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City Council Regular Meeting Auto captions

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

7:00 PM · 3h 32m · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Topics tracked across meetings:
Central Issaquah Multimodal I-90 Crossing Study Update COM 0138 1/6
Community Investment Strategy Project - Confluence Park, (D,A) AB 8487 1/6
Electric Scooter Share Pilot Program Memorandum of Understanding [30 min.] AB 8364 4/4
Community Investment Strategy Direct Administration [60 min.] AB 8422 4/4
Informational Update: Public Records Receive Report ID 1080 3/3
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 3/3
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 3/3
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 3/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 26, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 6, 2022 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 5, 2022
Section
Topic
6. CONSENT CALENDAR
6a
Accounts: Payables and Payroll of July 5, 2022, $3,552,719.23 ID 1192
Carried 7-0
Action · packet pp.5–37
Topics: Budget
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6b
Minutes: City Council Study Session, April 26, 2022
Carried 7-0
Action · packet pp.39–41
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6c
Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, June 6, 2022
Carried 7-0
Action · packet pp.43–47
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6d
Informational Update: Public Records Receive Report ID 1080
Carried 7-0
packet pp.49–57
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6e
American Tower Affidavit of Agent Authority for Backup Generator AB 8401
Carried 7-0
Action · packet pp.59–112
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6f
Board & Commission Extended Recruitment Appointments Confirm; Adopt Ordinance AB 8412
Carried 7-0
packet pp.113–117
Topics: Land UseBoards & Commissions
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
6g
Position Reclassifications AB 8418
Carried 7-0
Action · packet pp.119–120
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
7. REGULAR BUSINESS
7a
Electric Scooter Share Pilot Program Memorandum of Understanding [30 min.] AB 8364
Failed 3-4
Action · packet pp.121–170
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by JOE · seconded by HALL
In favor: Joe, Marts, Hall
Opposed: Barbara de Michele, Victoria Hunt, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
7b
Community Investment Strategy Direct Administration [60 min.] AB 8422
Carried 7-0
packet pp.171–210
Staff report:
City Council Regular Meeting - Jul 05 2022 - Html Split-screen / Notes Video AGENDA City Council Regular Meeting 7:00 PM - Tuesday, July 5, 2022 Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA Page You may join the meeting in-person at the address above, or virtually using the following options: Join by Computer  Webex Events attendee meeting link  If needed, meeting password is 98027  Access Webex Guidelines Join by Phone  Call 1-206-207-1700, enter meeting number (access code) 2495 016 9344# Other Listening Options  Stream online: issaquahwa.gov/live  Comcast Channel: ICTV 21 To speak under Audience Comments, you are encouraged to sign-up in advance of the meeting (by 5 p.m.) at issaquahwa.gov/signup . Submit written comments to [email protected] . 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. AUDIENCE COMMENTS 4. COMMITTEE / REGIONAL REPORTS 5. MAYOR'S REPORT 6. CONSENT…
Roll call:
Moved by REH · seconded by MARTS
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
8. GOOD OF THE ORDER
8a
Upcoming Council Meetings
0:14 good evening and welcome to the july 5th
0:16 isqua city council meeting welcome
0:19 everybody um as a reminder we do
0:21 continue to have our meetings in a
0:23 remote format
0:25 both staff and members of the public may
0:27 be participating in tonight's meeting
0:29 remotely via webex
0:31 first item on our agenda this evening is
0:33 the pledge of allegiance and i welcome
0:34 you all to join me
0:39 i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
0:42 united states of america and to the
0:44 republic for which it stands
0:47 one nation under god
0:49 indivisible with liberty and justice for
0:52 all
0:55 thank you the next item on our agenda
0:58 this evening is audience comments and
1:00 members of the public may address
1:01 counsel at this time in person or
1:03 virtually
1:04 those who signed up in advance to make
1:06 comments will be called on first and if
1:08 you are joining us virtually and would
1:10 like to make comments please raise your
1:12 virtual hand
1:13 if you're on a phone press star 3
1:16 if you have joined by a computer or
1:18 smartphone look for a hand icon
1:20 this can vary by device and one option
1:22 may be to go to the participant panel
1:24 and choose the raise hand icon in the
1:26 lower right hand corner
1:28 if you are in the room and did not sign
1:30 up i will ask for other speakers before
1:32 closing this portion of the meeting city
1:34 clerk has anyone signed up to speak this
1:36 evening
1:39 mayor no one has signed up in advance to
1:41 speak
1:42 but let me see we do have a number of
1:45 members of the public in the virtual
1:47 audience tonight
1:49 so as a reminder to those attending
1:50 virtually if you'd like to make comments
1:52 please raise your virtual hand
1:56 let me the host know by sending a chat
1:59 message
2:01 i'll just monitor this for a moment
2:15 okay i do see a hand raised from mark
2:18 clemons
2:19 mark i'm making you a panelist now
2:29 and mayor i believe you may have some
2:31 additional comments that i i do thank
2:33 you city clerk so for those making
2:35 comments please direct your comments to
2:37 the whole council and not individuals
2:39 and while this is not a question and
2:41 answer session we will contact you to
2:43 follow up if needed
2:44 when recognized please unmute your
2:46 microphone for virtual attendees or step
2:49 up to the lectern if you're in person
2:51 state your name address in relationship
2:53 to the city speak clearly and pause
2:55 frequently and limit your comments to
2:57 five minutes
2:58 if you are attending virtually and do
2:59 not respond after your name or phone
3:01 number is called or if your connection
3:03 is lost unexpectedly the meeting will
3:04 need to proceed you are encouraged to
3:06 rejoin the meeting if able
3:08 personal attacks obscene language
3:10 derogatory remarks and disruptive
3:12 behavior will not be permitted citizen
3:14 comments written and verbal are an
3:15 important aspect of the public process
3:17 and the city takes comments seriously
3:19 and we thank you for taking the time to
3:21 address us this evening
3:23 so i believe city clerk we have mark
3:25 clemons
3:27 hi my name is mark clemens
3:30 i live at 1515 hillside drive sycamores
3:33 and i'm the executive director of the
3:34 downtown and sagar association
3:37 um good evening madam mayor and city
3:40 council i'd like to share some hip
3:41 happenings with the city council and
3:44 staff the downtown issaquah association
3:46 has had a busy start to the summer with
3:49 two large events which were uh first of
3:51 all the well-attended defenders on front
3:53 street car show uh droves of families
3:56 came out to celebrate father's day and
3:59 front street businesses reported a boost
4:01 of sales in that day and then yesterday
4:04 uh down home fourth of july event i'm
4:07 fully recovering from that uh it's
4:09 caused celebration
4:11 of uh independence day happened and with
4:14 many of you here in attendance uh
4:16 families flocked from front street for
4:18 the kids and pets parade and then moved
4:20 over to veterans memorial park family
4:23 friendly activity field
4:25 i just wanted to extend gratitude to the
4:27 various city departments for helping
4:30 with the planning and coordination of
4:31 that event and also a special token of
4:34 gratitude to this car police department
4:36 for their presence at the event after
4:39 the terrible act that occurred in
4:41 highland park illinois as an organizer
4:44 it was relief for me to see
4:46 their day of presence so please thank
4:49 the staff for me
4:51 moving on dia has live outdoor music
4:54 planned for july we invite votes folks
4:57 to come on downtown dine shop and stroll
5:00 at various events
5:01 gas station blue starts thursday and
5:04 runs throughout the summer from seven to
5:06 nine pm at the old shell station the art
5:09 welcome music stroll is saturday uh from
5:12 five to eight uh july 9th and the summer
5:15 wine and artwork is also the following
5:18 saturday july 16th
5:20 the parklets are outdoor dining outside
5:23 crowbar and japan ginger continue to be
5:26 a favorite for um for diners uh during
5:29 good weather i also have to hope to have
5:32 a escort valley trolley update pretty
5:34 soon
5:35 uh thanks
5:37 thank you
5:38 and uh looks like we're having a good
5:40 summer now and hope to see you all
5:42 downtown
5:44 thank you mark that was a great update
5:46 anyone else city clerk
5:50 well thank you very much it was nice to
5:51 get that update from the executive
5:53 director of the downtown esco
5:54 association about some successful events
5:56 that have happened and some more fun
5:58 that's coming this way this summer
6:00 thank you for the comments and as a
6:02 reminder written comments can be
6:03 submitted at any time to city council
6:06 at issaquah.gov council president walsh
6:09 do you have any emails to come to
6:11 summarize on agenda items that we have
6:14 tonight
6:15 oh boy did we get a lot of emails on
6:17 these items so yes i do
6:19 regarding
6:20 ab-8364 the electric scooter share pilot
6:23 program we received
6:25 three emails of support which
6:27 highlighted that they helped deal with
6:29 last mile problems tourism and a way to
6:32 explore transportation system at no cost
6:35 to the city we also received four emails
6:38 against highlighting comments about the
6:40 city being too small safety hazards an
6:43 eyesore dangerous for sidewalks
6:45 dangerous rider behavior doesn't solve
6:48 the short trip issues and then in our
6:51 packet you'll see many of the other
6:53 social media comments that were
6:54 summarized
6:56 the next agenda item
6:58 ab-8422 the community investment
7:00 strategy we received five
7:03 maybe six if i add in the one that was
7:05 just received an hour ago
7:07 emails of support highlighting that an
7:09 anchor park project is one that's far a
7:12 lot enough along to use the arpa funds
7:15 and preferring a transformative park
7:17 project with several highlighting
7:19 tibbetts park as a good possibility that
7:22 summarizes the emails we received
7:26 thank you council president we'll move
7:28 on now to committee and regional reports
7:29 and we'll start with council member joe
7:32 thank you madam mayor
7:33 no reports
7:35 related to the city directly but i just
7:36 want to convey that
7:38 on june 23rd the garage
7:41 the teen cafe over by the community rec
7:43 center held a pride event that was
7:46 structured and put together by the high
7:48 school students and um
7:50 i have reports back from people that
7:52 attended that it was
7:54 well attended and people had a good time
7:56 and i think it was a great opportunity
7:58 for our high school students to express
8:00 themselves in a safe environment and
8:03 they
8:04 really appreciate that issaquah is a
8:06 safe city and a city that cares thank
8:08 you
8:09 thank you councilmember joe
8:10 councilmember d michelle
8:13 thank you mayor paulie on june 21st i
8:16 attended the connect two community
8:17 advisor group meeting uh just a reminder
8:20 that this group is a subgroup of the
8:22 healthier here agency and is working to
8:24 develop a platform for sharing patient
8:27 information between medical health care
8:29 providers and behavioral health care
8:31 providers in king county we spent the
8:33 meeting exploring and discussing
8:35 potential funding models and our speaker
8:38 is the director of the san diego
8:40 community information exchange which is
8:42 what we're creating which has been in
8:45 operation now for about five years so it
8:46 was an excellent presentation and a
8:48 really good discussion
8:50 all other committees i serve on
8:52 cancelled their july meetings and so
8:53 that is the end of my report thank you
8:55 councilmember d michelle councilmember
8:57 hunt
8:58 thank you the planning development and
9:00 environment committee met on june 28th
9:02 we had two items on our agenda and they
9:05 both had to do with implementation of
9:07 elements of the icap or issaquah climate
9:09 action plan and
9:11 specifically they both had to do with
9:12 implementation of the plan in the area
9:14 of clean buildings the first item was
9:17 id1136 heat pump program for low-income
9:20 residents and the administration on this
9:23 item was requesting approval to proceed
9:25 with an additional appropriation of 125
9:28 000 from the sustainability fund for
9:30 this heat pump program the committee did
9:33 recommends to the full council that this
9:36 be on the consent agenda so this will be
9:38 on the consent agenda i believe
9:40 for the next regular meeting of this
9:43 council for council's consideration the
9:45 committee was in enthusiastic
9:48 and unanimous support for the program we
9:51 also had a representative from spark
9:53 northwest who's partnering on this
9:55 program there at the meeting and they
9:56 were there to answer all our questions
9:58 about ductless versus ducted systems and
10:01 all kinds of technical questions that we
10:03 had
10:04 so it was very well received and the
10:06 council recommended this to um proceed
10:10 on the second item id 1188 which was
10:13 issaquah clean buildings initiative the
10:17 for this one the administration
10:18 recommended an additional appropriation
10:20 of 100 100 000 from the sustainability
10:22 fund and this the committee ultimately
10:25 recommended for regular business at our
10:28 next regular meeting and so i will
10:31 save most of my comments and summary of
10:34 our discussion for that meeting since
10:35 that's when council will be considering
10:37 it but we did have a number of questions
10:40 and we also had additional information
10:42 that we wanted back as far as the
10:44 efficacy of this kind of program and
10:46 other similar jurisdictions
10:49 when this comes back to council i expect
10:51 that there will be more information on
10:52 that and also an update as far as some
10:54 of the elements of that program that
10:57 changed
10:58 as far as covering municipal buildings
11:01 and those were near changes that were
11:04 discovered near the time of our meeting
11:06 so there will be some updated
11:07 information when this comes back to full
11:09 council
11:11 the next meeting of the planning
11:13 development and environment committee
11:15 will be on july 7th and we will have a
11:18 discussion of title 18 our municipal
11:21 land use code and specifically we will
11:23 be discussing id1042 which is the land
11:25 use code update regarding buildings and
11:28 site design
11:30 there
11:31 so that concludes my committee reports
11:34 for council committees and then
11:36 additionally there will be a meeting of
11:37 the regional water quality committee
11:39 tomorrow on july 6th and we have a
11:41 number of technical
11:43 briefings on the agenda
11:45 including one on the wastewater
11:47 treatment divisions resource recovery
11:49 program so i will report back after that
11:51 meeting and that concludes my report
11:53 thank you councilmember ray thank you
11:56 mayor paulie the east side fire and
11:58 rescue board of directors will meet next
12:00 wednesday july 14th at four o'clock the
12:03 agenda has not been set and that
12:04 concludes my report this evening
12:07 thank you councilmember
12:09 thank you madam mayor
12:11 i'm having one of those council
12:12 equivalents to when you have that dream
12:14 and you're back in high school and
12:15 you're not wearing any pants because i
12:17 realized that
12:19 excited as i was about the services
12:21 safety and parks committee meeting
12:23 i did not prepare a report for that this
12:25 evening uh because it's the the first
12:27 one back and i forgot to do it so i
12:29 apologize about that so i'll talk about
12:31 the two things that are uh happening in
12:32 the future which are gmpb meets this
12:35 thursday july 7th
12:37 at 10 am there's really only one
12:40 actionable item and it is
12:42 a potential approval of the greater
12:44 downtown kirkland regional growth center
12:47 application so should you have a strong
12:49 opinion about kirkland's downtown
12:51 regional growth center please let me
12:52 know i'm assuming that we don't
12:55 but we will review it at gmpb and then
12:57 the sound cities association will be
12:59 meeting on wednesday july 13th at 7 pm
13:02 virtual meeting
13:03 and we will be discussing the clean
13:05 water plan guiding principles as we
13:07 discussed at our last council meeting in
13:09 for good of the order
13:10 and that unfortunately concludes my
13:12 report
13:12 thank you councilmember martz you get
13:14 one pass deputy council president hall
13:16 uh thank you madam mayor no report this
13:18 evening though just a quick heads up
13:20 that i have two quick informational
13:21 items i'll bring up tonight i go to the
13:22 order thanks thank you
13:24 council president walsh
13:26 thank you i'm much the same no report
13:28 but i do have one item for good at the
13:30 order thanks
13:33 that's great thank you very much next
13:34 item is the mayor's report um there will
13:36 be an executive session this evening to
13:39 discuss pending potential litigation for
13:41 rcw 42.30
13:43 0.110 paren one pan i
13:46 and security of computer and
13:48 telecommunications networks per rcw
13:51 42.30
13:53 0.110 paren one print a uh parent two
13:57 these items are expected to take a total
13:59 of 30 minutes and no action is
14:00 anticipated in open session
14:03 so i'm very glad that our ed of
14:07 downtown disco association was able to
14:09 give a report um i wanted to just say
14:12 how much i enjoyed seeing most of you
14:14 there it was a great thing to come back
14:16 and have the downtown fourth of july
14:18 festivities again at the field i want to
14:20 thank all of the volunteers and the
14:22 service groups and the staff who made
14:24 yesterday's event possible
14:26 it was just really nice to gather safely
14:29 with everybody and enjoy the community
14:32 tonight's regular business agenda
14:33 includes discussion of a component of
14:35 the capital finance task force
14:37 recommendation tonight the city council
14:39 will discuss the
14:41 american rescue plan act allocation so i
14:44 hope everybody stays with us through
14:45 this regular business agenda item to
14:47 hear the council discuss its plans on
14:49 investing the nine million dollars in
14:51 our community
14:53 uh board and commission extended
14:55 recruitment tonight's consent calendar
14:57 includes
14:58 ab-8412 board and commission extended
15:01 recruitment and i'd like to thank a
15:02 number of community members who are
15:04 interested in serving we had great
15:05 response as part of this extended
15:08 recruitment i've made 15 new
15:09 appointments and look forward to
15:11 welcoming 12 new members across five
15:14 boards including two appointees who pre
15:18 previously served on another border
15:19 commission
15:20 one alternate member being promoted to a
15:22 regular seat and two long serving
15:24 members transitioning from regular seats
15:26 to alternate legacy seats which helps us
15:29 provide for turnover and continuity
15:32 for those who are unable to be appointed
15:34 at this time their applications will be
15:36 considered as other recruitment
15:37 opportunities occur
15:39 we anticipate continued efforts related
15:41 to the sister cities commission and a
15:43 new recruitment for filling vacancies on
15:45 the planning policy commission
15:48 my appointments are intended to create
15:49 the broadest participation possible of
15:51 the community we serve and to strive for
15:53 diversity and inclusion
15:55 just a few notes on some upcoming events
15:57 concerts on the green is back starting
15:59 tonight i'm sorry that you all can't
16:01 attend here they will be running every
16:04 tuesday through august so join us at the
16:06 community center lawn for music and
16:07 dancing from 7 to 8 30 p.m
16:10 a mid-summer's night stream
16:13 please enjoy this shakespeare classic
16:15 comedy about love gone awry the seattle
16:17 shakespeare performance is coming to the
16:19 community center's open space on july
16:21 7th at 7 pm more information is
16:24 available
16:26 seattleshakespeare.org
16:28 and parccadilla is coming back join us
16:30 july 7th at the lakes mama state park
16:32 for the parkadeli kids concert and fair
16:35 outdoor activities will include arts and
16:36 crafts face painting a petting zoo games
16:39 and food trucks the event is free but
16:42 admission to the park does require a
16:44 discover pass or a 10 day pass so more
16:47 information is available at
16:48 lakesmamishfriends.org
16:50 and last the
16:52 chalk art festival is back in
16:54 celebration of issaquah's 130th birthday
16:57 we invite chalk artists to respond to
16:59 this year's chalk art festival theme
17:02 happy birthday issaquah looking great at
17:05 130.
17:06 all participating chalk artists will
17:08 receive free sidewalk chalk and a ticket
17:10 for ice cream from the issaquah ice
17:12 cream
17:12 trike so please come join us july 26th
17:15 from 12 to 4 p.m at the issaquah
17:17 community center and that concludes the
17:20 mayor's report
17:21 the next item of business this evening
17:23 is the consent calendar
17:24 it was distributed to council in advance
17:27 and if authorized the items on the
17:28 consent calendar will be considered
17:30 together and approved by one motion have
17:32 the payables and payroll been reviewed
17:35 they have been they have thank you does
17:37 any council member desire to remove any
17:39 item from the consent counter and
17:41 consider it under regular business
17:45 not seeing any um is there a motion
17:48 yes council president i move to approve
17:51 the consent calendar as written
17:53 david
17:54 second w council president seconded
17:57 uh is there any council discussion
18:01 hearing none the motion before council
18:03 is to approve the consent calendar as
18:04 presented all those in favor please
18:06 signify by saying aye
18:11 and those opposed
18:13 that carries unanimously
18:15 the next item of business is regular
18:17 business and we're starting off with
18:19 ab-8364
18:21 electric scooter share pilot program
18:23 memorandum of understanding the ask
18:25 before council this evening is to
18:27 authorize and i'd like to invite
18:29 economic development coordinator benton
18:30 koblenz and transportation program
18:32 coordinator coordinator john larson
18:35 friend to make a brief presentation
18:42 good evening mayor paulie council
18:44 members my name is benton kovlans i'm
18:46 the economic development coordinator for
18:48 the city i'm joined by my good friend
18:50 john larson friend who'll be coming up
18:53 to the podium in just a couple of
18:54 minutes
18:55 and also online is uh michael cavado
18:59 from bird who will be able and available
19:02 to answer questions um that we cannot
19:07 so let me just share my screen
19:11 so hopefully you're seeing that properly
19:13 yes we can
19:16 an electric scooter
19:18 share program
19:20 is one which provides
19:22 electric scooters for the public to
19:24 utilize
19:26 for point-to-point or near
19:28 point-to-point
19:29 short trips
19:31 they've been around for about last five
19:34 or so years
19:35 and are now present in many communities
19:38 all across the country
19:39 and the globe
19:42 those electric
19:43 scooter share programs provide one
19:45 alternative for the last mile problem
19:49 of getting
19:50 folks from
19:52 options for transit to their destination
19:55 or from their homes
19:57 and points of origin to
19:59 other transportation options as well
20:02 and so
20:04 they provide an opportunity for
20:07 residents workers and visitors um here
20:10 in the city of issaquah
20:12 to get around town
20:14 and so tonight the purpose is to gather
20:17 your feedback on the proposed electric
20:20 scooter share pilot program for the city
20:25 so the recommendation tonight
20:28 is to authorize the mayor to enter into
20:31 and execute an mou with bird to begin an
20:34 electric scooter share pilot program for
20:37 the city
20:39 and that memorandum draft memorandum of
20:41 understanding was included in the packet
20:44 tonight
20:47 so uh city staff um have uh been working
20:51 um on this proposed pilot um uh for the
20:55 past a couple of months um because we
20:58 believe that this opportunity aligns
21:01 with many of the city's existing plans
21:04 in particular the first
21:07 plank of the city's strategic plan
21:10 is to
21:11 make getting around town easier for
21:13 people who live work and play here
21:17 that
21:18 plank in the strategic plan
21:20 was further elucidated through the
21:22 city's mobility master plan which laid
21:25 out these six guiding principles
21:28 including
21:29 improving mobility within issaquah
21:32 promoting environmentally sustainable
21:35 mobility options and anticipating future
21:38 transformation in the transportation
21:40 space
21:42 we believe um that an electric scooter
21:45 share program uh aligns with many of
21:48 those uh planks of the mobility master
21:50 plan and is worth exploring here
21:53 in issaquah
21:56 so the background for the proposal here
21:58 tonight is that the um city staff were
22:02 approached in late 2021
22:05 by a scooter share provider um to expand
22:08 um their program to the city of issaquah
22:12 and so
22:14 city staff organized an internal
22:16 stakeholder team to review the viability
22:20 and any foreseen
22:22 challenges of such a program for our
22:25 community
22:26 um through several conversations um
22:29 several different points
22:31 were brought up
22:32 as potential challenges to overcome and
22:35 to be aware of but overall the viability
22:38 of the program seemed possible and so
22:42 staff gathered an external stakeholder
22:45 team to meet with other external
22:47 transportation partners including king
22:49 county metro sound transit and king
22:52 county parks and trails to understand if
22:55 there were any challenges that couldn't
22:56 be overcome
22:58 in the intersection of this proposed
23:00 program
23:01 with our partners programs
23:04 in the city
23:06 through both those internal and external
23:08 stakeholder team meetings uh there were
23:11 no issues that were uh presented that
23:13 were um insuperable um
23:17 we felt that um through careful um and
23:20 thorough program design uh
23:23 all the challenges that were brought up
23:25 could be overcome
23:27 and so um
23:29 again in the spring of this year
23:31 staff began some initial
23:33 negotiations over what a potential
23:36 agreement might look like
23:38 in july as
23:40 the staff brought this proposed program
23:42 to the city council's mobility and in
23:46 infrastructure
23:47 committee meeting um
23:50 for review
23:52 and the committee forwarded the item to
23:54 the full council here tonight and so if
23:58 this draft mou is approved and the
24:02 program
24:03 is greenlit it could start as early as
24:06 uh this month and it would continue
24:08 through the end of this year that would
24:11 be the initial pilot program period
24:14 at the end of this year the scooters
24:17 would likely be withdrawn due to
24:18 inclement weather
24:20 and an initial analysis of the pilot
24:22 program's um success and shortcomings uh
24:26 would be conducted um and that uh
24:28 analysis would continue into 2023
24:32 where staff would make a recommendation
24:34 as to
24:36 the permanent and long-term
24:39 recommendations for the program
24:43 so to talk more i want to invite my good
24:46 friend john larson friend to talk more
24:48 about
24:49 the pilot program's design and proposed
24:51 operations
24:59 trying to make some room here
25:02 uh thank you benton uh good evening i'm
25:05 adam mayer and
25:06 council members my name is john larson
25:08 friend and i'm the transportation
25:09 program coordinator it's an honor to be
25:12 presenting to city council for the first
25:13 time here at city of issaquah
25:16 john i'm going to get you to lift that
25:18 microphone up yes i'm tall yes and
25:20 welcome and welcome nice to see new
25:22 faces
25:23 thank you
25:24 so tonight i will be introducing some of
25:26 the details of the pilot program
25:28 proposal i'll be walking through bird's
25:30 proposed operations and equity programs
25:32 and proposed public outreach
25:37 so first proposed operations
25:40 the scooters that bird currently deploys
25:42 are the bird zero model
25:44 each are equipped with a headlight tail
25:46 light reflector battery gps and governed
25:48 at a max speed of 15 miles per hour in
25:51 issaquah electric scooters are permitted
25:53 to be ridden where bicycles are allowed
25:56 including bike lanes bike paths and any
25:58 shared routes
26:00 looking at the area of operation
26:02 bird has proposed an initial operating
26:04 area in the central business district
26:06 old town and business area of the
26:07 ischool highlands
26:09 this operation area is able to be
26:11 reshaped in any way deemed appropriate
26:13 throughout the program and any changes
26:15 would be a collaboration between the
26:16 city and bird
26:18 limitations can also be placed in
26:20 specific locations within the area of
26:22 operation including the creation of slow
26:24 zones meaning the scooter would slow
26:26 down to a predetermined maximum speed
26:28 and no ride zones meaning the scooter
26:30 would come to an automatic stop within
26:32 the zone and won't be powered until
26:35 the zone is left by the scooter
26:37 on the map
26:39 here the blue markers are proposed
26:40 staging areas or nests which
26:43 are based on birds research of the
26:45 community though these can be changed
26:47 based on need weather and other factors
26:49 that might arise
26:50 during daily rebalancing of the scooters
26:52 the scooters would be returned to these
26:54 specific nest locations
26:57 and finally the number of scooters the
26:59 number would start at 50 on day one and
27:01 scale up to 100 during the first four
27:03 weeks this number would be evaluated
27:06 during the course of the pilot based on
27:07 demand and other factors
27:12 tonight we also want to highlight a
27:13 couple of specific areas of interest
27:15 so the first one being response time so
27:17 a big part of the program would include
27:19 bird
27:20 will pay local contractors to manage the
27:23 scooter system a part of this position
27:25 includes responding to scooter placement
27:27 issues within three hours of being
27:29 reported between the hours of 7 am and 7
27:32 the responses would be triggered by any
27:34 reported relocation requests or
27:36 incidents reported by riders or members
27:38 of the public involving the scooters and
27:41 that would include parking safety and
27:43 maintenance
27:45 there are of course other challenge
27:46 areas when it comes to scooters
27:48 especially pertaining to public
27:49 perception of scooters
27:51 so first ada compliance miss parking
27:54 scooters can be an issue if on address
27:56 especially if they block ada access
27:58 points around the city as mentioned
28:00 before the local contractors would be in
28:02 charge of responding to any parking
28:04 issues within three hours of being
28:05 reported between 7 am and 7 pm
28:08 of course the best way
28:10 to prevent parking issues is to provide
28:13 robust education for riders
28:16 where they can can and cannot park when
28:19 they ride
28:20 bird will provide materials videos and
28:22 signage to promote safe riding in order
28:25 to educate riders on their
28:26 responsibilities and encourage safe and
28:28 courteous writing and parking it's also
28:30 important to note that people under 18
28:32 will not be allowed to ride these
28:33 scooters which is enforced by requiring
28:36 photo id to sign up
28:39 moving on to rivers and streams
28:41 unfortunately scooters have gotten a
28:43 really bad rap when it comes to the
28:44 perception that they often end up in
28:46 rivers and streams
28:47 the good news is this is a far greater
28:50 issue when they appeared in cities in
28:52 2017.
