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City Council Regular Meeting

Monday, December 2, 2024

7:00 PM · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Watch on YouTube ↗ Agenda PDF ↗ Minutes PDF Transcript .txt
Topics tracked across meetings:
2025-2026 Mid-Biennium Budget Adjustment AB 9053 ››››› 1/6
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024 → City Council Committee of the Whole · Oct 13, 2025 → City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 20, 2025 → City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 27, 2025 → City Council Special Meeting · Oct 27, 2025 → City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 17, 2025
View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Committee of the Whole · Oct 13, 2025 ▶
2023-24 Budget Reauthorizations n/a (Action to be taken under AB 9016, First Ordinance AB 8986 › 1/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 21, 2025
View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 21, 2025 ▶
First 2025-26 Budget Amendment AB 9016 › 1/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 21, 2025
View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 21, 2025 ▶
Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update AB 8796 ›››››››››››››››››› 19/19
Planning Policy Commission · Jun 26, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Jul 10, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 14, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 28, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Sep 11, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Oct 2, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Nov 13, 2014 → Planning Policy Commission · Feb 23, 2023 → Planning, Development & Environment Committee · Mar 28, 2023 → Human Services Commission · Sep 20, 2023 → Park Board · Nov 27, 2023 → hearing examiner · Jun 6, 2024 → Planning Policy Commission · Jul 25, 2024 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 8, 2024 → Environmental Board · Aug 14, 2024 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 22, 2024 → Planning Policy Commission · Sep 12, 2024 → City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024
◀ Prev: City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 View full lifecycle →
Waiver of Permit Fees for Low Income Residents and Building Permit Fee Deferral for Emergencies AB 8950 ››››› 6/6
Environmental Board · Jun 8, 2022 → Planning, Development & Environment Committee · Jun 28, 2022 → City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 18, 2024 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 22, 2024 → City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024
◀ Prev: City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 View full lifecycle →
Citywide Strategic Plan Five-Year Update AB 8911 ››››› 6/6
Planning Policy Commission · Apr 12, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Apr 26, 2018 → Human Services Commission · Oct 23, 2018 → Equity Board · Nov 2, 2024 → City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024
◀ Prev: City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024 View full lifecycle →
179 1st Ave SE Surplus AB 8926 ›› 3/3
Services, Safety & Parks Committee · Oct 15, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 4, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 4, 2024 View full lifecycle →
2025-26 Budget AB 8885 › 2/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 4, 2024 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 2, 2024
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 4, 2024 View full lifecycle →
Section
Topic
5. CONSENT CALENDAR
5a
Minutes: City Council Committee of the Whole, Nov. 18, 2024
Carried 7-0
Approve · packet pp.7–9
▶ Watch from 2:28 Open packet at p.7 ↗
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR a) 11-18-24 City Council Committee of the Whole Minutes Page (0000)
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5b
Informational Update: Grant and Contract 3rd Quarter Report ID 1765
Carried 7-0
Receive Report · packet pp.11–18
▶ Watch from 2:33 Open packet at p.11 ↗
Staff report:
The Q3 2024 grant and contract
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5c
Informational Update: End of Year Issaquah Climate Action Plan Update ID 1767
Carried 7-0
Receive Report · packet pp.19–41
Topics: Climate
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 6, 2021
▶ Watch from 2:37 Open packet at p.19 ↗
Staff report:
The Office of Sustainability provides this update to City Council on the implementation status of the Issaquah Climate Action Plan and priorities for 2025.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5d
Gilman Bridge Seismic Retrofit Project TR-066 Design Contract AB 8653
Carried 7-0
Authorize · packet pp.43–192
▶ Watch from 2:41 Open packet at p.43 ↗
Staff report:
D. TIP Project
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5e
2025 Salary Ordinance AB 8897
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.193–215
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 2:46 Open packet at p.193 ↗
Staff report:
The Administration recommends adoption of the 2025 Salary Ordinance including revised salary schedules for Non- Represented, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Teamsters 763, representing Administrative Services Fleet and Public Works Operations, Issaquah Police Officers Association, Issaquah Police Support Services Association, Teamsters 117 representing Police Commanders, Teamsters 117 representing Police Sergeants and Teamsters 117 representing Police Managers.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5f
Amendments to IMC 13.24.090, Regional Supply and Treatment Charge - Water AB 8902
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.217–227
Topics: Land UseWater
▶ Watch from 2:50 Open packet at p.217 ↗
Staff report:
The City's drinking water supply comes from two sources - groundwater and regional water purchased from Cascade Water Alliance. The City is one of seven member agencies of Cascade Water Alliance.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5g
2025-26 Historical and Museum Services, Lease, and Trolley/Equipment Storage Agreement AB 8920
Carried 7-0
Authorize · packet pp.229–273
Topics: Housing
▶ Watch from 2:55 Open packet at p.229 ↗
Staff report:
The City of Issaquah and the Issaquah History Museums (IHM) predecessor, the Issaquah Historical Society, first entered into a Historical and Museum Services Agreement (HMS Agreement) on May 3,1999 pursuant to Resolution 99-6 (
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5h
179 1st Ave SE Surplus AB 8926
Carried 7-0
Approve Resolution · packet pp.275–293
▶ Watch from 2:59 Open packet at p.275 ↗
Staff report:
The property located at 179 1st Ave SE was purchased in 1989 to provide a permanent home for Issaquah Valley Community Services (ICVS), predecessor to the current Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank (IFCB), to provide food and clothing bank services to the community (AB 2711). The property was purchased for $110,000 funded from King County Housing and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) C88144/C89072 ($80,373.51) and City general services mitigation funds ($30,000). One CDBG grant was awarded to the City, and the other to ICVS. ICVS contributed their CDBG grant to the City’s effort to purchase the property. There are no remaining obligations related to the grants — the longest term of commitment that King County CDBG program put on a project was 25 years. After the purchase, the City made building improvements estimated between $66,000 and $77,000 in value.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5i
Memorandum of Understanding with the Issaquah Police Officers Association Association (IPSSA), Teamsters 117 representing Police Commanders, Teamsters Teamsters 117 representing Police Managers re: One Year Contract Extension Ratify AB 8932
Carried 7-0
packet pp.295–384
Topics: Public Safety
▶ Watch from 3:03 Open packet at p.295 ↗
Staff report:
The City's current collective bargaining agreements with the Issaquah Police Officers Association, Issaquah Police Support Services Association, Teamsters 117 representing Police Commanders, Teamsters 117 representing Police Sergeants and Teamsters 117 representing Police Managers will expire December 31, 2024. The City and Issaquah Police Officers Association, Issaquah Police Support Services Association, Teamsters 117 representing Police Commanders, Teamsters 117 representing Police Sergeants and Teamsters 117 representing Police Managers have a mutual interest in extending the current contracts through December 31, 2025. Proposal The Administration requests City Council approval of the one-year contract extensions to the Collective Bargaining Agreements ("CBA") between the City of Issaquah and the Issaquah Police Officers Association, Issaquah Police Support Services Association,…
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5j
Final 2023-24 Budget Amendment AB 8936
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.385–398
Topics: Land UseBudget
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 7, 2022
▶ Watch from 3:08 Open packet at p.385 ↗
Staff report:
Budget Amendments are required when the expenditures of a fund are forecast to exceed the adopted appropriation level or when changes are needed to interfund transfers - or transfers between funds. This budget amendment includes 6 items adjusting 7 of the City's 23 financial funds. In total, these adjustments account for $3,006,601 in increased revenues and $3,732,925 in increased expenditures. No adjustments to the General Fund are proposed.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5k
Amendments to IMC 13.70.040 Sewer Rates to Adopt King County Charge AB 8941
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.399–420
Topics: Land UseWater
▶ Watch from 3:12 Open packet at p.399 ↗
Staff report:
On June 18, 2024, the Metropolitan King County Council passed Ordinance 19782 (Exhibit B), setting sewer rates for 2025. In accordance with long-term agreements for sewage disposal, King County (as successor to METRO) provides wastewater treatment and disposal service to cities and special utility districts, including Issaquah. The fees for such service are set and approved by King County, as reviewed and recommended by the Metropolitan Wastewater Pollution Abatement Advisory Committee (MWPAAC). The King County fees were last increased for 2024.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5l
City Prosecutor Contract and Lease AB 8944
Carried 7-0
Authorize · packet pp.421–447
Topics: Housing
▶ Watch from 3:17 Open packet at p.421 ↗
Staff report:
Lynn Moberly has served as Issaquah City Prosecutor since 1999. She is an integral part of the City team, even working out of City owned property across the street from City Hall so that Issaquah Police Department officers can stop by for advice or to discuss ongoing cases. Ms. Moberly has not received a significant increase in compensation in many years and her current base rate of $14,000 per month is below market compared to other area prosecutors. This issue has been compounded by increases in filings over recent years, including more time intensive cases such as domestic violence assaults and DUIs, resulting in a significant increase to her office's workload.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5m
Interlocal Agreements for Jail Services: Bellevue, Duvall, Federal Way, Mercer Island, North Bend, Sammamish, Shoreline, Snoqualmie AB 8945
Carried 7-0
Authorize · packet pp.449–551
▶ Watch from 3:21 Open packet at p.449 ↗
Staff report:
The City has a 72-bed jail and contracts with numerous local agencies to provide jail services for individuals who have committed misdemeanor offenses. Meanwhile, the cost of operating the jail continues to increase. As part of balancing the City's proposed 2025-26 budget, the City committed to reviewing the cost of operating the jail and adjusting the jail rates to be more in line with actual costs. The proposed agreements for jail services include 2025 rate increases as shown in the Financial Information section. The City will continue to analyze jail costs with the goal of full cost recovery. This analysis is likely to result in additional rate increases in future years.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
5n
Newport Way NW Landslide Stabilization Contract Supplement #7 AB 8946
Carried 7-0
Authorize · packet pp.553–555
Topics: Transportation
▶ Watch from 3:25 Open packet at p.553 ↗
Staff report:
On February 6 and 7, 2020, a large rainfall event occurred in the region, causing a small landslide on King County Parks property adjacent to Newport Way NW. The slide spilled onto the roadway and resulted in the shutdown of a section of Newport Way NW for roughly one week. City, County, and Puget Sound Energy (PSE) crews responded to temporarily stabilize the slide for the short-term.
Roll call:
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh
6. PUBLIC HEARING
6a
2025-26 Budget AB 8885
Conduct Public Hearing [Action to occur · 15 min · packet pp.557–668
Topics: Budget
Open packet at p.557 ↗
Staff report:
The Administration recommends the City Council adopt the proposed budget at the Dec. 9, 2024 Special Dec. 2, 2024 City Council meeting, or as soon as Dec. 2 if desired.
7. REGULAR BUSINESS
7a
2025-26 Budget
Adopt Ordinance · 30 min · packet pp.669–673
Topics: Land UseBudget
▶ Watch from 3:30 Open packet at p.669 ↗
Staff report:
On November 19, 2024, the city experienced a public disaster caused by unusual and extremely high winds which resulted in significant property damage throughout the city. AUnanticipated building repairs caused by public disasters can create financial strain on community members, especially those who do not have the financial means to pay for such repairs. The fees for building/plumbing/mechanical permits and inspections are in the Construction Administrative Code in IMC 16.04, and International Fire Code operational permit fees in IMC 16.06.
7b
Waiver of Permit Fees for Low Income Residents and Building Permit Fee Deferral for Emergencies AB 8950
Carried 7-0
Approve Resolution · 15 min · packet pp.675–915
Topics: Land UsePublic SafetyBudget
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 18, 2024 Planning Policy Commission · Aug 22, 2024 City Council Committee of the Whole · Nov 18, 2024
▶ Watch from 39:13 Open packet at p.675 ↗
Staff report:
Washington cities and counties have prepared comprehensive plans for many years; however, growth management in Washington took on new meaning with the passage of the Growth Management Act(GMA) by the Washington Legislature in 1990. The GMA was enacted in response to rapid population growth and concerns with suburban sprawl, environmental protection, quality of life, and related issues. The GMA establishes the importance of the comprehensive plan as the starting point for any planning process and the centerpiece of local planning. Development regulations (zoning, subdivision, and other controls) and functional plans (Strategic Plan, Park Plan, etc.) must be consistent with the comprehensive plan to fully comply with GMA.
