
1:37:42 rebuild my garbage shed
1:37:44 because um a bear dismantled
1:37:48 my garbage shed it is zeal to get at the
1:37:50 garbage cans zeal
1:37:53 council member james michelle
1:37:55 thank you um
1:37:57 while we're getting well wait till the
1:37:58 tv's taken care of
1:38:03 laughs
1:38:20 oh there we go so we're going to take a
1:38:22 five minute recess yeah
1:38:25 oh there we go no we're not we're not
1:38:27 taking a recess nope here we are
1:38:32 all right thank you um you know at the
1:38:34 mobility committee gary we had a really
1:38:36 good explanation and i that i had not
1:38:38 thought about about why
1:38:40 it's important not to disrupt schedules
1:38:42 and why it's important to keep them
1:38:45 steady and do you want to just repeat
1:38:48 that or perhaps for ecology we'd like to
1:38:50 repeat it but it was something i hadn't
1:38:52 thought about
1:38:53 in terms of not sending out
1:38:56 you know if we have an inclement event
1:38:58 not disrupting the whole schedule
1:39:00 um for that for that event and there's
1:39:03 good reasoning behind that do you want
1:39:05 to kind of reply
1:39:07 i'm going to ask our friends from our
1:39:08 college to come up i watched that video
1:39:11 i was not there at that meeting i do and
1:39:13 i'm not recalling that comment
1:39:16 but thank you for asking
1:39:22 uh anthony brucano general manager uh
1:39:25 college in king county
1:39:26 so i'm trying to think back to one of
1:39:28 the specific questions i think around
1:39:30 that but but by and large specifically
1:39:32 during the inclement weather event
1:39:35 a lot of it has to do with
1:39:37 scheduling and also with our drivers
1:39:39 during the the time of day and just
1:39:45 basically communicating to the rest
1:39:46 community
1:39:47 where where collection times and where
1:39:49 we're at
1:39:52 i guess kind of
1:39:53 if you wouldn't mind kind of maybe
1:39:54 another particular example of maybe what
1:39:57 we were talking about at that point
1:39:59 i think it had to do more with
1:40:01 communications but also driver schedules
1:40:06 hard it is once you've disrupted the
1:40:08 schedule to get it back on
1:40:10 you know
1:40:11 if you come out at a irregular date then
1:40:14 it takes several weeks to get it back
1:40:16 to a regular schedule and
1:40:18 i think the the point was that the more
1:40:21 you can keep to a regular schedule the
1:40:24 more efficient it is oh correct okay
1:40:26 that that makes i resonates a bit with
1:40:29 me there um
1:40:30 so so with that when we when we dispatch
1:40:33 our drivers and their schedules and
1:40:34 hours that they can be out on the road
1:40:37 rather than than sending drivers out and
1:40:39 kind of doing a hodgepodge of collection
1:40:41 of where we might have missed we're
1:40:42 going to be more efficient and get the
1:40:44 most material off the ground whether
1:40:46 regardless of commodity by keeping that
1:40:49 same schedule and then revisiting it
1:40:51 oftentimes during an inclement weather
1:40:53 event our drivers will be out there 14
1:40:55 hours a day
1:40:56 we'll have drivers helping each other
1:40:58 out to pick up areas where maybe there's
1:41:01 extra tonnage and they're not able or
1:41:03 they're filling up their trucks much
1:41:04 quicker
1:41:05 so staying within that schedules allows
1:41:07 us to maybe their days are longer but
1:41:09 it's when we start rerouting drivers to
1:41:11 other areas that we we really lose
1:41:14 efficiency
1:41:15 and wind up
1:41:16 generally missing more people or or
1:41:18 falling behind
1:41:21 yeah thanks thank you anthony thank you
1:41:23 councilmember d michelle
1:41:26 okay i think we're going to continue
1:41:27 with the presentation gary thanks all
1:41:29 right
1:41:31 one other thing we talked about the last
1:41:33 meeting and definitely at the study
1:41:34 session was the icap the issaquah
1:41:36 climate action plan
1:41:38 and uh very proud to have the first uh
1:41:41 bullet here that came from our
1:41:43 conversations with recology over the
1:41:45 past few months
1:41:46 uh but they've committed in the new
1:41:48 contract to a full-time uh waste zero
1:41:50 specialist focused on issaquah as
1:41:52 admitted we we do have that as part of
1:41:54 the contract now the the outreach but
1:41:56 not a full-time dedicated to issaquah so
1:41:58 that will that is quite um
1:42:03 quite amazing for us and uh i just want
1:42:05 to hark back to the last presentation
1:42:07 about staffing uh that
1:42:09 city administrator bob woods mentioned
1:42:11 that this will help us with the staffing
1:42:13 by having this full-time person for more
1:42:15 ecology as part of this contract
1:42:17 so i'm very excited about that again
1:42:19 inspecting all recycling containers for
1:42:21 cabinet contamination customer outreach
1:42:24 and tracking and reporting results
1:42:26 and then again uh this came up i believe
1:42:28 at the committee meeting uh
1:42:31 and that's uh
1:42:32 examining the the contamination within
1:42:34 uh what's allowable because there are
1:42:36 certain rules and regulations that we do
1:42:38 need to follow for privacy in terms of
1:42:41 making sure uh when we're inspecting
1:42:43 inspecting the
1:42:45 contamination
1:42:46 uh targeted outreach
1:42:48 uh to multi-family and commercial
1:42:50 customers uh with low diversion again
1:42:52 this is gonna this kind of couples with
1:42:55 the first point of the full-time staff
1:42:57 what we've what we've learned through a
1:42:59 work with ecology but others in the
1:43:00 reading region including my recent work
1:43:03 in redmond previous to here is getting
1:43:05 out on the street talking to
1:43:08 the managers of the complexes so this is
1:43:12 going to be a huge step of having this
1:43:14 full-time staff to actually get make
1:43:16 those rounds consistently and building
1:43:18 those relationships