28:53 updated gps technology improved
28:55 operations parameters and more robust
28:57 scooters has reduced the problem to very
28:59 close to zero
29:01 last year in 2021 similar cities to
29:03 issaquah saw the number of missing and
29:05 vandalized scooters dropped to just
29:06 point four percent
29:09 statistically when issaquah reaches that
29:11 hundred scooter threshold that would be
29:13 like having half of a scooter vandalized
29:14 during the entire year
29:16 this of course would be something that
29:18 staff would would closely monitor
29:19 throughout the pilot period
29:25 turning to equity equity is of really
29:28 great importance when deploying any new
29:30 technology especially those designed to
29:32 increase mobility options for the public
29:35 bird provides three different equity
29:37 programs to ensure greater access for
29:38 people into the system who might not
29:40 have otherwise
29:42 the first one is the community pricing
29:44 program bird offers a 50 percent
29:47 discount to low-income riders bell pell
29:49 grant recipients select local non-profit
29:52 and community organizations veterans and
29:53 senior citizens
29:55 for the unbanked or those without bank
29:57 accounts
29:58 bird supplies prepaid codes and cards at
30:01 local cvs locations that can be bought
30:03 with cash thereby eliminating the
30:06 requirement for a bank account in order
30:07 to ride these scooters
30:10 finally they also have bird also has
30:14 thing
30:15 a way to address language barriers and
30:17 of course language barriers can leave
30:19 people out of any new sort of technology
30:21 the bird app is provided in 36 languages
30:24 including the top languages spoken here
30:26 in issaquah
30:31 and finally public outreach
30:32 public outreach is an essential part of
30:34 introducing new modes of transportation
30:36 to any community
30:38 first planned cooperation staff plans to
30:42 coordinate with bird
30:43 on a press release and other public
30:45 relations initiatives throughout the
30:46 program to increase awareness and
30:48 education about the scooter system
30:50 staff intends to use tools such as
30:52 social media in order to encourage
30:54 robust engagement
30:55 bird will supply social media campaign
30:57 materials to be utilized by the city
31:00 and also finally surveys are also a very
31:03 important tool in gathering public
31:05 feedback
31:06 we would like to see a city community
31:07 survey implemented and additionally bird
31:10 would also implement a writer survey
31:12 which would occur during or after the
31:13 pilot period
31:15 thank you so much for your time and i
31:17 will give it back to benton
31:26 thank you john so
31:28 as mentioned before we presented in
31:31 front of the city council's uh uh
31:33 committee on june 14th and are bringing
31:36 forward this draft mou to uh night on
31:39 july the 5th and the program could start
31:41 as early as this month
31:44 and we would have a checkpoint at the
31:45 end of the year and continue program
31:47 evaluation
31:49 through into 2023.
31:54 so again the recommendation is to
31:55 authorize the mayor to enter into and
31:57 execute
31:59 a memorandum of understanding with bert
32:01 to begin an electric scooter share pilot
32:03 program
32:04 um and we want to thank you for your
32:07 time and we're here to answer any of
32:09 your questions
32:11 thank you
32:13 i'm going to turn this over to mobility
32:16 and infrastructure committee chair joe
32:18 to see if you want to make some summary
32:20 remarks from the committee's
32:21 recommendation on this item
32:23 madam mayor thank you
32:25 the committee did meet on june 14th to
32:30 review this issue
32:32 no one on the committee
32:34 was expressing
32:37 reservations or was against
32:40 the program i think it's fair to say
32:42 that we wanted to bring it back to the
32:44 council for additional conversation
32:46 and to decide whether it was the right
32:51 program for us and right size for us
32:53 along the way
32:55 and so
32:56 i hope that this will be a robust
32:58 conversation about what issaquah really
33:01 needs in this type of situation for the
33:03 last mile and whether or not this is the
33:05 right fit for
33:07 issaquah as well thank you
33:10 thank you councilmember
33:12 uh are there any questions
33:15 council member joe
33:17 thank you um
33:18 i don't know if staff could answer this
33:20 for me i have two different questions
33:22 one
33:24 the mou talks about
33:27 the data sharing that will be done
33:29 and i was wondering if
33:32 the city of issaquah gets that data
33:34 afterwards to use and i see some nods
33:38 which are saying yes and i think it's
33:40 important that we get that data
33:42 just for instance if we see that there
33:44 are a large number of
33:45 um participants that are coming from
33:47 sycamore for instance and getting on the
33:49 scooters and then taking it all the way
33:51 to the park and ride
33:52 it could give us some inkling of maybe
33:54 we need to extend a regional bus
33:57 or a local bus to that neighborhood for
33:59 instance the sand could be said for
34:01 perhaps glock mountain so i just want to
34:03 make sure that we're getting that data
34:05 we get it after it's it's uh the program
34:08 is over and we have a chance to analyze
34:10 it and take a look at it
34:13 yeah that's a great question um so
34:15 there's a mixture of different data that
34:17 the mou guarantees our access to
34:21 some of it is
34:22 in real time
34:24 data
34:25 and that would be presented both
34:28 through
34:29 birds
34:30 platforms which they would give us
34:32 access to as well as we're working on
34:34 some partnerships with some
34:37 regional partners
34:38 to have even more robust access to some
34:43 basically live feed data which is very
34:45 exciting
34:46 we'd also have a near real-time data for
34:49 some of the incidents which would be
34:51 reported to us as well as uh robust uh
34:55 reports um that summarize kind of the
34:58 the experience um
35:00 over the course of the entire initial
35:03 pilot program period
35:05 so um yeah there's a lot of data that i
35:07 think john is very excited about as he
35:10 vigorously nods his head and that i'm
35:12 certainly excited to see as well
35:14 great thank you very much just one more
35:16 question if i could um the
35:18 mou will be a certainly a pilot program
35:22 i was wondering if
35:24 issaquah gets saying the sales tax from
35:27 the sales or
35:29 bird if they have their headquarters in
35:31 another city
35:32 gets that sales tax and how it might
35:34 work i'm sorry if that question catches
35:36 you a little bit off guard we didn't
35:37 discuss it in the committee but it kind
35:39 of came up in my mind as i was thinking
35:41 about this agenda bill and if it can't
35:42 be answered tonight that's fine too
35:44 because it's not necessarily part of
35:46 this mou but just a thought or question
35:47 that i had
35:54 councilmember joe this is deputy city
35:57 administrator snyder i'm wondering if
35:59 perhaps
36:01 robert hamoud the city's chief financial
36:03 officer
36:05 can
36:06 can provide an answer if not we can
36:08 follow up after this after this meeting
36:14 yeah council member joe this is robert
36:15 hamilton uh yes
36:17 the answer is
36:19 when they go to register and even when
36:21 they pay say they go to walgreens with
36:25 the program that was
36:27 that was described earlier they would
36:29 enter a zip code and so as long as that
36:32 zip code is entered
36:33 um at the end of each month when they're
36:36 filing taxes bird would actually
36:40 pay you know a proportion
36:42 to directly to the zip code so we're
36:44 going to see it we would see it as a
36:45 service so just like other services
36:47 other rentals that are charged in the
36:49 city like say you go to rei you rent
36:51 skis or something like that we do get a
36:54 portion of that it's going to be the
36:55 same thing
36:57 great thank you very much i appreciate
36:59 thank you council member joe
37:00 councilmember martz
37:02 thank you madam mayor how does it work
37:04 with hills i noticed that
37:07 you've got stations up in the highlands
37:09 that are
37:10 100 plus meters above the valley floor
37:13 how would it hypothetically work with
37:16 people potentially transiting
37:19 both up and downhill non-trivial grades
37:22 thank you
37:24 yeah i think that's a question if if
37:26 michael is available um and to address
37:28 it about bird's particular model of
37:31 scooters and what it's rated for in
37:33 terms of grade
37:38 and michael i've just done muted you
37:41 perfect thank you good evening madam
37:44 mayor members of council city staff
37:45 thank you very much for having me i
37:46 apologize that for whatever reason
37:49 i'm unable to show up on video here this
37:51 evening
37:52 with respect to the scooters depending
37:55 on the model they are rated for between
37:57 a 15 to 20 percent grade
38:00 for context we operate in extremely
38:02 hilly cities like san francisco or
38:04 european mountain towns i have no
38:07 uh no concerns about their ability to
38:10 traverse the 100 meters of elevation
38:12 described
38:14 going downhill there is a mechanical
38:16 break available on all of our scooters
38:18 so a rider is able to control the speed
38:21 of descent similar to what you'd expect
38:24 on a privately owned bicycle
38:27 great thank you
38:29 pleasure thank you councilmember mertz
38:31 council president did you also have a
38:32 question
38:34 thank you
38:35 um i notice
38:36 as councilmember bart's dead that part
38:38 of the highlands is included but not the
38:41 remainder of the highlands and not telus
38:44 so can you talk about how the
38:48 initial
38:49 area was decided and whether or not this
38:53 is just for a pilot or and we would
38:56 consider expanding
38:58 and what the requirements would be for
39:00 that
39:02 yes absolutely oh i was gonna say
39:05 michael because uh the city would permit
39:07 it through out the city um with some
39:09 rare exceptions but um we wouldn't
39:12 restrict it from any neighborhoods in
39:14 particular but michael can talk a little
39:17 bit about kind of the economic case for
39:20 what zone of operations they're
39:21 proposing initially
39:26 appreciate it apologize for the
39:27 interruption there
39:29 just to provide some additional clarity
39:30 it takes us about 15 to 20 minutes to
39:32 update our geofencing parameters so we
39:34 can certainly expand the operational
39:36 zone quite rapidly as demands uh dictate
39:40 for the initial pilot zone that was
39:42 suggested because we will have a lower
39:44 concentration number of units in order
39:47 for people to see this as a reliable
39:48 public transportation option they need
39:50 to be able to find a scooter when they
39:53 need access to one for that reason we
39:55 simply reduced the uh the initial
39:57 operating zone to where we anticipated
39:59 the bulk of the utilization to occur
40:02 uh that doesn't mean that we can't
40:03 expand within a week two weeks or a
40:06 month even during the pilot period as
40:09 i mentioned earlier demand or ridership
40:12 dictates
40:15 council president yeah can i follow up
40:17 um toward that idea i remember there was
40:20 a question
40:21 during the committee hearing about
40:24 there's a portion of the trail that runs
40:27 from old town up to the highlands and i
40:30 just wanted to make sure that
40:32 if we consider this
40:34 whether that adjustment could be made so
40:36 that there wouldn't be any slow down
40:39 area on that one
40:41 area
40:44 yes absolutely we could immediately
40:46 implement the operating zone to include
40:48 that
40:50 thank you that's my question thank you
40:52 councilman ray
40:54 uh thank you mayor paulie just a couple
40:56 of questions one is when looking at the
40:58 mou it has a 12
41:00 22 or end of december or this year
41:04 end of the agreement but it also
41:06 includes a provision for one year
41:08 extension
41:09 what's the thinking there for the
41:11 one-year extension
41:16 if if i may take that question
41:18 councilman ray this is andrea snyder
41:20 again
41:20 uh the thinking is that we would
41:22 evaluate the program after that pilot
41:24 period
41:26 and we would still want to come back to
41:27 city council with
41:29 the data that we've collected an
41:31 understanding of the demand
41:33 or of any of the concerns that have been
41:34 raised during the pilot period so before
41:37 would consider renewing the mou for
41:40 another year we would come back to
41:41 council again
41:43 seeking seeking your approval
41:46 okay
41:47 great i i just would be nice then if the
41:49 mou were to say something about uh
41:50 council approval instead of
41:52 administration approval because that
41:54 kind of leaves it a little bit squishy
41:55 to me um so i know we talked i watched
41:58 the committee um
42:01 meeting and it was great and and the
42:03 community did a great job um but you
42:05 talked about a little bit uh
42:06 tangentially um about uh success
42:08 criteria what do you what would
42:11 what would constitute success in your
42:13 mind and how would you evaluate those
42:19 thanks thanks for the question
42:20 councilmember um so we are we're looking
42:24 uh to bird to determine if the demand is
42:26 there
42:27 the city isn't operating the program and
42:29 does not want the scooter to does not
42:30 want to get into the scooter business
42:32 per se
42:33 therefore it has to be profitable to the
42:35 service provider which is bird
42:37 the things that the city would monitor
42:39 to determine success would be whether or
42:40 not the scooters are more of a nuisance
42:42 than a benefit
42:43 we would look at reports of scooters in
42:45 inappropriate places accidents
42:47 responsiveness from bird and any other
42:49 safety concerns
42:53 so one of the the things that kept
42:55 bubbling to the surface both in the
42:57 committee meeting and in
43:00 some of the emails was the last mile
43:02 how would we measure last mile success
43:04 because that's i mean that's a big deal
43:05 i mean this is going to be our last part
43:07 of our last mile solution i'm kind of
43:09 curious how we'd evaluate whether or not
43:10 it was being successful
43:12 yeah absolutely so uh going back to that
43:15 to those data sets that we're going to
43:17 get a part of the mou includes gtfs data
43:20 which is the general transit feed
43:21 specification data and that's kind of
43:23 live stuff so when you go into the app
43:25 you'll be able to see where all the you
43:27 know the scooters are so we'll kind of
43:28 have that live data and then we will
43:30 also have and i think more importantly
43:32 is the mds
43:33 data which is the mobility data mobility
43:36 data specification so this is that
43:37 historical data and all of those uh all
43:40 that data
43:42 covers
43:43 when a scooter starts a trip ends a trip
43:46 or is reserved
43:48 and then also includes the duration
43:49 distance start and end times route cost
43:52 so then we would be able to piece that
43:53 data together and see where the demand
43:56 is and whether whether or not it is uh
43:59 answering that first last mile issue
44:01 very cool um and then kind of
44:03 piggybacking a little bit on the council
44:05 presidents
44:07 i noticed that the lion's share of our
44:08 residential neighborhoods are outside
44:10 the service area i mean we really
44:12 you know we don't have montrose we don't
44:14 have sycamore we don't have squawk we
44:17 don't really have the highlands and we
44:18 don't really have talus so
44:20 i mean it's great i love old town and
44:22 it's it's super cool for them but what's
44:24 the thinking are we gonna have i guess
44:25 my thing is
44:26 through this pilot are we gonna have
44:27 enough data to be able to even evaluate
44:29 whether or not we are successful in
44:31 meeting that objective
44:33 yeah i think i think that's a great
44:34 question and i believe that um it does
44:37 come back to that business side of of is
44:40 it feasible for bird to to operate
44:43 um and i think that uh
44:47 distracted by sirens um
44:50 uh as we as we are able to see
44:54 uh how people are are using the scooters
44:57 throughout the city uh and then you know
45:00 working with bird two can we expand it
45:02 here for you know and or expand it here
45:04 you know having those conversations
45:06 throughout the pilot period which is the
45:08 purpose of a pilot is to kind of test
45:10 out uh what works and what doesn't
45:13 great thank you very much thank you
45:17 deputy council president
45:19 thank you uh we talked a little at
45:20 length about this in um committee but
45:22 just for um
45:24 residents who might be watching can you
45:26 speak to kind of all the different ways
45:27 that residents can report
45:29 uh misplaced scooters there's by the app
45:32 but there are also a bunch of other ways
45:33 too right
45:36 yes so is that that might be a michael
45:41 or michael are you there to answer that
45:43 a little bit more robustly
45:45 absolutely would be happy to we have a
45:48 24 7 toll-free number that is available
45:50 to all residents
45:52 there is a sticker on every single
45:54 scooter which includes that information
45:56 so that it's easily accessible we also
45:58 have an email address that's regularly
46:00 monitored by our customer service team
46:02 and multiple social media accounts that
46:04 users can and residents can use to
46:06 report any issues they may have with a
46:08 particular unit
46:09 finally we are the only company to offer
46:12 a feature that we call community mode if
46:14 you would like to download our mobile
46:15 application onto your phone which is
46:17 completely free you're able to scan
46:19 photograph and send geocoded
46:23 tickets directly to our local fleet
46:26 managers which can expedite the process
46:28 of ensuring that it is corrected however
46:30 more importantly than that we do want to
46:32 ensure that we have our regular fleet
46:34 managers who are locally based partners
46:36 who are helping with the day-to-day
46:38 operations checking on every single
46:40 scooter proactively multiple times per
46:43 day
46:47 thank you any more questions
46:50 if not is somebody prepared to make a
46:52 motion
46:56 all right i'd like to make a motion
47:01 and
47:05 i'd move to authorize the mayor to enter
47:07 into and execute a memorandum of a
47:10 memorandum of understanding with bird to
47:13 begin an electric scooter share pilot
47:15 program
47:17 a deputy council president second
47:20 it's been moved in second to
47:22 discussion
47:24 council president followed by uh
47:27 councilmember joe and then deputy
47:29 council president
47:30 thank you
47:33 i'm really skeptical
47:36 really super skeptical that this is the
47:39 right choice for issaquah i see a lot of
47:44 potential downsides here for
47:46 our residents and for our businesses
47:49 i think
47:51 with the proposed pilot
47:54 location it is really difficult to
47:57 understand the effectiveness for last
47:59 mile use for
48:02 many of our population centers such as
48:04 esco highlands and telus which are
48:06 very close to transit centers and
48:08 obviously have this last mile problem
48:11 with hills
48:14 and i think with a limited deployment
48:17 area we're also not able to see
48:21 what would be more likely one-way trips
48:24 from a transit center to a home
48:27 where a
48:30 a scooter would be left in a lower
48:33 population lower usage area
48:36 and so i think there's a lot of things
48:38 in that
48:40 that
48:42 i end up seeing and going how are we
48:45 really going to evaluate this
48:48 that being said
48:51 recognize that i have some bias there in
48:54 that
48:56 my trips are usually with kids and so
48:59 not likely to be on a scooter situation
49:02 given that they are under 18.
49:07 and so i can recognize that it might be
49:10 more useful to a certain subset of the
49:13 population
49:14 um and i also appreciate the
49:18 pilot won't cost the city anything to
49:21 learn about the actual potential users
49:23 so i will put myself staunchly in the
49:25 i'm skeptical and i am not entirely
49:28 certain how i am going to vote tonight
49:30 camp and interested to
49:33 learn from other people but just putting
49:36 it out there thanks deputy council
49:38 president
49:42 yeah sure um
49:45 thank you um i'm coming at this from a
49:47 much different point of view then so
49:50 the way i'm seeing um this uh first and
49:53 foremost i guess let's take a step back
49:54 it's certainly aligned with
49:56 the mobility goals of our strategic plan
50:00 and with the vision set and the mobility
50:03 master plan
50:04 it is
50:05 i think this is to kind of a part that
50:08 most of us will have to grapple with it
50:09 is a creative solution
50:11 for
50:12 the last mile problem for some people
50:14 right now as as it's designed as a pilot
50:17 program
50:18 but it's also a fun solution for
50:21 replacing single
50:22 single occupancy vehicle trips in the
50:25 area right so if you're just going to
50:27 meet someone for a coffee and you happen
50:28 to live in the service area and you want
50:30 to get there it's a great way to replace
50:32 that sov trip as opposed to getting into
50:34 your car it's def it's definitely not
50:35 for the person
50:36 who's like i think we had some community
50:38 members worried that you know this
50:40 really isn't for people who are going to
50:42 the grocery store you're right it's not
50:43 really for those people and it's not for
50:45 people that have to you know carry
50:46 around um uh passengers and stuff like
50:49 that so um so there's that um i've you
50:52 know we've also heard the community
50:53 concerned with accessibility
50:55 about the potential for creating safety
50:57 hazards for vehicles and bikes and
50:59 pedestrians
51:00 about the potential for ending up in
51:02 ditches or rivers and streams
51:04 along sidewalks or other places that
51:06 they shouldn't be um
51:09 like i guess to sum up then you know
51:11 like
51:13 i mentioned in committee i would i would
51:15 definitely have concerns with approving
51:16 a permanent program tonight yes
51:19 but i think a pilot program will allow
51:20 us to collect useful information about
51:23 our mobility goals about outcomes for
51:25 our residents who participate about
51:27 outcomes for our residents who don't
51:29 participate too right
51:31 about whether bird and their
51:32 subcontractors can successfully manage
51:34 their fleet and respond to misplaced
51:36 scooters
51:37 in a timely fashion
51:40 implement no park no riot slow zones
51:42 work with the community on safe rider
51:44 and parking education
51:47 i guess how i'm seeing it is we're able
51:50 to do all that work
51:51 potentially solve the last mile problem
51:53 for some people potentially have a
51:55 solution for reducing so
51:57 sov trips for some people
51:59 ensure community
52:01 concerns are addressed before moving
52:03 forward or just decide that it's not
52:05 worth moving forward at all after the
52:06 pilot program is over
52:08 all while
52:11 costing the city nothing which was which
52:12 was already mentioned um except for of
52:14 course the staff time that that might go
52:16 into this um so i think it's an
52:18 incredible opportunity to take a chance
52:20 to learn more about how emerging forms
52:22 of transportation can support our
52:24 residents can support our mobility goals
52:27 i'm feeling much less skeptical um i i
52:29 just
52:30 think that the council we just need to
52:32 get it in our heads that it's going to
52:34 be a solution for some people in some
52:35 ways but not for everyone and always and
52:38 if we're able to
52:40 you know chop bit by bit on our mobility
52:42 goals
52:43 we might actually get there um you know
52:45 in a way that's in alignment with how
52:47 fast we want to get there and how how
52:49 bold we want to be to you so that's how
52:50 i'm thinking i'm going to vote yes on it
52:52 uh to the community members that have
52:54 written in that i've talked to
52:55 personally that have concerns with this
52:57 i hear you um we i definitely hear you i
53:00 think if everything works as supposed to
53:03 i think all your concerns are addressed
53:05 and taken care of so we're going to be
53:07 monitoring that very uh closely and um
53:10 i'm looking forward to seeing all the
53:11 data that we'll get
53:13 at the end of the pilot program and
53:14 thanks very much to staff for all your
53:15 work on this
53:17 thank you deputy council president um
53:18 next on my list i have council member
53:20 joe and i apologize i went out of order
53:22 typically the motion maker should have
53:24 spoken first so i apologize that i was
53:27 just kind of counting microphones so
53:29 council member joe you're up i wasn't
53:30 quick on the draw sorry about that
53:33 um i'm going to vote in favor of this
53:36 first off i had some concerns about
53:39 tax revenue and which were answered
53:41 tonight
53:42 by our finance director i also had some
53:44 concerns about
53:45 how the data might be used and whether
53:47 we would be possessors of that data
53:49 after it was done and i appreciate that
53:51 we'll have an opportunity to take a look
53:53 where the rides are coming from and
53:54 where they're going
53:57 i would reiterate
53:59 deputy council president hall's comments
54:01 about this is not a solution for
54:02 everybody but it's a solution for a
54:04 segment of the population that
54:07 i don't represent necessarily because
54:09 i'm over 50.