Roll call:
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Deputy Council President de Michele
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
7c
Comprehensive Plan Periodic Update AB 8796
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · 15 min · packet pp.917–1016
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 57:05 Open packet at p.917 ↗
Staff report:
The City of Issaquah adopted its first Strategic Plan in 2019 following an 18-month public process (Resolution No. 2019- 04). This process was grounding in and led by community sentiment, input, and feedback. From this process emerged the Our Issaquah Strategic Plan with its six (6) goal areas of mobility, growth and development, environmental stewardship, social and economic vitality, city leadership and services, and infrastructure. Each goal area had objectives aligned to a goal area goal and named potential actions aligned to those objectives.
Roll call:
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Councilmember Hall
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
7d
Citywide Strategic Plan Five-Year Update AB 8911
Carried 7-0
Approve Resolution · 20 min · packet pp.1017–1050
Previously discussed: Equity Board · Nov 2, 2024
▶ Watch from 1:14:57 Open packet at p.1017 ↗
Staff report:
Following a 1.5 year pilot program, in February 2024 the City Council adopted a cultural and religious holiday calendar (Resolution No. 2024-07). As part of this calendar adoption, the City committed to avoiding scheduling City meetings on religious or cultural holidays with significant work restrictions. This has added a certain level of complexity to scheduling as some standing City Council meetings conflict with those holidays and have to be rescheduled. Additionally, the City Council shares meeting space with two advisory boards (Planning Policy and Development Commissions), requiring coordination when regular meeting dates are shifted.
Roll call:
Moved by Councilmember Marts · seconded by Council President Walsh
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
7e
2025 Council Calendar AB 8924
Approve Resolution · 15 min · packet pp.1051–1073
▶ Watch from 1:38:46 Open packet at p.1051 ↗
Staff report:
The City Council has a process established for filling vacancies in Section 2.03 of the City Council Rules of Procedure. In
7f
Council Vacancy Process & Timeline AB 8925
Approve · 15 min
Topics: Boards & Commissions
▶ Watch from 1:56:37
10. GOOD OF THE ORDER
10a
Upcoming Council Meetings
▶ Watch from 3:35:51
2331 segments .txt ↗
0:04 ↗ Red light is on. Thank you very much City Clerk. So welcome everyone. I'm calling
0:10 ↗ the December 2nd City Council meeting to order. I am attending the meeting remotely tonight
0:16 ↗ and prepared to chair the meeting. Is there any objection to my chairing the meeting
0:20 ↗ remotely? And City Clerk will have to help me if there is a hand raised
0:24 ↗ in the room. There is no objection. Thank you. Hearing no objection,
0:30 ↗ I'll continue. As a reminder, we continue to have a remote aspect to our meetings.
0:35 ↗ Both staff and members of the public may be participating in tonight's meeting remotely via
0:38 ↗ WebEx. Councilmember Hunt is also attending tonight's meeting remotely. Welcome, Councilmember Hunt.
0:44 ↗ And the first item on our agenda this evening is the Pledge of Allegiance. So
0:48 ↗ I welcome you all to join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag
0:55 ↗ of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. one
0:59 ↗ nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
1:06 ↗ Thank you all. The next item of business this evening is audience comments. Members of
1:11 ↗ the public may address their counsel at this time in person or virtually. Those who
1:16 ↗ signed up in advance to make comments will be called upon first. And if you
1:20 ↗ are joining us virtually and would like to make comments, please raise your virtual hand
1:24 ↗ or send the host a chat message. If you are on the phone, you can
1:28 ↗ do that by pressing star 3. If you are joined by computer or smartphone, please
1:32 ↗ look for a hand icon. If you are in the room and did not sign
1:35 ↗ up, I will ask for other speakers before closing this portion of the meeting. There
1:40 ↗ is a public hearing tonight on AB 8885, the 2025-26 budget. This is
1:46 ↗ the final public hearing. Comments on this item should be made during the public hearing
1:50 ↗ occurring later in this meeting. And city clerk, has anyone signed up to speak for
1:55 ↗ general audience comments or indicated a desire to speak this evening? Mayor,
2:00 ↗ no one has signed up. I'm just glancing across the room here and I'm not
2:04 ↗ seeing anyone indicate a desire to speak at this point. We have one member of
2:08 ↗ the public with us virtually, but I don't see them indicating a desire either. Okay,
2:14 ↗ thank you very much. I just want to remind folks that we do have a
2:18 ↗ public hearing later on. you can always submit written comments to your council at any
2:22 ↗ time at citycouncil.isakawa.gov. We
2:28 ↗ are going to move on to the consent calendar. I do not have any comments
2:34 ↗ on tonight's consent calendar items, but I would like to know if there are any
2:39 ↗ committee chairs or chair designates who would like to report on any of the consent
2:43 ↗ calendar items And City Clerk or Council President, if you could indicate raising of
2:48 ↗ hands or indication by microphone that they would like to speak, please let me know.
2:53 ↗ I'm not seeing anything on the dais. Thank you. Thank you very much. The
2:59 ↗ consent calendar was distributed to Council in advance, and if it is authorized, the items
3:03 ↗ on the consent calendar will be considered together and approved by one motion. The City
3:08 ↗ did not issue checks last week due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday, so there is
3:14 ↗ not an accounts payable and payroll report to review or approve tonight. Payables and payroll
3:19 ↗ for December will be included in the January 7, 2025 City Council meeting agenda. Does
3:25 ↗ any Council member desire to move any item from the consent calendar and considered under
3:30 ↗ regular business? Council President, again, if you could give me a cue if there is
3:33 ↗ someone in the room who would like to do that. Nothing so far. Thank you
3:39 ↗ very much. Would you care to make a motion? Yes, I move we approve the
3:44 ↗ consent calendar as presented. Is there a second?
3:51 ↗ Second. It's been moved and seconded.
3:57 ↗ Is there any council discussion? None.
4:04 ↗ Thank you. Hearing that there is none, the motion before the council is to approve
4:08 ↗ the consent calendar as presented. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
4:14 ↗ Aye. Opposed?
4:20 ↗ That passes unanimously. The next item of business is our public hearing this evening, AB
4:26 ↗ 8885, the 2025-26 budget. The business before the Council this
4:32 ↗ evening is to conduct the public hearing, and I'd like to invite Deputy City Administrator
4:35 ↗ and Interim Chief Financial Officer, Andrea Snyder, to make the presentation. Welcome, Andrea.
4:44 ↗ Andrea
4:54 ↗ Snyder, we have one presentation for you tonight for the budget hearing and for the
4:59 ↗ final budget discussion and the
5:05 ↗ purpose of tonight is to conduct that final public hearing on the budget and to
5:09 ↗ follow up on the deliberations we had last time with adjustments to the proposed budget
5:16 ↗ specific direction needed tonight as follow-up from our last discussion is whether
5:22 ↗ council supportive of the following changes to the proposed budget which includes funding of metro
5:28 ↗ flex for 2025 as well as setting aside 200 000 in 2026
5:34 ↗ for a potential contract extension with metro flex or a local transit program if metro
5:39 ↗ flex is not available to us and that $200,000 is a placeholder number. As we
5:44 ↗ get more specific in understanding what 2026 looks like in potential services, then we can
5:50 ↗ always make adjustments to that number. And then second item for Council's consideration is
5:57 ↗ if Council agrees with funding the light rail study, that's $200,000 worth of funding from
6:02 ↗ the general fund. And that's a reduced amount of funding from what was originally proposed
6:07 ↗ at $400,000. So as a reminder, we've gone through many
6:12 ↗ steps to get here to this budget, this draft budget we have. We
6:19 ↗ had the August forecast, the preliminary budget in September, the proposed budget back in
6:25 ↗ October, and then hopefully tonight leading to the adopted budget should Council
6:31 ↗ consent. Also, we've been working on our budget
6:37 ↗ priorities this whole time. So I just wanted to take a step back and reiterate
6:42 ↗ what these priorities were with this budget. Preserving sustainability initiatives,
6:48 ↗ enhancing equity, maintaining investments in transportation, continuing to compensate staff
6:54 ↗ fairly despite the budget deficit that we've been anticipating, and to cover insurance obligations.
6:59 ↗ And then a final priority, which is to make sure that we are setting aside
7:03 ↗ enough in reserves with that 15% ending fund balance in the general fund, despite the
7:11 ↗ budget deficit that we're facing this over the next biennium. And so we've really been
7:16 ↗ focusing on these priorities and trying to make sure that they are in the proposed
7:20 ↗ budget. Back to following up from last time, MetroFlex.
7:27 ↗ The proposal is to fund MetroFlex in 2025, again, and set aside $200,000 in 2026
7:33 ↗ for MetroFlex or an alternative local transit program. This is funded out of the street
7:38 ↗ operating ending fund balance, so it doesn't It doesn't affect any programming directly
7:44 ↗ or services directly unless we have extreme storm events, extreme snow events that would
7:50 ↗ otherwise require that ending fund balance. And then we can look at general fund
7:57 ↗ funding or other funding as it may become available to help provide for those expenses.
8:02 ↗ And we also are continuing to search for other funding sources for partnerships. We talked
8:08 ↗ last time about the grant. that we've applied to for MetroFlex. And
8:14 ↗ so we are going to continue to look for other funding sources and apply for
8:17 ↗ grants as they become available. And for the light rail study, I'd
8:23 ↗ like to invite Thomas Valdrez, if you'd like to come up and talk a little
8:29 ↗ bit more about the light rail study.
8:38 ↗ Andrea yeah thank you council for having me here tonight yeah again my name is
8:42 ↗ Thomas Valdrez and I'm senior planner so today the administration is
8:49 ↗ proposing including 200,000 into the budget for the light rail study this would build on
8:54 ↗ existing momentum and help us continue preparations in preparation for sound transit
9:00 ↗ approaching the city with its ski link light rail project so
9:07 ↗ Kicking off the study in 2025 would be a critical need. Public
9:13 ↗ engagement currently has a lot of momentum. We've been building engagement efforts over the last
9:18 ↗ two years between 2023 and 24 with the transit study. We then
9:25 ↗ brought to council the light rail planning guide, which was approved in March of this
9:28 ↗ year. Council can expect the light rail visioning and guiding principles in Q1
9:34 ↗ of next year. So we are just constantly building momentum for this. And it would
9:40 ↗ be good to continue that momentum. Kicking off this project in 25 would mean that
9:46 ↗ Issaquah remains on track for those discussions with Sound Transit that we
9:51 ↗ expect in 2027. Two key things that we need to do between now and 27
9:57 ↗ are to one, identify the locally preferred alternative for the central isquah station
10:04 ↗ and then we need to also update our zoning and land use code in order
10:08 ↗ to ensure that that area is going to be acceptable for development
10:14 ↗ so having this logical locally preferred alternative backed by a strong comprehensive community engagement
10:20 ↗ process and supported by zoning and land use code changes that's going to be the
10:24 ↗ key to maximizing our ability to influence sound transit throughout this process
10:31 ↗ this is the method that other cities in the area have used so examples include
10:36 ↗ bellevue redmond and federal way these are all cities that have used this two-step process
10:41 ↗ in order to make the best of of the options that are available so
10:48 ↗ really it's about zoning land use and having that preferred location and sort
10:54 ↗ of in that order implementing transit-oriented development
11:00 ↗ through zoning is something that we've learned from Bellevue and Redmond so for Redmond they
11:05 ↗ up zoned around their downtown station encouraging dense mixed-use development
11:11 ↗ Sound Transit then approached them during their alternatives
11:17 ↗ study they looked at different alternatives Redmond actually had a locally preferred alternative
11:23 ↗ it was a elevated station And sound transit was going to do it and at
11:28 ↗ grade station So where the the station is like on the same level as the
11:32 ↗ street Redmond as a community was really concerned about some of those safety issues And
11:37 ↗ so they were actually able to successfully persuade sound transit To elevate the station to
11:44 ↗ avoid those potential like conflicts. So that's just one example of something that a city
11:48 ↗ has done Bellevue just sort of moving ahead they required a
11:54 ↗ minimum percentage of housing within proximity to the station. So this
12:00 ↗ would discourage some single-use developments like a tech campus, for example.