1:43:20 and then finally recycling and education
1:43:22 events
1:43:23 at the gilman village store
1:43:29 customer service this issue came up at
1:43:32 the study session a little bit but then
1:43:33 a little bit more at the
1:43:35 committee meeting and that we what we've
1:43:37 agreed upon is every other year customer
1:43:39 satisfaction survey uh which recology
1:43:42 will be launching we'll be working
1:43:43 closely with them and our communication
1:43:45 staff thomas rush to identify as you
1:43:48 gather customer suggestions
1:43:50 and then this would be a baseline for
1:43:52 the area focus as we move along so
1:43:53 something we're going to track over the
1:43:55 12-year period and again we i mentioned
1:43:57 the annual report that we will always
1:43:59 offer to council this will be part part
1:44:01 of it you know every other year and
1:44:03 we'll be seeking your input and the
1:44:04 board's input before
1:44:06 uh the boards and commissions before we
1:44:08 launch that survey again we'll work
1:44:10 closely with recology on that and then
1:44:12 we'll be able to again track that uh for
1:44:14 the 12 years and then use that
1:44:15 information uh during the next cycle 12
1:44:18 years from now
1:44:22 and then finally uh
1:44:24 example of the garbage rate examples
1:44:26 this was from from the study session
1:44:28 just a reminder so again the first two
1:44:30 columns here
1:44:32 issaquah rates currently the 2022 rates
1:44:35 and these are for three different um
1:44:37 sizes
1:44:39 and the second column is just an example
1:44:41 focused on the first uh column the the
1:44:43 sink the the 32 to 53 uh gallon
1:44:48 so currently the existing east side
1:44:50 disposal that's an unincorporated county
1:44:53 has a
1:44:54 42-23 rate
1:44:56 so if we look at the last three this is
1:44:58 information from the rfp uh it has not
1:45:02 changed uh for recology republic and
1:45:04 waste management and as you can see uh
1:45:07 for the 32 to 35 uh the proposed rates
1:45:11 were ranged from 32 which was for
1:45:13 college's rate uh to 52.
1:45:16 and the dumpster ranged from 389 with
1:45:19 republic being the lowest to brookology
1:45:21 at 585
1:45:23 and then for the dropbox
1:45:25 from 297 waste management to 315.
1:45:28 so those are just again examples to give
1:45:30 you a flavor for uh what
1:45:34 we had in the
1:45:35 for the rates
1:45:40 so back to alternatives so this is again
1:45:43 in lieu of
1:45:44 the recommendation which is to to move
1:45:46 forward with authorizing uh the mayor to
1:45:49 sign the contract
1:45:50 the alternatives would be to add or
1:45:52 delete specific requests for proposed
1:45:54 alternatives and authorize the final
1:45:56 contract with ecology we again we would
1:45:58 not need to come back for that
1:46:00 direct administration to negotiate
1:46:02 contract changes beyond
1:46:04 those rfp alternatives so something new
1:46:08 or direct administration to begin
1:46:10 discussions with one of the other
1:46:12 vendors
1:46:14 and again i said this a little too soon
1:46:16 the recommendation uh is that the
1:46:18 administration recommends that the city
1:46:20 council authorize the mayor to execute
1:46:22 the city's
1:46:23 twelve year excuse that uh typo uh solid
1:46:27 waste contract with the highest rated
1:46:28 proponent
1:46:30 ecology of king county
1:46:32 and i will leave that to questions
1:46:35 either for myself for college or jeff
1:46:37 brown we're all here and ready to answer
1:46:40 your questions thank you gary i'm again
1:46:43 going to go back to the chair chair joe
1:46:45 of mobility and infrastructure committee
1:46:47 this item was considered in that
1:46:49 committee and was there any additional
1:46:50 information you'd like to add for the
1:46:52 benefit of counsel of the public
1:46:54 i would just like to thank gary and his
1:46:57 team i know that
1:46:59 last year they started the industry
1:47:00 review with all three of the
1:47:03 proponents
1:47:04 they read all three of the proposals we
1:47:07 only had to read one of the contracts
1:47:09 thank you
1:47:10 and the team also
1:47:12 interviewed the proponents
1:47:15 visited the sites for all three of them
1:47:17 including the recycling facilities
1:47:19 to examine
1:47:21 their operations
1:47:23 do appreciate all the hard work that was
1:47:25 put into this
1:47:26 effort
1:47:28 my comments are just that we are
1:47:30 recommending
1:47:31 approval after we re viewed the item
1:47:35 we do appreciate the fact that recology
1:47:37 came back with some additional
1:47:39 items in the area of the electric
1:47:41 vehicle
1:47:43 opportunities for us we understand the
1:47:44 technology is still emergent and we need
1:47:49 not be the first out of the chute but be
1:47:51 smart out of the shoot in how we adopt
1:47:53 those
1:47:54 new electric vehicles i also appreciate
1:47:57 added
1:47:59 terms are put into inclement weather to
1:48:01 help protect us
1:48:03 and be clear to our citizens that they
1:48:05 can put out doubles if they are missed
1:48:08 during an inclement weather event and
1:48:10 then finally i do want to
1:48:12 recognize that the rates are going up
1:48:15 this contract we had a very favorable
1:48:17 contract that was put in place by uh
1:48:20 prior councils and and we benefited from
1:48:22 that over the years
1:48:24 the rates are going up but they are in
1:48:26 line with what we're seeing on the east
1:48:28 side and with our other
1:48:30 cities out there and i think that the
1:48:33 opportunity even though the rates are
1:48:35 going up the opportunity to have a
1:48:36 full-time
1:48:38 recycling specialist or
1:48:40 zero waste specialist in town
1:48:45 an opportunity that we have to to take
1:48:47 advantage of that and learn
1:48:49 uh new things as a city and educate our
1:48:52 citizens and the people that are moving
1:48:53 in and out of multi-family