54:11 but
54:11 i would have liked to use scooters uh
54:14 for the fourth of july event i was in
54:17 one location uh doing some volunteer
54:19 work and i would would have liked to
54:20 have gone to the other location where my
54:22 other volunteers were to
54:25 make sure they were okay setting up the
54:27 start of the parade with all the kids
54:28 there um you know it's
54:30 six blocks
54:32 could have done it if i wanted to
54:34 it would have been faster if i had a
54:35 scooter and i could have zipped around
54:37 and helped out in that way
54:40 so there are uses that the scooters
54:42 could uh serve for those
54:45 uh trips as deputy council president
54:48 hall points out within the city where
54:51 instead of taking the
54:52 the car from the coffee shop here and
54:55 heading down towards safeway
54:58 we don't have to get back into our car
54:59 we can take the scooter and enjoy the
55:01 outdoors a little bit so
55:03 a lot of things to think about
55:05 i would only just
55:07 caveat my
55:08 comments with if we do decide to go
55:10 forward with a more robust agreement
55:12 after this and everything everything
55:14 kind of turns out
55:15 okay i would ask that we consider
55:20 charging
55:21 bird a fee to come to our city and we'll
55:25 have a better sense of how much it's
55:26 costing us for our staff
55:28 for you know our monitor our police or
55:30 what have you after the pilot program is
55:32 over but we should take account of those
55:34 costs and if it is a you know a two-year
55:36 contract or whatever we kind of figure
55:39 out what those costs were and make it an
55:40 appropriate number to put into the
55:42 contract in the future as part of the
55:43 negotiation thank you thank you
55:45 councilmember joe next up i have council
55:47 member hunt followed by councilmember
55:49 mertz
55:53 thank you um one of the questions that i
55:56 had about this was why it's different or
56:00 how it's different than things like uber
56:02 and lyft where
56:03 ubers and lyfts can drive
56:05 around and they do ride sharing in the
56:08 city and they
56:09 don't require any particular as far as i
56:11 know
56:13 agreement with the city and so this was
56:16 answered by benson
56:18 and the city staff who by the way have
56:19 done a great job answering
56:22 my many questions on this
56:24 and
56:25 it has to do with the use of the
56:26 right-of-way and that
56:28 unlike uber and lyft the scooter
56:30 programs use the right-of-way for
56:32 parking for example so there is a higher
56:34 bar in my opinion with this than
56:37 something like uber and lyft where
56:39 they are going to come to our city and
56:41 they're going to be a ride share option
56:42 for some folks and um
56:45 and this is different because we
56:47 actually have to
56:49 go enter into this agreement because
56:51 they use the right way so
56:53 first for me that
56:55 does set a higher bar and then looking
56:57 at the
56:59 the pros and cons of this program
57:00 ultimately i
57:02 have a lot of concerns and they
57:04 outweighed
57:06 in the end
57:08 what i see is some of the benefits of
57:10 going forward with the pilot program at
57:11 this time
57:13 i wanted to recognize the work of the
57:15 staff in the infrastructure committee i
57:16 watched the infrastructure committee
57:18 meeting and i thought the conversation
57:19 was really
57:21 robust and in depth and i learned a lot
57:23 from the conversation i then followed up
57:25 with bennett and he answered a lot of my
57:27 questions and
57:30 and after all that i've come to this
57:31 conclusion but it really isn't a
57:33 uh really isn't a reflection on the
57:35 quality of the work that was done
57:37 um so my reasons for for not supporting
57:40 this first of all we have received what
57:42 i would
57:44 what i would characterize as
57:45 pretty overwhelmingly negative community
57:48 feedback um it's characterized as 60 40
57:51 i believe in our in our um pamphlet but
57:55 when i look at the
57:57 the sort of quality of the concerns that
58:00 are expressed especially you know on
58:02 social media there's a lot of really
58:03 strong concerns and then there's some
58:05 people who think maybe this would be an
58:07 okay thing
58:08 um so i'm i'm concerned taking this uh
58:11 which will be a very visible pilot i'm
58:13 concerned with that sort of amount of
58:19 amount of concern that's existing in the
58:21 community towards the program that that
58:23 it will not be well received
58:25 i basically don't feel like our
58:27 community is ready for it
58:29 um and then looking at the equity
58:32 framework i was thinking about it from
58:34 that lens i'm very concerned about the
58:36 ada issue
58:39 am concerned that these will block
58:41 access to sidewalks if you leave them
58:44 strewn across the sidewalk and a person
58:46 with a wheelchair or other
58:48 device
58:49 has to wait for somebody else to move
58:51 them i've seen that happen in seattle
58:54 and um
58:55 i i think that's one of these
58:57 potentially unintended consequences i
59:00 think it's great that bird is committed
59:02 to this three-hour pickup but it's only
59:03 certain hours and so if if somebody
59:06 calls it
59:07 7 30 p.m um it's gonna have to wait
59:10 until the next day and that also assumes
59:12 that somebody does take the initiative
59:14 to go ahead and call if it's in a place
59:16 it shouldn't be
59:17 so i think i think that's an unintended
59:19 consequence and
59:20 very concerned about that one and then
59:22 the the big one for me is that
59:26 i was looking at the master mobility
59:28 plan and it talks about anticipating
59:30 transformational change and that's where
59:32 scooters come in
59:34 but we have a huge list of projects that
59:37 are in the master mobility plan this is
59:40 not one of those projects
59:41 and i really feel we need to have the
59:44 infrastructure in place we need to have
59:46 safe bike lanes we need to have safe
59:49 sidewalk connections we have these tier
59:51 one
59:52 connections that we know we have to make
59:54 and all of that's laid out in the master
59:55 mobility plan and then it says in one of
59:57 the appendices
59:59 anticipate transformational change and
1:00:01 to me anticipating transformational
1:00:03 change like scooters is really about
1:00:05 having that infrastructure in place not
1:00:07 about enabling them to just get on the
1:00:09 roads as they are so i'm concerned we
1:00:11 don't have the infrastructure in place
1:00:13 concerned we don't have the sort of
1:00:15 community
1:00:16 readiness for this at this point
1:00:20 and um
1:00:21 and then lastly it has been said that
1:00:24 there's no cost but i i do think that
1:00:25 this sort of
1:00:26 um there's there's a cost and staff time
1:00:29 there's also a cost in terms of i don't
1:00:32 think we can do unlimited um sort of
1:00:34 pilots like this i think
1:00:36 we should focus our energy and
1:00:39 really
1:00:41 um focus on the things that we think
1:00:43 will have a big
1:00:44 a big impact and i think we have a great
1:00:45 list of the master mobility plan
1:00:47 um so those are the main reasons and
1:00:49 that all said uh it is a pilot i i too
1:00:52 will very much appreciate getting the
1:00:55 data and if we go forward with this i
1:00:59 endeavor to look at it with fresh eyes
1:01:00 and consider the data and
1:01:02 evaluate it at that time and i see the
1:01:05 value in getting that data as well so
1:01:07 those are my
1:01:09 those are my comments those are my
1:01:10 reasons for not supporting this at this
1:01:11 time and again thank you for the staff
1:01:14 and for the committee who did a really
1:01:16 thorough
1:01:17 job investigating this
1:01:20 councilmember martz
1:01:22 thank you madam mayor uh i'm gonna
1:01:24 support it tonight uh i see
1:01:27 you know in
1:01:29 a few years ago i started to see the
1:01:31 rise of scooters um in china when you
1:01:34 would see
1:01:35 uh scooters and
1:01:38 small motorcycles
1:01:39 electric vehicles taking a larger and
1:01:42 larger share of uh the transfer the
1:01:44 transportation flow and recently in new
1:01:46 york city i've seen a lot of use of
1:01:48 scooters
1:01:49 and it's a dense environment and you
1:01:52 know there's sidewalks but they're
1:01:53 crowded sidewalks and you know it just
1:01:55 somehow all works so i'm willing to give
1:01:59 a chance i think they have aggressive
1:02:02 requirements and expectations around it
1:02:05 but you know it's uh on paper not a big
1:02:08 cost to the city i i share all the
1:02:11 comments above about potential city
1:02:13 costs i think the
1:02:15 applicant paying the city 500 to help
1:02:18 offset the city's cost of administering
1:02:19 this program well i mean city staff at
1:02:22 this meeting tonight exceeds 500
1:02:24 so uh but let's get i mean i think we
1:02:27 should give it a try uh i think that
1:02:29 it's commendable um that the city is
1:02:33 looking for
1:02:35 interesting ways to to break the logjam
1:02:37 that that we're under and i think it's a
1:02:39 small experiment and we'll get data and
1:02:42 we'll find out and if it doesn't work
1:02:44 then we won't keep going on it but if it
1:02:45 does work
1:02:46 it could be a real benefit in our city
1:02:48 and if it does work you know i want to
1:02:50 see it on squawk mountain
1:02:51 i want to see it come up to my house so
1:02:53 that's my those are my thoughts thank
1:02:56 councilmember d michelle
1:03:00 thank you mayor paulie um first of all i
1:03:02 want to echo the staff work was
1:03:04 excellent and
1:03:06 many many questions have been answered
1:03:08 and answered very thoroughly so i really
1:03:10 do appreciate that
1:03:12 i am a member of the mobility and
1:03:14 infrastructure committee and
1:03:16 as i expressed
1:03:18 when we had that meeting my main concern
1:03:20 has been the public acceptance
1:03:24 we've received numerous comments opposed
1:03:27 to the pilot
1:03:30 and i've also had a lot of personal
1:03:32 conversations with people and the bulk
1:03:35 of those were also negative toward it
1:03:38 most of those who have commented against
1:03:41 it have said that they had bad
1:03:43 experiences in other cities or they
1:03:45 observed
1:03:47 you know bad things in other cities um
1:03:50 uh scooters left around and and all
1:03:53 kinds of things so
1:03:55 so um i was in conversation with a
1:03:58 colleague council member colleague in
1:04:00 redmond and talked to her about their
1:04:02 experience and she directed me to
1:04:04 the report that they released reviewing
1:04:08 that i know some of you just saw that
1:04:10 this morning it's chock full of really
1:04:12 good information but one thing that left
1:04:15 out at me and i don't mean to pick
1:04:16 things out of a big report but
1:04:19 they started they started their uh pilot
1:04:24 indications that they had 60 approval
1:04:27 going into it well we know from the
1:04:29 report that we received tonight that
1:04:32 about 65 of the people on social media
1:04:36 are opposed to it um those are two
1:04:38 different things let's acknowledge
1:04:40 one survey
1:04:41 covered a lot more people 165 people i
1:04:44 think responded to that survey and on
1:04:46 our social media feed we've gotten input
1:04:49 from 40
1:04:50 but we are not hearing you know public
1:04:53 acceptance of this program
1:04:55 so my fear is that
1:04:59 it will fail before it even gets started
1:05:02 just because we haven't prepared our
1:05:04 community
1:05:06 and um the other discussion again with a
1:05:10 council member from redmond
1:05:12 uh again they had a very positive if you
1:05:14 read the report they have a very
1:05:16 positive 65 support the program
1:05:19 but she did say that the one complete
1:05:22 not the one but the complaint they've
1:05:24 heard the most often is
1:05:26 scooters blocking
1:05:28 sidewalks for people with wheelchairs
1:05:30 and walkers and mobility issues and to
1:05:33 that should be included in the equity
1:05:35 issues that we're considering so
1:05:38 so i would like i i'm going to vote
1:05:40 against it it's
1:05:42 i want to make sure everybody's clear
1:05:43 it's not a forever no
1:05:45 what i'd like to see is for us to do a
1:05:48 better job of explaining this project to
1:05:50 the community that might mean that we
1:05:52 have to delay it for a while but
1:05:55 let's bring people on board and explain
1:05:57 to them how this is going to work and
1:05:59 what this is going to
1:06:01 accomplish
1:06:03 for our mobility plans
1:06:07 i'd like to see the equity board
1:06:09 weigh in on the proposals around
1:06:12 the um you know the
1:06:14 support the financial supports that are
1:06:17 in there but also on this whole issue of
1:06:20 how do we make sure that we're not
1:06:22 blocking uh people with disabilities
1:06:26 using our sidewalks because of scooters
1:06:29 i think it's a it's a big issue so um
1:06:33 and i want to also say personally i
1:06:35 support it
1:06:36 if it were up to me and we weren't
1:06:38 paying any attention to public input i
1:06:40 would vote yes tonight but
1:06:43 i just it's it's been as council member
1:06:46 hunt said it's overwhelmingly negative
1:06:48 and i think we have to do a better job
1:06:51 of explaining this to our community and
1:06:52 getting them ready
1:06:54 so that when it does appear
1:06:56 there is at least
1:06:59 people are at least feeling that they've
1:07:00 got an open mind and they're willing to
1:07:02 see how it works and i don't think i
1:07:04 don't hear that right now so
1:07:06 um i'm feeling bad about this but i'm
1:07:08 going to vote no tonight on this thanks
1:07:10 councilmember ray
1:07:12 thank you mayor paulie i i very
1:07:14 intentionally wanted to go last because
1:07:16 it's very similar to council president
1:07:19 er walsh old habits um
1:07:22 i i was not sure how how i felt about
1:07:25 this i could see both sides of this
1:07:27 equation and i wanted to listen to my
1:07:29 colleagues and hear hear their points of
1:07:31 view so um you know for me the most
1:07:33 compelling reason to do this is really a
1:07:35 creative and innovative solution to the
1:07:37 last mile problem and
1:07:40 that sounds very compelling to me um the
1:07:43 fact that it's a pilot and it's not
1:07:44 forever and we'll have data and if we
1:07:46 hate it we can you know not continue it
1:07:48 if we love it we can move forward that's
1:07:50 great
1:07:51 i also um deputy council president um
1:07:54 hall's point that is not the solution
1:07:56 for everyone for everything it was also
1:07:59 um so that's kind of on my upside on my
1:08:01 downside um the lack of public support
1:08:04 is um
1:08:06 glaring and um
1:08:08 and if we do it um
1:08:10 you know my my life experience says
1:08:13 when you don't have support for
1:08:14 something and you go ahead and do it
1:08:16 people will find every possible reason
1:08:18 it picks you to death so you don't get
1:08:20 any grace so so i wanted to factor that
1:08:23 in but ultimately for me
1:08:27 the biggest issue here is around whether
1:08:29 or not this can address our last mile
1:08:31 problem and i'm not convinced that
1:08:35 the pilot is going to give us the data
1:08:36 to do that because we really don't have
1:08:39 a good cross-section
1:08:41 of our community
1:08:43 identified in our pilots so
1:08:45 with the current
1:08:46 pilot area i just don't think we'll get
1:08:48 the data to say yeah it's going to be
1:08:50 great on squawk mountain and then the
1:08:51 last mile is going to be a you know a
1:08:53 big benefit there
1:08:55 so so that that concerns me a lot and
1:08:58 then ultimately i think about it a full
1:09:00 deployment and i i spent
1:09:02 a lot of a lot of time driving from my
1:09:04 house that last mile to the park and
1:09:06 and i thought well if there was a
1:09:08 scooter at the park and ride i could
1:09:09 take the scooter home but then i'd get
1:09:11 home and then what would i do with it
1:09:14 and then the next morning i was like i
1:09:16 want to take the scooter to the park and
1:09:17 ride it's like oh they came and
1:09:19 collected the scooter that i parked in
1:09:20 front of my house so um i i
1:09:24 unless we go with really dense nest
1:09:26 deployment i don't see how how it's
1:09:28 going to work for last mile so um i i
1:09:31 really appreciate the innovative
1:09:33 creative and you know solution to that
1:09:34 last mile problem but i i don't know
1:09:37 this would get us where we want to go
1:09:40 any final comments or round two comments
1:09:42 from anybody council president
1:09:45 thank you um
1:09:47 i've listened to everything and i think
1:09:49 i i've come to the conclusion that i
1:09:52 will be voting against this and i think
1:09:55 primary
1:09:56 reason or the thing that really stuck
1:09:58 out from comments i heard is i just
1:10:01 don't think we have the bicycle um
1:10:03 lanes and
1:10:05 the other ways to make this a safe
1:10:07 implementation
1:10:09 um and i think if we look at our ability
1:10:15 have safe ridership
1:10:18 we need to
1:10:19 make that a priority before
1:10:23 can be an effective program
1:10:26 even as a pilot from my standpoint so
1:10:29 thank you
1:10:30 any other second round comments
1:10:34 okay i will re-read the motion
1:10:40 so motion is to authorize the mayor to
1:10:42 enter into and execute a memorandum of
1:10:44 understanding with bird to begin an
1:10:46 electric scooter share pilot program
1:10:50 all those in favor signify by saying aye
1:10:52 raise your hands too that would help me
1:10:55 i those opposed
1:10:59 the motion fails on a vote of three eyes
1:11:02 and four nays
1:11:04 so i want to also thank staff as well um
1:11:08 michael john and benton for all the work
1:11:10 that you did on this and i think what
1:11:12 you're hearing is that it may be just
1:11:15 not yet so anyway thank you very much
1:11:17 for all that you did
1:11:19 we'll uh take a short 10 minute recess
1:11:21 it's 8 11. we'll come back nine minute
1:11:24 recess we'll come back at 8 20.
1:11:31 [Music]
1:19:56 welcome back from our break
1:19:59 that's awful
1:20:06 let's see
1:20:08 we're just going to test our microphones
1:20:10 here and see if we have an echo
1:20:12 sounds better now okay
1:20:15 don't even know if i could keep my
1:20:16 thoughts straight if i heard the echo uh
1:20:18 the next item under regular business is
1:20:20 ab-8422
1:20:23 it is the community investment strategy
1:20:25 and the um this item was last before
1:20:28 council at the june 27 committee of the
1:20:30 whole meeting and we are looking for
1:20:32 some direction this evening
1:20:34 before deputy city administrator snyder
1:20:37 comes up i would like to share a few
1:20:39 opening comments as i did last time at
1:20:41 your committee of the whole
1:20:46 so good evening council staff and
1:20:47 members of the public i would like to
1:20:49 take a few minutes tonight to expand on
1:20:51 my earlier comments related to the work
1:20:53 of the capital financing task force and
1:20:56 the city council's work on a capital
1:20:58 financing strategy i realized after your
1:21:01 initial conversation last monday that i
1:21:03 could have probably set the table a
1:21:04 little bit better for you to focus the
1:21:06 conversation on one element of the task
1:21:09 force work which you will be discussing
1:21:11 tonight and how that one component
1:21:13 relates to the overall strategy that the
1:21:15 task force recommended
1:21:18 regardless of whether the american
1:21:19 rescue plan act funding was available to
1:21:21 cities or not i had planned to
1:21:23 commission this task force to tackle
1:21:25 some of the frustrations we have felt
1:21:27 over the last decade or so on the pace
1:21:29 of our capital investments in this
1:21:31 community
1:21:32 and the number of unfunded projects that
1:21:34 seem to cycle up and down the list
1:21:37 given that we have so many
1:21:39 infrastructure needs across the city how
1:21:42 do we prioritize amongst transportation
1:21:44 parks and trails and city facilities
1:21:48 i was seeking the task force thoughtful
1:21:50 input on these challenges and i agree
1:21:52 with their main recommendations
1:21:54 utilization of a transportation benefit
1:21:56 district to fund a higher level of
1:21:58 transportation capital improvements
1:22:00 consideration of a parks district to
1:22:02 provide a connection between the park's
1:22:04 strategic plan and how the projects and
1:22:06 programs could be adequately funded
1:22:08 and review of the ending fund balance
1:22:10 policy and recommendations on whether or
1:22:13 not additional amounts should be
1:22:14 targeted toward advancing capital
1:22:16 projects
1:22:18 each of these large questions were well
1:22:20 contemplated by the task force and could
1:22:22 dramatically improve the city's ability
1:22:24 to deliver projects to the community
1:22:27 adoption of any or all of these actions
1:22:29 can provide funding resources year over
1:22:32 year to our city's capital program
1:22:35 i'm excited to present these
1:22:36 recommendations to council for your
1:22:37 consideration they are all big changes
1:22:40 and can be highly impactful going
1:22:42 forward to increase our capacity to
1:22:44 deliver projects for years and
1:22:46 potentially decades out
1:22:48 i also added the arpa allocation or
1:22:51 american rescue plan act allocation to
1:22:54 the city of issaquah as an additional
1:22:56 discussion item for the task force
1:22:58 while this is one-time money and must be
1:23:01 spent on a specific list of items within
1:23:03 a two-year time frame
1:23:05 it is wonderfully suited to make an
1:23:07 impactful kickoff to the city's capital
1:23:09 financial financing strategy
1:23:11 i'm excited that our community
1:23:13 investment strategy can leverage the
1:23:15 arpa funds to get started investing in
1:23:17 our community right away
1:23:19 now i'll turn it over to dca snyder for
1:23:21 tonight's presentation andrea
1:23:28 thank you madam
1:23:29 thank you madam mayor
1:23:31 one second while i share a presentation
1:23:47 all right good evening uh council and
1:23:50 anyone who's watching from home
1:23:52 i'm the deputy city administrator andrea
1:23:54 snyder and i had the pleasure of working
1:23:56 with the capital finance community task
1:23:58 force uh leading up to this conversation
1:24:01 also with me tonight are jeff watling
1:24:03 our parks and community services
1:24:05 director and robert hamoud our chief
1:24:07 financial officer who you saw a little
1:24:09 bit of earlier this evening
1:24:12 so tonight we plan to follow up on some
1:24:15 of the council comments questions and
1:24:17 feedback that you asked last week at the
1:24:18 committee of the whole
1:24:20 we also as part of that wanted to
1:24:22 provide more information about the
1:24:24 anchor parks investment that's proposed
1:24:26 within the community investment strategy
1:24:29 we wanted to provide some more
1:24:31 information about city
1:24:32 debt and debt financing that was also a
1:24:35 question that was raised last time
1:24:37 and discuss the changes to the proposal
1:24:41 based on the council feedback that we
1:24:42 heard last week and finally we do have
1:24:45 some motions there are three motions for
1:24:48 council's
1:24:49 consideration that the administration is
1:24:51 proposing for this evening
1:24:53 so that would help finalize the action
1:24:55 and help us move on to the next step
1:24:57 towards implementation
1:25:01 but first before we get there i wanted
1:25:03 to take a step back and similar to
1:25:05 what the mayor
1:25:07 said in her opening remarks is
1:25:09 provide a little bit more context one of
1:25:11 the things that we heard last week was
1:25:14 questions about how the task force
1:25:16 recommendations were used to develop the
1:25:19 community investment strategy and
1:25:21 particularly there was questions raised
1:25:23 about how the administration came to
1:25:26 propose such a high and immediate
1:25:28 investment in parks if transportation
1:25:30 was the number one priority so how did
1:25:32 those things come about
1:25:35 first
1:25:36 i would say that the task force really
1:25:38 focused on the long-term funding
1:25:39 strategy for
1:25:41 our capital
1:25:43 projects and so they were looking over
1:25:46 the long term and
1:25:49 recommended that if the city needed to
1:25:51 go to the voters for additional funding
1:25:53 for this infrastructure that
1:25:54 transportation would come first before
1:25:57 parks or other needs
1:25:59 parks would come second and so that's
1:26:00 reflected in the timeline that you see
1:26:02 here with transportation
1:26:05 ballot measure being considered no
1:26:07 sooner than
1:26:09 2024 and a parks district
1:26:14 potential ballot measure considered no
1:26:16 sooner than 2026
1:26:21 the difference here
1:26:22 is that the administration is proposing
1:26:24 to move up that parks district
1:26:26 conversation so instead of having it
1:26:28 over the six to nine year term period if
1:26:31 we can move it up um
1:26:34 sooner then that's what we are trying to
1:26:39 second the task force provided no
1:26:42 recommendations for how the city should
1:26:44 expend its arpa funds or american
1:26:47 recovery plan act funds and they
1:26:49 provided no recommendations for how the
1:26:51 city should spend its ending fund
1:26:52 balance
1:26:54 they wanted to leave that up to city
1:26:56 council
1:26:57 instead they provided some criteria
1:27:00 that could be used in these discussions
1:27:02 for consideration and these criteria
1:27:05 are things that we believe are reflected
1:27:07 in the in the proposal from the
1:27:09 administration criteria such as
1:27:12 the desire to have a really big impact
1:27:14 in the community to have a large return
1:27:16 on investment for the dollar spent that
1:27:18 it's really felt immediately by the
1:27:20 community
1:27:22 also a desire to focus on
1:27:24 life safety items that it would address
1:27:27 a pain point across the city
1:27:30 and that was ambitious and visionary
1:27:32 these are just some of the criteria that
1:27:33 they had recommended uh be used when
1:27:37 selecting projects in the future
1:27:39 um and also helped them select
1:27:41 their priorities when it came to the
1:27:44 capital
1:27:45 infrastructure
1:27:47 so finally as mayor paulie said this
1:27:50 strategy here is really more than arpa
1:27:54 it is a long-term answer to how the city
1:27:57 will approach our long-term
1:27:59 infrastructure needs
1:28:00 instead of looking at a long list of
1:28:02 projects on the cip
1:28:04 that we can't fund and have no plan to
1:28:07 fund which is kind of what we've been
1:28:08 doing for a while so this strategy is
1:28:10 laying out how do we how do we respond
1:28:13 to some of those needs that have gone
1:28:15 unfunded and how do we increase our
1:28:16 investments in infrastructure
1:28:19 arpa is a great gift it's nine billion
1:28:24 dollars that we're talking about tonight
1:28:26 wonderful thing to happen and it's a big
1:28:30 compared to the long-term strategy it's
1:28:33 it's kind of a drop in the bucket of
1:28:34 what we're talking about in terms of
1:28:36 future investments that we can make in
1:28:37 our infrastructure
1:28:39 and there is a lot more that's in this
1:28:41 timeline
1:28:43 we expect to happen past 2024
1:28:46 that would lead to those infrastructure
1:28:48 investments so
1:28:49 arpa's really important and it's
1:28:51 important part of the discussion tonight
1:28:53 but it is really just the start it's
1:28:56 something that we can leverage
1:28:58 for this strategy and something that we
1:29:01 can use to really kick off
1:29:02 our investments and infrastructure
1:29:05 so i hope that addresses some of the
1:29:07 questions of how we came
1:29:09 to recommend a large parks investment
1:29:12 and how
1:29:13 we feel that that
1:29:16 that that we feel that we have reflected
1:29:19 uh some of the task force
1:29:20 recommendations in this proposal
1:29:24 so moving back here
1:29:27 council feedback
1:29:29 i just wanted to go over what we heard
1:29:30 last time from council it was a great
1:29:33 discussion that we had at the committee
1:29:35 of the whole and so thank you for that
1:29:36 great discussion we heard a lot of great
1:29:38 feedback and you'll be seeing some
1:29:40 changes in the proposal because of that
1:29:42 feedback so overall the green check
1:29:44 marks here denote things that we heard
1:29:47 kind of positive about the proposed
1:29:49 strategy
1:29:51 yellow's kind of caution you know maybe
1:29:53 mixed support some concerns raised and
1:29:57 we heard
1:29:58 overall support about the i-90 crossing
1:30:01 study with arpa funds that there was
1:30:03 a council member who expressed a desire
1:30:05 to allocate more funding for that study
1:30:08 we heard a
1:30:10 support for a community investment fund
1:30:13 and a public outreach process to
1:30:16 to select projects that would be funded
1:30:18 by arpa funding and
1:30:22 some desire to maybe increase that that
1:30:24 funding but overall support for
1:30:27 that process
1:30:29 we heard
1:30:30 that there was support for spending down
1:30:32 the undesignated general fund ending
1:30:34 fund balance to more that 15 percent of
1:30:37 expenditures versus 20 percent or
1:30:40 greater which has been our habit
1:30:42 and that we heard support for uh
1:30:44 spending those um spending down the
1:30:47 ending fund balance towards
1:30:49 infrastructure investing in
1:30:50 infrastructure
1:30:51 and we also heard general support for
1:30:53 additional positions
1:30:54 that we've asked for in order to be able
1:30:56 to take on these additional
1:30:58 infrastructure projects
1:31:00 concerns were expressed about long-term
1:31:02 funding of these positions and
1:31:04 as we stated in the memo and some of the
1:31:06 materials that
1:31:07 we feel we can
1:31:09 transfer or
1:31:11 in the future fund these positions
1:31:14 using general fund dollars and or grant
1:31:17 dollars as they become available
1:31:20 um here's where we heard some concerns
1:31:23 uh or more mixed support we heard mixed
1:31:26 support and concerns
1:31:28 about the proposed immediate investment
1:31:30 of arpa funds in an anchor park
1:31:33 we heard concerns that you know
1:31:35 transportation maybe should be our
1:31:36 number one priority
1:31:39 and we heard
1:31:41 that there's more information that's
1:31:43 needed for council about that park's
1:31:45 investment before certain council
1:31:47 members can provide support and so
1:31:48 that's one of the things that we're
1:31:49 going to be following up on today is
1:31:51 more information about
1:31:54 that project
1:31:56 and we also heard concerns over the
1:31:59 proposed timeline for considering ballot
1:32:01 initiatives and messaging to the public
1:32:03 about the potential ballot measures not
1:32:05 wanting to get um to talk about a
1:32:08 transportation ballot measure at the
1:32:10 same time that we would talk about a
1:32:11 parks district ballot measure for
1:32:13 example and so um and we also heard
1:32:16 concerns that maybe this timeline seems
1:32:18 a little aggressive
1:32:21 so you know i'd like to remind uh
1:32:23 council that we're really talking about
1:32:25 these are kind of target dates for us to
1:32:27 start these discussions there's a lot
1:32:29 that we need to consider in terms of
1:32:31 timing for the ballot measures
1:32:33 but the administration wants to put a
1:32:35 mark on the map and say this is when
1:32:37 we think you know
1:32:39 no no sooner than this date but we
1:32:41 certainly want to
1:32:42 start having these conversations
1:32:45 instead of kicking the can down the road
1:32:47 year after year and continuing to have a
1:32:50 long list of unfunded projects that we
1:32:53 can never build
1:32:56 so that is a very high level summary of
1:32:58 council member feedback it doesn't
1:33:00 incorporate every single comment that we
1:33:01 heard but more of a general
1:33:03 a sense of comments that were shared
1:33:05 among more than one council member
1:33:07 so back to this timeline uh just as a
1:33:10 quick reminder and refresher of uh the
1:33:13 the components of this timeline there's
1:33:16 a number of actions that we're
1:33:17 suggesting to take in 22 and 23 but it
1:33:20 goes all the way to 2026 when we talk
1:33:22 about
1:33:22 the soonest possible time that we would
1:33:24 want to contemplate a parks district
1:33:26 proposal ballot initiative um so there's
1:33:29 a lot in this timeline for when we would
1:33:31 fund or when we would consider that
1:33:35 transportation ballot initiative and of
1:33:37 course also the more immediate
1:33:39 investments that we're looking at for
1:33:41 from arpa or ending fund balance
1:33:44 funds
1:33:47 so from there i would like to introduce
1:33:50 director watling
1:33:57 thank you deputy city administrator
1:34:00 schneider thank you so much for that
1:34:02 good evening council mayor jeff watling
1:34:04 parks and community services director so
1:34:06 um as was stated any
1:34:08 i'm here to to provide an overview on
1:34:11 the anchor parks uh again apologize that
1:34:13 i wasn't able to to make it last monday
1:34:15 night uh i was
1:34:18 double booked with a park board meeting
1:34:20 as well
1:34:22 in providing an overview of the anchor
1:34:24 parks though i don't think any
1:34:25 conversation about those three parks
1:34:28 its origin its beginning really starts
1:34:30 with the park strategic plan that as a
1:34:33 you all as the city council adopted
1:34:36 in july of 2018.