12:06 ↗ Retaining this really helped ensure that the area was going to be like a good
12:11 ↗ transit-oriented development neighborhood. They've also retained permitting authority
12:17 ↗ to conditionally permit light rail but only if the track alignment was approved by council.
12:23 ↗ So that's another option that Bellevue was able to do in order to retain some
12:28 ↗ of the permitting authority that can be used as leverage for sound transit.
12:34 ↗ Looking at Federal Way, they approached this a different way. They actually developed a transit
12:40 ↗ overlay zone specific to their downtown, and this effectively excluded many of the options
12:46 ↗ that sound transit was gonna look at. The reason why this was successful for Federal
12:51 ↗ Way was that they had really strong redevelopment goals for their downtown and Sound Transit's
12:57 ↗ alternatives were not gonna reach that. So this was a great way that Federal Way
13:02 ↗ was able to proactively use zoning and planning frameworks in order to ensure that they
13:07 ↗ had some ability to control where that station was gonna be located. So that key
13:12 ↗ takeaway from these options that have been used by other cities, one,
13:19 ↗ we do have permitting authority it can be a really useful tool to negotiate with
13:23 ↗ sound transit but it's only successful if we're going to be proactive with it so
13:28 ↗ we need to plan ahead in order to have that negotiating power secondly
13:34 ↗ if we adopt something like a transit overlay zone and then we'll have that conditional
13:39 ↗ permitting opportunity we can then guide where that station and track alignment are
13:45 ↗ and this would sort of guide our decisions and that would be based on the
13:50 ↗ locally preferred alternative it would be the main deliverable of this study
13:57 ↗ some of the risks from not acting now would be reduced leverage to influence and
14:01 ↗ negotiate with sound transit without that locally preferred alternative sound transit may not have
14:10 ↗ sound transit may provide options that are really not aligned with what we would like
14:14 ↗ to see out of the station. So Sound Transit will look at many options and
14:20 ↗ we're gonna have to choose one of them. But if we don't have one that
14:23 ↗ is already vetted as being a good option, we may not have any good options
14:27 ↗ on the table. All the peer cities that we've talked to and we're constantly chatting
14:33 ↗ with other cities who have learned more and more even since the transit study has
14:37 ↗ taken place, all the peer cities that we've talked to have all said, this is
14:41 ↗ a really great idea. We really recommend that ISQA pursue this. because really if we
14:46 ↗ don't we don't have anything to stand on when we get to 2027
14:53 ↗ another thing is that there could be a disconnect with existing projects that we have
14:59 ↗ delaying this study risk poor integration with projects like the i-90 crossing which we've already
15:04 ↗ started working on so that could just lead to fragmented planning between existing projects and
15:10 ↗ the light rail study Just to reiterate, this study scope is going to involve
15:16 ↗ lots of technical analysis. This is something that staff would not be able to do
15:20 ↗ in-house. It would need to be performed by consultants. But staff would be integral into
15:26 ↗ continuing that community conversation that we've been having since 2023, continuing the community engagement.
15:33 ↗ This would all lead to the community's voice being able to shape that preferred alternative
15:37 ↗ that would be delivered through this project. administration thinks that this is a really smart
15:42 ↗ investment when you think about the fact that this investment is a once in a
15:48 ↗ generation investment in the community it's a multi-billion dollar investment in issaquah the
15:53 ↗ project cost is really just a fraction of the overall benefit and the value that
15:58 ↗ we're going to be getting out of this and it really does maximize our long-term
16:02 ↗ return on investment this is also a really cost effective way of getting leverage over
16:08 ↗ sound transit where we otherwise may not have it Other cities like Bellevue and Redmond
16:13 ↗ or Linwood, they all invested early in this planning process and that really did lead
16:17 ↗ to things going in their favor. And this is something that we can emulate as
16:22 ↗ well. Other just examples, if we don't have a good locally
16:28 ↗ preferred alternative, this could lead to other costly issues. The station location and alignment,
16:34 ↗ it's chosen by Sound Transit ultimately. will have, I mean it could result in long
16:39 ↗ term costs such as potentially underutilized development in the area within central
16:45 ↗ Issaquah or potentially traffic issues depending on where the station that they choose to put
16:51 ↗ it is. So these are just some examples of why this would definitely be a
16:55 ↗ smart investment. And so just in closing, this study is pretty critical.
17:02 ↗ Productive planning would strengthen our ability to influence sound transit And this is a one-time
17:07 ↗ investment that would have long-term benefits. Thank you. Thomas, before you sit down, can
17:13 ↗ you talk more specifically about the technical studies? Because I think the point that's been
17:17 ↗ discussed by the council is what is the need for the $200,000? Can you maybe
17:23 ↗ talk a little bit more specific about that? Sure. So the technical studies scope of
17:27 ↗ work will have an existing and future conditions analysis. So looking at where we're at
17:32 ↗ now and where growth will be expected, around the time period of light rail.
17:39 ↗ This is just looking at traffic modeling. It'll look at the land use patterns that
17:45 ↗ we're expecting. It'll then lead to alternatives development. So there were, I believe there was
17:50 ↗ five alternatives that the light rail study looked at. These would be vetted in more
17:55 ↗ detail to make sure that we look at, of all these options that we've seen,
18:01 ↗ how do these stack up relative to the vision and goals that will be showing
18:05 ↗ council in Q1 of next year. How do those match up with what our community
18:10 ↗ is hoping to get out of it? And then through the community engagement, we'll have
18:16 ↗ ongoing conversations, and we will then end up at that locally preferred alternative.
18:23 ↗ That alternative will then be given to Sound Transit, and that will be part of
18:27 ↗ their overall planning process.
18:41 ↗ Mayor, we've got a question on the dais. Would you like to take that now
18:44 ↗ or after? So, Council President, let's take the question now. Thank you. Council
18:50 ↗ Member Martz. I have a couple questions on the material presented. Do you know with
18:57 ↗ the Redmond-Rays station versus at-grade, is there a cost difference?
19:03 ↗ Significantly, yeah. And that was one of the great things about doing some planning work.
19:10 ↗ It was significantly more costly, but sound transit ate that cost because the community wanted
19:16 ↗ it and it was already vetted and that was a good option for the community.
19:20 ↗ Thank you. The second question is we've already started working on a 990 cross.
19:27 ↗ There's a project we're looking at alternatives right now. It's an over under we're not
19:33 ↗ sure. There was supposed to be a community meeting. It was I think it was
19:37 ↗ two weeks ago, but then the You know bomb cyclone happens so it is an
19:42 ↗ ongoing process though. So we have a we have folks working on a study around
19:46 ↗ the I-90 crossing option right now correct. All right, thank you
19:52 ↗ Mayor we've got a few other questions. Would you like me to call on them?
19:55 ↗ Council President I appreciate that. Thank you Councilmember Wright I got a number of
20:01 ↗ questions about this, but what does the community engagement process look like that we're
20:07 ↗ talking about doing as part of this study? Yeah so similar to what we've been
20:12 ↗ doing with the transit study we're hoping to continue developing those relationships that we
20:18 ↗ have been developing and that would just be everything from working with
20:26 ↗ you know WSDOT who you know owns right of way working with sound
20:32 ↗ transit directly we'll see how much they actually show their cards during this but
20:38 ↗ it's going to be working with government agencies it's going to be community based organizations
20:44 ↗ there's a whole list of organization organizations that we worked with as part of the
20:49 ↗ transit studies so we just continue those conversations it's going to be online engagement it's
20:54 ↗ going to be in person it's going to be meeting people at community events it's
21:00 ↗ going to be everything under the sun we're really hoping to get lots of community
21:04 ↗ engagement on this Well, just a couple more questions, if I might.
21:12 ↗ You mentioned this, but I missed it. I was I was someplace else. But what
21:16 ↗ are the major deliverables to be produced as part of the study? Yeah, so it's
21:22 ↗ it's like five or so. So it's looking at existing conditions, looking at future conditions.
21:28 ↗ It is alternatives development. So looking at five alternatives, it's possible that
21:35 ↗ As we discussed with the community, an additional hybrid alternative is developed, so it could
21:40 ↗ be just more than five. It is also, in a lot of ways,
21:46 ↗ just getting that over the finish line, making sure that we adopt something that's going
21:52 ↗ to be approved by the community, as well as just that locally preferred
21:58 ↗ alternative. So about five tasks.
22:05 ↗ My last question for the moment at least how certain are we that sound transits
22:09 ↗ going to be doing the alternatives analysis for Issaquah in 2027? This is their
22:15 ↗ their schedule seems to be a little bit in flux Yeah, at this point we're
22:20 ↗ still on track for 27 We're in constant communication with sound transit and that's that's
22:25 ↗ we have what we have to work with that's the number they've quoted us on
22:32 ↗ Councilmember Hall. A quick one. Thank you. I think you've made the why now case
22:38 ↗ very compellingly. So thank you. Thank you for the memo to Dr. Dollywell in the
22:42 ↗ packet. I guess my question is, are we as confident as we can be that
22:47 ↗ the $200,000 that we budget will get us all this? It seems like this could
22:51 ↗ be very expensive. Yeah, we feel confident that we can do it for $200,000.
22:55 ↗ I'll add in my questions.
23:01 ↗ We when we changed this from a $400,000 study to a $200,000
23:07 ↗ study. What was removed from that and what shifted to internal and what
23:13 ↗ are we still proposing to do internally with staff. Yeah so some of the things
23:19 ↗ that changed are elongating the timeline. We like I mentioned in my
23:25 ↗ presentation we definitely need to do a land use planning but that will come after.
23:30 ↗ So the original scope of work for the larger number that improved that also included
23:36 ↗ the land use planning component which we can extend later. The other thing
23:42 ↗ that we shifted was staff will be doing the community engagement component rather than
23:48 ↗ more on the consultant team. So those are sort of the two main changes. So
23:54 ↗ if staff is doing the community engagement what portions then are being done by a
24:00 ↗ consulting team that could not be handled in house. Yeah, the consulting team is doing
24:05 ↗ the technical analysis. So looking at the forecasting, you know, travel demand modeling,
24:11 ↗ looking at what we're looking at in the future for like what central is quiet
24:15 ↗ will look like. It's also a lot of the technical analysis of like,
24:22 ↗ no go or go if if a station is even viable at this option, we
24:26 ↗ just have level ideas at this point of a couple locations but there could be
24:32 ↗ some fatal flaws or it could be um that the station itself is
24:38 ↗ just completely not aligned with what the community wants via the light rail
24:44 ↗ guiding principles that we'll show you in q1 okay
24:50 ↗ and council member joe thank you council president um i have a question about
24:56 ↗ redmond i hope you can shine some light on a little bit Redmond has two
25:01 ↗ stops and you pointed out that the the first stop before the end of the
25:05 ↗ line has limited parking more up zoning higher buildings higher densities
25:12 ↗ and then the last stop has more of a suburban feel let's call it with
25:18 ↗ more parking structures or what-have-you how did Redmond get to
25:24 ↗ the point where they were able to to kind of coerce sound transit or coax
25:30 ↗ sound transit into doing the transit or in development in one location and the parking
25:36 ↗ in another location if you have any insight there. I do I'm actually really excited
25:41 ↗ to talk to you guys about this in Q1 but I can talk about it
25:45 ↗ now. Downtown Redmond is really exciting because they like
25:51 ↗ you said they have both transit oriented or transit-oriented development but they also benefit from
25:57 ↗ parking reserves elsewhere so one of the key one of the key strategies that they
26:02 ↗ looked at was a distributed parking network so because they are under the line you
26:08 ↗ have folks parking at that Bear Creek Park and Ride just north northeast of
26:13 ↗ downtown there's also a park and ride within I believe it's a quarter mile walking
26:18 ↗ distance of that station it's just north of there so there are some parking options
26:24 ↗ but people just have to use alternative ways to get there. But they exist.