1:48:55 residential properties that's where the
1:48:58 contamination is not making progress and
1:49:00 it's certainly the worst and so overall
1:49:03 the committee came back and is
1:49:04 recommending approval this contract
1:49:07 thank you
1:49:08 thank you chair joe
1:49:09 um i'm going to open up to questions i
1:49:12 see councilmember hunt has some
1:49:13 questions thank you
1:49:14 keeping in mind that it is a substantial
1:49:17 increase over prior rates and that i
1:49:21 believe from the contracts low-income
1:49:24 individuals will be eligible for
1:49:26 discounted rates if the city has utility
1:49:30 programs that are
1:49:32 it basically carries over from other
1:49:34 city utility programs into this contract
1:49:36 so i wondered if you could explain that
1:49:39 a bit and how that works and then also
1:49:42 explain how we get the word out because
1:49:45 it is a big
1:49:46 increase and especially for
1:49:48 for low-income folks i think it could be
1:49:51 important for them to know about about
1:49:53 the increase and also about options
1:49:56 absolutely so the information um
1:49:59 is on our website about uh
1:50:04 credits for for all of our utilities
1:50:06 including solid waste
1:50:08 and i believe uh right now there is a uh
1:50:12 low-income senior discount uh for for
1:50:15 solid waste and i'll just have to double
1:50:17 check that and i can just confirm that
1:50:19 with you tomorrow
1:50:20 in terms of the contract uh and jeff you
1:50:23 can maybe add on to this
1:50:25 or anthony or logan again
1:50:28 but our contract does state that uh
1:50:30 ecology will will follow what is
1:50:32 included uh in our in our policies and
1:50:36 codes related to those discounts
1:50:40 and jeff i'm just going to ask you
1:50:42 to confirm that that is very typical
1:50:43 with other from your experience with
1:50:46 other jurisdictions with having that
1:50:48 language
1:50:50 yes and i should uh point out that it's
1:50:52 uh it's not prescriptive typically of a
1:50:54 certain percentage it's intended to
1:50:56 float with the city's utility policies
1:50:59 so if your utility policy changes over
1:51:01 the next year
1:51:03 by applying to all utilities they're
1:51:05 obligated to match the city's overall
1:51:07 policy
1:51:09 so if you were looking for x percentage
1:51:11 reduction for these certain class of
1:51:13 people you won't find in the contract
1:51:15 you'll just find
1:51:16 matching the city's programs
1:51:20 thank you jeff i think the second part
1:51:22 to that question more was about um
1:51:24 general community
1:51:27 information about rate increase is that
1:51:29 correct
1:51:31 yes correct also
1:51:33 making sure that the information gets
1:51:35 out about the um discount programs i
1:51:38 know from cascade serving on cascade
1:51:39 water alliance previously there is a
1:51:41 discount program in issaquah for water
1:51:44 and it was very um it was not used very
1:51:47 often because people didn't know where
1:51:48 to go on the website and didn't know was
1:51:49 available and things like that so it's
1:51:51 it's more of a general awareness of the
1:51:53 rate increase but also general awareness
1:51:55 of for those who are eligible for the
1:51:57 discounts to push that information out
1:52:00 and what the strategy would be right i'd
1:52:02 recommend and i think a twofold approach
1:52:04 one uh well we've heard a lot not just
1:52:06 on this question but others
1:52:08 let's get the word out early about this
1:52:10 contract uh and what's what's coming in
1:52:12 terms of uh the rates which are going up
1:52:15 we talked about today why they're going
1:52:17 up and the services so i think that be
1:52:19 part of that but i think you know the
1:52:20 other thing i'd like to you know commit
1:52:22 to is that um
1:52:24 utility rate information a rate
1:52:26 reduction for for all utilities and
1:52:28 somehow working you know working
1:52:30 together with finance
1:52:32 and communications to get that word out
1:52:34 um more consistently so and maybe even
1:52:37 you know tracking a little more too of
1:52:39 how we're reaching out and who's coming
1:52:42 like you said at cascade it was a very
1:52:44 of very good information at a rate that
1:52:46 they offered uh cascade but not a lot of
1:52:48 takers so that's something we could we
1:52:50 could track as well
1:52:52 as administrator bob kuetz could you
1:52:53 talk a little bit more about um
1:52:56 how we might be able to inform
1:52:59 especially those low-income residents
1:53:01 uh thank you madam mayor members of the
1:53:03 council uh this has been a struggle for
1:53:05 us um
1:53:06 you know part of it is low-income
1:53:08 residents and single-family homes versus
1:53:10 low-income residents and multi-family
1:53:12 the multi-family piece is much more
1:53:13 difficult
1:53:14 in talking with autumn monahan our
1:53:16 director of administrative services i
1:53:18 think we
1:53:20 the staff believes the administration
1:53:21 believes that this change really we need
1:53:23 to refresh the entire approach i think
1:53:26 we've not been as successful as we would
1:53:28 like to be
1:53:29 other communities around the region and
1:53:31 other communities around the country
1:53:33 have had good programs
1:53:35 again it's a resource issue and i think
1:53:37 as we look at the 2023 work plan that's
1:53:40 something that we want to make a
1:53:41 priority we have an additional staff
1:53:43 member now that recently been hired in
1:53:45 communications so i think that will help
1:53:46 us with that the finance staff i think
1:53:49 has some good ideas
1:53:50 but we recognize we need to refresh
1:53:53 the approach because the multi-family is
1:53:54 very difficult
1:53:57 uh councilman michelle well
1:54:01 interrupt you mr uh matamir we had uh
1:54:03 college he had another additional
1:54:05 information on the last topic sorry