1:34:38 that plan
1:34:40 set a new approach
1:34:42 to a park strategic plan whereas
1:34:43 historically the park plan was very much
1:34:45 a park by park
1:34:48 sort of a very science not even
1:34:50 scientific but a
1:34:52 singular look at every park
1:34:55 how many slides do we have how many ball
1:34:57 fields do we have the desire that plan
1:34:59 was to really set a
1:35:02 a bigger vision and and a bigger
1:35:05 understanding of how
1:35:07 this community wants its city park
1:35:08 system to perform
1:35:11 how to make the actionable steps turn
1:35:14 that into an actionable plan that starts
1:35:16 to look at near-term midterm and
1:35:17 long-term investments
1:35:19 to create a city park system
1:35:21 i say city park system because i think
1:35:23 it's important to note
1:35:25 we are surrounded by some amazing park
1:35:27 systems
1:35:28 in this community
1:35:30 but a state park system a county park
1:35:33 system
1:35:34 a natural resource system of dnr those
1:35:37 are not city park systems a city park
1:35:39 system is expected and in many ways
1:35:43 needed to perform differently for its
1:35:45 residents typically it's serving a
1:35:47 denser population it's serving a
1:35:49 a mix
1:35:50 of interests it's serving residents who
1:35:53 not only want to bike and hike but
1:35:55 others that want to make sure their kids
1:35:57 play soccer or
1:35:59 baseball or any any collection of sports
1:36:03 serving and supporting business
1:36:04 districts that
1:36:07 want to have public spaces that
1:36:09 lean into the private space that that
1:36:12 provides a place for
1:36:15 police people to gather
1:36:17 as they
1:36:18 walk into an urban area or walk through
1:36:20 an urban area and so the park strategic
1:36:22 plan really sought to try and paint that
1:36:24 big picture for the city system
1:36:28 there were five themes as this slide
1:36:30 shows that really became
1:36:33 the key the key threads and the key
1:36:35 messages that we heard over and over
1:36:37 again from the community when we did
1:36:39 outreach in 2017.
1:36:42 i highlighted the two the two themes
1:36:45 place making and connectivity because
1:36:47 they really
1:36:48 those two
1:36:50 really
1:36:50 centered upon and began to draw out
1:36:53 these three parks
1:36:55 that became
1:36:56 priorities place making and if i was to
1:36:58 quickly read from the park plan itself
1:37:01 place making says collaborate with the
1:37:03 community and reimagine and
1:37:06 reinvest in issaquah's public spaces
1:37:08 parks and trails maximize value and
1:37:11 strengthen the connection between people
1:37:12 and parks and the trails that they share
1:37:15 the community wants
1:37:17 and and really desired through the park
1:37:19 plan it's current parks
1:37:21 to do better to perform better there was
1:37:24 an understanding that they're aging and
1:37:26 beginning to get tired uh they're seeing
1:37:28 other amenities in other cities that our
1:37:30 city parks don't necessarily have and so
1:37:33 that that idea of place making of let's
1:37:35 not just seek and build new parks let's
1:37:37 take the parks we have
1:37:39 and help them to perform better
1:37:41 and that connectivity uh really speaks
1:37:43 for itself connect our parks and public
1:37:45 spaces to make a unified system that
1:37:48 serves the entire city and beyond
1:37:50 again a lot of work has been done
1:37:53 the idea of the creek corridor really
1:37:55 began to
1:37:57 come out of that theme
1:37:59 here's an opportunity to unify
1:38:01 a north-south connection
1:38:04 from that work these three projects
1:38:08 came to be identified and were not only
1:38:10 identified but
1:38:12 were seen as near-term priorities
1:38:15 those three
1:38:16 projects being veterans memorial park
1:38:19 tibbetts valley park and the creek
1:38:20 corridor will are all identified
1:38:23 as near-term priorities to begin to set
1:38:26 a vision
1:38:27 that planning and vision again was
1:38:30 sought to be done in
1:38:32 in the near term and understanding and
1:38:35 the park plan really tried to identify
1:38:38 any investment full investment into any
1:38:40 of those is not going to happen in one
1:38:42 shot it's it's going to require phased
1:38:45 phase development over a longer term
1:38:49 the term anchor parks was created as a
1:38:51 reference for those three parks
1:38:54 and really the key elements that they
1:38:57 not only to the whole issaquah system
1:38:58 but in particular the issaquah city
1:39:00 system here on the valley floor
1:39:03 and then with that work
1:39:06 as we went through the capital
1:39:07 improvement plan the cip process
1:39:09 funding was adopted for master planning
1:39:12 for for that work for those anchor parks
1:39:15 in 2019 and 2020
1:39:20 a little bit about that community
1:39:21 engagement that took place
1:39:23 we really began that work in earnest in
1:39:25 the summer of 2019
1:39:27 hard to imagine pre-pandemic we actually
1:39:31 actually did things but there was a lot
1:39:32 done before 2020.
1:39:36 we were
1:39:38 really had
1:39:39 some fun ways of engaging with the
1:39:40 community whether it was at our concerts
1:39:42 in the park
1:39:43 some saturdays at the farmers market a
1:39:45 number of other
1:39:47 neighborhood-based engagement efforts
1:39:50 really got tremendous feedback through
1:39:52 that summer and fall in february um 18
1:39:56 of that of 2020
1:39:58 we had a chance to update all you all of
1:40:01 there's a link
1:40:02 that i think is part of this
1:40:04 presentation if you want to go back and
1:40:06 take a look at both that staff memo and
1:40:08 the presentation it really tried to lay
1:40:10 out what we heard from the community
1:40:12 it also began to lay out next steps
1:40:14 unbeknownst to us that a month later
1:40:17 the world dramatically changed on us in
1:40:20 terms of of the pandemic and and
1:40:22 obviously our response to the pandemic
1:40:24 over the last two years um some of the
1:40:26 staffing changes we needed to make
1:40:28 um and really the feeling of
1:40:30 administration and staff was
1:40:32 as we navigated that pandemic that
1:40:34 wasn't necessarily the time to have
1:40:35 visioning conversations with the
1:40:37 community
1:40:38 about
1:40:40 long-term investments and so
1:40:42 that really pushed pause on this work
1:40:45 where we really feel poised now with
1:40:48 planning planning money
1:40:50 already budgeted for this work to
1:40:52 continue as well as some design work we
1:40:55 didn't necessarily want to initiate that
1:40:56 work until
1:40:58 we had this conversation and and really
1:41:01 should you decide to make an investment
1:41:04 anchor park's that
1:41:06 feedback that direction will really help
1:41:08 us shape
1:41:10 what our next steps of community
1:41:11 engagement looks like the goal through
1:41:14 this whole process was to begin the
1:41:15 visioning with all three parks but
1:41:17 understand they're going to need to
1:41:20 really begin community engagement
1:41:22 work park by park so if there's a park
1:41:25 identified that park becomes the
1:41:28 the priority priority project
1:41:30 moving forward
1:41:33 sorry i keep clicking the wrong button
1:41:36 another question i heard uh from your
1:41:38 really great discussion uh last week
1:41:42 was really asking that policy question
1:41:45 why invest in anchor parks why invest in
1:41:48 these opportunities
1:41:51 i would say in that first bullet
1:41:53 and i think you all know this parks
1:41:55 though sometimes seen as fun and games
1:41:57 are much more than fun and games and
1:41:58 especially when it comes to a city park
1:42:00 system the role
1:42:02 that public spaces need to play and the
1:42:04 communities want them to play
1:42:06 as really essential public
1:42:08 infrastructure in a city system
1:42:10 they do so much more and they support so
1:42:13 much more
1:42:15 i think it's safe to say that these
1:42:16 three park
1:42:18 potential park investments
1:42:20 and park spaces
1:42:21 tibbetts veterans and the crete corridor
1:42:24 are tied
1:42:26 to numerous if not all of our our city's
1:42:29 strategic plan priorities whether that's
1:42:31 economic and social vitality whether
1:42:34 the environmental goals mobility uh
1:42:36 certainly being tied to connectivity uh
1:42:39 growth and development as we position
1:42:41 these parks
1:42:42 to serve our current residents as well
1:42:44 as future residents
1:42:47 the next three bullets really just i
1:42:49 think an effort try and spell out a very
1:42:52 high level
1:42:53 understanding of the location of these
1:42:55 parks and why they were seen as
1:42:56 priorities not just because they are
1:42:58 some of our bigger city parks but
1:43:00 they're really strategically located
1:43:02 and have a proximity
1:43:04 um to do some pretty powerful things for
1:43:07 this community
1:43:08 imagine if you will a renovated veterans
1:43:11 memorial park would really go a long way
1:43:13 to ensuring a vibrant and resilient
1:43:16 front street in historic downtown
1:43:18 for generations
1:43:20 a renovated
1:43:21 tibbetts valley park
1:43:23 will directly benefit and in many ways i
1:43:25 think it will help incubate central
1:43:27 issaquah and and some of the
1:43:29 redevelopment goals of central issaquah
1:43:32 a connected unified issaquah creek
1:43:34 corridor will help foster an immensely
1:43:36 walkable
1:43:37 and vibrant community that it really in
1:43:39 many ways already is but we'll just
1:43:41 reinforce that
1:43:43 so again just examples whether
1:43:44 investments are made through arpa with
1:43:46 this or as the mayor has so well said
1:43:49 this is a this is a longer view
1:43:51 as we look at positioning these city
1:43:53 parks to perform how we want them to
1:43:56 perform there's tremendous potential in
1:43:58 all of these
1:44:00 the last bullet i just i want to i want
1:44:02 to touch on
1:44:04 the 7th generation principle i think you
1:44:06 might be all aware of of what that is
1:44:09 but it's a very wise principle and and
1:44:12 practice done by the indigenous peoples
1:44:14 and tribes of this area
1:44:17 and in many ways in indefinitely the
1:44:19 traditional stewards of this very land
1:44:22 we're talking about
1:44:25 the principle really um was a a very
1:44:27 disciplined way of asking in every
1:44:29 deliberation
1:44:31 we must consider the seventh generation
1:44:33 and i just i want to note that an
1:44:35 acknowledgement at as as
1:44:38 those that have come before us but the
1:44:40 wisdom in that and a lot of what we're
1:44:42 trying to do in this planning effort
1:44:44 that we're looking and talking about a
1:44:46 near-term investment it really starts
1:44:49 with taking that longer view
1:44:50 and understanding
1:44:52 investments public investments we make
1:44:54 in public infrastructure
1:44:56 have a legacy that that long outlasts
1:44:58 any of us
1:45:01 and then last thing to note really
1:45:03 quickly um and you always have to be
1:45:05 careful when you you notice
1:45:07 case studies or examples the pictures
1:45:10 you see of esther short park in
1:45:11 vancouver i know
1:45:13 some of you might have been at the awc
1:45:15 conference in vancouver washington
1:45:18 i'm not saying esther short park is
1:45:20 going to be plopped into issaquah but
1:45:23 as a case study if if you any of you
1:45:25 know esther short park it was a tired
1:45:27 dilapidated um a lot of unsanctioned and
1:45:31 very illicit things happening in the 90s
1:45:33 in that park
1:45:34 the city decided to
1:45:36 make a reinvestment and re-envision that
1:45:40 to go there now to see the hotels to see
1:45:42 what is has happened
1:45:44 the vibrancy that is in in and around
1:45:47 that space really speaks to what
1:45:49 public investment and private investment
1:45:53 really leaning on and supporting
1:45:55 one another
1:45:59 again sorry i went the wrong direction
1:46:02 all right so real quickly i will sort of
1:46:04 give an overview these visuals um are
1:46:07 also intended just to speak to more the
1:46:09 opportunities of each of these specific
1:46:11 places already touched them a little bit
1:46:14 again they speak to the bigger vision
1:46:17 i would want to certainly understand
1:46:20 if a phase one is considered it's not
1:46:22 completing all of this
1:46:24 it's really working with the community
1:46:26 to identify what's that that first small
1:46:28 investment so veterans memorial park
1:46:32 these combined park spaces of veterans
1:46:35 depot park and pedestrian park
1:46:37 really serve and and can become the
1:46:40 public heart of old town
1:46:42 they're currently rather disjointed um
1:46:45 and in many ways pretty tired
1:46:48 in their
1:46:49 age of investment there's a real
1:46:51 opportunity for
1:46:52 creating a much more cohesive and
1:46:54 updated
1:46:55 public space and park space that brings
1:46:58 significant economic benefits to
1:47:00 to front street and
1:47:04 downtown issaquah historic downtown
1:47:07 would also note with the the connection
1:47:10 of the rainier trail
1:47:12 this park is immensely well positioned
1:47:14 as well on the issaquah creek corridor
1:47:16 so why this planning effort is is
1:47:20 tied together in that
1:47:22 these projects though separate certainly
1:47:24 have a relationship to one another
1:47:30 so some of the visuals
1:47:32 that the our consultant team the
1:47:34 landscape architect mathune
1:47:36 did as we're doing that planning work in
1:47:38 in 2019
1:47:41 really begins to show what a unified
1:47:43 space can begin to look like please as
1:47:45 you look at these these are not meant to
1:47:48 final
1:47:49 decisions uh we feel should there be an
1:47:52 opportunity for proceeding with this
1:47:54 park or another one
1:47:55 these become a good starting point for
1:47:59 finalizing that visioning work with the
1:48:01 community and really helping the
1:48:02 community to identify what a phase one
1:48:05 investment would be
1:48:08 tibbetts valley park
1:48:12 very strategically located
1:48:14 not only just south of central issaquad
1:48:16 but strategically located in support of
1:48:18 the current neighborhood of
1:48:20 neighborhoods of squawk mountain
1:48:23 newer neighborhoods of talus
1:48:26 this park is
1:48:29 singular
1:48:31 in its in its programming
1:48:33 it's five baseball fields
1:48:36 to go there on a summer day when there's
1:48:39 no game scheduled would show you it's a
1:48:43 underperforming park
1:48:44 it's a great performing park when
1:48:46 there's baseball games scheduled
1:48:48 i love baseball but a community park
1:48:51 like this that's going to be next to
1:48:54 a more dense community
1:48:56 is really needing to
1:48:58 and has an opportunity to serve a much
1:48:59 more diverse role
1:49:03 i would note there are with the creek
1:49:05 great opportunity to connect
1:49:07 environmentally but there are some
1:49:08 environmental
1:49:10 conditions
1:49:12 that we're going to need to be careful
1:49:14 to uh and really pay attention to as
1:49:18 work like this um continues
1:49:22 much like any of these projects a fake
1:49:24 you know we would look at
1:49:26 doing a phase 1 that really positions
1:49:29 and understands
1:49:30 there's
1:49:31 need for for future phases to occur as
1:49:38 similar to
1:49:39 the visuals of veterans these were done
1:49:41 by methuen again to try and paint a
1:49:43 picture and show how to how does
1:49:45 tibbetts valley park still be a
1:49:47 wonderful athletic complex but also
1:49:49 begin to be positioned to serve
1:49:52 a much more
1:49:54 diverse set of interests and be a park
1:49:56 that on a summer day when there's no
1:49:58 game scheduled it's still an immensely
1:50:00 well used uh public space
1:50:04 uh the third park to or the third sort
1:50:06 of project
1:50:09 give a little bit more detail to is
1:50:11 issaquah creek corridor
1:50:14 this is a this is an investment this is
1:50:17 uh a project that's been in the makings
1:50:20 for decades um hats off to u.s council
1:50:23 and and prior councils for the last 40
1:50:25 years there's been investments being
1:50:28 uh that that really begin to spell out
1:50:30 this amazing opportunity to connect and
1:50:33 unify from lake sammamish all the way to
1:50:35 the southern border um a series of
1:50:38 public parks a series a network of
1:50:41 public trails
1:50:42 that could really
1:50:44 do amazing things for this community
1:50:47 some of the early work and early
1:50:48 concepts we really as we worked with the
1:50:50 community identified three reaches
1:50:53 some of the planning work that we would
1:50:54 want to do and expect to do in the
1:50:56 coming years whether this investment
1:50:58 occurs or not is to really look at each
1:51:00 of those reaches what we call the
1:51:02 pickering reach
1:51:03 the northern
1:51:04 the northern edge pickering barn being
1:51:07 an amazing gateway between the state
1:51:09 park and the rest of the city
1:51:12 old town reach right here in the heart
1:51:14 of old town
1:51:16 and then the squawk valley reached to
1:51:18 the south
1:51:20 as a non-whereas the other the other
1:51:23 projects are are parcel-specific
1:51:26 this is a city-wide network that has a a
1:51:29 much higher level of complexity
1:51:32 a much higher level of opportunity
1:51:34 but complexity as we think about
1:51:37 things like how do we make initial
1:51:39 investments
1:51:41 prior to 2024
1:51:48 as we look at considerations and and i
1:51:50 know in in conversations and
1:51:51 deliberations as you all uh talk or if
1:51:54 if you're seeking um the park board to
1:51:57 provide a recommendation we really see
1:51:59 these considerations in many ways as
1:52:01 potential criteria
1:52:02 for how we could
1:52:06 facilitate a discussion around
1:52:09 which which project may make the most
1:52:11 sense
1:52:12 for an initial investment these
1:52:14 considerations include
1:52:17 what's the project readiness
1:52:19 really to the point of is this a single
1:52:21 parcel that the city already owns
1:52:23 is it multiple parcels in some cases the
1:52:26 city doesn't already own
1:52:29 are there critical areas and other
1:52:30 really important site conditions uh to
1:52:33 to look at that bring a level of
1:52:35 complexity with them
1:52:36 um and could affect timeliness
1:52:39 what is the level of an immediate
1:52:41 economic benefit what's the level of of
1:52:44 community access
1:52:46 in benefit if we're
1:52:48 seeking to make this
1:52:49 investment
1:52:50 does this investment does this part
1:52:52 connect to other parks
1:52:55 thus sort of multiplying that that
1:52:57 benefit
1:52:58 and then in any of these projects how
1:53:01 as we work with the community
1:53:03 um to identify first phase how are we
1:53:06 also keeping in mind future phases
1:53:08 a really important part of phasing any
1:53:12 any public project
1:53:14 next step should should
1:53:16 an investment be chosen into one of
1:53:18 these parks
1:53:19 would look the same
1:53:20 we would
1:53:22 like to take this year and hit the
1:53:24 ground running
1:53:25 so 2022 identify that specific part
1:53:29 [Music]
1:53:30 take the work that we did in 2019
1:53:32 complete that visioning work on that
1:53:34 park through community engagement and
1:53:36 help the community
1:53:39 determine what the scope of that that
1:53:40 phase one is uh we think that could make
1:53:43 a um a better project quite frankly um
1:53:46 what community engagement does that
1:53:48 would lead us into design and permitting
1:53:50 um through 2023 and then
1:53:53 hitting the construction window in 2024
1:53:58 and i think
1:53:59 it's back to you andrea
1:54:02 thank you
1:54:06 thanks jeff and actually i'd like to
1:54:08 turn it over to robert the chief
1:54:10 financial officer
1:54:12 has some information to share on
1:54:15 debt and debt financing
1:54:25 thank you andrea and uh glad to see
1:54:27 everybody in person for the first time
1:54:28 uh apologize for the circumstances that
1:54:31 we couldn't do it earlier
1:54:32 um did want to try to answer council
1:54:34 member ray's questions from last time
1:54:36 regarding general obligation debts i'm
1:54:38 just going to talk about that really
1:54:39 briefly here
1:54:41 so council did approve a 2.7 million
1:54:44 general fund partial repayment of the
1:54:45 2019a
1:54:48 lgto bonds for the gizmo land purchase
1:54:51 and that was in the 2022 budget so
1:54:53 that's the first thing we did and then
1:54:55 that we had the 2009 b fire station
1:54:58 property bonds were paid off in 2021
1:55:01 and the highland park 2014 facility
1:55:04 bonds would be p will be paid off in
1:55:06 2024 so we're actually retiring debt the
1:55:09 city is in a very good position right
1:55:11 and on the next slide just want to show
1:55:14 you kind of just a snapshot of where
1:55:16 we're at and i'm going to talk a little
1:55:17 bit about the the dead environment
1:55:19 right now um as of january 1st 2022
1:55:24 the city had
1:55:25 14 435
1:55:28 876 of general obligation debt
1:55:31 then you left the the burgisma partial
1:55:33 repayment there which was about 2.67
1:55:36 million dollars
1:55:37 our annual debt service beyond that's
1:55:39 now down after that repayment is about
1:55:42 845 000
1:55:45 and so our
1:55:46 if you compare that to our total general
1:55:48 fund expenditures which would include
1:55:50 the debt service as well
1:55:51 our debt service right now for general
1:55:54 obligation bonds and again this doesn't
1:55:56 include the lid district this does not
1:55:58 include the revenue bonds from the