26:30 ↗ Also, like you said, the Marymoor Station just south has a pretty
26:36 ↗ significant parking reserve. So folks that live in the area could easily park in those
26:42 ↗ three alternatives. Or if they're capable, they could walk or bike or use
26:48 ↗ other means. So they're benefiting from a distributed parking system.
26:54 ↗ Thank you very much for that. I appreciate that information.
27:00 ↗ And Councilmember Hunt. Thank you, Council President Walsh. I
27:05 ↗ have a couple of questions. The first one is momentum was
27:11 ↗ mentioned tonight and it was also mentioned in the study session. Do we have a
27:16 ↗ sense of if this cost of this study, if we are going to need
27:22 ↗ additional external studies and additional work after this.
27:28 ↗ Also, this is the second study. There was the light rail planning guide, and then
27:33 ↗ there is now this study. And so my question is really, between now and 2041
27:38 ↗ or 2044, do we anticipate that there will be additional studies
27:44 ↗ like this needed? Yeah, I think that, so there is a,
27:51 ↗ There's a list of actions within that light rail planning guide. There are several key
27:57 ↗ deliverables that we'll need to do in the short term between now and 27. It's
28:02 ↗ possible that depending on what council's priorities are in 27 or beyond,
28:08 ↗ that could be another project looking at the land use component that I've talked about.
28:13 ↗ That's also something that could potentially be done in house, but it depends on like
28:18 ↗ priorities at that point. Other things we'll need to do include
28:23 ↗ just looking at connections from the station area
28:29 ↗ to other neighborhoods. And that's something that can be done as part of that active
28:35 ↗ transportation project if we continue to do that in the future. So
28:41 ↗ there are many projects that we will need to do to plan for light rail,
28:47 ↗ but a lot of them are things that we will be doing already. that we
28:51 ↗ are planning to do already. OK. Of
28:57 ↗ those things that you mentioned, would those be in-house or would those be additional external?
29:03 ↗ Do you have a sense of that? I don't at this time. OK.
29:10 ↗ My second question was, do you know with the Redmond determination that the
29:16 ↗ elevated station would be would be preferred. Do you know how the timing of that
29:22 ↗ work related to the construction of the station? Was it two years in advance,
29:28 ↗ five years in advance? Yeah, I believe that was during the environmental phase, which would
29:33 ↗ have been before construction. I don't know the timing specifically, but that would have been
29:38 ↗ done after alternatives were developed, and they're looking at environmental
29:44 ↗ impacts to the community.
29:52 ↗ So for that case study, don't have a sense of how far in advance that
29:57 ↗ alternative was identified relative to the construction date, though. If I were to guess, I
30:03 ↗ would say about five years. But I don't have a specific number. But it was
30:08 ↗ a couple of years, yeah. OK. Thank you. And then my last
30:14 ↗ question is, there was in your remarks, there was some discussion about
30:20 ↗ zoning and some cities making overlay. Would
30:26 ↗ consideration of housing density or how we
30:31 ↗ encourage certain kinds of businesses, walkability, other more expansive
30:38 ↗ zoning and questions around those sorts of
30:43 ↗ considerations be part of the study, or is it really much more technical feasibility about
30:48 ↗ the light rail study itself? And I'm also thinking of
30:54 ↗ schools or other amenities in the vicinity of light rail. How expansive
31:00 ↗ would the zoning discussion be? Yeah, I think
31:06 ↗ I'm not sure how specific I want to get in here, but central ISQA has
31:12 ↗ And there's like zoning for central isquah. So this would be on top of what's
31:17 ↗ already existing. So this could be additional Requirements like for example parking is a
31:23 ↗ you know major topic It could be that within the area that is considered highly
31:29 ↗ Walkable because it's a short distance from that light rail station Maybe it means we
31:34 ↗ want to reduce parking requirements there or maybe it means Like for Bellevue's example, maybe
31:40 ↗ within that area We want to have it more related to
31:46 ↗ mixed use. So maybe we want more housing than it would normally be within central
31:51 ↗ Issaquah. So it's just like you could have more or less of what already exists
31:56 ↗ within central Issaquah, depending on the goals that we want for that transit area.
32:02 ↗ OK, thank you for that. Just one quick follow up. So would you
32:07 ↗ anticipate that those sorts of recommendations would come out of this? this technical study those
32:13 ↗ recommendations would not come out of this study that would be something that we would
32:17 ↗ want to look at potentially in 27 when we look at the land use and
32:22 ↗ zoning thank you
32:28 ↗ and if I could just really ask a follow-up so I think one of the
32:32 ↗ themes here is things build on each other and so going back to councilmember Hunt's
32:37 ↗ question we need to know Approximately where the location would be in the dynamics of
32:43 ↗ that before we could then go in and look at some of the larger zoning
32:47 ↗ Right, so we can't look at larger zoning questions until we know what a preferred
32:51 ↗ alternative might be for station So there's a little chicken and egg here, but at
32:55 ↗ the same time You have to build on what the decisions are so as the
33:00 ↗ community decides as the community gets information then we're able to layer on more and
33:06 ↗ I think This man may or members the council one of the reasons we feel
33:10 ↗ strongly about moving forward with this is because of that layering and we don't want
33:15 ↗ to get behind and we've seen really good examples of our neighbor community standing up
33:19 ↗ and saying this is what we want for our community absent that some transit will
33:24 ↗ give us what they want and so we want to take the good examples of
33:28 ↗ our neighbor communities follow that playbook but understand there is a tearing to this and
33:34 ↗ by staying in this here that we won't fall behind we fall behind and please
33:38 ↗ correct me if I'm misstating anything we fall behind sound transit fills in the blanks
33:43 ↗ and I think we've have good and I think the Redmond example is perfect when
33:47 ↗ Redmond said no we don't want this they had the technical information they had done
33:51 ↗ the studies and they were able to go to sound transit and say here's why
33:55 ↗ and so if we run into anything like that we don't know better to have
33:59 ↗ it up front now than you know five years from now and hear from the
34:03 ↗ community saying no we don't like what sound transit saying and The city's only response
34:08 ↗ being, well, sorry, it's too late. So that's why this is so important.
34:15 ↗ And I'm seeing no other questions at this time. Thank you. Let's continue.
34:27 ↗ So for timing and next steps, you've seen this calendar
34:33 ↗ before of our budget calendar. Here we are, December 2nd. We're asking for final budget
34:38 ↗ adoption with any changes Council wishes to make this evening. And then
34:44 ↗ following adoption, we'll be able to produce the final budget book also for publication.
34:52 ↗ So again, direction that we're looking for tonight, fund MetroFlex in 2025 and 2026,
34:59 ↗ or set aside $200,000 in 2026 to be able to fund MetroFlex or similar program.
35:05 ↗ and also to fund the light rail study at $200,000 from the general fund. Before
35:11 ↗ we ask for deliberations on the budget itself, we'd like to start off with the
35:17 ↗ final public hearing on the budget.
35:23 ↗ Thank you, Andrea. Council President, I'm assuming we are good to open the public hearing?
35:29 ↗ Yes. Thank you very much. So I open the public hearing at 7.39
35:35 ↗ p.m. and if you're joining us virtually and would like to make comments, please raise
35:40 ↗ your virtual hand or send the host a chat message. If you're on the phone,
35:44 ↗ please press star three. And if you have joined by computer or smartphone, look for
35:48 ↗ a hand icon. If you're in the room and did not sign up, I will
35:51 ↗ ask for other speakers before closing this portion of the meeting. City Clerk, has anyone
35:56 ↗ signed up to speak or indicated a desire to speak during this public hearing? scanning
36:02 ↗ the room anyone wanting to make comments on the hearing okay we do have someone
36:06 ↗ in the room mayor uh corby kasler that is great
36:14 ↗ corby come on up thank you thank you madam mayor thank you council members
36:20 ↗ first of all i want to congratulate the city on a yeoman's effort on dealing
36:25 ↗ with this horrible storm i i found it to be very prideful to see how
36:30 ↗ fast we moved, how caring we were in the movement, and the communications were stellar.
36:35 ↗ So thank you for that. It is another example getting back to the budget of
36:41 ↗ how the city and DIA can work very closely together. DIA can be an adjunct
36:46 ↗ to what the city does. We worked with a number of our downtown businesses on
36:51 ↗ trying to help them with spoilage, giving them resources when they didn't know where to
36:55 ↗ turn. We had one business that was totally decimated, trying to find him resources and
37:00 ↗ what he can do from there. So it's just an example of how we can
37:03 ↗ work together. We appreciate the budget that you have given us. And I just, there
37:08 ↗ was one clarification wanted to make and that Main Street works directly with dia it's
37:13 ↗ not a city program so we're not a designee what we are is somebody who
37:18 ↗ has gone through a very stringent vetting process so that we met all the criteria
37:23 ↗ to become a Main Street program so we are indeed a available for the
37:29 ↗ tax credit incentive program that is something that we are able to do and we've
37:33 ↗ done for decades so I just wanted to thank you again I know that was
37:36 ↗ a preface that the funding would come if we did indeed meet those criteria and
37:42 ↗ we do so thank you again thank you for your partnership and just really appreciate
37:46 ↗ what you did for the storm I'm very proud of everything that we did thank
37:51 ↗ you thank you Corby City Clerk is there anyone else in the room or
37:57 ↗ online that has signed up to make or indicated a desire to make a comment
38:00 ↗ at this time? No one else in the room. Oh. Okay. We have Chris
38:06 ↗ Richley in the room here who would like to make comments. Thank you. Thank you
38:12 ↗ Mayor. Good evening City Council. My name is Chris Richley. Issaquah resident 2616 20th Avenue
38:17 ↗ Northeast up in the Highlands. first like to thank the administrator for getting the administration
38:23 ↗ for getting their budget together it's been a long process city council for their constant
38:27 ↗ questions and thinking about the benefits of the community first and foremost working at a
38:32 ↗ financial institution i deal with budgets every day with members so one big thing
38:38 ↗ is to look at the benefits between the benefits of the needs and the wants
38:42 ↗ of our community i have to do that with my members you have to do
38:45 ↗ that are your members or the community so when you think about needs and wants
38:49 ↗ of the budget, a lot of things have come up. Metroflex, is that a need
38:54 ↗ or a want? What's the benefits? What's in it for the benefit of the members,
38:58 ↗ which are communities? So when you think about the presentation we just had with light
39:02 ↗ rail, the benefit I heard was we need to continue to stay on track with
39:06 ↗ the light rail. We need to continue to stay ahead of the game, but at
39:09 ↗ the same time, I did not hear a benefit presented in a sense to spending
39:14 ↗ the money from administrator. i would suggest is asking more questions
39:20 ↗ around what's the benefit of the community what i'd recommend is what's the benefit of
39:24 ↗ metroflex we've seen the benefit of that we were presented the benefit of that 200
39:27 ↗ 000 is not a it's not a number that i see personally
39:34 ↗ as a benefit to spend the money at this time without the need of the
39:38 ↗ community i see the community wants it we're here the community wants it but what's
39:42 ↗ the benefit of the community keeping it What's the benefit of the study? The study
39:46 ↗ shows that it continues to go, but if we don't have that, we don't see
39:52 ↗ a benefit. So I would strongly suggest council continues to ask questions around what's the
39:57 ↗ benefit, what's in it for the community with that study and the 200,000. Thank you.