1:54:07 about that thank you council berber hall
1:54:08 for alerting me appreciate it thank you
1:54:10 yeah um appreciate the comment
1:54:12 councilmember hunt and i think it's a
1:54:14 really important issue one of the things
1:54:15 we could
1:54:18 oh sorry i'm logan harvey uh government
1:54:20 relations manager for college of king
1:54:22 county appreciate it thank you um one of
1:54:24 the things that we could do uh to
1:54:25 partner on this and help raise awareness
1:54:27 of that program is do a bill insert we
1:54:29 could do that on the first bill of the
1:54:31 new contract and so we could put that in
1:54:32 you're getting your new bill the bill's
1:54:34 really high and we could include
1:54:35 information about your low income
1:54:36 program in that exact same bill so
1:54:38 that's something that we could work with
1:54:39 the city on to do
1:54:41 and uh we'd be happy to partner with you
1:54:44 that's great thank you thank you uh
1:54:46 councilmember dean michelle did you have
1:54:47 yours up or yes okay yeah um and i love
1:54:51 that idea um
1:54:53 we have a natural network at the esque
1:54:55 food and clothing bank and our human
1:54:57 services and i believe during the
1:54:58 pandemic the human services was very
1:55:00 active in contacting our low income
1:55:03 residents and so
1:55:05 those are all outlets that i think we
1:55:06 need to think about as well but and i
1:55:08 know our communications people are on
1:55:10 top of it but
1:55:12 i i think we've got such a nice built-in
1:55:14 network with some of our community
1:55:16 partners thank you i councilman deputy
1:55:19 council president hall did you have a
1:55:21 common question
1:55:22 any other uh questions
1:55:25 at this time
1:55:27 is anyone prepared to make a motion
1:55:35 i'm kind of staring down the committee
1:55:37 chair
1:55:39 i don't know
1:55:41 all right
1:55:44 can you put it on the screen we sure can
1:55:51 i'd make a motion the administration
1:55:55 no i got a better one for you excuse me
1:55:57 sorry
1:56:02 i'm not used to making motions i'm sorry
1:56:03 i need a chair
1:56:05 i know
1:56:07 i'd make a motion to authorize some
1:56:09 merit enter into and execute the
1:56:11 conference of garbage recycling and
1:56:13 compostables collection services
1:56:15 contract with ecology king county
1:56:17 incorporated for the period july 1 2023
1:56:21 through june 30th 2034.
1:56:24 thank you
1:56:26 i will second that motion
1:56:28 i will hustle back to my chair
1:56:30 it has been moved and seconded is there
1:56:32 any council discussion
1:56:35 council member g michelle
1:56:38 uh thank you mayor paulie uh i want to
1:56:40 strongly support this
1:56:42 motion and i really want to thank
1:56:46 gary and the staff
1:56:47 for a really good and thorough process
1:56:51 i really felt when i was going through
1:56:53 it and reading about it and all the work
1:56:55 that you did that i could really trust
1:56:56 the outcome
1:56:58 because
1:56:59 there were multiple ways that you
1:57:02 measured uh the responses from each of
1:57:04 the applicants so i really really
1:57:06 appreciate the process
1:57:08 recology did indeed score very very high
1:57:12 on many of the elements and especially i
1:57:14 was uh impressed with their score on
1:57:17 responses for customer service and their
1:57:20 responses on equity
1:57:22 and i think the comment that was in one
1:57:24 of the comments uh from
1:57:27 the reviewers was that on equity that
1:57:29 they uh were head and shoulders you know
1:57:32 hands down
1:57:34 and i think that's really important uh
1:57:36 the fact that recology is an employee
1:57:38 owned firm was a really important thing
1:57:41 for me as well
1:57:42 we haven't mentioned the ecology store
1:57:45 um and i have to say it's one of my
1:57:48 favorite places in issaquah and again
1:57:51 recology was the only one that offered
1:57:54 that service i think is very popular and
1:57:56 i love to go in there with all my
1:57:58 recyclables i just took two and a half
1:57:59 years worth of batteries back to them
1:58:03 and i was able to dispose of them so i'm
1:58:05 very pleased that we're going to have
1:58:06 that continue
1:58:09 i think that recalls you heard our
1:58:11 concerns about electric vehicles and i
1:58:13 appreciated the response that they
1:58:14 provided there
1:58:17 i will continue to advocate for better
1:58:19 engagement around recycling to
1:58:21 multi-family residents
1:58:23 and i know it's a big challenge
1:58:25 i just think that
1:58:26 it's really really important and under
1:58:28 good of the order i'm going to talk
1:58:29 about the challenges that are being
1:58:31 faced at the cedar hills landfill
1:58:34 but we we can do a better job with
1:58:37 recycling i think we've got residents
1:58:39 who are ready and willing to do a better
1:58:41 job they just need education and
1:58:43 outreach and so
1:58:45 we'll continue to work with recology to
1:58:48 do that but i'm very very happy to
1:58:50 support
1:58:51 uh this motion and i will be voting to
1:58:54 i'll be saying yes thank you
1:58:56 thank you councilmember d michelle it
1:58:58 was kind of a race after that but i'm
1:59:00 going to go to council member hunt all
1:59:02 right thank you um i
1:59:04 plus one to uh council member d michelle
1:59:07 and i also will be supporting the motion
1:59:12 appreciated the work of the staff and of
1:59:15 committee that looked at this as well as
1:59:16 our commissions
1:59:18 i did have a new emerging issue that i
1:59:21 also wanted to speak to and that is
1:59:23 regarding bears
1:59:25 as was mentioned earlier we are
1:59:27 in an area where bears get into the
1:59:30 garbage it is a very real issue for us
1:59:34 actually between when the
1:59:36 council committee heard this issue and
1:59:39 today we had a incident where a bear um
1:59:43 that had been spotted dozens of times in
1:59:45 issaquah actually had to be euthanized