1:55:59 utility just general fund it's about 1.3
1:56:02 percent of the total debt so we're well
1:56:05 below our debt capacity the city's in a
1:56:06 very strong financial position
1:56:09 right now so the good news is we don't
1:56:10 have a lot of debt the good news is
1:56:11 there is capacity for future issuances
1:56:14 right now
1:56:15 of course if there's any bad news it's
1:56:16 what environment we're in what is the
1:56:18 debt environment looking like
1:56:21 and i thought i did have
1:56:22 i'm going to jump ahead here and i'll go
1:56:25 back a minute to the debt level
1:56:27 but we're actually looking at um
1:56:30 you know what issues would look like i
1:56:32 actually spoke with the bond council
1:56:34 last week
1:56:35 and also
1:56:36 talking to our financial consultants so
1:56:38 there's different mechanisms out there
1:56:39 and one we're exploring right now
1:56:41 because we have a building for example
1:56:43 at the public workshop that we're
1:56:44 looking
1:56:47 to build that's about 5 million that was
1:56:49 approved in the cip
1:56:51 and that building we were looking at the
1:56:53 local program so what this is is the
1:56:54 state treasurer program and i have a
1:56:56 link here on this slide it should be
1:56:59 hyperlinked and the local program do you
1:57:01 have a question robert yeah go ahead um
1:57:03 is councilmember mertz
1:57:05 thank you madam mayor can you go back to
1:57:07 the general fund supported debt that
1:57:09 will show in just a minute ago there
1:57:12 how um
1:57:14 how does our annual debt service hold
1:57:16 constant as our debt uh
1:57:19 as our total debt goes
1:57:21 substantially down
1:57:23 so again we have fixed debt payments i
1:57:25 think just the way it was structured we
1:57:26 have fixed annual debt payments so it's
1:57:29 pretty consistent until
1:57:31 we do a refunding or until those bonds
1:57:33 are retired so that's how it was just
1:57:35 negotiated with the sales i believe in
1:57:37 the past okay thank you
1:57:40 but just for comparison with those
1:57:42 retirements and um with the refunding we
1:57:44 did a couple years ago
1:57:46 um in 2019 i believe that the debt was
1:57:49 over 1.5 million debt service so it has
1:57:51 dropped significantly in recent years
1:57:57 and i can go back to that slide if
1:57:58 anybody has more questions but i just
1:58:00 wanted to explain out there because
1:58:02 right now i just took a quick look at
1:58:04 just recent issues
1:58:06 so right now because of interest rates
1:58:09 recent issues are hitting local
1:58:11 governments pretty rapidly so if we went
1:58:13 to markets say last year
1:58:15 we'd be in the two still high twos for
1:58:17 issues now
1:58:18 recent issues are at high fours and
1:58:21 that's probably those are probably
1:58:22 negotiated actually before the last
1:58:24 interest rate hike so we're looking at
1:58:26 five in the open environment and one
1:58:28 program again available to the city is
1:58:30 the state treasurer local program
1:58:32 and they have fixed interest rates and
1:58:34 they have projects financed through the
1:58:36 through the state treasurer's office
1:58:38 itself so we actually use the state's
1:58:40 debt and we use the state's debt rating
1:58:42 it's a very good program it's actually
1:58:43 underutilized by other municipalities
1:58:46 and governments within the state so for
1:58:48 this five million dollar building we're
1:58:49 looking at in public works
1:58:51 um instead of going to market it just
1:58:53 doesn't seem prudent to go to market
1:58:55 obviously for that amount so we we did
1:58:56 contact the local to get more
1:58:58 information
1:58:59 and their rates right now they have
1:59:01 three issues a year their rates for
1:59:04 ending of this year is actually
1:59:06 um still in the twos
1:59:08 still the high twos so they're almost
1:59:10 two bases or two point eight two percent
1:59:12 less than
1:59:14 um what the what the bond market is
1:59:16 right now so this is a program i don't
1:59:18 recommend because it it just hasn't been
1:59:20 done much to use it for
1:59:22 you know larger projects large-scale
1:59:23 projects but certainly smaller debt
1:59:25 issuances we're looking at this program
1:59:26 to you know avoid going to market avoid
1:59:30 having a credit rating for the smaller
1:59:31 issues so that would free up council
1:59:33 obviously
1:59:34 to look at the bigger issues the bigger
1:59:36 debt issuances like we looked at
1:59:38 in future you know more of the three to
1:59:41 five to even seven year outlook
1:59:44 any questions on that
1:59:50 so i wanted to go back here to
1:59:53 the fund balance projection i know we've
1:59:55 showed this at the
1:59:56 the committee of the whole meeting and i
1:59:58 know we've explained this a little bit
2:00:00 before so
2:00:01 um we're going to come back to you
2:00:03 meaning finance uh susie and i will be
2:00:04 coming back to you
2:00:06 uh both of the retreat and at an august
2:00:09 council meeting to kind of discuss what
2:00:11 our forecast is for the future what
2:00:13 we're looking at but part of that also
2:00:15 is kind of seeing our performance right
2:00:18 it's still in a complete picture but
2:00:20 honestly the city is on very solid
2:00:22 footing this year and so bearing any
2:00:24 kind of crisis anything that's not
2:00:27 anticipated even with the current kind
2:00:29 of uncertainty in the economic condition
2:00:31 issaquah is still going above average
2:00:34 and we're actually kind of out competing
2:00:36 and not having the same issues that some
2:00:38 other local cities in king county have
2:00:40 had recently so we're still seeing
2:00:42 strength with their sales tax strength
2:00:44 with their utility tax strength of their
2:00:46 revenues and so we're very confident
2:00:48 that this number you know would go up
2:00:50 not down as far as our forecast right
2:00:52 now for the amended budget um and again
2:00:55 we would come back to you if we thought
2:00:57 you know that would change in the future
2:00:58 but again we're very confident these
2:01:00 numbers if anything they would go up a
2:01:02 little bit so
2:01:04 um we do
2:01:06 you know we we recommend um this fun
2:01:08 balance discussion going forward we're
2:01:10 we're very confident in this number
2:01:18 thank you and i'll be available for
2:01:19 further questions if you have them thank
2:01:21 you thank you robert
2:01:23 andrea did you have some additional
2:01:25 comments
2:01:30 yes thank you there's more to the
2:01:31 presentation
2:01:34 so changes to the proposal from last
2:01:41 um we are proposing based off of council
2:01:44 feedback that
2:01:46 we were not
2:01:48 providing initial uh investment in
2:01:51 transportation enough of an initial
2:01:54 investment of transportation uh what
2:01:56 we're proposing tonight is that we
2:01:58 increased that original proposal from
2:02:01 about 1.5 million in transportation to
2:02:05 million for immediate transportation
2:02:07 related improvements those improvements
2:02:09 include
2:02:11 2 million dollars for a community and
2:02:14 for the community investment fund we
2:02:16 talked about this last time the change
2:02:19 to the proposal is calling at the
2:02:20 community mobility investment fund so
2:02:22 really focusing that outreach to the
2:02:25 community
2:02:26 the surveying process for them to select
2:02:28 projects really focusing that on
2:02:30 mobility related improvements before
2:02:32 what we had proposed is that we would
2:02:34 look at maybe some transportation
2:02:37 related improvements or maybe some parks
2:02:39 related projects for the community's
2:02:41 consideration and now based off of
2:02:44 council's feedback that we weren't doing
2:02:45 enough for transportation that we would
2:02:47 really focus that
2:02:49 community outreach process and that fund
2:02:51 on mobility-related improvements so
2:02:53 that's a change since last time
2:02:56 also i wanted to highlight there's as
2:02:58 you can see different colored font
2:03:00 uh in this presentation that's kind of a
2:03:02 brownish color
2:03:04 this is a correction from the materials
2:03:06 as they were published in the packet
2:03:09 so i wanted to highlight that change and
2:03:11 note that change for you
2:03:14 so what we're proposing is two million
2:03:17 dollars of arpa funds
2:03:20 towards mobility the mobility network
2:03:22 deferred maintenance
2:03:24 in the packet materials we talked about
2:03:27 that money coming
2:03:28 from ending fund balance
2:03:31 what we're suggesting is that comes from
2:03:34 this avoids some of the
2:03:36 the most
2:03:37 onerous arpa commitments
2:03:40 maintenance of our infrastructure is
2:03:42 something that can be funded with arpa
2:03:44 funds and is arpa-eligible
2:03:46 um and so when we talk about mobility uh
2:03:49 maintenance mobility network maintenance
2:03:51 what the example that we provided and
2:03:53 some of the packet materials are
2:03:54 sidewalk maintenance for example we
2:03:56 understand that we have a lot of um
2:04:00 of reports from the community of uneven
2:04:03 sidewalks and
2:04:04 concerns about improving the sidewalks
2:04:07 there's a lot of work that needs to be
2:04:08 done in terms of maintaining them and
2:04:10 this would provide
2:04:12 a really nice investment in
2:04:15 better maintenance of the sidewalks
2:04:19 four hundred thousand dollars
2:04:21 from the general fund
2:04:23 undesignated ending fund balance towards
2:04:26 this need as well like i said in the
2:04:28 original
2:04:29 in the proposal that we provided
2:04:32 in your published packet materials we
2:04:34 had said that that would 2.4 would come
2:04:36 from ending fund balance what we're
2:04:38 saying is two million of that from arpa
2:04:40 four hundred thousand again towards
2:04:41 towards maintenance from ending fund
2:04:43 balance
2:04:44 also part of these transportation
2:04:46 related improvements uh one million
2:04:49 dollars for the i-90 multi-modal
2:04:51 crossing study that's no change from
2:04:53 last time
2:04:54 and 458 000 for those new positions to
2:04:58 support increased transportation
2:05:00 capital projects again no change from
2:05:02 the last
2:05:03 proposal you saw last week
2:05:05 so that's
2:05:07 overall increased investment and focus
2:05:11 on transportation with a variety of
2:05:13 sources of funds
2:05:17 more changes to the proposal in regards
2:05:20 to parks
2:05:22 that's
2:05:24 6.1 million slated for immediate
2:05:28 investment in parks and trails this is
2:05:30 an unchanged total amount
2:05:32 but some of the details of how that
2:05:33 money would be spent have changed that
2:05:36 includes taking that six million dollar
2:05:39 anchor park investment that we proposed
2:05:40 last time down to four million dollars
2:05:44 for a phase one improvement
2:05:48 and then
2:05:49 two million dollars for strategic
2:05:51 parkland acquisition and improvements um
2:05:54 that is coming from we propose from the
2:05:58 general fund undesignated ending fund
2:06:00 balance so you can see we kind of
2:06:02 swapped
2:06:03 funding sources for transportation uh
2:06:06 network maintenance and for this item
2:06:09 again it's just out of considerations as
2:06:11 we've dug a little more into what the
2:06:13 arpa requirements would be
2:06:15 this provides us a little bit more
2:06:17 flexibility when it comes to the timing
2:06:19 of those projects but also very
2:06:21 importantly for our staff this
2:06:25 would
2:06:26 allow a less onerous process of arpa
2:06:29 reporting and
2:06:31 all those considerations that come
2:06:33 with arpa
2:06:35 so those are some of the changes to the
2:06:37 proposal
2:06:40 we've made
2:06:41 reflecting some of the feedback that
2:06:42 we've heard and
2:06:45 at this time i invite any questions
2:06:50 councilmember martz were you up first
2:06:54 i think i was okay councilman mertz
2:06:56 thank you
2:06:57 madam mayor um i have a couple questions
2:06:58 for director watling
2:07:01 so uh
2:07:03 first off um
2:07:05 um across all the various phases of
2:07:07 confluence what what's the total cost of
2:07:10 the confluence uh project and how much
2:07:13 of that remains
2:07:16 the total i do not have that information
2:07:19 directly in front of me
2:07:22 oh okay could you comment on the phase
2:07:24 jeff that's on the other side of the
2:07:26 creek where parks maintenance is we may
2:07:28 not have a cost estimate but that is i
2:07:30 think where the remaining elements are
2:07:33 yeah happy too
2:07:35 similar to that i think the conversation
2:07:36 we had last week
2:07:38 yeah there is a significant i think it
2:07:41 was identified as phase 3
2:07:43 project that was
2:07:45 in essence taking the place of the park
2:07:48 maintenance facility maintenance
2:07:53 that i think master plan and planning
2:07:55 work was adopted in
2:07:58 probably 2015 2016. so to those dollars
2:08:03 adding a multiplier to those uh that
2:08:06 phase was probably in the tens of
2:08:08 millions to to complete
2:08:10 still
2:08:12 and then add
2:08:13 to even accomplish that tens of millions
2:08:16 of dollars we probably need to find
2:08:17 another 20 to 30 million dollars to
2:08:20 relocate
2:08:21 the shop facilities
2:08:24 and the second question i have is what
2:08:26 did it cost us to put in the two soccer
2:08:29 fields up in the islands
2:08:31 the two
2:08:32 soccer fields on pad one um
2:08:36 all total was about 4.6
2:08:40 4.5 million dollars 4.6 million dollars
2:08:43 okay so when you put those answers
2:08:45 together
2:08:46 what's the ballpark on the visions
2:08:50 that you showed for tibbetts or uh
2:08:53 memorial
2:08:56 to to be to
2:08:58 all in
2:09:02 all in for tibbetts valley park is
2:09:05 probably in the
2:09:07 20 million range
2:09:09 um all in for veterans memorial park
2:09:12 again depending on what you all want to
2:09:14 do and the community wants to do with
2:09:16 connecting that those three parks to
2:09:18 front street
2:09:19 um could be in the 10 10 plus million
2:09:22 dollars as well okay yeah i mean that
2:09:24 actually that actually jibes with my
2:09:27 guess which is that those two together
2:09:28 are about equal to what's left in
2:09:30 confluence okay thank you
2:09:32 appreciate it my councilmember dean
2:09:34 michelle followed by council member hunt
2:09:37 um so andrea could you walk through the
2:09:40 decision to
2:09:43 change that six million plus investment
2:09:46 into a 4 million and a 2 million how did
2:09:49 we how did you break that out and
2:09:51 what was the rationale for
2:09:54 choosing to do that
2:09:57 uh thank you so we had heard last time
2:10:00 that there was some interest in
2:10:02 uh acquiring park land especially along
2:10:06 the issaquah creek corridor and so
2:10:09 we wanted to provide something that was
2:10:10 a more responsive to some of that
2:10:13 feedback that we heard from council
2:10:17 that's really the main reason
2:10:19 so if i could follow up on that so is
2:10:22 so is that essentially the same project
2:10:26 that was being
2:10:28 i guess i'm not understanding is is the
2:10:30 2 million which would be land
2:10:32 acquisition going to feed that central
2:10:35 uh corridor
2:10:37 or is is it related to other other acre
2:10:41 parks or but it is the central park
2:10:43 yes so the city currently um on an
2:10:46 annual basis typically council allocates
2:10:49 some money towards this acquisition fund
2:10:52 some of it's for hillside areas and some
2:10:54 of it's for creekside areas and what
2:10:57 the administration is proposing is
2:10:59 having that be a two million dollar
2:11:01 investment towards creekside areas
2:11:05 okay thank you
2:11:07 councilmember hunt
2:11:12 thank you um
2:11:15 so i have a series of questions the
2:11:17 first one is we received a email
2:11:20 from a
2:11:22 community member who served um
2:11:25 a long long time resident who served on
2:11:26 the capital finance task force as well
2:11:28 as the park board
2:11:29 and um i thought this community member's
2:11:32 email was very insightful so i wanted to
2:11:34 confirm if you can just confirm if this
2:11:36 is the case
2:11:39 that in this email it says
2:11:41 it appears
2:11:43 what prompted the administration to
2:11:45 promote investment in an anchor park as
2:11:47 the primary candidate for the bulk of
2:11:48 the remaining arpa funds
2:11:50 is the intent of the arbor fund to
2:11:51 provide support for something
2:11:52 transformational and can benefit the
2:11:54 entire community
2:11:56 significant investment is needed in
2:11:57 order to be transformational and
2:11:59 apparent to the community if allocated
2:12:00 to too many projects that will not occur
2:12:02 transportation project if one can be
2:12:04 established within the time frame may
2:12:06 not likely have the desired effect and
2:12:08 then also goes into some regional issues
2:12:10 so i wondered if you can confirm if
2:12:12 that's the reason for the initial
2:12:16 change towards an anchor park rather
2:12:18 than the capital finances task force
2:12:20 first recommendation which is focus on
2:12:22 transportation as a priority
2:12:24 yes i can confirm that and add more
2:12:26 information
2:12:28 which is that
2:12:31 we felt that such an investment in a
2:12:34 park where all members especially an
2:12:36 anchor park that so many different
2:12:38 members of the community
2:12:40 could benefit from regardless of where
2:12:42 they live
2:12:43 that that would have that high impact
2:12:45 across the community that was
2:12:47 one of the criteria that the task force
2:12:49 had provided is that it's something that
2:12:51 could have an impact across the city
2:12:53 um with uh and
2:12:56 for um
2:12:58 an amount like four million dollars it
2:13:00 could have a pretty um significant
2:13:03 impact on that park and investment in
2:13:05 that park versus four million dollars
2:13:07 for a transportation project might not
2:13:10 have that amount of impact across the
2:13:14 in addition uh
2:13:17 when we look at the whole timeline
2:13:19 for this strategy
2:13:21 the parks
2:13:23 district is really considered
2:13:25 after transportation
2:13:28 but that means that uh we wouldn't be
2:13:30 providing a significant investment in
2:13:32 parks until
2:13:34 at the soonest 2026 maybe once we
2:13:36 collect revenues 2027 if if that's at
2:13:39 the soonest if or if everything is very
2:13:42 successful best case scenario right and
2:13:44 so that's that's some years away and
2:13:47 we heard that parks was important um
2:13:50 seemed like there was an opportunity uh
2:13:51 to meet some of the task force criteria
2:13:54 and that we could show
2:13:57 an immediate investment in parks
2:13:59 while we then
2:14:01 spend the time that we need to update
2:14:02 the strategic plan and go through the
2:14:04 process
2:14:06 to consider that more longer term
2:14:08 investment in parks later on so
2:14:11 that's another reason why we were
2:14:12 looking at parks for a big impactful
2:14:14 investment
2:14:16 okay great thank you i thought that
2:14:18 context would be
2:14:20 would be helpful it's helpful for me
2:14:22 anyway and then my next question is
2:14:24 about the applicability of this to arpa
2:14:28 um i think that's a question likely for
2:14:30 chief financial officer hamod
2:14:36 you know i basically looked at the high
2:14:38 level description of what's can be
2:14:41 funded by arpa and i wondered if you can
2:14:42 just explain
2:14:44 how our strategy aligns with those
2:14:46 requirements specifically the parks one
2:14:48 because it doesn't seem that that's
2:14:50 um there are a number of
2:14:52 and at least in what i read there's a
2:14:53 number of other infrastructure
2:14:55 types um specified but um i wondered if
2:14:59 you could speak to parks specifically as
2:15:01 that infrastructure investment yeah
2:15:02 thank you councilmember hunt that's a
2:15:03 very good question uh it it's evolved i
2:15:06 think that's the best answer so whenever
2:15:09 we were initially operating off an
2:15:11 interim rule from the federal government
2:15:13 when the final rule came out there was
2:15:15 actually some fundamental changes and
2:15:16 one of the biggest changes that came
2:15:19 was that the city was able to take a
2:15:21 standard deduction for revenue loss so
2:15:24 10 million of our total arpa is actually
2:15:27 applicable
2:15:29 to replacing anything we can say that we
2:15:31 lost and of course we had a significant
2:15:34 revenue loss during covid that we can
2:15:36 quantify that so beyond that it's
2:15:39 anything that was pretty much already in
2:15:40 progress are already part of our
2:15:42 long-term plan at the time so when you
2:15:43 talk about the capital projects that's
2:15:45 also money that that we did not receive
2:15:48 that would have gone towards those
2:15:49 projects so
2:15:51 with that final rule it did broaden the
2:15:53 definition because i know when you're
2:15:54 talking about
2:15:56 kind of the the summary of the bill
2:15:57 itself they talked about broadband they
2:15:59 talked about water and sewer and some
2:16:01 other specific projects the final rule
2:16:03 when they came out and we've had a lot
2:16:04 of interpretations we've talked to awc
2:16:07 we've been on an awc work group
2:16:09 regarding this we've actually gotten
2:16:11 treasury direct treasury answers on this
2:16:13 that these are applicable
2:16:16 projects
2:16:17 for arpa as long as we show hey these
2:16:19 are capital projects that are in place
2:16:20 but again the caveat is spending those
2:16:23 funds by the end of fiscal year 2024.