40:07 ↗ Thank you, Chris. City clerk, is there anyone else in the room or online that
40:11 ↗ has indicated a desire to speak? Yes, we have another hand raised.
40:22 ↗ Can you hear me now? Awesome, hey guys, my name is Mateo. I work at
40:26 ↗ Kimley Horn, a civil engineering consulting firm. I know we are not Sound Transit and
40:30 ↗ I do not work on the light rail extension to Issaquah, but our firm currently
40:33 ↗ works on the light rail extension all the way to Everett, from Linwood to Everett.
40:37 ↗ We're in charge of that and I wanted to advocate that it is highly important
40:40 ↗ to do all the necessary brain damage and research that you need to do to
40:43 ↗ understand what it takes. I know I'm not in charge of the funds or the
40:46 ↗ money, but several of my coworkers, senior leadership, fellow partners of mine, have invested in
40:52 ↗ these communities that are along that whole stretch from Wimma to Everett. it's highly important
40:57 ↗ that you invest in what your community wants because it is just so important to
41:01 ↗ understand what's needed. And there is so, like, in doing the alternative research, if you
41:04 ↗ don't know, like, if zoning needs to change, as the planner was saying, or if
41:09 ↗ there are just so many different things that you don't really think about when it
41:11 ↗ comes to all the different aspects of development in this, like, a huge public transit
41:15 ↗ project like that with the need for mixed-use development, the needs for the public to
41:20 ↗ get to and from parking, you name it, I just wanted to advocate that is
41:22 ↗ important to keep in mind. the needs of the public. I grew up in Saquois
41:27 ↗ for most of my life. I've seen it go from my, this guy's name is
41:32 ↗ Rick, he had a coffee shop on Front Street that I used to go to
41:34 ↗ all the time as a kid. And as it's just gone bigger and bigger and
41:36 ↗ bigger, it's just important to keep everything in mind as you're developing and continuing to
41:41 ↗ invest in the city. So thank you. Thanks for your
41:46 ↗ comment. City Clerk, anyone else in the room or online that would like to make
41:50 ↗ a comment on the budget this evening? We have no remaining members of the public
41:53 ↗ in the room and one with us online who isn't indicating a desire to speak.
41:59 ↗ Thank you so much, City Clerk, and thank you to those that contributed to the
42:02 ↗ conversation tonight about the importance of our relationship with our downtown
42:07 ↗ association and with thoughts on spending for planning for sound transit. Thank
42:13 ↗ you all for contributing this evening. We appreciate it very much. If the Council has
42:18 ↗ no objection, I would like to close the public hearing. So City Council
42:24 ↗ and City Council President, if you could help me, does anyone have an objection to
42:28 ↗ closing the public hearing right now? I'm not seeing any, Mayor. Thank you, Council President.
42:33 ↗ So hearing none, I will close the public hearing at 7.46
42:39 ↗ p.m. And let's move on to Council questions. And Council President, if you could manage
42:45 ↗ the diets for me, that'd be much appreciated. So
42:51 ↗ looking to see if council has any questions so far I am not seeing any
42:56 ↗ I think they all came up during the middle of the presentation
43:03 ↗ Thank you very excuse me one late bloomer here with councilmember ray there we go.
43:08 ↗ It's a proximity problem I'm in kind of thinking
43:14 ↗ about the study and the major deliverable from it merely being an
43:20 ↗ alternative identification alternatives analysis have we thought yet about
43:26 ↗ what the criteria we would apply would be and if we haven't thought about the
43:31 ↗ criteria have we thought about how we would define the criteria down the road
43:37 ↗ because I'm thinking that if what we're doing is an alternatives analysis understanding the criteria
43:42 ↗ we're going to apply is is probably the engine that turns the whole process
43:49 ↗ Yeah, that's a great point. I did fail to mention that there would be that
43:53 ↗ development. So the process that we're currently
43:59 ↗ doing is developing a vision and guiding principles, which are pretty squishy. Council
44:05 ↗ will see that in Q1. That squishy set of vision and guiding principles will then
44:10 ↗ be used. And there will be a physical template of translating
44:19 ↗ our aspirations based off of a guiding principle into a numerical sort of ranking
44:25 ↗ system or whatever the community would like to see out of that. So this project
44:29 ↗ will include creating some sort of criteria that can be then used as a benchmark
44:36 ↗ to see how those alternatives stack up. Awesome. And one last question.
44:43 ↗ Oh, it's gone. How far are we along on the consultant procurement
44:48 ↗ process? Has that started yet, and when do you expect to have a consultant on
44:52 ↗ board if we move forward? Yeah, if we move forward, we've
44:58 ↗ not put this out as a RFP, but that's something we would begin working on
45:03 ↗ in Q1. So consultant Q2, Q3?
45:11 ↗ I think, yeah, Q2 or Q3 is when we would kick off.
45:19 ↗ Thank you, Councilmember Ray. Council President, anyone else with questions? I'm going
45:25 ↗ to just pause and hold for a second. No, there's no holding
45:31 ↗ Councilmember Hall's mic down, but no, everything's good here. Thank you very much.
45:38 ↗ We are now going to move to regular business where Council is requested to adopt
45:41 ↗ the 2025-2026 budget. So under regular business, Council will be considering AB 8885, 2025-2026
45:50 ↗ budget. The request before Council is to adopt this ordinance. And do
45:56 ↗ we have a motion, Council President? Yes, I move to adopt ordinance number 3083.
46:05 ↗ Adopting the 2025 2026 budget setting forth the estimated revenues and appropriations
46:11 ↗ for each separate fund and Estimated impact on ending fund balances for all such funds
46:17 ↗ combined of the city for the fiscal years commencing January 1 2025
46:23 ↗ and January 1 2026 and establishing an effective date
46:30 ↗ Second Second Council president was that you That was me second.
46:36 ↗ That is great. Thank you very much. So it has been moved and seconded. Let's
46:41 ↗ move to council discussion and again council president if you could indicate who
46:46 ↗ has shown that they have a desire to speak to this. I'd appreciate that. Yes
46:52 ↗ I will actually start here mayor because I'm going to offer an amendment.
46:58 ↗ Let's see. I move to amend exhibit A of the ordinance.
47:04 ↗ Summary of revenues expenditures and fund balance to remove the proposed funding for the light
47:09 ↗ rail study one hundred thousand dollars in 2025 and One hundred thousand dollars
47:15 ↗ in 2026 from the general fund Thank you is there a second?
47:24 ↗ I'll second and council president again if you could indicate the second I'd appreciate that.
47:28 ↗ Yes, councilmember Ray Seconded
47:35 ↗ Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Council Member Wray. Let's start off
47:41 ↗ by having the mover speak to the motion. Council President and then Council Member Wray.
47:46 ↗ Thank you. I offer this amendment because I just don't feel that the
47:51 ↗ administration has convinced Council of the necessity of this funding at this time.
47:58 ↗ I do it out of respect for the majority of council members who expressed opposition
48:04 ↗ at the previous meeting and so I wanted to make sure that this comes to
48:08 ↗ light that we have a valid conversation about it I
48:14 ↗ appreciate bringing in Thomas Veldres and the information at this point
48:20 ↗ unfortunately I as a council member on the dais the night of the budget don't
48:26 ↗ feel like I have the ability to really delve into what that $200,000
48:33 ↗ is and make an accurate decision on that, whether or not this is the
48:39 ↗ right time for it, whether or not we're going to achieve the things that we
48:42 ↗ want out of that budget. And so what I would like to do at this
48:48 ↗ point is remove that from the budget, I'm not proposing to
48:54 ↗ reallocate it to anything, so that money would stay in the general fund. And if
48:59 ↗ the administration wants to come back and have a full conversation with
49:05 ↗ counsel about what the needs are, when the requirement is, you know,
49:11 ↗ you've heard a lot of questions tonight, I think that would be a valid
49:17 ↗ conversation point. this point the last time the light rail
49:23 ↗ planning study came to council or i guess we
49:29 ↗ adopted the planning guide but before that it was december of 2023 so the
49:35 ↗ argument that we need to keep going with momentum um
49:42 ↗ i have a hard time with that because it's been so spaced out and then
49:46 ↗ if The question that council member Ray had just now was when are you looking
49:52 ↗ to hire that consultant if that's not planning to happen until Q2 or Q3
49:59 ↗ I just really think that Because this came so late to
50:05 ↗ council without a full understanding of what that is that We
50:11 ↗ at this point just need to take a step back and rather than be pushed
50:15 ↗ into the idea of putting $200,000 into a budget when there are
50:21 ↗ so many remaining questions on here. I would rather
50:28 ↗ ask the administration to come back and if that's something that we want to do,
50:34 ↗ great. But at this point, I'm not sold. I don't think that
50:40 ↗ necessarily have a need for this other than what can be done internally
50:46 ↗ to have a community conversation and start that before
50:52 ↗ coming in and asking for $200,000 worth of consultants.
50:58 ↗ And with the second? Seconder would love to talk. Great.
51:05 ↗ a couple of thoughts I'm expressing all budget requests in terms of FTE right now
51:11 ↗ since we're we're eliminating FTE and so we're talking about doing this study at the
51:15 ↗ cost of about 1.3 FTE and that seems like a lot right now so
51:21 ↗ that's my lens right now the question I am asking myself is not
51:27 ↗ should we do the study but should we do we need to have do we
51:30 ↗ have to do this study now I'm not convinced that we do and as council
51:35 ↗ president just mentioned and as we heard one of the things that we took out
51:41 ↗ of the body of work for our consultant was the community engagement and so we
51:44 ↗ can do the community engagement aspects of this project without incurring the cost so
51:51 ↗ I say we can do that now and better prepare ourselves for down the road
51:57 ↗ I'm also not convinced I'm open to being convinced but I'm not
52:02 ↗ convinced of the timing of what we're doing now is analogous to the
52:08 ↗ timing of what Redmond Bellevue and federal way did because there hasn't been enough time
52:13 ↗ in ST in sound transit for that to have occurred because we're still 14 to
52:18 ↗ 16 years away from go live so I also heard kind of snuck in between
52:23 ↗ sentences that that the changes that Redmond implemented didn't come out during the
52:29 ↗ alternatives analysis but came out during the the environmental study which was years later so
52:35 ↗ there's just enough and be ambiguity and uncertainty for me right now to say look
52:41 ↗ let's get a better handle on what we're doing in a very difficult budget year
52:45 ↗ and say let's let's do what we can do let's save this money
52:51 ↗ and if it becomes apparent that we need to do this then then we can
52:56 ↗ allocate the funds at that time. But right now I'm thinking there are probably better
53:00 ↗ uses for that $200,000 in the general fund. And then going down
53:06 ↗ the line, I see Council Member Hall followed by Deputy Council President DeMichel and
53:12 ↗ Council Member Joe. Thank you very much. Well, first, thank you to the motion maker.
53:19 ↗ Like you said, I think a lot of us were kind of in this camp.
53:21 ↗ I My hesitation around funding the $200,000
53:27 ↗ light rail study last time was primarily around thinking that that funding could be used
53:32 ↗ on a more immediate community transportation need like Metroflex. Now that the administration has been
53:37 ↗ able to secure additional funding for something similar to Metroflex, if not
53:43 ↗ Metroflex, going into 2026, I think it makes sense to me to keep the ball
53:48 ↗ rolling on the light rail study. to maintain our influence in
53:54 ↗ the process, which to me seems like a direct community benefit, especially when the administration
53:59 ↗ continues to place such high value and importance on the timing of this, even with
54:04 ↗ its reduced scope, is compelling to me, number one. But I also think Thomas's presentation,
54:10 ↗ the four-page memo that we received from Director Wallywell was also very informative and helpful.