1:59:47 because it um because of its behavior
1:59:50 and getting in
1:59:51 into garbage and
1:59:53 um was was deemed unsafe and
1:59:56 um that made the seattle times and we
1:59:59 don't want to be a community that makes
2:00:01 the news in that kind of a way
2:00:03 we also got an email about this again
2:00:05 this came in after the committee meeting
2:00:07 so it's not a reflection it's a
2:00:10 not a reflection on the committee but uh
2:00:12 we had an email from a member of our
2:00:15 community that's active with the
2:00:16 co-existing with carnivores efforts to
2:00:19 track and make sure that people know
2:00:21 about how to
2:00:22 coexist in our neighborhoods with our
2:00:24 wildlife that are so important to
2:00:26 the character
2:00:28 of issaquah and one of the reasons why
2:00:30 it's such a great place to live so she
2:00:32 was concerned about this contract making
2:00:34 sure that we are doing what we can to
2:00:38 coexist with carnivores including bears
2:00:40 and that we're doing what we can in that
2:00:42 contract so i did reach out we had a
2:00:44 conversation at a conversation with gary
2:00:46 about what can be done
2:00:47 it can be we could consider for example
2:00:51 having wildlife impacted areas where you
2:00:53 would be required to have beer resistant
2:00:56 garbage cans this would take care of
2:00:58 some of the
2:01:00 issues where people that are new come in
2:01:02 and don't know that this is such an
2:01:03 issue and you have the garbage nests
2:01:06 that were mentioned earlier
2:01:08 but this is this is a very real issue it
2:01:12 is something that i think we should look
2:01:13 at we could potentially mandate areas
2:01:16 where they would be required we could
2:01:17 potentially also subsidize or as the
2:01:20 city could also potentially look into
2:01:22 how we could make that happen so there's
2:01:25 a bigger conversation i would
2:01:27 ask my council colleagues to consider it
2:01:29 especially
2:01:30 in light of the options we have which
2:01:33 can be done outside of this contract and
2:01:34 also there's recent studies about
2:01:37 how bear proofing as would be expected
2:01:41 greatly reduces the
2:01:42 negative interactions that
2:01:45 people
2:01:46 end up having in the conflicts that
2:01:47 people end up having with bears so um
2:01:52 i i have some more information about
2:01:54 what's been done in some other cities
2:01:55 but i think it would be great to have a
2:01:57 bigger conversation with the staff
2:01:59 looking into it and what the options are
2:02:00 for us specifically so that would be my
2:02:02 ask for the future again doesn't have to
2:02:05 be with done with this contract with
2:02:08 um contract but i would like to
2:02:10 be in the news for being a
2:02:12 city that co-exists with carnivores and
2:02:14 not make the news for having to have a
2:02:16 bear be euthanized which just recently
2:02:18 happened
2:02:19 great comments
2:02:21 uh i think deputy council president hall
2:02:23 and then council president
2:02:26 uh thank you very much um
2:02:28 a lot of the same comments um since this
2:02:31 is such an important decision for
2:02:33 council i'm going to walk through some
2:02:34 of the most important reasons why i'm
2:02:36 going to be supporting this
2:02:37 recommendation tonight and then also a
2:02:39 list of things that i'd like us to keep
2:02:41 in mind in the future so i completely
2:02:43 agree with the recommendation to move
2:02:45 forward with the new solid waste
2:02:46 management contract with recology
2:02:49 i want to start by saying i've been very
2:02:52 very impressed and pleased with the work
2:02:54 of with our staff
2:02:56 with our consultant jeff
2:02:58 and with the proposals of proposals of
2:03:00 all the haulers um um but a special
2:03:03 thank you to to gary to jeff and to all
2:03:05 the other city staff that participated
2:03:07 on the review committee thank you very
2:03:08 much for your hard work uh so yeah there
2:03:11 are a number of reasons i feel really
2:03:13 good about this proposal with recology
2:03:14 all of which were directly
2:03:16 influenced by community priorities
2:03:19 first and foremost i just want to say i
2:03:20 put a pretty high and i mentioned this
2:03:22 at our committee meeting too but i put a
2:03:23 pretty high premium on the
2:03:25 recommendations of our staff and our
2:03:27 subject matter experts especially in
2:03:28 this area
2:03:30 i would have to have some pretty major
2:03:31 concerns or a competing project would
2:03:34 have to be very compelling for me
2:03:36 to consider an alternative at this point
2:03:38 that threshold hasn't been met
2:03:41 not having to transition between haulers
2:03:44 is also very compelling to me and
2:03:46 avoiding potential interruptions and
2:03:47 service is certainly in the community's
2:03:49 best interest
2:03:51 one point of
2:03:52 concern after last year's snowpocalypse
2:03:55 was our policy around inclement weather
2:03:58 and we brought that up we did our due
2:04:00 diligence
2:04:01 we covered all our bases and i believe
2:04:03 the community will be very happy and
2:04:05 satisfied with where we ended up with
2:04:06 the policy update around inclement
2:04:08 weather
2:04:10 this proposal also includes an expansion
2:04:12 to the recyclables on either on the curb
2:04:14 or at the gilman village store which is
2:04:15 very exciting
2:04:17 it includes that waste zero specialist
2:04:19 focused on issaquah focused on
2:04:21 contamination reduction and diversion
2:04:23 which will help us accomplish our work
2:04:24 set out in the isoqua climate action
2:04:29 similar to the remarks that uh chair joe
2:04:31 brought up um i am convinced that there
2:04:34 is some electric vehicle innovation and
2:04:36 feasibility work necessary to overcome
2:04:39 reliability issues our unique geography
2:04:42 being a city in the in the hills and in