2:16:28 okay great thank you and yes that was
2:16:30 the the summary i think is what i had
2:16:32 read so that was helpful
2:16:34 um okay two more questions one is um i
2:16:37 don't actually think in our materials
2:16:39 that the
2:16:41 uh two million dollars that was for the
2:16:44 creek corridor
2:16:46 land acquisition along the issaquah
2:16:48 creek corridor that that's actually
2:16:49 specified um if it is i couldn't find
2:16:52 where it's specified it talks about park
2:16:54 land acquisition so i'm wondering if
2:16:56 first of all to confirm that that's the
2:16:58 intent and then also if we need to
2:17:00 actually clarify that in the materials
2:17:04 uh that is the intent um willing to take
2:17:07 council direction if um if council
2:17:09 disagrees but that is the intent for
2:17:11 that money and so
2:17:13 in the motions that you have uh before
2:17:16 you tonight for consideration if you
2:17:17 wanted to amend a motion to make that
2:17:19 more specific uh we could do that to
2:17:21 clarify the intent
2:17:22 okay um great thank you for that and
2:17:25 last question is on this um
2:17:27 the rationale again
2:17:29 on the
2:17:30 two million from the general fund versus
2:17:34 and i guess my question is if it's two
2:17:37 million dollars for crete corridor
2:17:39 acquisition
2:17:40 um that's probably
2:17:42 only a couple of parcels at least you
2:17:44 know what we've we've seen
2:17:46 um and so i guess i'm just wondering why
2:17:49 that's a bigger
2:17:51 reporting requirement is it something
2:17:53 specific just about the nature of
2:17:55 acquisition versus improvements or
2:17:58 i'll let robert handle that
2:18:02 so there is actually a treasury rule
2:18:04 regarding this so we would actually
2:18:07 put this as part of arpa it would fall
2:18:09 into a different category than that 10
2:18:11 10 million amount that has less
2:18:13 reporting requirements to it and we
2:18:15 would need pre-authorization
2:18:17 from treasury
2:18:18 for those acquisitions and then we would
2:18:20 have to actually report on a regular
2:18:22 basis to treasury so there's a lot more
2:18:24 red tape so to speak for lack of a
2:18:26 better term involved with that but at
2:18:27 the same time also we would have to show
2:18:29 the nexus between our revenue loss and
2:18:31 those acquisitions
2:18:33 so it's a higher test
2:18:37 okay so the the fact that it's in the
2:18:40 doesn't because you also said if it's in
2:18:42 the cip then it's in the
2:18:44 plans and so you can demonstrate that
2:18:45 that was something we were gonna
2:18:48 but even if this is in the cip it falls
2:18:50 into a different bucket because it's an
2:18:52 acquisition great specifically because
2:18:54 it's an acquisition
2:18:56 okay and so
2:18:57 if we just so i understand if we were to
2:18:59 do improvements if we were to acquire a
2:19:02 curriculum and then do a bunch of
2:19:03 improvements those improvements could be
2:19:05 correct in the general arpa yes correct
2:19:08 okay thank you thank you
2:19:11 councilman ray
2:19:12 oh thanks mayor paulie um robert i think
2:19:15 maybe you don't want to go
2:19:18 this one's this one's really um pretty
2:19:19 pretty straightforward how hard and fast
2:19:21 is the end of 2024 date for spending the
2:19:24 money
2:19:25 at this point it is hard and fast okay
2:19:27 will they amend the rule later on can't
2:19:29 tell okay
2:19:30 um and then my second question this
2:19:32 might be not for you um
2:19:35 i'm spending a lot of time looking at
2:19:36 the cip and i see all sorts of fun stuff
2:19:38 in the cip
2:19:40 really good stuff that we prioritized
2:19:42 just a year ago
2:19:43 and it's not being prioritized right now
2:19:46 and i just can't help but go back to the
2:19:48 uh sammamish non-motorized
2:19:51 transportation corridor i can't help but
2:19:53 go to the
2:19:54 retaining wall behind
2:19:57 fred meyer and i'm just trying to figure
2:20:01 how does how does this jive with the
2:20:02 cipr are we putting the cip over here
2:20:04 for the time being or what's going on
2:20:08 for those two projects specifically uh
2:20:10 smammish road as we affectionately call
2:20:12 it pinch point
2:20:14 we have money that's set aside
2:20:16 uh including some arpa funds that
2:20:18 council has already uh allocated forward
2:20:21 the design of that improvement so that
2:20:24 that project is underway um there are
2:20:27 future years that we still need to fund
2:20:29 but we're going through the design phase
2:20:32 and that's that's in the plan and that
2:20:34 design is is funded so that's already a
2:20:37 decision that council has made that we
2:20:39 are working on
2:20:41 and as for i'm sorry what was the other
2:20:43 one that you would mention the wall
2:20:47 the wall i believe is also
2:20:49 reflected in the cip with some funding
2:20:53 that has been assigned to it so that we
2:20:54 can begin some of those
2:20:57 engineering
2:20:58 designs i don't have it in front of me
2:21:00 but i i believe that's another thing
2:21:02 that's in in the plan yeah and both of
2:21:04 them have funding in the plan that's
2:21:06 identified both of them have funding in
2:21:08 the plan that's not identified
2:21:10 so they are they are unfunded completely
2:21:13 and um the pinch point as you lovingly
2:21:15 called it is a 12 million dollar deal
2:21:17 and so we're a long ways from fully
2:21:19 funding that one so i'm just kind of
2:21:21 curious about the relationship between
2:21:23 what we're doing
2:21:25 thank you councilmember ray um
2:21:27 this is a little bit of a different
2:21:29 conversation than what you'll have
2:21:30 during budget so i mean again this is
2:21:33 this one time nine million dollar pot
2:21:36 but you will take the first year of your
2:21:38 cip and we'll incorporate it in the
2:21:40 budget for you but you have the
2:21:42 opportunity then to move buckets of
2:21:44 money to fund the ones that you want to
2:21:46 fund so we haven't put it aside we have
2:21:48 just looked at projects that go through
2:21:49 this tighter criteria do we already own
2:21:52 the land do we have to work with other
2:21:53 agencies
2:21:54 can we actually
2:21:56 complete it within the two-year period
2:21:58 and so it's not putting aside it's using
2:22:00 a much stricter lens to figure out what
2:22:02 could possibly be done and also provide
2:22:04 the community with something that they
2:22:06 can look at and touch and feel and
2:22:09 see that there was some transformational
2:22:12 component to the work but you have your
2:22:14 budget coming and we have the federal
2:22:16 infrastructure package coming which may
2:22:18 also provide funding for some of these
2:22:20 large projects that we have that are
2:22:22 missing
2:22:23 so it's not put aside it's just we're
2:22:25 using a really tight lens on this one
2:22:32 counts president
2:22:34 thank you um i note in one of the areas
2:22:37 when you're talking about infrastructure
2:22:41 and transportation that you were talking
2:22:43 about
2:22:45 just maintenance and improvement so like
2:22:48 sidewalks and things like that
2:22:51 is there a reason or can you discuss the
2:22:57 issues with potentially looking at
2:22:59 building new sidewalks we have several
2:23:02 neighborhoods that have no sidewalks no
2:23:04 bike lanes things like that
2:23:07 yes thank you part of this is staffing
2:23:10 and what we think we can realistically
2:23:12 accomplish with the staffing that we
2:23:14 have on hand and our staffing requests
2:23:16 and so for example if we look at
2:23:19 squawk
2:23:20 we know that there is a desire to have
2:23:23 sidewalks
2:23:24 and perhaps bike lanes in certain parts
2:23:26 of squawk to better connect that
2:23:28 community
2:23:29 there is a study that i think is
2:23:32 referenced in the tip if i recall
2:23:35 to try to design
2:23:38 those sidewalks and make sure that it's
2:23:40 going to be safe so i think there's some
2:23:42 progress being made to try to respond to
2:23:44 those needs that requires some
2:23:46 engineering that requires some outreach
2:23:48 that requires
2:23:51 different types of staffing resources
2:23:53 than say
2:23:54 a sidewalk maintenance contract that
2:23:56 we're going to look outside the city
2:23:58 to maintain
2:24:01 and improve the current sidewalk
2:24:03 conditions we have a number of sidewalks
2:24:08 in other neighborhoods as well that are
2:24:11 falling apart and are a liability to the
2:24:13 city too so there's a lot of sidewalk
2:24:15 needs across the city um in terms of
2:24:18 repair it's something that we feel we
2:24:19 have the staff capacity to do largely
2:24:22 because we can contract it
2:24:26 and really have uh make some great
2:24:28 improvements to sidewalk quality in
2:24:30 different neighborhoods in the city
2:24:32 okay follow up
2:24:34 so on that in part of the proposal there
2:24:37 are several staff
2:24:40 recommendations that would enable the
2:24:42 completion of certain projects that have
2:24:45 been proposed
2:24:47 is there a reason we couldn't
2:24:51 toward the ideas if
2:24:54 a proposal came through so i'm looking
2:24:57 at this as
2:24:58 we have the land
2:25:01 you know or maybe we don't so
2:25:04 okay you can correct me on that i would
2:25:07 love to hear more on that but trying to
2:25:09 find a
2:25:11 project that fits the transportation
2:25:15 if the main problem is staff
2:25:19 whether that's something that could be
2:25:21 solvable can i chime in here i think you
2:25:24 know andrea and i are trying to again
2:25:28 do a better job of setting the table for
2:25:31 the conversation tonight so the big
2:25:34 transportation improvements that you all
2:25:35 want that you're all talking about we
2:25:37 need a lot more than this amount of
2:25:39 money we need the transportation benefit
2:25:40 district and we need to get new revenue
2:25:43 so this is not the solution to our
2:25:46 transportation woes our sidewalk
2:25:48 maintenance woes our sidewalk gap woes
2:25:50 this is just a drop in the bucket
2:25:53 so tonight what we want to focus on is
2:25:55 what we can do under those constraints
2:25:57 knowing that once the engineering staff
2:25:59 is on board
2:26:00 we will have the bandwidth if there are
2:26:03 new revenues not the 8 nine million but
2:26:06 new revenues to actually go to that cip
2:26:08 list and dig down and dig in
2:26:11 but we're not going to be able to do it
2:26:12 with arpa it's just not it's just not
2:26:15 possible so cart before the horse we got
2:26:17 to get the staff in the building
2:26:19 then we have to get new money and that
2:26:20 was the primary recommendation from the
2:26:22 task force is that
2:26:24 you have two choices you can continue to
2:26:26 fund transportation the way you are and
2:26:28 you will continue to look at your list
2:26:30 or you find new revenues so
2:26:33 those are good questions but we're not
2:26:36 at a point where we can make dramatic
2:26:38 transformational transportation
2:26:40 improvement without a new revenue source
2:26:42 and this isn't the source this is just a
2:26:43 small pot of one-time money
2:26:48 so now can we answer the question around
2:26:51 sidewalks and what our staffing
2:26:53 capabilities are and whether or not
2:26:56 those would be possibilities
2:26:58 yes um i also
2:27:01 john may be able to speak to this better
2:27:02 than i do better than i can as our
2:27:04 transportation manager but let me give
2:27:06 first a first try at it
2:27:10 we don't necessarily have all of the
2:27:12 right of way that we need
2:27:14 to build sidewalks in some of our
2:27:16 neighborhoods some of the streets are a
2:27:17 little narrower and so to be able to
2:27:20 keep the streets
2:27:22 at with good sight lines and correct
2:27:25 widths for cars and emergency vehicles
2:27:29 some sidewalks and some areas really may
2:27:32 require additional right-of-way to be
2:27:35 acquired from private property owners
2:27:37 and so that's something that we need to
2:27:39 study and take a look at and design a
2:27:41 system taking into account all of those
2:27:43 constraints
2:27:44 also curb and gutter and storm water
2:27:46 infrastructure comes associated with
2:27:48 that with updated stormwater codes and
2:27:52 it tends to get a little bit more
2:27:54 complicated which
2:27:56 makes it harder
2:27:57 to spend those arpa funds on time um and
2:28:00 would yes require additional staffing
2:28:03 and so if that's something that a
2:28:05 council really wants us to focus on with
2:28:07 ending fund balance or with arpa funds
2:28:09 then we would we would need an
2:28:11 additional position
2:28:12 or we would need to really go back and
2:28:15 figure out what else needs to come off
2:28:17 of our current list of things that we
2:28:20 in the tip lined up
2:28:24 so are you saying that you feel like the
2:28:26 hiring situation if we were to choose to
2:28:31 go after a position for that and go
2:28:34 after a
2:28:35 project like that that we could
2:28:37 potentially hire so it's not market
2:28:42 well there's that consideration too
2:28:43 we're requesting two engineers at a time
2:28:46 when engineers have been hard
2:28:49 to recruit for cities for over 10 years
2:28:52 it is the hardest it's ever been to
2:28:54 recruit for engineers we think we're
2:28:55 pretty competitive we have a we have
2:28:58 a great organization and great
2:29:00 compensation package uh and great
2:29:03 culture but
2:29:04 it's it's going to be hard i think to
2:29:06 recruit for those two positions so um
2:29:09 you know if we have desire to add an
2:29:12 additional uh engineer on top of that a
2:29:14 third person um that's it's gonna take a
2:29:17 while for us to be able to recruit and
2:29:19 fill that team i know recently in our
2:29:22 community planning and development
2:29:23 department um
2:29:25 you know some of these positions have
2:29:27 taken us um
2:29:29 six months or more to recruit and that's
2:29:32 just you know one position at a time and
2:29:34 so that's that's something i think we
2:29:35 need to take into account in terms of
2:29:37 how ambitious we
2:29:39 want to be versus what the reality is in
2:29:41 terms of what we can achieve regarding
2:29:43 our transportation investments in the
2:29:45 immediate term
2:29:49 any additional questions
2:29:52 councilmember
2:29:54 thank you
2:29:55 um i have one follow-up on this
2:29:58 acquisition
2:30:00 and crete corridor
2:30:02 question
2:30:03 um and i think
2:30:05 for context too this was new information
2:30:07 about the change recommending that this
2:30:08 was general fund today so
2:30:12 so there's also the four million for an
2:30:14 anchor park which is um in the in the
2:30:17 proposal that that four million would go
2:30:19 to the parks board and they would make a
2:30:21 recommendation then that would come back
2:30:23 to council um but there are three
2:30:25 projects and one of them is
2:30:27 the creek corridor project a lot of the
2:30:29 costs of which i
2:30:31 presume are acquisition
2:30:34 just to set expectations also for the
2:30:37 parks board
2:30:38 if the administration is not
2:30:40 recommending arpa funding for
2:30:42 acquisition it seems that that project
2:30:45 needs a special
2:30:49 a special
2:30:50 note as far as when this goes to the
2:30:52 parks board if the parks board were to
2:30:55 you know that they want to go forward
2:30:56 with this one and the administration is
2:30:58 actually not recommending acquisition
2:31:00 for arpa funding it seems that we should
2:31:03 at least set that expectation because i
2:31:05 wouldn't i guess i wouldn't want it um i
2:31:08 wouldn't want them to have the full
2:31:09 conversation on all three and then it to
2:31:11 come back and say well the
2:31:12 administration doesn't actually feel
2:31:13 that we can
2:31:14 do that project with this funding source
2:31:16 which which is kind of where you get to
2:31:19 with the other piece of the
2:31:23 conversation
2:31:25 yes uh thank you councilmember i think
2:31:27 it's a good point that you're bringing
2:31:29 up and i know jeff spoke
2:31:31 earlier about some of the criteria that
2:31:33 would be considered
2:31:35 for selecting an anchor park and so i
2:31:37 don't know if you wanted to
2:31:39 talk about that a little bit more
2:31:43 just a quick ad
2:31:44 that's a great point there's
2:31:46 more of a not necessarily a question i
2:31:48 think that the point you're making
2:31:50 other than
2:31:53 i tried to identify in the crete
2:31:55 corridor itself that is such a large
2:31:57 project
2:31:58 there
2:32:00 there could be opportunity for some type
2:32:02 of an improvement project and maybe it's
2:32:04 a trail section we already own that
2:32:06 happens to not be on the creek corridor
2:32:08 that doesn't require the creek itself
2:32:11 that doesn't require acquisition so
2:32:12 there there might be elements that um
2:32:15 arpa funding would be a little bit more
2:32:17 readily um available
2:32:19 but your point is extremely well taken
2:32:22 as and as andrea said um
2:32:24 whether it's a conversation with all of
2:32:26 you or whether it's a conversation with
2:32:27 the park board the those considerations
2:32:29 those criteria really become our our
2:32:31 guiding points to trying to identify
2:32:34 um how to best make an investment before
2:32:43 councilman ray
2:32:46 um thank you
2:32:47 i'm looking at the proposed motions and
2:32:50 the first one clearly says budget
2:32:52 amendment and that's for additional
2:32:54 staff and the
2:32:55 multi-modal study for i-90 and
2:32:58 investment um the strategic park land
2:33:00 acquisitions so that's all stuff we do
2:33:02 this year right we you get a budget
2:33:05 amendment we start working on that this
2:33:06 year the other two which is direct the
2:33:08 administration to proceed with the
2:33:10 investment in an anchor park and also
2:33:14 um community investment strategy or the
2:33:17 community mobility investment strategy
2:33:21 those i don't see a reference to a
2:33:23 budget amendment so i'm guessing those
2:33:24 are in 2023 that those with expenditures
2:33:27 would have happened is there a reason we
2:33:29 can't do two and three in the budget
2:33:30 process when we look at kind of the
2:33:32 holistic thing
2:33:34 i'm going to pull up
2:33:36 in the presentation i also had
2:33:38 those motions just so that we can make
2:33:41 sure everybody's looking at the same
2:33:42 thing
2:33:45 yes the first the first emotion focuses
2:33:49 on what can we do now and what's the
2:33:52 what are we talking about for 2022
2:33:54 um the
2:33:57 the i think third motion talks about the
2:33:59 23 24
2:34:01 budget
2:34:02 um and so forgive me councilmember ray
2:34:05 which projects were you
2:34:07 wanting to move up i wasn't wanting to
2:34:09 move anything up i was really looking at
2:34:10 the number two and number three on the
2:34:12 proposed or the potential motion list
2:34:14 and saying those those aren't asking for
2:34:17 a budget amendment so we don't need to
2:34:18 take action on them until budget season
2:34:21 so my question is can we defer this and
2:34:24 deal with it as part of budget where it
2:34:26 really logically belongs
2:34:28 so i think that's a good question andrea
2:34:31 it's just i'd like you to address
2:34:32 whether or not the time delay budget
2:34:34 would be approved about the third week
2:34:36 of november does that have any would
2:34:38 that have any impact on your timeline
2:34:41 that you had showed
2:34:44 i i don't believe so i don't think that
2:34:46 would have an impact i think what we're
2:34:47 looking for tonight is really just clear
2:34:50 direction from council as we um form the
2:34:53 budget as you know that's a lot of
2:34:54 that's a lot of work to put together and
2:34:56 so if there was clear direction and
2:34:59 agreement from council tonight then
2:35:02 council would always have the
2:35:04 opportunity
2:35:06 to change that during the budget process
2:35:08 right and so this is just
2:35:11 helping direct us to as we draft the
2:35:13 budget
2:35:14 what does council want to see in that
2:35:16 budget and making sure that we're
2:35:17 reflective of that
2:35:19 so it doesn't bind council's future
2:35:21 decision on the budget it's really just
2:35:24 helping us draft that budget um
2:35:28 you know and take out some of i think
2:35:30 the guess work that is involved in
2:35:32 creating the budget so
2:35:34 if council chooses not to
2:35:36 uh provide those motions or provide
2:35:38 action on those motions tonight
2:35:40 then i think the administration would
2:35:42 still move forward with these proposals
2:35:43 and we would talk more about it at
2:35:45 budget time
2:35:46 to answer your question
2:35:48 absolutely that was great thank you okay
2:35:50 deputy council president
2:35:52 um would it have an impact though on the
2:35:54 kind of next steps for the community
2:35:56 mobility investment fund because i know
2:35:58 we were set to
2:36:00 talk about those next week at the
2:36:01 mobility and infrastructure committee
2:36:03 meeting
2:36:03 thank you deputy council president yes
2:36:05 it would because we do want to provide
2:36:07 that outreach this year
2:36:09 we're not anticipating any expenditures
2:36:11 because of course we would need to do
2:36:12 the outreach and design those projects
2:36:16 so we wouldn't expect expenditures this
2:36:17 year but certainly the outreach
2:36:20 we would want to do this year so that we
2:36:21 can be sure to complete those projects
2:36:23 and deliver them as soon as possible
2:36:25 so that so that would that would impact
2:36:28 it um
2:36:32 uh so um that might be something that
2:36:35 you know i
2:36:36 again the administration would still
2:36:38 move forward and want to
2:36:40 want to provide that engagement on those
2:36:42 projects so that we can have a timely
2:36:46 delivery of those projects
2:36:50 council member
2:36:52 thank you that was that was great
2:36:54 because um and and that's all activities
2:36:56 that can happen within our existing
2:36:58 2022 budget
2:37:00 limitations right so we're not not
2:37:02 needing anything to move forward with
2:37:05 that's correct and i would also add to
2:37:07 it as director watling whispered in my
2:37:12 the anchor park project as well so we
2:37:15 have money in the current budget already
2:37:18 for the visioning and scoping work that
2:37:20 he mentioned
2:37:21 but of course any implementation
2:37:23 design and construction that would be
2:37:25 something we would need to put into the
2:37:28 2023-2024 budget
2:37:32 so great questions uh last time when you
2:37:35 had this discussion at committee of the
2:37:36 whole you had a series of questions to
2:37:38 answer and council president went around
2:37:40 i believe question by question
2:37:43 and then it sort of switched to somebody
2:37:45 answered all the questions so everybody
2:37:47 answered all the questions you've got a
2:37:49 different package in front of you
2:37:50 tonight um
2:37:52 how did you want to approach your
2:37:54 conversation before we move into motions
2:37:56 how would you like to discuss
2:37:58 the changes in the package
2:38:01 councilmember mertz
2:38:02 i think it's a regular council meeting
2:38:04 somebody has to move it and then we talk
2:38:05 about it okay
2:38:10 do we have a
2:38:12 mover for the motion
2:38:14 and andrea can you put the motions back
2:38:16 up again
2:38:18 councilman right
2:38:20 i'll take the first one
2:38:22 move to direct the administration to
2:38:23 return the city council with a budget
2:38:25 amendment for anticipated expenditures
2:38:27 in 2022
2:38:29 that would implement the community
2:38:30 investment strategy by spending down
2:38:32 anticipated general fund undesignated
2:38:35 undesignated ending fund balance and
2:38:38 allocate the arpa funds including hiring
2:38:40 two additional transportation engineers
2:38:42 one program coordinator one term limited
2:38:44 parks planner
2:38:45 the i-90 multi-modal study and
2:38:48 investment
2:38:50 strategic parkland acquisition and
2:38:52 improvements thank you second
2:38:54 okay moved and seconded i'll go to the
2:38:57 motion maker would you like to start
2:38:58 council member right
2:39:00 um this this one seems really easy to me
2:39:03 this was uh these were the things we
2:39:04 really when we had the committee of the
2:39:06 whole we agreed on and they came back in
2:39:08 essentially the same form with the
2:39:09 exception of the investment in strategic
2:39:12 parkland acquisition improvement that
2:39:13 seems appropriate to me these are things
2:39:15 we want to get moving on
2:39:17 so it seems appropriate to do a budget
2:39:18 amendment to do this
2:39:20 we don't lose time i think this this
2:39:22 stands apart from the other two uh
2:39:24 fairly dramatically so i think this is
2:39:26 definitely um something we need to move
2:39:28 forward on
2:39:29 councilmember martz
2:39:30 thank you um i think with the criteria
2:39:35 transformational
2:39:36 moving the needle transportation focused
2:39:39 i think it
2:39:40 um you know the strategic part lands
2:39:42 acquisition and improvement is a little
2:39:44 different than that but i think as a
2:39:46 former member of the
2:39:49 task force
2:39:51 you know i think getting going on the
2:39:53 i-90 multimodal study is a big deal and
2:39:56 i think the other infrastructure piece
2:39:58 is the infrastructure piece out of that
2:40:00 is a big deal and i think that if i was
2:40:03 sitting with my fellow finance task
2:40:05 force members
2:40:06 i would feel really good about this so
2:40:09 i'll of course be supporting the motion
2:40:11 that i seconded
2:40:14 sometimes people second just to have a
2:40:15 discussion but
2:40:17 any other comments on this councilmember
2:40:22 thank you so i i agree i also support
2:40:25 this i did want to make it clear that my
2:40:28 expectation on the investment in the
2:40:31 strategic parkland acquisition is
2:40:32 specifically in this creek corridor
2:40:34 acquisition and also i think that that
2:40:37 more closely ties into
2:40:40 mobility focus it's a connection between
2:40:43 these parks it talks about you know
2:40:45 these are the connections where we would
2:40:46 have trails and trails our mobility um
2:40:49 so for me this does check all the boxes
2:40:51 but i again i think it's important that
2:40:54 we're clear it's not um it's not
2:40:55 actually putting this money into our
2:40:57 general strategic parkland acquisition
2:41:00 bucket which can be for hillside
2:41:01 acquisition for example this is
2:41:03 strategic in that it's the creek
2:41:05 corridor and it's connecting these other
2:41:07 parks um
2:41:08 that are along this corridor and
2:41:10 providing those um
2:41:12 mobility and trail connections
2:41:15 councilmember do you feel strongly
2:41:17 enough that you'd like to make an
2:41:18 amendment and add some language to that
2:41:20 last bullet
2:41:22 um i think this is providing direction
2:41:24 and i think it's been clarified that
2:41:26 this is this is what it is but um just i
2:41:29 wanted to make it
2:41:30 super clear that that is my expectation
2:41:33 and that we we're on the same page okay
2:41:35 thank you other comments
2:41:41 seeing none it has been moved and
2:41:43 seconded to direct the administration to
2:41:45 return to city council with budget