54:16 ↗ So I think in this, I am convinced that moving forward. This is
54:22 ↗ better than not moving forward with this especially since we have the funding secured for
54:26 ↗ Metro flex or something similar to that So I don't think I'll be supporting this
54:30 ↗ motion right now, but again, thank you because you're right most of us were in
54:32 ↗ this camp Deputy council presenting Michelle Thank
54:38 ↗ you so You know, this is this is a massive
54:44 ↗ project truly massive bigger than anything we've taken on and
54:50 ↗ I've been trying to think of a similar project that I worked on I as
54:56 ↗ many of you know I worked at Metro for 17 years did a lot of
55:01 ↗ work with sound transit during that time also did a lot of work with the
55:05 ↗ roads division of the transportation department and the biggest project I think I worked on
55:10 ↗ was the novelty Hill Road project which was a 20-year project And
55:16 ↗ I was there for 17 years. So obviously I wasn't there for the whole 20
55:19 ↗ years But I have worked on a project that took multiple time
55:25 ↗ over multiple years over multiple leadership over multiple councils
55:33 ↗ and Everything that Thomas talked about tonight I think is is right on and that's
55:38 ↗ the reason I don't have any questions It's everything that's been described is very consistent
55:43 ↗ with my experience working on a long-term project like the novelty hill road project
55:50 ↗ I worked in the community relations group in the transportation department and we
55:55 ↗ called it an iterative process in other words you've got research that's
56:01 ↗ informing what you go out and ask the public and then you've got public responses
56:07 ↗ that informs the research that you do next and so as
56:13 ↗ as city administrator Bob Kowitz said studies build on studies build on studies build on
56:19 ↗ studies and each one of those studies you are going deeper you're learning more each
56:25 ↗ time you go out to the public you're going deeper and you're learning more and
56:29 ↗ the other thing to think about when you're talking about a long-range project is over
56:33 ↗ that 20 years the community grows and changes and
56:39 ↗ new demographics come in And so again, the community dialogue that you
56:45 ↗ create is not a one and done kind of deal. It is over and over
56:50 ↗ and over again, giving the community opportunities to talk to
56:56 ↗ engineers and the leadership of these major organizations. So that was what my
57:02 ↗ job was, was creating those opportunities to let the public talk directly to the engineers
57:08 ↗ There's just been sort of this idea that sound transit or Metro or whatever these
57:13 ↗ large government organizations are Sort of behemoth that
57:19 ↗ don't listen to anybody But really when you get down to it when you have
57:24 ↗ a community meaning you have real people who happen to be engineers who come out
57:28 ↗ and talk to the community Get the community feedback and go back to their offices
57:33 ↗ and figure out how to put that into an actual plan I've seen it happen
57:39 ↗ over and over and over again. And as a person who dealt with that over
57:42 ↗ and over, I will tell you that engineers listened to the community and they listened
57:48 ↗ to community, to city councils and school districts and whoever is the group
57:54 ↗ that's being affected by a large project. So I feel like
58:02 ↗ we really have to think very carefully we made a commitment to this
58:08 ↗ project and I think we have to stay the course. The question I think was
58:13 ↗ a very excellent question was what is the benefit for this community if we do
58:18 ↗ this study? It's hard to see over a 20 year project what a single
58:24 ↗ study will do but it just is part of that long term commitment and
58:29 ↗ process that builds and builds and builds till you get to the point you make
58:34 ↗ some actual decisions about where everything's going to go and our community has told us
58:39 ↗ over and over and over again that they want to reduce the use of
58:45 ↗ single occupancy vehicles and move toward a transit oriented
58:51 ↗ a system that will get us out of these long backups and traffic jams that
58:56 ↗ we have now and will only get worse over the next 20 years This is
59:01 ↗ the benefit that this project will do for us. And our community has backed it
59:05 ↗ over and over. Every study we do, transportation is one of the top issues that
59:10 ↗ people are asking us to solve. We're not gonna solve it tomorrow.
59:17 ↗ It's gonna take 10, five, 10, 20 years to do it. So
59:23 ↗ I will not be supporting the amendment. Want to thank the
59:29 ↗ great presentation and all the information that was brought forward tonight I think that
59:34 ↗ my feeling is we have just got to stay the course on this project. Thank
59:40 ↗ you Okay, and now we've got councilmember Joe followed by councilmember
59:46 ↗ Martz. Thank you Politics and advocacy is is
59:52 ↗ akin to geology in my mind. It's basically force
59:57 ↗ constant force against a rock to make change and this
1:00:03 ↗ budget when we think about two hundred thousand dollars is that constant force
1:00:10 ↗ against the rock that we call sound transit and in order to make changes we
1:00:14 ↗ need to consistently put our money behind what we're saying and
1:00:20 ↗ put our money behind our mouth so to speak and sound transit looks at these
1:00:24 ↗ budgets look and they see what cities have done what they're planning on doing
1:00:30 ↗ and they see if the city is putting the money behind what they're trying to
1:00:34 ↗ tell it tell them in terms of what the community wants this two hundred thousand
1:00:39 ↗ dollars is is a little bit of a small amount but it's an important amount
1:00:45 ↗ keep that constant pressure up against sound transit on this project
1:00:53 ↗ serve on the Puget Sound Regional Council Council's transit oriented development
1:00:59 ↗ committee through my day job and I recently
1:01:05 ↗ cycled off but during the year and a half that I was on that committee
1:01:10 ↗ I saw things that worked and things that didn't work in the communities both going
1:01:14 ↗ south the federal way and then primarily going north is to homeless County which were
1:01:20 ↗ touched upon by Mateo's comments tonight The cities that kept up that
1:01:25 ↗ constant dialogue conversation had the money in their budgets had better outcomes
1:01:32 ↗ the the City that didn't do anything Didn't
1:01:38 ↗ allocate money to their budget is Mercer Island and they got that Somewhat ugly
1:01:44 ↗ up to station right in the middle by 90 and sound transit said that's your
1:01:49 ↗ station and And as much as Mercer Island didn't want that as their station, that's
1:01:53 ↗ the station they got because they didn't do the community planning in advance. Infrastructure is
1:01:58 ↗ very difficult. I may not be alive in 2043 when Sound Transit eventually gets here.
1:02:06 ↗ All right. I know Zach will still be here, but I may not be here.
1:02:11 ↗ But the decisions we make today and the decisions we make in the next budget
1:02:15 ↗ and the next budget after that all support moving toward the direction of getting the
1:02:21 ↗ project that we want for our citizens when we hear their feedback and their concerns
1:02:26 ↗ and their their desires for this project it's a iterative processes as councilmember
1:02:32 ↗ as deputy council president Michelle said and you know I think that we need
1:02:38 ↗ to continue to keep that force on the rock keep pushing against it and that's
1:02:43 ↗ how we get the change we want to see in our community the benefits are
1:02:48 ↗ we do that we don't get the question five years before construction
1:02:54 ↗ why are our options limited why didn't we think about this why did we you
1:03:00 ↗ know put it in an odd place we would have had that conversation all the
1:03:05 ↗ way through that process so we get the project that we ultimately want in our
1:03:09 ↗ community wants so I'm not going to be supportive of the amendment this evening thank
1:03:13 ↗ you Okay, Councilmember Martz, followed by Councilmember Hunt.
1:03:20 ↗ Thanks. So I was also one of those council members who at the last meeting
1:03:25 ↗ had a whole bunch of questions. I was driving my clog in the windmill of
1:03:29 ↗ progress. I love historical analogies. But I really got the answers this evening that
1:03:35 ↗ I was looking for. It isn't necessarily that I consider some transit a behemoth. I
1:03:40 ↗ just think that developers have a well, well understood for
1:03:46 ↗ if they have an option that costs seven cents and they have another option that
1:03:49 ↗ costs nine cents to go the option of class seven son so but what I
1:03:54 ↗ heard tonight was the answers on how we put some guide rails up
1:04:00 ↗ and some of the things that we can do to help make sure once we
1:04:05 ↗ have a sense from our community what we we need here because I agree with
1:04:10 ↗ that I mean everybody on the dice is saying that this is super critical to
1:04:13 ↗ the future of our city even though some of us I'm with you I'm with
1:04:17 ↗ you councilmember Joe I don't necessarily expect to be here when they when they get
1:04:21 ↗ it built maybe I'll be off sailing let's let's just say that I'll be off
1:04:24 ↗ sailing but but I I see the guide rails
1:04:30 ↗ and that's what I got out of the presentation this evening so I asked the
1:04:33 ↗ administration for that last time that's what I got And so I'm now comfortable moving
1:04:37 ↗ forward and so will not be supporting the amendment. Thank you. And council member
1:04:42 ↗ Hunt. Thank you, council president.
1:04:49 ↗ I am very concerned about the study in the context of
1:04:54 ↗ momentum. One of the things that we have worked through in this budget is
1:05:01 ↗ We have had to make some really difficult decisions in terms of reducing funding for
1:05:05 ↗ our human services organizations across town, our partners. We've had to make
1:05:11 ↗ layoffs for folks that were doing really good work for the city, but it was
1:05:15 ↗ a difficult budget year. And I am concerned about spending $200,000
1:05:24 ↗ on external consultants for something that is essentially 20 years out
1:05:30 ↗ on its current timeline. I did check the light rail
1:05:35 ↗ website and unless they close their current funding gap, we are
1:05:43 ↗ scheduled to get service in 2044. So that is 20 years from
1:05:49 ↗ now in 2024. And I think that puts us in a very different in terms
1:05:55 ↗ of what we would need to do to maintain momentum between now and that
1:06:01 ↗ later construction date to put pressure on sound transit during that time. I also looked
1:06:07 ↗ at the light rail guide that was provided
1:06:12 ↗ to council in the community in 2023 last year. And that
1:06:18 ↗ guide talks about considerations for participation in the sound transit process. And it
1:06:24 ↗ specifically says that with one station in Issaquah, the need for supplemental city staff will
1:06:30 ↗ probably be less than one full-time equivalent FTE employee, and the time demands may ebb
1:06:36 ↗ and flow depending on the phase. I think that having more of a
1:06:43 ↗ position that allows us to have that ebb and flow depending on one sound transit
1:06:50 ↗ is able to speak with us over the next decades. I think that that would
1:06:55 ↗ be preferable. I'm also concerned that we removed a
1:07:00 ↗ housing and parking study from this budget due to the budget constraints and other considerations.
1:07:06 ↗ I think that if this study were to include
1:07:13 ↗ more zoning considerations, how do we get the housing density that we need for walkability
1:07:18 ↗ in this area? How do we future proof this study so that it has
1:07:24 ↗ benefits to our current community, regardless of whether Sound Transit is able
1:07:30 ↗ to speed up this timeline or not? That would be my preference. I think we
1:07:35 ↗ know that we want to have amenities in this area. We know, for example, that
1:07:39 ↗ it would be wonderful to have a school on the valley floor and walkability and
1:07:44 ↗ more businesses in this area. And so how could we make sure that we're using
1:07:49 ↗ this study to to get us to a place that is beneficial to our current
1:07:53 ↗ community. And it sounds like that is something that we intend to do, but that's
1:07:58 ↗ not the purpose of this study. So, you know, with an expanded scope or with
1:08:04 ↗ a more sort of long-term process that I see as more sustainable over the next
1:08:09 ↗ couple of decades, I would be supportive, but I'm not supportive of this $200,000
1:08:15 ↗ study, so I will be supporting the amendment this evening. Council President,
1:08:21 ↗ if you could look around the room and see, I think every person has gotten
1:08:24 ↗ to speak to the item one time. Is there anybody wishing to speak a second
1:08:28 ↗ time? I am not seeing at this point anyone else.
1:08:35 ↗ Thank you. City Administrator. Yes, thank you, Council President, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council.