2:04:44 the valley
2:04:46 but even so
2:04:48 the eevee runway that is described in
2:04:50 this agreement is certainly in line with
2:04:51 community priorities and also our
2:04:53 climate action plan so i'm very happy by
2:04:56 and then
2:04:57 to council councilmember d michelle's
2:04:59 point to i am also very pleased to be
2:05:00 working with an employee-owned company
2:05:03 all that said there are some future
2:05:05 considerations um i'd like just to plop
2:05:08 on our radar so um
2:05:10 so it we don't lose track of it no
2:05:12 changes just areas that i wanted to
2:05:14 highlight so the first is i think we'll
2:05:16 continue to see extended winter weather
2:05:19 events impact our region
2:05:21 and i'd like for us to continue to
2:05:22 monitor how our policies meet
2:05:25 residents needs and whether or not
2:05:27 emerging practices elsewhere
2:05:29 are delivering better services to the
2:05:31 community and i think we can all agree
2:05:33 that you know we should always be on the
2:05:34 lookout for areas of improvement
2:05:35 emerging practices policy outcomes etc
2:05:40 i also really appreciated reecology's
2:05:42 high scores on customer service customer
2:05:44 service responsiveness to issues
2:05:47 called your call center approach
2:05:49 is so important to our residents and to
2:05:51 this council
2:05:52 that issues can be responded to in a
2:05:54 timely and effective manner
2:05:56 these issues
2:05:57 can also provide invaluable information
2:06:00 to measure policy outcomes and whether
2:06:02 or not our systems are working well
2:06:04 right
2:06:04 so in the same spirit as my comments on
2:06:07 inclement weather i think it's important
2:06:08 to monitor how these feedback loops can
2:06:10 be improved
2:06:11 based on what we're seeing on the ground
2:06:13 and what we're seeing work well
2:06:15 elsewhere
2:06:17 to council member hunts points
2:06:19 point with recent stories about that
2:06:22 bear eluding authorities in the ischool
2:06:24 area i think the council should have
2:06:26 that conversation about wildlife areas
2:06:28 in town wildlife containers and what
2:06:30 that means from a public policy
2:06:32 standpoint so i think that's a very good
2:06:33 point thanks for bringing that up
2:06:35 and then finally
2:06:36 which has already been said our new
2:06:38 rates
2:06:39 we do we did have an incredible deal
2:06:41 last time around and now we have to
2:06:43 catch up to the market
2:06:45 there will be a noticeable difference to
2:06:47 ratepayers and it's important that the
2:06:49 city and this council monitor what that
2:06:51 means for the overall utility pie
2:06:54 and the greater affordability question
2:06:58 so it's something we're going to have to
2:06:59 keep our eye on very closely and i know
2:07:01 that later this year we'll be discussing
2:07:03 whether or not
2:07:05 we should temporarily waive the
2:07:07 administrative fee or potential other
2:07:08 actions to help reduce that impact and
2:07:11 create a runway
2:07:12 so i know there's much more to come on
2:07:16 again just some things i wanted to keep
2:07:17 on our radar moving forward but with all
2:07:19 that i'm
2:07:20 absolutely supportive of this new
2:07:22 contract uh with recology and i'll be
2:07:24 voting in favor tonight thanks thank you
2:07:26 deputy council president council
2:07:27 president
2:07:29 thank you um well a lot has been said
2:07:33 that it's very well spoken so i'm not
2:07:34 going to repeat that
2:07:36 um my comments come in kind of to
2:07:40 two prongs so first i'm going to be
2:07:43 supporting this tonight i wanted to
2:07:45 thank the team
2:07:47 for all of the hard work it was very
2:07:50 apparent
2:07:52 how transparent
2:07:55 the review process was how thorough
2:07:57 things were
2:07:59 i also can see through
2:08:01 the later stages of this that we really
2:08:04 achieved a lot of wins that were really
2:08:07 important through the negotiation
2:08:09 process
2:08:10 i found that the use of the survey was
2:08:13 really important
2:08:15 my compliments on the inclusion of a
2:08:17 controversial question which definitely
2:08:20 increased the engagement substantially
2:08:24 but the second prong of my comments are
2:08:26 when i'm looking back on this
2:08:30 i recognize that
2:08:33 the choices made of what those questions
2:08:38 very much set the scope of our
2:08:40 conversation
2:08:41 we very much used the results of those
2:08:46 five or six
2:08:47 questions to the community to say hey
2:08:51 what was really important to the
2:08:52 community was not
2:08:55 reducing the services so that they could
2:08:57 save money and it was not
2:09:00 or and it was
2:09:02 electric vehicles and those types of
2:09:05 things
2:09:08 if i'm gonna look at that i'm gonna
2:09:10 recognize that
2:09:12 we hadn't really had a policy
2:09:14 conversation about
2:09:15 what should be our scope
2:09:18 we hadn't had
2:09:20 something brought
2:09:21 to the council or even to my knowledge
2:09:24 to the administration that says
2:09:26 wow if i'm really thinking big about
2:09:28 this here are the great things that
2:09:31 portland for example does with their
2:09:34 waste management situation here's what
2:09:36 we should be learning from the best
2:09:39 practices across the country
2:09:43 didn't see anything in here about should
2:09:46 we consider composting requirements
2:09:49 what more could we be doing or you know
2:09:52 recycling requirements what more could
2:09:55 we be doing with
2:09:57 multi-families other than just having
2:10:00 somebody available who can
2:10:03 increase those conversations and do
2:10:05 outreach so
2:10:07 i think i would just ask the
2:10:09 administration to really help us
2:10:12 dream big
2:10:14 at the outset of the process
2:10:17 because
2:10:18 once some of those first
2:10:21 decisions are made about what questions
2:10:24 to ask the community