2:41:46 amendments for anticipated expenditures
2:41:48 in 2022
2:41:50 that would implement the community
2:41:52 investment strategy by spending down
2:41:53 anticipated general fund under
2:41:56 undesignated ending fund balance and
2:41:58 allocation of arpa funds including
2:42:01 hiring two additional transportation
2:42:03 engineers one program coordinator and
2:42:06 one term limited parks planner the i-90
2:42:09 multi-modal study and investment in
2:42:11 strategic parkland acquisition and
2:42:13 improvement all those in favor say aye
2:42:19 all those opposed
2:42:21 that passes unanimously
2:42:24 is there another motion to be made
2:42:33 council member joe
2:42:36 i moved to direct the administration to
2:42:38 proceed with planning efforts for a four
2:42:40 million dollar investment and one of the
2:42:42 city's anchor parks using arpa funds
2:42:45 and direct the park board to provide
2:42:47 recommendations to city council on which
2:42:49 of the anchor parks should receive the
2:42:51 new investment
2:42:52 i'll second that it's been moved in
2:42:54 second um council member joe would you
2:42:56 like to speak to the motion
2:42:58 thank you
2:43:01 first i appreciate the the sentiment
2:43:04 behind the motion that we should go the
2:43:06 park board to
2:43:07 figure out
2:43:08 which park we should
2:43:10 invest in
2:43:11 we lean on our boards and commissions
2:43:13 pretty heavily for their
2:43:15 knowledge and their experience in their
2:43:17 particular areas where we may not be
2:43:20 as as up to date or um
2:43:23 you know
2:43:25 competent in in a lot of ways so i
2:43:27 appreciate that as a first point
2:43:30 next i think that uh
2:43:32 it's important that we really look at
2:43:33 updating our parks as a system
2:43:37 i've got kids that are 12 and 15 now
2:43:42 with the exception of the depot park
2:43:44 little
2:43:46 new equipment that went in there
2:43:48 i i can't point to a
2:43:51 real improvement that made those parks
2:43:53 better during the time my kids were
2:43:56 of the age that they would love to go to
2:43:58 a park now we did have the highlands
2:44:00 editions and those are great parks up
2:44:02 there
2:44:04 when i go up there to to play i kind of
2:44:07 sneak into the neighborhoods and have my
2:44:09 kid play for a little while until he
2:44:11 feels uncomfortable enough that we have
2:44:12 to leave i would really appreciate you
2:44:14 know having the parks in the valley that
2:44:17 everyone could could use and take part
2:44:19 in and and and
2:44:21 see as a
2:44:23 asset to our community that's going to
2:44:25 take investment on our part to make that
2:44:27 happen and i think this is the first
2:44:29 step in kind of making
2:44:31 i'm starting to move that ball forward
2:44:33 and uh i it
2:44:35 i think we
2:44:36 you know the the arpa funds are an
2:44:38 opportunity that transformational item
2:44:40 it's going to be an item that's going to
2:44:41 be seen by
2:44:43 visitors and people live in our
2:44:45 community and used by by both the uh by
2:44:48 both populations so i'd be in support of
2:44:50 this motion thank you
2:44:52 councilmember d michelle would you like
2:44:53 to comment
2:44:54 um yes thank you very much i also
2:44:57 support this and i think there was a
2:45:00 great presentation tonight so thank you
2:45:01 director watling
2:45:04 fully support the idea of sending this
2:45:06 to the park board for their deliberation
2:45:10 as i said at the council of the whole
2:45:13 each one of these parks has a terrific
2:45:16 rationale for
2:45:18 improvement and upgrading
2:45:21 we all saw
2:45:22 veterans memorial field yesterday and it
2:45:25 was packed with people but you know that
2:45:27 playground looks the same way now today
2:45:30 that it did when i used to take my
2:45:31 grandchildren there when they were three
2:45:33 and and five and so
2:45:36 it is getting tired and it needs some
2:45:38 upgrades you look at the tibbetts creek
2:45:41 and that is going to be a fabulous urban
2:45:44 could be a fabulous urban park
2:45:46 terrific rationale to upgrade that and
2:45:50 then i think councilmember hunt at the
2:45:52 council hall made a wonderful
2:45:54 rationale for upgrading the central
2:45:56 corridor so we've got three great uh
2:45:59 parks all of which will benefit our
2:46:02 people directly it will be that
2:46:03 transformational thing that we're
2:46:04 talking about
2:46:06 and so i absolutely think this is a very
2:46:10 valid use of arpa funds and
2:46:13 will be a transformational project no
2:46:14 matter what the park board comes back
2:46:17 and tells us
2:46:18 and i know that they'll do a good job of
2:46:20 going through it in even more depth so i
2:46:23 absolutely support this motion
2:46:26 councilmember ray
2:46:28 i absolutely agree with everything that
2:46:30 was said and i also think this is an
2:46:32 unnecessary step to take this is actions
2:46:35 that the administration is going to take
2:46:37 whether we direct them or not and i
2:46:38 think that's appropriate one one of the
2:46:40 things that struck me in our
2:46:42 conversation this evening is it felt
2:46:44 like budget season it felt like a budget
2:46:46 proposal it didn't feel like
2:46:48 like kind of a normal council meeting
2:46:50 and that's because it is a it was a
2:46:52 budget pitch and so let's do budget at
2:46:55 budget time let's do other business at
2:46:57 the other times and and let's separate
2:46:59 them because it's very confusing to me
2:47:02 at least to be having
2:47:04 discussions about budget that we don't
2:47:06 have to have
2:47:07 um at this time so first motion we act
2:47:10 we took was perfect that was action we
2:47:12 needed to take so we can move we don't
2:47:14 need to do anything on this right now
2:47:15 and so i can't i can't get behind it so
2:47:19 agree with you everything you said i
2:47:20 just don't think it's an appropriate or
2:47:22 necessary step for us to take
2:47:24 thanks i think council president was
2:47:26 next followed by councilmember hunt
2:47:29 thank you
2:47:31 um i also agree that these are budget
2:47:35 conversations and i think it's important
2:47:37 to have the budget conversation in a
2:47:40 larger standpoint of what do we have
2:47:43 what are our priorities all of that
2:47:45 further
2:47:46 when i look at these particular projects
2:47:49 the veterans memorial park is listed in
2:47:52 our cip with a full project cost of 17
2:47:55 million dollars
2:47:57 tibbetts valley park is in the cip with
2:47:59 a full cost of 23 million dollars
2:48:03 if we're being asked for four million
2:48:05 dollars for this
2:48:07 that's four million dollars with another
2:48:10 check to come and we don't have that
2:48:12 money we don't have anywhere near that
2:48:15 money we won't have that money until we
2:48:18 potentially have a metropolitan park
2:48:20 district and so i love the idea
2:48:24 of a transformational project and if i
2:48:27 had the money to do the full
2:48:29 transformational project
2:48:32 i could get on board with that
2:48:34 i just don't like the idea of
2:48:38 making a down payment on a project and
2:48:40 calling it transformational
2:48:43 putting up plans for
2:48:45 the full
2:48:47 and saying that's what we're going to be
2:48:49 able to accomplish because it's not
2:48:52 and we're not being shown what could be
2:48:54 accomplished with 4 million
2:48:57 on either of those
2:48:58 and so i'm just not able to evaluate
2:49:01 this as a full
2:49:03 set of
2:49:04 yes that's what i want put into the
2:49:07 budget because what i'm seeing here is
2:49:10 17 million and 23 million dollars worth
2:49:12 of project but only four million dollars
2:49:15 worth of budget ask
2:49:17 councilmember hunt
2:49:25 well uh first of all i've been listening
2:49:27 um intently to my fellow councilmember
2:49:29 comments and really interesting and um
2:49:32 thought provoking comments so thank you
2:49:35 um so for me i think
2:49:37 this is a chance to let the
2:49:40 administration know where we are with
2:49:42 this proposal in a way that they can use
2:49:45 for going out for community feedback for
2:49:48 our volunteer board the parks boards
2:49:50 feedback we aren't actually allocating
2:49:53 the funding which we would do at budget
2:49:56 as was pointed out we are
2:49:58 directing the administration letting
2:50:00 them know
2:50:02 we're
2:50:03 potentially supportive of this direction
2:50:05 and that they should take this next step
2:50:07 so for me this feels appropriate now i
2:50:10 don't think i
2:50:11 i don't share the same concern about
2:50:13 this being a conversation that needs to
2:50:15 be had at budget because it's taking the
2:50:17 next step towards getting the
2:50:18 information we would need that
2:50:19 information would come back and inform
2:50:21 the budget which which we would would
2:50:23 make for a better budgeting process
2:50:26 in my opinion
2:50:28 um so on the on to the substance of the
2:50:32 parks anchor parks investment itself i
2:50:37 agree with council member joe when he
2:50:40 was talking about um
2:50:42 you know sneaking into the highlands
2:50:44 parks i i had written down um when i
2:50:46 first
2:50:47 moved to issaquah
2:50:50 went down to the tibbetts park to the
2:50:52 creek in tibbetts park and was like
2:50:55 playing along the um creek there with
2:50:57 with my kids and really didn't know if i
2:50:59 was supposed to be there the manors
2:51:01 there wasn't sure if this was city
2:51:02 property or private property but it
2:51:04 seemed like a creek it also didn't seem
2:51:06 kind of like an afterthought to the park
2:51:08 it wasn't
2:51:09 didn't necessarily you know you can
2:51:10 always be on a playfield but then the
2:51:12 creek it felt like wasn't really sure
2:51:15 and and that's still the case if you go
2:51:17 down there it's not really clear that
2:51:18 this is part of
2:51:20 the city park and um and it's a
2:51:23 beautiful creek and
2:51:25 um we have we have creeks like that all
2:51:28 through town and we have this huge
2:51:30 potential for creating a connected
2:51:32 corridor with this green necklace we
2:51:34 have the natural
2:51:36 bodies of water there that we could use
2:51:38 to make these connections and have it be
2:51:41 a really
2:51:42 inspiring and you know a thing that sets
2:51:44 issaquah apart from our neighboring
2:51:46 communities and makes this a really
2:51:48 great place to live so i i really feel
2:51:51 that there's that potential there and
2:51:52 i've i've seen you know that
2:51:55 i can sort of envision how it could be
2:51:57 changed and realize that potential and i
2:52:00 think with the arpa funding it does call
2:52:03 for this grander vision i also
2:52:05 understand that it's not enough to fund
2:52:07 an entire anchor parks project the the
2:52:10 one and i i mentioned this last time and
2:52:12 i i will
2:52:14 repeat myself the one that is the
2:52:15 smallest total project cost by far is
2:52:19 the creek corridor project which in our
2:52:21 cip the overall project cost is listed
2:52:23 at 6 million
2:52:25 so with the 2 million acquisition and
2:52:27 the 4 million should the parks board
2:52:29 think of it that way
2:52:30 i think that's a benefit i recognize
2:52:32 that there are some other
2:52:35 logistics
2:52:36 concerns because we don't own all of
2:52:39 that land but on the other hand
2:52:41 because we don't own all of that land
2:52:42 for this one this one really stands out
2:52:44 as something that is very time sensitive
2:52:47 um and the cost of these parcels will go
2:52:51 now is the time to make this green
2:52:53 necklace
2:52:54 happen um
2:52:56 i you know we're going to have more
2:52:58 population growth we're going to have
2:53:00 the central issaquah plan
2:53:02 and more people coming to the
2:53:04 central issaquah
2:53:06 and we need to have this
2:53:09 green necklace in place before all of
2:53:11 that growth because it really once the
2:53:13 city grows
2:53:14 around it would be extremely
2:53:16 extraordinarily difficult i think to
2:53:18 make those connections
2:53:20 so i think now is the time for that
2:53:22 project it's it's exciting to me it's
2:53:24 the one that stands out as
2:53:26 transformational would love to hear what
2:53:28 the other parks board members think
2:53:30 about the the projects that are on the
2:53:32 list and how they too could be
2:53:34 transformational
2:53:36 but really i think that that one has
2:53:38 this multiplicative power
2:53:40 um because it connects these parks and
2:53:42 it sets us up for a
2:53:44 a future where our
2:53:46 parks can be connected and people can
2:53:48 walk between them and know that they're
2:53:50 in a city city park and that they belong
2:53:53 and that they're welcome there
2:53:57 thanks um councilmember mertz
2:54:00 thank you madam mayor um
2:54:02 i'm not going to be supporting this
2:54:03 measure this evening and i have more
2:54:06 fundamental concerns than it being a
2:54:08 budget issue um and that and the timing
2:54:11 therefore um i would really love to see
2:54:14 the administration restructure this four
2:54:15 million dollar ask
2:54:17 i really don't think we need another
2:54:19 anchor park right now
2:54:21 first off 4 million would barely scratch
2:54:23 the surface
2:54:24 as pointed out by
2:54:26 council president of either of these
2:54:28 parks and certainly wouldn't move the
2:54:30 needle in the way that
2:54:32 the finance task force was talking about
2:54:34 but more specifically and more
2:54:36 passionately we need to focus on our
2:54:38 existing commitments uh we started 15
2:54:42 plus years ago on building our current
2:54:44 anchor park which is called confluence
2:54:47 we're maybe a third the way through it
2:54:49 i realize the shop is an issue the shop
2:54:52 is one hector
2:54:53 next to a six hectare park i'm not i'm
2:54:56 not convinced that we couldn't
2:54:59 take four million dollars and and move
2:55:01 the needle on confluence in a way that
2:55:03 would matter a lot to our city
2:55:06 if we don't want to work on confluence
2:55:07 let's work on the green necklace which
2:55:09 we've been working on for a decade um i
2:55:11 completely agree with council member
2:55:13 hunt that that has a different level of
2:55:16 value to me than starting an another
2:55:19 gigantic anchor park but where i differ
2:55:22 is that therefore i'm not ready to move
2:55:24 forward with this measure this evening
2:55:26 and then finally the third issue is you
2:55:28 know i been talking for a very long time
2:55:33 it makes me mad to hear about sneaking
2:55:36 into other people's neighborhood parks
2:55:37 because you don't have your own
2:55:38 neighborhood park i have been fighting
2:55:41 for a decade to get a tiny little park
2:55:44 in the middle of the 5 000 people that
2:55:47 live on squawk mountain the valley has a
2:55:49 ton of parks
2:55:51 the highlands has great parks
2:55:56 palace thank you has great parks
2:55:59 so building another
2:56:01 beautiful giant park in the valley that
2:56:03 has other giant parks while my neighbors
2:56:06 go without doesn't feel good so the
2:56:09 conclusion for me is
2:56:11 when we get to this in the fall if it
2:56:13 doesn't pass this evening
2:56:15 what i would love to see is either a
2:56:17 focus on confluence or focus on the
2:56:19 creek corridor green necklace
2:56:20 specifically and execute on the
2:56:23 commitments that we've held as a city
2:56:25 for decades thank you
2:56:27 um director rotlin can you come up and
2:56:29 address a few things i think um what i
2:56:32 heard councilmember mart say is a new
2:56:34 anchor park are you proposing a new park
2:56:36 on the valley floor are you proposing an
2:56:38 investment in a park
2:56:40 no none of these would be new parks um
2:56:43 this is reinvestment into existing parks
2:56:47 okay well i guess this the second part
2:56:49 that was there as well is is it an
2:56:50 option
2:56:51 for a motion to amend it and include
2:56:55 confluence park in the list of items
2:56:57 being reviewed by the parks board
2:57:01 if that is something a member would like
2:57:02 to do could consider that as well okay
2:57:07 we have almost heard from everybody so
2:57:09 deputy council president before we go to
2:57:11 round two did you have any thoughts i'm
2:57:13 sorry i i'd like can i go ahead since
2:57:16 you addressed my comments i was well
2:57:17 aware that you were not talking about
2:57:19 creating a new park but when we talk
2:57:21 about an anchor park right we talk about
2:57:23 a centerpiece park a park that is a a
2:57:27 you know a centerpiece that's what
2:57:28 anchor means and so
2:57:31 turning one of those other two parks as
2:57:33 nice as they are into another anchor in
2:57:35 addition having two anchors in the
2:57:37 valley is is what i was referring to as
2:57:39 extremely aware that you were not
2:57:41 talking about creating a new park thank
2:57:44 deputy council president
2:57:46 well i'm not sure if you've proposed a
2:57:48 friendly amendment to the motion maker
2:57:50 but i suppose we can
2:57:52 go back to that afterwards um
2:57:54 i i won't repeat everything that's being
2:57:56 said i haven't been convinced that we
2:57:59 shouldn't
2:58:00 support this motion so i'll be
2:58:01 supporting it tonight
2:58:04 think i you know a lot of my comments
2:58:06 last time around were i really think a
2:58:08 lot of these arpa investments which
2:58:10 really are for creating economic
2:58:12 prosperity and stimulating economic
2:58:14 prosperity it's a stimulus in the
2:58:15 economy should be used more for
2:58:18 transportation projects i really
2:58:19 appreciate the administration's kind of
2:58:22 i wouldn't necessarily call them changes
2:58:23 but now they're more set in stone and
2:58:25 guaranteed that
2:58:26 things that could go either way are now
2:58:28 going to be more focused on mobility
2:58:30 with regard to this particular motion
2:58:32 though
2:58:33 and using arpa funds on
2:58:35 a four million dollar investment in an
2:58:37 anchor park
2:58:38 you know i think we've heard a number of
2:58:40 good reasons
2:58:43 it's going to come back to us again at
2:58:44 budget
2:58:45 anyways so i'm i'm not
2:58:47 clear why we wouldn't support staff kind
2:58:50 of doing some planning efforts in the
2:58:51 meantime um you know we heard from
2:58:53 andrea and um and wally last time around
2:58:56 that you know an investment like this
2:58:58 would be transfer transformational it's
2:59:00 a larger investment in one thing as
2:59:01 opposed to investing
2:59:03 in many things
2:59:05 which would
2:59:06 you know have a greater community
2:59:08 benefit
2:59:09 we also heard that it's you know more
2:59:12 doable you know we have to consider
2:59:14 what's doable with a smaller pot of
2:59:16 capital like like arpa so we can't go
2:59:18 too big um
2:59:20 investing in parks in this way would
2:59:22 still be aligned with capital finance
2:59:24 community task force recommendations um
2:59:26 i you know i'll still think that that
2:59:28 transportation is a better use of these
2:59:30 dollars but i buy that that's true it is
2:59:33 um i thought it was an interesting
2:59:35 argument that um deputy city miss step i
2:59:38 can never dca i can never say it's sorry
2:59:42 an interesting argument that
2:59:44 you know if we're envisioning this park
2:59:46 district later on there's really not any
2:59:48 kind of you know sustainable or big
2:59:51 investment in parks until that starts
2:59:53 rolling in that's a really good point
2:59:55 that i hadn't thought about too and then
2:59:56 wally was the one that brought this up
2:59:58 last time which was this productivity
3:00:00 spend barrier as well too and saying
3:00:02 well we feel like we're at this point
3:00:04 where we have allocated in our in our
3:00:06 budgeting as much in transportation as
3:00:09 we can to be productive because we run
3:00:11 into having to have conversations with
3:00:13 agencies and stakeholdering which takes
3:00:15 time to wait back and we don't want to
3:00:16 have to you know
3:00:18 go into a budget amendment next time
3:00:19 around so we also want to make sure that
3:00:20 we're being productive and wise with and
3:00:22 accountable with people's money
3:00:26 i wanted to kind of dive into that for a
3:00:27 little bit so i'm
3:00:29 not necessarily seeing why we wouldn't
3:00:30 support this motion tonight and i'm
3:00:32 going to be voting yes those are just
3:00:34 some of the reasons why i think
3:00:36 a parks investment is in line um or is
3:00:39 appropriate too thanks
3:00:42 so we've been around once for comments i
3:00:44 do want to check back in with council
3:00:45 member marks if he's looking at doing an
3:00:47 amendment to the motion
3:00:59 no pressure
3:01:02 although it was totally pressure but no
3:01:04 pressure
3:01:07 thank you thank you madam mayor for
3:01:08 asking that question um
3:01:10 you know
3:01:11 as written here
3:01:14 um it does not this this item does not
3:01:17 specify
3:01:19 what we mean by anchor parks
3:01:25 you know i don't
3:01:27 you know
3:01:28 i don't feel the need to amend it
3:01:30 because if it had specified the specific
3:01:32 anchor parks i i don't think amending it
3:01:34 changes the motion but thank you very
3:01:36 much for asking
3:01:37 um councilmember hunt and council member
3:01:41 maybe councilmember hunt
3:01:44 thank you i have
3:01:46 an idea
3:01:47 it's a small change but i wonder if it
3:01:50 might since we have a number of um
3:01:52 opinions on this
3:01:54 on the diocese i wonder if this might
3:01:56 provide more information that might be
3:01:58 helpful so i wonder if we might
3:02:01 recommends that the parks board come
3:02:03 back to us with
3:02:05 with um reasons
3:02:07 for the different parks sort of a
3:02:09 rationale for the different parks
3:02:11 because
3:02:12 i again i sort of worry that um this
3:02:15 this is evolving we got new information
3:02:17 today about the acquisition and i
3:02:19 wouldn't want them to come back with a
3:02:21 recommendation and then there'd be some
3:02:23 some issue as far as that you know
3:02:25 council thinks that that one doesn't
3:02:26 provide as much um
3:02:28 actual um
3:02:31 project uh build out for example that
3:02:34 that one would require more planning and
3:02:36 so that all the money the four million
3:02:37 would go much more towards planning if
3:02:39 if we got new information like that
3:02:40 which then
3:02:42 um we would have a recommendation in the
3:02:44 parks board which wouldn't have
3:02:45 benefited from that new information so
3:02:47 to that end i wonder if we could have
3:02:49 the parks board basically provide a
3:02:51 rationale for why
3:02:53 the different anchor parks including i
3:02:55 think confluence back on the table um
3:02:58 why they would
3:02:59 reasons that they would be good
3:03:01 parks and then we could sort of consider
3:03:03 all of those with whatever new
3:03:05 information
3:03:07 we have and whatever other community
3:03:09 information community feedback etc all
3:03:11 the other things that we typically
3:03:13 consider in our
3:03:14 budget process
3:03:17 you did use the word amendment but is
3:03:19 that more just providing direction or
3:03:22 clarification to staff or did you want
3:03:23 to propose an amendment
3:03:26 um well i guess i will
3:03:28 that would be
3:03:29 that seems that that would be more
3:03:31 useful information than a recommendation
3:03:33 back specifically on one parks project
3:03:35 so i guess i would ask my fellow council
3:03:37 members if they agree and if and then
3:03:39 also if if we think this could be done
3:03:41 sort of without an amendment or if you
3:03:42 think we should we should amend it
3:03:44 because it does
3:03:45 currently say which park should receive
3:03:48 which to me would be they would come
3:03:50 back with we think this park
3:03:52 that's pretty clear
3:03:55 it's ultimately up to you but i think um
3:03:58 providing
3:03:59 if if you're intending something and
3:04:02 it's not spelled out it it might not be
3:04:05 a bad idea to be more clear more
3:04:07 explicit in the motion
3:04:10 okay i'll go ahead and make the motion
3:04:12 for the sake of argument so
3:04:14 um i would amend this motion to be
3:04:18 direct to the park board to provide
3:04:22 feedback on
3:04:26 feedback to the city council on
3:04:29 the value
3:04:32 putting this
3:04:33 funding towards the different anchor
3:04:35 parks that are in the parks plane
3:04:38 can you read that back tisha if you got
3:04:49 and would would this be an amendment or
3:04:50 would this be a replacement motion
3:04:53 so as i
3:04:54 heard it this would replace the second
3:04:57 half so
3:04:59 and we could probably work to get this
3:05:01 on screen too so it would say direct the
3:05:03 administration to proceed with planning
3:05:05 efforts for four million investment in
3:05:07 one of the city's anchor parks using
3:05:09 arpa funds that would remain unchanged
3:05:11 and then the second half would be
3:05:13 replaced with
3:05:17 hold on give me just a moment sorry
3:05:22 and direct the park board to provide
3:05:24 feedback to the city council on the
3:05:26 value of putting this funding towards
3:05:28 the different anchor parks that are in
3:05:31 strategic plan
3:05:35 does that capture your intent yes
3:05:38 is there a second for the amendment
3:05:40 can the maker the motion just accept as
3:05:42 a friendly amendment
3:05:44 uh who was
3:05:47 oh it was council member joe um can he
3:05:50 accept no no no however um chair you you
3:05:54 could say that um is there any objection
3:05:58 the amendment okay there's no objection
3:06:00 it just could proceed is there any
3:06:02 objection to the amendment
3:06:05 none that i can see
3:06:08 question of clarification
3:06:11 uh so i think as read and again we can
3:06:15 work on trying to put it on the screen
3:06:17 but i i heard feedback to city council
3:06:19 on the value
3:06:20 of putting this funding towards
3:06:24 various parks within the park strategic
3:06:26 plan but i think i said anchor park did
3:06:29 you say anchor parks okay great then
3:06:31 maybe i heard him correctly okay um
3:06:33 thank you and then but i think that we
3:06:35 would want to make sure that based on
3:06:37 the conversation we heard tonight that
3:06:39 the confluence is included with that
3:06:41 because i think that's part of the
3:06:42 intent of your original of of your
3:06:44 amendment council member hunt and so
3:06:47 i'm not i'm looking at director wattling
3:06:49 uh as confluence identified in our park
3:06:52 strategic plan as an anchor
3:06:54 park yes okay yes confluence could be
3:06:58 included in that conversation and if i
3:07:00 could just get clarification on it so it
3:07:01 sounds like the desire is more getting
3:07:05 rationale back from the park board not
3:07:07 necessarily a recommendation
3:07:11 yeah i think that that would because
3:07:13 there's so many different opinions on
3:07:14 this and then there could also be new
3:07:16 information i think that that fuller
3:07:18 report back not just on a recommendation
3:07:22 would be ultimately more useful when
3:07:24 this comes back to um for for us as the
3:07:27 decision makers so yes that's correct
3:07:30 okay council president
3:07:33 oh council member joe
3:07:37 thank you madam mayor