1:08:41 ↗ I just wanted to correct the last time this item was before the Council, the
1:08:47 ↗ Council on March 18th. adopted the light rail planning guide a motion made by councilmember
1:08:52 ↗ ray seconded by council president walsh so this study is consistent with the
1:08:58 ↗ light rail planning guide it would be helpful we can read you know what was
1:09:03 ↗ described of this study in the light rail planning guide that was approved by the
1:09:06 ↗ council in march but i think there was a comment that was been in december
1:09:10 ↗ of 23 but it actually was on march 18th 24 when the council approved the
1:09:15 ↗ light rail planning Thank you, City Administrator, for that clarification. I'm
1:09:21 ↗ going to go back to Council President and ask if there is any indication that
1:09:25 ↗ Council members would like to have a second comment or if ready for me to
1:09:28 ↗ call the vote. Actually, Mayor, I think we may be having some technical difficulties
1:09:34 ↗ with our television feed. Madam Mayor, if we could just take a couple minute
1:09:40 ↗ recess to correct the TV feed. Yeah, if we can take a three to five
1:09:46 ↗ minute recess. Let's
1:11:17 ↗ Mayor, do you see the graphic? The Sequoia City Council meeting resumed shortly.
1:11:25 ↗ Just see the generic. Right, right, but you see it. I do see it. Great.
1:11:31 ↗ And it's not blinking. It's not blinking. It's not blinking. No. How many fingers is
1:11:35 ↗ the Council President Walsh holding up? I can only see you right now, Wally. Okay,
1:11:41 ↗ well, she's holding it. There we go. Ten. I'm guessing. Totally guessing.
1:11:47 ↗ But yes, the room is not blinking. So I think for all those folks that
1:11:51 ↗ are watching this from home, it's much better. Council President, we look like we're waiting
1:11:56 ↗ for a couple people to resume their seats. Yes, exactly what I was going to
1:12:00 ↗ say. Just give us a moment.
1:12:25 ↗ Okay, Mayor, it looks like we have full attendance again. Wonderful. Thank you
1:12:31 ↗ very much. I think where we left off was I was asking Council President if
1:12:35 ↗ there is anyone who would like to make a second comment. We did get a
1:12:38 ↗ clarification from the city administrator. So I'll just check one more time. Is there anyone
1:12:44 ↗ else who would like to make a comment before I call for a vote on
1:12:48 ↗ the amendment that was presented by Council President Walsh?
1:12:56 ↗ Thank you very much. So the amendment is summaries of revenues and
1:13:02 ↗ expenditures and fund balance to remove the oh sorry amend exhibit a of the ordinance
1:13:08 ↗ summary of revenues expenditures and fund balance to remove the proposed funding for the light
1:13:12 ↗ rail study a hundred thousand dollars in 2025 and a hundred thousand dollars in 2026
1:13:18 ↗ from the general fund and if we could do a hand and voice that would
1:13:24 ↗ helpful. All those in favor say aye. Aye.
1:13:32 ↗ We have two in favor. All those opposed. Three. Who am I missing? Who's the
1:13:38 ↗ third? I see Council Member Wray, Council President Walsh. Council Member Hunt. Oh, there you
1:13:43 ↗ go. Okay, great. Three in favor. All those opposed say nay. Raise your hands, please.
1:13:48 ↗ Nay. Okay, the amendment fails, 4-3, and we're going to move back to the main
1:13:53 ↗ motion. Is there any additional discussion before I call for a vote on the
1:13:58 ↗ main motion? We've got councilmember Hall.
1:14:06 ↗ Sure, thank you. Just first and foremost, wanted to clarify an
1:14:12 ↗ earlier comment that I heard. This budget, if I'm, I believe I'm right, does not
1:14:16 ↗ reflect any reductions to funding for human service organizations it's it's primarily if I
1:14:22 ↗ remember right organizations other community nonprofit organizations that are called out specifically um so I
1:14:27 ↗ just did want to say that for the record and then to answer before I
1:14:33 ↗ get into some general comments let me pull up the direction needed slide
1:14:40 ↗ I do, I want to thank the administration for funding next year of Metro Flex
1:14:45 ↗ and then setting aside this additional $200,000 for Metro Flex or some Metro effects like
1:14:51 ↗ program very responsive to the conversations on the dais up here and of the community.
1:14:56 ↗ So thank you very much for hearing that. And like I said, based on my
1:15:01 ↗ comments earlier on the previous motion support moving forward with funding this $200,000 light rail
1:15:06 ↗ study. Thank you again for the work that's gone into sharing information with us about
1:15:11 ↗ that uh general comments um i just want to share a big thank you to
1:15:17 ↗ staff i am really in awe of the level of professionalism and stewardship
1:15:23 ↗ of our finance staff in particular but also our leaders in our departments who had
1:15:28 ↗ to make very tough decisions about their own departments and programs i want to acknowledge
1:15:34 ↗ that how technically challenging it must have been to find the right combination new
1:15:39 ↗ revenues and cost savings to get to where we are given the financial environment that
1:15:43 ↗ we find ourselves in but also how emotionally challenging it must have been as some
1:15:49 ↗ of those cost saving measures were people with names or programs and projects with value
1:15:55 ↗ in our community so just wanted to recognize that no one wants to be here
1:16:00 ↗ but even with these challenges i think that the priorities reflected in the budget a
1:16:05 ↗ focus on public safety sustainability on equity on transportation on fair
1:16:11 ↗ staff compensation on our insurance obligations meet the moment
1:16:17 ↗ that we find ourselves in and I'll also add to that maintaining our 15% general
1:16:22 ↗ fund ending fund balance is very prudent recognizing that there may be future needs or
1:16:27 ↗ opportunities in the coming years so I guess the last thing I want to say
1:16:31 ↗ is I hope everyone worked on the budget and everyone in the staff is able
1:16:35 ↗ to take a breath and have holiday season to rest
1:16:41 ↗ I'm very in this moment inflicted but proud of the
1:16:47 ↗ institution of the city of Issaquah thank you again for all your hard work and
1:16:50 ↗ I'll be supporting the budget this evening deputy council president
1:16:55 ↗ dee-michelle so councilmember Huntson Eric councilmember Hall sorry got my
1:17:02 ↗ H is mixed up there said it very well but I did want to thank
1:17:08 ↗ the administration i think it is amazing that we ended up here after all of
1:17:13 ↗ these months with only two issues on the table and really only one that we
1:17:18 ↗ were having any uh dispute over when you think of where we started six
1:17:24 ↗ or seven months ago this has just been an amazing process and kudos to everybody
1:17:30 ↗ that has been involved and as councilmember hall said many many many hard hard
1:17:37 ↗ decisions but everything carried out with a high level of professionalism and so
1:17:44 ↗ I share the thank yous that he said earlier to everyone that's been
1:17:49 ↗ involved this is really the culmination of a fantastic process and I commend
1:17:55 ↗ everybody that's been involved thank you and I'll go
1:18:01 ↗ ahead and add in my comments as well echoing much of what I've heard
1:18:08 ↗ Let it not ever be said that the City of Issaquah staff, leadership, and
1:18:13 ↗ council are not willing to make hard decisions and hard choices.
1:18:19 ↗ And we did so with the leadership and with the process,
1:18:25 ↗ as has been mentioned, of really looking at what our needs
1:18:31 ↗ are and what our wants are and what our community values are and what our
1:18:35 ↗ revenue could support. And rather than pushing ahead of that and
1:18:41 ↗ pushing past our 15% fund balance
1:18:47 ↗ emergency fund, we kept within our limits. And we said,
1:18:53 ↗ no, we've got to do what is right. We're not going to sit here and
1:19:00 ↗ do all of the things that the community wants us to do because we just
1:19:03 ↗ don't have the money for that. And so I appreciate the staff and the
1:19:10 ↗ administration's leadership on keeping us with that. I also
1:19:16 ↗ appreciate the community's engagement on this, and particularly hearing from
1:19:22 ↗ the community about Metro Flex and how important of a program that was. That was
1:19:27 ↗ really essential in our conversation about it. I'd also like to mention that I
1:19:33 ↗ have written a council President's letter for the budget, which
1:19:38 ↗ highlights some of these main issues, the reasons for
1:19:44 ↗ the deficit, the conversations, the things that we did for
1:19:50 ↗ ongoing revenue increases to promote our long-term financials. sustainability
1:19:57 ↗ the conversations that we had about policy direction and then looking ahead for the next
1:20:03 ↗ year so as has been our practice we've kind of documented what our process was
1:20:08 ↗ like what the issues were and all of those pieces so that will go together
1:20:13 ↗ with this budget and so again as an ending point as much as it is
1:20:19 ↗ always to make decisions about real people's
1:20:25 ↗ lives and their service to the city. I think
1:20:32 ↗ we have to be proud of doing the things that needed to be done rather
1:20:36 ↗ than pushing them off. And so I think that's a moment of appreciation. And then
1:20:42 ↗ I do see Councilmember Hunt and I'm not seeing anyone else on the dais.
1:20:53 ↗ muted uh council member hunt thank you um firstly i wanted
1:20:59 ↗ to thank council member hall um i i did mistakenly uh say human
1:21:04 ↗ services grants um when i i meant uh
1:21:10 ↗ you know grants to our non-profit organizations that were reduced um so thank you for
1:21:14 ↗ that correction it was something i had actually asked in a previous meeting um so
1:21:17 ↗ um I, you know, this was a difficult budget
1:21:23 ↗ and we had to make a lot of difficult decisions. I am supportive of
1:21:29 ↗ this. I am supportive of this final budget of maintaining the fund
1:21:35 ↗ balance within our fiscal responsibility to be good stewards of the public's money. I think
1:21:41 ↗ that was important. And I think that we have really good policy discussions about what
1:21:47 ↗ does it mean to have a budget where we are really focusing on sustainability and
1:21:51 ↗ on equity and on safety and on making sure that we are really putting
1:21:57 ↗ the community's priorities first. This budget really required us to do that and to
1:22:02 ↗ really focus in on those values. I am grateful for the money that has been
1:22:08 ↗ put back into the budget for Metroflex. It is It is possible that it is
1:22:14 ↗ not enough to continue funding the service and so my ask would be that if
1:22:19 ↗ there is a opportunity for continuing the Metro Flex program at the current rate, which
1:22:24 ↗ is more than what's budgeted for 2026 that that be brought forward to the Council
1:22:30 ↗ early so that we can have the policy discussion and that we can allocate accordingly.
1:22:35 ↗ It is something that I think we do need to continue funding. It's one of
1:22:42 ↗ the things that we heard loudly from the community, from folks that use the service
1:22:46 ↗ and from folks that know other community members that really have benefited
1:22:51 ↗ from it. On the light rail study, I voiced my concerns. My ask
1:22:57 ↗ on that would be that we, in going forward, have the
1:23:03 ↗ RFP and the options for that study brought to council, I think it is
1:23:09 ↗ important that the study be done in such a way that there are concrete benefits
1:23:14 ↗ to the current community, the community five years from now, not only looking out to
1:23:19 ↗ the potential light rail, but rather making sure that the community is benefiting from that
1:23:24 ↗ planning and from that engagement now. And I think there is ways to do
1:23:30 ↗ that. I think including some of the housing and zoning and other long range planning
1:23:35 ↗ aspects trying to make sure that we're meeting community goals not just for the
1:23:41 ↗ light row placement but also for that part of Issaquah in central Issaquah I think
1:23:46 ↗ that could be done and I think that would benefit the current community which I
1:23:50 ↗ think is really important when we're talking about something that is so far out that
1:23:55 ↗ you know we're looking 20 years ahead again
1:24:02 ↗ I appreciate all of the information that was provided I especially appreciate the changes that
1:24:05 ↗ were made Metro Flex I look forward to continuing working with the community on finding
1:24:11 ↗ creative solutions like Metro Flex program and I'll be supportive of
1:24:17 ↗ this budget and mayor I will note I am not seeing any
1:24:23 ↗ other comments on the dais I appreciate council president so I'm going to go
1:24:28 ↗ back to the main motion thanks to all the council members who weighed in It
1:24:34 ↗ has been moved and seconded to adopt ordinance number 3083.