2:10:25 it sets the stage in a way that is very
2:10:28 difficult to
2:10:29 move away from i know we as council
2:10:32 often hear from the administration oh
2:10:36 you know we've gone through the process
2:10:37 thus far
2:10:41 so i would just ask the administration
2:10:44 to try and help us
2:10:47 cut off opportunities at the start of
2:10:50 the process when something like this
2:10:52 happens and so i i would just um leave
2:10:57 that out there as my ask to the
2:11:00 administration
2:11:02 um as we're looking at future big
2:11:05 projects
2:11:06 but overall i will be supporting this
2:11:09 and i look forward to seeing how we can
2:11:11 have conversations about other aspects
2:11:15 thank you
2:11:16 so i could tease chair joe and make him
2:11:19 repeat his motion but i've got the piece
2:11:20 of paper so i won't do that to him
2:11:24 don't know if there's any more
2:11:25 discussion oh go ahead chair joe great
2:11:28 thank you
2:11:30 um i want to thank everyone sitting up
2:11:32 here for reading through a 68-page
2:11:34 contract that reads like a
2:11:37 a poor novel but i'm glad you did it and
2:11:40 that's awesome
2:11:41 i just want to point out that um
2:11:44 the contract that we're
2:11:47 adopting tonight does have some ability
2:11:49 for us to
2:11:50 make some of those choices that council
2:11:52 president walsh is talking about and
2:11:54 have the discussion about how the
2:11:56 administrative fee will be used as as
2:11:58 deputy council president hall said and
2:12:01 that's going to be a budget discussion
2:12:03 for us it's going to be important for us
2:12:04 to to be thoughtful about how we want to
2:12:07 set that fee and use those use those
2:12:08 funds
2:12:10 i'd also point out that under 4.1.29 the
2:12:13 carbon neutrality section it does allow
2:12:16 the city to potentially set a rate for
2:12:19 carbon excuse me to talk about carbon
2:12:22 neutrality with the hauler as we look at
2:12:25 our climate goals and the climate action
2:12:27 plan that we have along the way so it
2:12:29 does give us a mechanism to kind of look
2:12:31 at that also under 5.3
2:12:35 there's a carbon offset
2:12:38 section which talks about the city
2:12:41 potentially setting a carbon offset rate
2:12:44 based on the amount of carbon that we're
2:12:45 producing and add that to the rate for
2:12:48 our customers potentially to look at the
2:12:51 climate issues and and how we're
2:12:53 impacting our world as well so those can
2:12:56 be mechanisms that we can look at
2:12:58 to improve our climate action plan or to
2:13:01 implement the things we would like to
2:13:02 see in the climate action plan in the
2:13:04 future too so
2:13:06 while the contract is going to be a
2:13:07 12-year agreement i think there are a
2:13:09 lot of opportunities for us to to make
2:13:11 progress and i would just ask that the
2:13:14 staff
2:13:15 try to put together a plan with recology
2:13:18 for the zero waste
2:13:20 staff member so that when the contract
2:13:23 gets put in place in july of 2023 we
2:13:26 already have a plan set up for
2:13:29 that staff member to
2:13:31 implement and go after and we have
2:13:32 measurables that we want to look at and
2:13:34 we want to monitor along the way
2:13:36 so we can use that staff member on the
2:13:39 ground to make some of the progress that
2:13:40 we're talking about today on climate
2:13:42 action as well so thank you
2:13:46 thank you council member joe
2:13:48 councilmember hunt
2:13:50 thank you
2:13:51 council president walsh's comments
2:13:55 led me to ask a
2:13:56 question will
2:13:58 i and this is i think for the government
2:14:01 affairs person from ecology
2:14:03 could the city work with recology on the
2:14:06 future surveys
2:14:08 to make sure that if there are emerging
2:14:10 issues that we
2:14:11 having to do with customer satisfaction
2:14:13 with the services that are provided by
2:14:14 recology 12 years a long time so could
2:14:17 we would the city be able to work with
2:14:20 recology at those
2:14:22 intervals in time when you're doing the
2:14:23 survey to make sure that we're getting
2:14:25 the information about customer
2:14:26 satisfaction that's
2:14:28 that we need to continue with the survey
2:14:31 with the contract rather
2:14:37 and logan harvey government affairs for
2:14:39 college king county yeah absolutely
2:14:40 it'll it'll always be a partnership
2:14:42 that's why we see this contract we don't
2:14:44 see this as we're a separate entity and
2:14:46 you're a separate entity this is a
2:14:48 partnership we want to work with you and
2:14:50 so if council has questions they want
2:14:51 asked on that kind of
2:14:53 a survey we would ask them when we did a
2:14:55 survey in the city of maple valley they
2:14:57 had a
2:14:58 communications
2:15:00 subcommittee and they ran through and
2:15:02 decided determined a number of questions
2:15:04 and that's what we ended up putting on
2:15:06 on that one it was a conversation for
2:15:08 sure but we we would always be open to
2:15:10 that and if you know we're doing a
2:15:12 kind of material or a citywide survey we
2:15:15 could put in
2:15:16 any number of questions that the focus
2:15:18 is on performance and things like that
2:15:20 but if there were additional thoughts
2:15:21 then we would support counsel on that of
2:15:23 course for sure
2:15:25 thank you
2:15:26 any other comments
2:15:31 it has been moved and seconded to
2:15:33 authorize the mayor to enter into and
2:15:35 execute the comprehensive garbage
2:15:37 recyclables and compostables collection
2:15:39 service contract with ricology king
2:15:41 county incorporated for the period july
2:15:44 1st 2023 through june 30 2024
2:15:49 all those in favor signify by saying aye
2:15:56 20 34.
2:15:58 yeah they have 20 34 in here is that
2:16:02 the correct yes you said 2024. oh sorry
2:16:06 july 1st 2023 through june 30th 2034.