3:07:39 uh through this whole conversation i
3:07:40 just would like us to keep in mind that
3:07:43 there's a
3:07:44 there's really an equity component to
3:07:47 now in the sense that uh
3:07:48 i went fishing with my son
3:07:51 on saturday
3:07:53 and when i went to the park
3:07:55 i probably heard about uh
3:07:57 i went to the state park lake spanish
3:07:59 state park they've got a new playground
3:08:01 there
3:08:03 wide areas for hiking and doing other
3:08:05 things but
3:08:07 i walked through that park and i
3:08:08 probably heard about six different
3:08:09 languages
3:08:11 and i smelled about seven different
3:08:12 types of food being cooked on the
3:08:13 barbecues out there and we simply
3:08:16 we don't have that kind of
3:08:19 capacity in our parks right now to have
3:08:21 multiple barbecues out there where
3:08:22 people can gather and the people were
3:08:25 having a great time just being with
3:08:27 other family members they didn't
3:08:29 necessarily need a roller coaster they
3:08:31 didn't necessarily need a boat launch or
3:08:33 a yacht they were just having fun as
3:08:36 families and
3:08:37 i see that
3:08:39 as the vision for our parks here where
3:08:41 we can have passive recreation that can
3:08:43 really make a difference so
3:08:46 i'm not saying that any one of these
3:08:48 projects doesn't take equity into
3:08:49 consideration but i would just like us
3:08:51 to look through an equity lenses my dear
3:08:54 friend councilmember d michelle always
3:08:56 says i thought i would say it tonight so
3:08:57 she didn't have to
3:08:59 along the way
3:09:01 well i'm also supportive of uh including
3:09:03 confluence park in that
3:09:05 list of parks that we look at
3:09:07 and um you know
3:09:10 it's really my favorite park at this
3:09:12 point because
3:09:14 i can throw my kid into the creek and
3:09:16 leave him alone down there will i sun
3:09:19 and relax and have a picnic up on the
3:09:21 shore
3:09:23 i think i would use the other parks a
3:09:24 lot more too if there were other passive
3:09:26 recreational opportunities other ways
3:09:28 for me to enjoy what is squat has to
3:09:30 offer so thank you
3:09:31 thank you council member joe and now i
3:09:33 forget who was after oh council
3:09:35 president
3:09:36 thank you
3:09:37 um just adding on to the information um
3:09:41 that i would find useful from
3:09:43 the park board is understanding what
3:09:46 could be accomplished with four million
3:09:48 dollars
3:09:49 at each of those
3:09:51 locations
3:09:52 and so i think that that would be just
3:09:56 feedback don't need to amend just a
3:09:58 sense of
3:10:00 what is the actuality um and how the
3:10:03 park board
3:10:04 envisions that thank you thanks any
3:10:07 other comments before we vote on the
3:10:09 revised motion
3:10:11 it counts my remarks point of
3:10:13 clarification
3:10:14 where does
3:10:16 so uh
3:10:17 not to throw a spanner in the works but
3:10:20 uh where does the green necklace fit
3:10:21 that's not a that's not an anchor park
3:10:24 right but
3:10:25 um at various points this evening i
3:10:27 think at least two of us
3:10:28 have said that that would be that would
3:10:34 seems like a comparably valuable
3:10:36 potential use of our 4 million
3:10:39 confessional i i'm regretting referring
3:10:42 to anchor park several years ago
3:10:45 there's no magic to what an anchor park
3:10:46 is so the creek corridor
3:10:49 is what for the planning purposes we've
3:10:51 identified as this north-south
3:10:54 sort of main
3:10:56 spine of the green necklace so the creek
3:10:58 corridor would be the
3:11:01 green necklace is that fair council
3:11:02 member hunt and
3:11:04 i think as you
3:11:05 said both
3:11:07 so so what we're seeing here today is
3:11:09 really
3:11:10 asking the park board to come tell us
3:11:14 the value and what we could potentially
3:11:16 get for a four million dollar investment
3:11:20 any one of several major park systems
3:11:23 that we have in the valley
3:11:25 all right i can support that thanks
3:11:28 any other comments or questions
3:11:31 okay seeing none i will read the motion
3:11:33 again it's been moved and seconded to
3:11:35 direct the administration to proceed
3:11:37 with planning efforts for a four million
3:11:39 dollar investment in one of the city's
3:11:41 anchor parks using arpa funds and direct
3:11:43 the park board to provide feedback to
3:11:45 the city council on the value of putting
3:11:47 this funding towards the different
3:11:49 anchor parks that are in the park
3:11:50 strategic plan
3:11:53 all those in favor
3:11:54 aye aye
3:11:58 all those opposed nay
3:12:01 that passes six to one with uh council
3:12:04 president in
3:12:05 uh the nay column
3:12:07 um i know we have a third motion that
3:12:09 was also in your packet however it was
3:12:12 slightly corrected and um
3:12:15 dca snyder will show us what the change
3:12:18 in wording is
3:12:48 did you want to explain what the change
3:12:50 uh yes thank you so as you can see
3:12:52 there's uh there's text here in a
3:12:54 different color it's that brown color
3:12:56 that you saw before in the presentation
3:12:58 and that reflects that reflects the
3:13:01 change in the funding source that we
3:13:03 talked about earlier so
3:13:05 rollover 400 000 of the undesignated
3:13:07 general fund ending fund balance for
3:13:09 mobility network deferred maintenance we
3:13:11 talked about sidewalks specifically
3:13:14 and that two million of the undesignated
3:13:17 general fund-ending fund balance
3:13:19 would be used to
3:13:21 increase funding for strategic parkland
3:13:23 acquisition and improvements again we
3:13:25 talked about the creekside
3:13:27 acquisitions in particular
3:13:29 this would be the changes from the
3:13:31 proposed motions in your packet
3:13:34 this evening
3:13:35 council president
3:13:37 i just want to ask a question on that
3:13:39 i'm seeing several things in this third
3:13:42 motion
3:13:43 that are the same as in motion one
3:13:47 so the investment in strategic parkland
3:13:49 acquisition
3:13:51 appears to be about the same
3:13:53 and the i-90 multimodal study is
3:13:57 the same and then we just
3:13:59 had a motion related to the anchor park
3:14:02 design and construction so
3:14:05 why are those things also appearing here
3:14:10 yes council president um
3:14:12 i think that has to do with uh different
3:14:14 funding amounts and so not all of the
3:14:16 expenditures do we anticipate to hit in
3:14:18 2022 we um expect uh some of these
3:14:22 expenditures to hit in 2023 and 24. and
3:14:25 so i think that's why we want to make
3:14:27 sure that these are reflected
3:14:31 in the future city budget as we draft
3:14:34 that budget
3:14:38 i think uh one of the motions addressed
3:14:40 2022 and this is taking you to 2023-2024
3:14:45 any other questions
3:14:48 anybody wanting to make a motion
3:14:51 council member michelle
3:14:53 thank you mayor paulie
3:14:55 i move that we direct the administration
3:14:57 to proceed to incorporate the community
3:14:58 investment strategy within the
3:15:01 2023-2024 city budget including
3:15:04 anchor park design and construction of
3:15:06 phase one
3:15:08 community mobility investment fund i-90
3:15:11 multi-modal study roll over 400 000 of
3:15:15 undesignated general fund ending fund
3:15:17 balance for mobility network deferred
3:15:19 maintenance
3:15:20 two million of undesignated general fund
3:15:23 ending fund balance to increase funding
3:15:25 for strategic parkland acquisition and
3:15:27 improvements and
3:15:29 continued funding for new staffing
3:15:31 positions two additional transportation
3:15:33 engineers
3:15:34 one program coordinator and one term
3:15:36 limited parks planner
3:15:42 second
3:15:43 it's been moved and seconded open for
3:15:44 discussion councilmember mertz
3:15:49 well i actually would like to make an
3:15:51 amendment
3:15:52 um i'd like to
3:15:53 propose
3:15:55 striking the words of phase one out of
3:15:57 the first bullet point uh to better
3:15:59 reflect the tone of the of the
3:16:01 conversation that we held on the on the
3:16:03 previously uh past measure
3:16:06 hearing no objection
3:16:10 can i use that one
3:16:12 hearing no objection we would be
3:16:14 striking of phase one out of the first
3:16:16 bullet any objections
3:16:20 uh discussion
3:16:23 do you want me to start
3:16:24 oh yes okay councilmember d michelle um
3:16:27 i i actually view this motion as mostly
3:16:30 an administrative motion just to clarify
3:16:33 that we want these items to be
3:16:35 considered in the 2023-2024
3:16:38 budget uh deliberations
3:16:41 so in for that i am supporting it thank
3:16:44 you council member hunt
3:16:48 thank you i i too see this as
3:16:52 mostly
3:16:53 administration
3:16:55 administrative and you know sort of um
3:16:59 clarifying the timeline for things that
3:17:01 we um previously approved this evening
3:17:03 however i do
3:17:04 similar to council president walsh's
3:17:06 question i guess i don't quite
3:17:09 understand we did say that we're going
3:17:11 to invest in the strategic parkland
3:17:13 acquisition improvement and
3:17:15 anticipated expenditures in 2022 but
3:17:17 then we also have the 2 million for the
3:17:19 2023 to 2024. so is that really in in
3:17:23 practice that would be that if we spent
3:17:25 some of that in 2022
3:17:28 then we would spend less in the 2023 and
3:17:31 we would because otherwise this could be
3:17:32 double counting right and the same with
3:17:34 these other ones
3:17:35 is that right yes i'm sorry we would we
3:17:38 would move forward and allocate the
3:17:39 funding according to when we would
3:17:41 expect those expenditures to hit so
3:17:43 thank you for the clarification it
3:17:44 wouldn't be
3:17:45 additional funding that's kind of out of
3:17:47 that 2 million so it is still
3:17:50 it would be determined in the budgeting
3:17:52 process
3:17:54 okay and so it's it's the
3:17:56 it's really about anticipated
3:17:58 expenditures in 2022 and then this one
3:18:00 is about anticipated expenditures in
3:18:02 2023 of which
3:18:04 there will be components of all these
3:18:05 things that's correct okay okay great
3:18:08 thank you additional comments
3:18:12 oh councilmember dean
3:18:15 do we need to make this clear and add
3:18:17 the word deliberations after the word
3:18:19 city budget so that
3:18:22 in other words
3:18:23 we still haven't approved the
3:18:26 2023-2024 city budget
3:18:29 does that make any difference
3:18:31 not sure it's a good
3:18:34 question uh so uh counsel of course um
3:18:39 if you want to provide clarity uh i
3:18:42 think that's fine you know this is
3:18:43 really just to direct the administration
3:18:45 and so
3:18:46 um i think we have clarity in terms of
3:18:48 our direction as we draft the budget
3:18:50 then that budget is going to come back
3:18:52 to council for all the deliberations and
3:18:54 potential changes and then that budget
3:18:57 would be adopted so i think we have
3:18:59 clarity if if you felt like there might
3:19:02 be a miscommunication then
3:19:05 then i invite you to amend accordingly
3:19:07 but i you know the whole point of these
3:19:09 motions is just to try to
3:19:13 provide clarity and direction for the
3:19:15 administration and so um pending the
3:19:18 vote in the comments from council
3:19:19 tonight i i think we would have that
3:19:21 clarity without that amendment
3:19:24 that's fine with me unless anybody else
3:19:28 any other comments
3:19:30 council president
3:19:33 i guess i'm just going to
3:19:35 take a moment to speak to the
3:19:36 administration and hope that you
3:19:39 recognize this is coming from
3:19:43 what i'm looking at related to the
3:19:45 budget and recognizing that there is a
3:19:48 lot of disagreement
3:19:50 and a lot of different ideas here and so
3:19:55 i hope we can create i hope you can
3:19:58 create a good story coming into the
3:20:03 budget season and a good
3:20:05 sense of where we're going and
3:20:07 connecting with council members before
3:20:10 because i don't think this has been a
3:20:12 particularly easy process
3:20:15 for this conversation and
3:20:19 we've had some pretty great budget
3:20:22 seasons over the last few years
3:20:27 this is what's going to come ahead i'm
3:20:30 just very concerned and
3:20:33 so i i just hope we can take some of the
3:20:37 feedback that has come from this and
3:20:40 use that toward
3:20:43 a future because i'm concerned with some
3:20:46 of these ideas going forward
3:20:48 any other comments
3:20:50 uh council member joe
3:20:54 thank you madam mayor
3:20:57 in confluence park there's a
3:20:59 little place called
3:21:02 markets meadow
3:21:04 there's also trailhead off 900 that's
3:21:06 named after her too
3:21:08 that's uh margaret mcleod many of you
3:21:11 knew her
3:21:12 and she was great at getting grants
3:21:14 she was great at finding funding for us
3:21:16 it was just amazing
3:21:18 and i think that this section of the
3:21:20 motion number three
3:21:22 sets out a vision for the future for us
3:21:24 so maybe by 2023 or 2024 the
3:21:27 administration has gotten us some grant
3:21:29 funding has gotten us some other support
3:21:31 from the state or whether what other
3:21:32 sources perhaps are private fund
3:21:35 funding opportunities that are out there
3:21:36 from foundations etc that could help
3:21:41 lessen that gap
3:21:42 make it more feasible for us to get
3:21:44 there and we're not going to do this all
3:21:46 in one big step we've got to do this in
3:21:48 small steps and this is a great start so
3:21:51 i hope that my fellow council members
3:21:52 would support this motion and
3:21:55 i trust the administration is going to
3:21:57 be looking at granting opportunities
3:21:59 grant opportunities in the future as we
3:22:01 look at the whole entire picture of how
3:22:03 we can make isa a great place to live
3:22:05 work and play thank you
3:22:08 thank you and thank you for the
3:22:09 reference to former parks director
3:22:11 margaret mcleod very very nicely done
3:22:13 any other comments
3:22:16 councilmember hunt
3:22:19 i have a
3:22:20 comment on the community mobility
3:22:23 investment funds and i am not on the
3:22:25 mobility infrastructure committee so
3:22:27 this is um this will go the engagement
3:22:29 strategy for this will go towards them
3:22:31 and wanted to
3:22:33 put forward a comment
3:22:35 on that which is sort of similar to my
3:22:37 comments on the kind of feedback i think
3:22:40 that would be great to get from the
3:22:41 parks board
3:22:43 there's a lot of constraints and timing
3:22:46 and and issues around
3:22:48 mobility investments and so
3:22:51 i would just urge
3:22:53 the mobility infrastructure committee
3:22:55 and um
3:22:56 and the staff in doing in structuring
3:22:59 that engagement to really
3:23:01 make sure that we're getting information
3:23:03 that we're planning on using
3:23:05 and that it's that it ends up being
3:23:07 useful in our process and also that the
3:23:09 information is there
3:23:11 for those community members who are
3:23:13 taking the time out of their lives to do
3:23:15 these surveys that they have the
3:23:17 information they need to to provide us
3:23:19 with that feedback that is ultimately
3:23:20 useful um because i think uh there's a
3:23:24 lot of there's a lot of context and i
3:23:26 think it's a great idea i think it has a
3:23:28 lot of potential but i do think it's
3:23:29 very important that that community
3:23:31 engagement be scoped
3:23:34 in such a way and also that there's an
3:23:36 expectation from us and expectation from
3:23:39 the administration that we would
3:23:40 actually
3:23:41 use that feedback in our decision making
3:23:42 process which means we have to scope it
3:23:45 for the kind of feedback we will use in
3:23:47 our decision making process so just a
3:23:49 one additional comment for my colleagues
3:23:52 that are on the mobility and
3:23:53 infrastructure
3:23:55 committee to consider
3:23:58 we've captured that thank you
3:24:01 any other comments
3:24:04 okay i'll read this really long motion
3:24:07 uh is the change in here
3:24:10 already yeah that council no thank you
3:24:13 okay i'll have to just remember it
3:24:15 so it has been moved and seconded to
3:24:16 direct the administration to proceed to
3:24:18 incorporate the community investment
3:24:20 strategy within the 2023 2024 city
3:24:23 budget including anchor park design and
3:24:26 construction
3:24:27 community mobility investment fund i-90
3:24:30 multimodal study
3:24:31 the rollover of 400 000 of undesignated
3:24:34 general fund ending fund balance for
3:24:36 mobility network deferred maintenance
3:24:39 two million dollars of undesignated
3:24:41 general fund ending fund balance to
3:24:43 increase funding for strategic parkland
3:24:45 acquisition and improvements and
3:24:47 continued funding for new staffing
3:24:49 positions
3:24:50 two additional transportation engineers
3:24:52 one program coordinator and one term
3:24:55 limited parks planner all those in favor
3:24:57 say aye
3:25:02 all those opposed nay
3:25:04 that passes six to one with council
3:25:05 president in opposition
3:25:08 back to my script i don't believe that
3:25:11 we have any more motions on this item
3:25:13 andrea
3:25:15 okay thank you
3:25:16 computer went to sleep good conversation
3:25:28 uh madam mayor find may great ahead uh
3:25:31 thank you um i we do have
3:25:34 an executive session anticipated for
3:25:36 this evening
3:25:37 given the late hour i think one of those
3:25:39 topics the topic on cyber security we
3:25:42 can postpone to another time
3:25:45 one of those items the potential or
3:25:47 pending litigation is a little bit more
3:25:49 timely and so i do ask for council's
3:25:52 continued patience to stick with us
3:25:54 for that item a few minutes
3:25:59 thank you we have a couple of good of
3:26:00 the order items too so we may introduce
3:26:02 some of them tonight but also continue
3:26:04 those conversations in future council
3:26:06 meetings as well
3:26:08 so i know that um
3:26:10 council president has an item and
3:26:13 council deputy has two items i think one
3:26:16 or two items okay so let's start with
3:26:18 the council president
3:26:20 thanks um i will keep this short so um
3:26:24 deputy council president uh hall
3:26:28 council member d michelle and i met with
3:26:31 a few of the
3:26:33 council members from sammamish and
3:26:36 redmond
3:26:37 as a way to create some relationships a
3:26:39 lot of the council members are new
3:26:42 and we had a great conversation
3:26:45 there's going to be an ask if anybody
3:26:47 else wants to participate sounds like
3:26:49 they're wanting to schedule a monthly
3:26:52 lunch with rotating council members
3:26:55 so i'll get the details out to you over
3:26:58 email i just really wanted to let you
3:26:59 know we did it it was great we would
3:27:01 love you to participate
3:27:04 and then i believe there is also a good
3:27:06 of the order
3:27:09 request yeah so there's a council
3:27:12 expense request the national league of
3:27:15 cities annual conference is coming up
3:27:18 scheduled november 16th to 19th in
3:27:20 kansas city missouri
3:27:24 council member d michelle is interested
3:27:27 in attending but we have a financial
3:27:31 policy or a council policy
3:27:33 that council approval is required for
3:27:36 expenses over 500
3:27:39 so rather than make this a motion i just
3:27:42 thought i would ask if there is any
3:27:44 objection
3:27:46 to a travel cost of
3:27:49 2 000 estimated at 2 500
3:27:54 okay councilmember i'm not going to
3:27:56 object i i just want to get a report
3:27:59 back from council michelle
3:28:03 you know the on the
3:28:05 on the conference and what what you took
3:28:07 away from it because i think we all
3:28:09 should benefit from your um taking the
3:28:11 one the taking for the team and
3:28:13 traveling in this this day and age of
3:28:15 canceled flights
3:28:19 okay so it sounds like there are no
3:28:22 objections so the administration should
3:28:24 be good on that and so that's the two
3:28:26 items i had
3:28:27 okay councilmember hall all right uh
3:28:29 thank you so i'll just be really quick
3:28:30 then since um it is late and we're going
3:28:32 into an executive session so
3:28:34 um really quickly on the community
3:28:36 listening session we hosted back on june
3:28:39 15th so just once again a huge thank you
3:28:41 to everyone who took the time to come
3:28:43 join us and to ask questions and to
3:28:45 connect with us about the issues
3:28:47 the pressing issues that are impacting
3:28:48 your lives
3:28:49 i think we definitely heard that there
3:28:51 was a major interest in public safety
3:28:52 and law enforcement um from those who
3:28:55 attended uh the the listening session so
3:28:58 from kind of a public policy making
3:29:00 process you know i just want to say that
3:29:01 you know we hear you and
3:29:04 your questions and comments are
3:29:06 certainly
3:29:07 you know on our minds as we head into
3:29:08 the biennial budget cycle as we start to
3:29:10 consider whether
3:29:12 additional investments are necessary to
3:29:13 keep everyone safe which is our first
3:29:16 foremost objective as council members
3:29:18 and also as we prepare our advocacy
3:29:20 efforts for the 2023 legislative session
3:29:22 so that really goes for all the topics
3:29:24 of discussion that came up at the
3:29:25 listening session but uh once again
3:29:27 thank you very much for sharing your
3:29:28 voice with us um
3:29:30 for council um based on some preliminary
3:29:34 discussions that uh council president
3:29:36 walsh and i have had with you and then
3:29:38 also some feedback that we got from
3:29:40 community members who joined in person
3:29:41 or emailed and afterwards we're starting
3:29:43 to see some potential opportunities for
3:29:45 improvement for next time around two
3:29:47 which is exciting so
3:29:48 um we've definitely heard from the
3:29:49 community there first and foremost that
3:29:51 they really appreciated the new forum i
3:29:53 don't i think it's hard to argue that um
3:29:56 they really value time for q a and would
3:29:58 even like to see even more time
3:30:00 dedicated to q a uh with less of an
3:30:02 emphasis on intros and presentations and
3:30:04 mingling so lots to consider here that
3:30:06 we'll be probably coming to ask your
3:30:08 feedback on in the future um
3:30:11 so uh and if you haven't heard from
3:30:13 either counts president walsh or i yet
3:30:15 about this topic you will soon so thank
3:30:18 you very much uh and finally just to our
3:30:20 interested community members um who
3:30:21 either came or looking forward to coming
3:30:23 to a future listening session
3:30:24 uh stay tuned for details on
3:30:28 and then i just really quickly wanted to
3:30:30 share that um you should residents you
3:30:32 probably should have gotten your 2021
3:30:34 water quality report in the mail already
3:30:36 um once again the city has
3:30:39 met all of our water quality standards
3:30:41 very happy to see that and i just wanted
3:30:43 to do a special shout out to our public
3:30:45 works staff thanks for all you do to
3:30:47 keep our water clean safe affordable
3:30:49 reliable
3:30:50 and thanks for all you do
3:30:53 that's great um i just want to add one
3:30:55 thing for council's consideration is
3:30:57 that i know the telus
3:30:59 residents association may also like to
3:31:02 host one of your listening sessions in
3:31:03 whatever format you decide and they're
3:31:05 going to let you know the october date i
3:31:08 believe it is for their
3:31:10 meeting so as you consider what format
3:31:12 you'd like to use you have at least one
3:31:13 group that
3:31:14 really wants to host you as well
3:31:17 um before we move into the regular
3:31:18 session i'll just go over a couple of up
3:31:20 coming council meetings on friday
3:31:22 evening july 15th there's an informal
3:31:24 barbecue with council members and senior
3:31:26 staff and it will be held at confluence
3:31:27 park saturday july 16th at 9 a.m is the
3:31:31 city council retreat at tibbetts manor
3:31:32 to discuss the strategic plan and budget
3:31:34 priorities july 18th is the regular city
3:31:37 council meeting with anticipated agenda
3:31:39 items including the issaquah clean
3:31:41 buildings initiative
3:31:42 and this one's going to be super fun our
3:31:44 reception for the hall of fame
3:31:46 recipients will be held prior to the
3:31:48 july 18th meeting the july 18 council
3:31:51 meeting at 5 p.m at 55 sunset coffee and
3:31:54 spirits and we'll be able to celebrate
3:31:56 with all those who have been previously
3:31:58 inducted into the hall of fame
3:32:01 so we will be having an executive
3:32:03 session as earlier announced
3:32:05 and we will be discussing potential
3:32:08 pending or potential litigation per rcw
3:32:12 42.30.110 paren one parent i and these
3:32:15 items are this item is expected to take
3:32:18 a total of
3:32:22 10 minutes 10 minutes and no action is
3:32:25 anticipated in open session as a
3:32:27 reminder executive sessions are closed
3:32:29 to the public and we will now recess
3:32:31 into executive session at 10 32 p.m for
3:32:34 those participating virtually anyone who
3:32:36 is not part of the closed session will
3:32:38 remain in the main meeting and you are
3:32:39 welcome to stay in the meeting until it
3:32:42 reconvened

Attendance

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

Motions and votes (5)

Authorize the Mayor to enter into and execute a Memorandum of Understanding with Bird to begin an Electric Scooter Share Pilot Program. (In Support: Joe, Marts, Hall). b)
Moved by JOE · seconded by HALL
Failed 3-4
In favor: Joe, Marts, Hall
Opposed: Barbara de Michele, Victoria Hunt, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
Direct the Administration to return to City Council with budget amendments for anticipated expenditures in 2022 that would implement the Community Investment Strategy by spending down anticipated General Fund undesignated ending fund balance and allocation of ARPA funds, including: • Hiring two addi…
Moved by REH · seconded by MARTS
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh
Direct the Administration to proceed with planning efforts for a $4 million investment in one of the City's anchor parks using ARPA funds; and direct the Park Board to provide recommendations to City Council on which of the anchor parks should receive the new investment.
Moved by JOE · seconded by DE MICHELE
Direct the Administration to proceed to incorporate the Community Investment Strategy within the 2023-2024 city budget, including: • Anchor Park design and construction of Phase 1 • Community Mobility Investment Fund • I-90 Multi Modal Study • Roll over $400,000 of undesignated General Fund ending f…
Moved by DE MICHELE · seconded by HUNT
APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED. a) ID 1192 - Accounts: Payables and Payroll of July 5, 2022, $3,552,719.23; Approved. b) Minutes: City Council Study Session, April 26, 2022; Approved. c) Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, June 6, 2022; Approved. d) ID 1080 - Informational Update: Public…
Moved by WALSH · seconded by HALL
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, Lindsey Walsh