2:16:10 all those in favor signify by saying
2:16:14 all those opposed
2:16:16 that passes unanimously 6-0
2:16:19 thank you very much congratulations
2:16:21 thanks staff for all your hard work uh
2:16:24 these are big contracts to work on
2:16:26 because they don't come around very
2:16:27 often so thanks so much
2:16:30 next item is good of the order and i
2:16:31 know at least council member d michelle
2:16:33 has one thing i'm just going to quickly
2:16:35 list off a few meetings and then hand it
2:16:38 over to her
2:16:39 tuesday june 21st city council meeting
2:16:41 the anticipated agenda items include
2:16:43 appointment and swearing-in of our new
2:16:45 police chief
2:16:47 and the equity framework
2:16:49 on wednesday june 15th the community
2:16:51 listening session is at blakely hall in
2:16:53 isliqua highlands and discussion topics
2:16:55 will include public safety
2:16:57 emergency management
2:16:59 current development which is land use
2:17:01 and infrastructure and the june 27
2:17:03 special committee of the whole council
2:17:05 anticipated agenda items include the
2:17:07 capital finance community task force
2:17:09 recommendations implementation plan
2:17:12 uh extra note city council photos will
2:17:15 be taken prior to the committee of the
2:17:17 whole meeting
2:17:18 uh the meeting will begin at 7 pm
2:17:21 so that is the june 27th meeting
2:17:24 and i'll hand it over to councilmember d
2:17:26 michelle who wants to share some
2:17:27 thoughts
2:17:28 thank you mary paulie um i just want to
2:17:31 report it on may 30th i attended the
2:17:34 sound cities association sponsored tour
2:17:36 of the cedar hills landfill the purpose
2:17:38 of the tour was to concretely illustrate
2:17:41 for elected officials the decisions that
2:17:44 will need to be made about the landfill
2:17:46 and as i'm sure you are aware
2:17:48 cedar hills is running out of space with
2:17:51 the current pit projected to be filled
2:17:53 in about three years and then a ninth
2:17:55 pit projected to be filled after six
2:17:58 years so all together there's about a
2:18:00 decade before
2:18:01 the landfill is completely full
2:18:04 however that timeline could be
2:18:05 considerably extended if the 30 percent
2:18:08 of refuse that quote-unquote doesn't
2:18:11 belong here could be diverted through
2:18:13 recycling and that was repeated to us
2:18:15 over and over again as we took the tour
2:18:18 once the landfill is full the path
2:18:20 forward would be closure of the cedar
2:18:22 hills landfill and either incineration
2:18:25 or the second option is exporting waste
2:18:28 for to a landfill somewhere else
2:18:31 like the city of seattle which sends its
2:18:33 waste to california
2:18:35 both have long-range adverse financial
2:18:38 and ecological impacts
2:18:40 so one strategy to forestall the closure
2:18:42 of cedar hills landfill is to mandate
2:18:44 recycling and the presenters and
2:18:47 officials that were working with us that
2:18:50 day said they want to work with local
2:18:51 jurisdictions
2:18:53 to either pass local ordinances
2:18:55 mandating recycling or work with state
2:18:57 legislators to put a statewide legal
2:18:59 platform around mandated recycling or
2:19:03 so thanks to mayor paulie for following
2:19:05 up with amy ockerlander who is the king
2:19:08 county government affairs director for
2:19:10 the solid waste division and she is also
2:19:12 the mayor of duvall
2:19:14 and mayor ockerlander will be our
2:19:15 contact for landfill initiatives going
2:19:18 forward
2:19:19 she is projecting that development of
2:19:21 proposed legislation will take about two
2:19:23 years
2:19:24 so we'll be hearing more as we go
2:19:26 forward the tour was extremely
2:19:29 informative it was such an experience
2:19:31 and we were given every opportunity to
2:19:33 ask questions of pat mclaughlin who is a
2:19:36 solid kid county solid waste director
2:19:38 and other officials on the tour and i
2:19:40 would urge my fellow council members to
2:19:42 take advantage of future opportunities
2:19:44 as they arise
2:19:47 i wish i were an expert and could answer
2:19:50 further questions i'd do the best that i
2:19:52 could
2:19:53 but um it certainly was an eye-opener uh
2:19:56 just taking the tour and hearing uh the
2:19:59 challenges that we're facing there
2:20:01 so thank you for that there's a lot of
2:20:03 excitement around what they're talking
2:20:05 about with this regional approach to
2:20:07 mandates but i also know council member
2:20:09 hunt and
2:20:10 and julian who is one of our
2:20:13 constant observers have also done that
2:20:15 tour with myself maybe three years ago
2:20:18 it is an eye-opener it is really
2:20:21 something to behold yeah thank you any
2:20:24 other items for good of the order
2:20:25 council president
2:20:27 thank you um i just wanted to
2:20:30 take a moment and both thank the mayor
2:20:33 for the esco police department
2:20:36 interviews
2:20:37 we have a unique and really what i
2:20:40 really think is a great approach to it
2:20:45 broadening the scope of the interviews
2:20:47 it's not just you know hr sitting in
2:20:49 there making you know having a
2:20:52 conversation with people and picking
2:20:53 somebody out it's really hr taking
2:20:57 the larger number and bringing it down
2:20:59 to a smaller category and so on may 26th
2:21:03 we had the top three candidates come in
2:21:06 and interview with three different
2:21:08 panels in pretty much in half day
2:21:12 experience
2:21:13 where one of the panels was filled with
2:21:15 community members including tony curry
2:21:18 who was her here earlier and other board
2:21:20 members
2:21:22 two council members were supposed to be
2:21:24 there but um and the mayor so that was
2:21:27 one of the panels another panel is
2:21:30 people within the department that will
2:21:32 report up to the person and then another
2:21:34 is our senior leadership team sometimes
2:21:39 the same role in other cities or other
2:21:41 things it just gives a really great
2:21:44 perspective on different questions and
2:21:48 different people's experiences with that
2:21:51 and so i participated on that had a
2:21:55 great experience with the other members
2:21:57 of the community that were there and
2:21:59 then hearing from all three of the
2:22:01 panels and i guess i would just
2:22:03 encourage everybody
2:22:05 that if you have an opportunity to sit
2:22:08 on a hiring panel with the city it has
2:22:10 been i've done it twice now and it's
2:22:12 been a great experience so
2:22:15 and i think we came out with a really
2:22:16 great candidate too so excited about
2:22:19 that too very fun thank you council
2:22:21 president anything else for good of the
2:22:23 order tonight
2:22:25 i'm seeing computers close
2:22:27 um there is no executive session this
2:22:29 evening as stated early therefore we are
2:22:32 adjourned at
2:22:34 9 23. all right
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