1:24:41 ↗ Adopting the 2025-2026 budget, setting for the estimated revenues and
1:24:46 ↗ appropriations for each separate fund and the estimated impact on ending fund balances for all
1:24:52 ↗ such funds combined of the city for the fiscal years commencing January 1st, 2025 and
1:24:58 ↗ January 1st, 2026 and establishing an effective date. All those in favour
1:25:04 ↗ signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed?
1:25:12 ↗ That carries unanimously. 7 and no. And before we move to the next item, I
1:25:17 ↗ do appreciate the very kind comments that some council members made about the
1:25:24 ↗ budget process and the administration team, I want to make sure to thank our interim
1:25:28 ↗ chief financial officer, Andrea Snyder. She has been an amazing leadership, amazing
1:25:35 ↗ person in leadership during this budget process, and it has been an extremely difficult budget
1:25:41 ↗ process. I also want to thank our budget team, Susie Mansell, Nathan, and Lisa,
1:25:47 ↗ and Jillian, who has also been supporting them. This was such a challenging year, and
1:25:51 ↗ I'm very proud the work that they did to be able to bring this budget
1:25:56 ↗ to the Council and to be able to respond to the Council's requests. So
1:26:02 ↗ thanks to that team. Fabulous job, Andrea. Thank you very much. The next item of
1:26:08 ↗ business this evening is EB 8950, a waiver of permit fees for low-income residents and
1:26:14 ↗ building permit fee deferral for emergencies. The business before Council this evening is to approve
1:26:19 ↗ the resolution. I'D LIKE TO INVITE PLANNING MANAGERS STEPHEN PEDUA TO THE PRODIUM.
1:26:25 ↗ WELCOME, STEPHEN. THANK YOU, MAYOR PAULY. GOOD EVENING, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. I DO NOT HAVE
1:26:29 ↗ A PRESENTATION FOR THIS ITEM, BUT I BRIEFLY WANT TO JUST UPDATE CITY COUNCIL ON
1:26:33 ↗ WHAT THIS ITEM IS. AS PART OF THE CITY'S RESPONSE TO THE RECENT WINDSTORM EMERGENCY,
1:26:41 ↗ COMMUNITY PLANNING DEVELOPMENT STAFF HAVE BEEN TRYING TO LOOK AT OPTIONS TO MAKE a little
1:26:46 ↗ bit easier for residents as a recovery from the recent emergency so this
1:26:52 ↗ resolution is proposing to allow staff to waive fees for low-income residents that were
1:26:58 ↗ impacted by the storm and it also is allowing flexibility for staff to defer fees
1:27:03 ↗ for building permits as a way to help residents with recovery
1:27:09 ↗ the administration intends to return to city council in early 2025 for an
1:27:15 ↗ ordinance to incorporate a lot of these provisions into the city code so that staff
1:27:20 ↗ have a lot of this flexibility for any future emergency that concludes my briefing i'm
1:27:25 ↗ available for any questions thank you steven yes
1:27:31 ↗ city administrator thank you um in chatting with this was a last minute item
1:27:38 ↗ um as we spent last week uh assessing uh damage It became
1:27:44 ↗ quickly evident that we wanted to move forward with some sort of relief. We briefed
1:27:50 ↗ council leadership last Wednesday thinking that this would not make the
1:27:56 ↗ agenda packet. It ultimately did make the agenda packet. We were talking about a special
1:28:00 ↗ meeting to deal with this. So we put together what we thought was a good
1:28:05 ↗ best practice, really two buckets, one for low-income residents, the other for
1:28:11 ↗ all residents to have a deferral. The deferral is something that other communities do, and
1:28:16 ↗ as Stephen mentioned, we'll come back to you early next year with an amendment to
1:28:21 ↗ allow us for all emergencies to do something like this. The low income piece was
1:28:25 ↗ something new and different. We didn't have a lot of places to look for that.
1:28:30 ↗ And so in the documents before you, the criteria is set at 50% of very
1:28:36 ↗ median income. And I heard from many of you today that you thought that that
1:28:41 ↗ perhaps was not a doable number for a whole variety of reasons. And so we
1:28:46 ↗ went back and talking to the city attorney Rachel Turpin's online, and she can
1:28:51 ↗ help with this as needed. we look to see how far we could go
1:28:57 ↗ because I think all of the members of the council I spoke to thought 50
1:29:01 ↗ was too low go as high as you reasonably can we'd like to
1:29:08 ↗ put forward an amendment this evening that go to 80 percent Rachel is on
1:29:14 ↗ and we can get into the details of what the Washington State Constitution says and
1:29:20 ↗ the ability to kind of sort through that know it's our thinking the administration's thinking
1:29:26 ↗ that 80% is probably the limit anything beyond that probably goes into
1:29:33 ↗ a little bit more uncharted territory so we'd like to make that change this evening
1:29:39 ↗ based on your comments Rachel do you want to add anything to that
1:29:43 ↗ thank you city administrator yes so we just don't
1:29:49 ↗ as a little background, I think that Steven's ready to talk about this too. The
1:29:54 ↗ reason that 50% was chosen was to be consistent with other fee waiver
1:30:00 ↗ programs that the city has in place. That's the number that's used for instance
1:30:06 ↗ in the discounts and waivers for utility billing for
1:30:12 ↗ city utilities. I believe that it's also what we use in our recent public records
1:30:16 ↗ policy. So the city already has a sort of established practice
1:30:22 ↗ that 50% AMI is low income. The issue with going a
1:30:28 ↗ whole lot above that is that there's a constitutional prohibition on gifting of public funds.
1:30:35 ↗ And it has an exception for, and please excuse this language, it comes straight from
1:30:40 ↗ the constitution, which is quite outdated, but it has an exception for the poor and
1:30:45 ↗ infirm. So This becomes a question of what can we justify as
1:30:51 ↗ essentially poverty level or poor, terrible choice of works in the
1:30:57 ↗ constitution. I do think that if the council has strong feelings about going above 50%,
1:31:05 ↗ that you could probably justify up to 80, given what we do for
1:31:10 ↗ affordable housing. There's at least a track record. There's some precedent there for 80%.
1:31:18 ↗ AMI being considered low income for those purposes. But I don't think you'd want to
1:31:23 ↗ go above that or you're starting to skirt the limits of what's acceptable under the
1:31:28 ↗ Constitution. Happy to answer any
1:31:34 ↗ questions. Great. Council President, are you seeing any indication of any questions?
1:31:44 ↗ Yes. OK. Councilmember Hall. Thank you. This in not assuming
1:31:52 ↗ individuals would take advantage of a system like this, I guess I'm wondering how we
1:31:56 ↗ measure impacted by the recent windstorm. Is that
1:32:02 ↗ something we just trust within a particular time frame? We make an assumption as a
1:32:07 ↗ city that this is caused by a windstorm. We're looking for any documentation that shows
1:32:11 ↗ that damage was caused during the windstorm. Some sort of official documentation done by the
1:32:15 ↗ property owner. Correct. our intention is to make this as straightforward as possible um
1:32:21 ↗ you know as has been mentioned um we will have to identify uh income issues
1:32:27 ↗ and so we will come up with our own uh process to make it as
1:32:31 ↗ straightforward as possible and one of the challenges whenever there's an income-based exemption or discount
1:32:37 ↗ uh there's usually quite extensive requirements and uh you know that's why many jurisdictions will
1:32:43 ↗ If you get an ORCA card with a discount or if you're on a utility
1:32:47 ↗ discount, if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for us. We're not
1:32:51 ↗ going to have that with 80%. So we will just be diligent but not
1:32:57 ↗ overly diligent to determine the eligibility here. The same thing with the damage. Given these
1:33:03 ↗ circumstances, I doubt that we'll have individuals come with damage from something else. It should
1:33:09 ↗ be trees on top of your house. Then likely it happened. Thank you
1:33:16 ↗ Councilmember Martz Do we have an idea even a ballpark
1:33:22 ↗ order of magnitude on what this would like will likely cost like is it $10
1:33:26 ↗ is it a hundred thousand dollars is a hundred million dollars sort of a order
1:33:30 ↗ of magnitude You know in our Estimations and I don't
1:33:36 ↗ know if director dolly wall has numbers with her as far as the number of
1:33:42 ↗ that we've seen with any substantial damage the numbers are pretty small I think the
1:33:47 ↗ red tag numbers was two there's some yellow tags
1:33:54 ↗ Dale Dale's got the numbers six six six yellow tags so
1:34:00 ↗ you know that's ten ish Again, the spirit of this is just to
1:34:06 ↗ have a tool in the toolbox and if one person is eligible for it That's
1:34:10 ↗ going to make one residence life a little bit easier The referrals We might see
1:34:16 ↗ all of these folks take advantage of that because you know all of a sudden
1:34:20 ↗ they're facing a Contractor bill other things and if we're the ones that say okay,
1:34:26 ↗ we'll give you easy monthly payments. They might take us up So we're not anticipating
1:34:32 ↗ that this is a major dollar piece, but really is being offered to the council
1:34:36 ↗ as just to provide one more level of relief to our residents should anyone qualify
1:34:40 ↗ for it. Okay. I was asking because I was in Eden Prairie, Minnesota in the
1:34:45 ↗ summer of 2001, and something like 50% of the houses needed new roofs. It was
1:34:50 ↗ an amazing hailstorm that we all lived through. So I just wanted to make sure
1:34:55 ↗ we weren't, you know, you've given me an idea that the number of potential impacted
1:35:00 ↗ people is you know and it's going to be a question for the council when
1:35:05 ↗ we come back to you in a few months to put this in the code
1:35:08 ↗ permanently because there could be that kind of event of an earthquake that you know
1:35:14 ↗ levels all sorts of things and that that could be much different financial impact so
1:35:18 ↗ some of this is community value Some of its financial and it's just gonna be
1:35:23 ↗ a measure as far as making this permanent But we feel for the windstorm of
1:35:27 ↗ November 20th 21st Thank you very much
1:35:32 ↗ Councilmember a What are the plans
1:35:38 ↗ if any for Publicizing this should we move forward with it or is this going
1:35:43 ↗ to be something where we will just make it available when somebody is looking to
1:35:47 ↗ come in and a permit have you thought through the the outreach part of this
1:35:54 ↗ it'll be primarily dependent on the residents need and so as as the
1:35:59 ↗ applications come in we'll be talking with residents in terms of what tools are available
1:36:03 ↗ to us I'm not
1:36:09 ↗ seeing any other questions Thank You council president if there are no
1:36:15 ↗ other questions and someone would like to make a motion I would suggest, oh,
1:36:21 ↗ there we go. Look at that pop up, that you might want to make one
1:36:24 ↗ that is modified compared to what was in the original packet. So is somebody prepared
1:36:29 ↗ to make a motion? I will take care of that with great thanks to clerk
1:36:34 ↗ Tisha Gieser. Our clerk is amazing. would move to approve resolution number 2024-28
1:36:41 ↗ providing for a low income fee waiver and fee deferral for certain building permit fees
1:36:46 ↗ necessitated by an emergency or natural disaster with an amendment to
1:36:52 ↗ change the area median income requirement in section one to be at or below 80%
1:36:58 ↗ of the median family income second you very
1:37:04 ↗ much is there any council discussion and council president if you could indicate who would
1:37:10 ↗ like to speak to it that would be great um i will start out as
1:37:14 ↗ maker of the motion just to say i appreciate much like everything with this um
1:37:20 ↗ storm emergency response was just the quick nature of coming back on this
1:37:26 ↗ and um appreciate as we move into the it
1:37:32 ↗ response or recovery portion that cpd the community planning and development has
1:37:38 ↗ stepped up and is now seeing our community through the emergency and i see council
1:37:43 ↗ member martz thank you um i sort of wanted plus one
1:37:49 ↗ what you just said actually um i think that this is a great idea
1:37:55 ↗ and uh i think there i don't know exactly why but there has just been
1:37:59 ↗ a And I want to back up a step. I loved having Mayor
1:38:05 ↗ Freisinger as mayor, and I loved having Mayor Butler as mayor, but this
1:38:11 ↗ administration's response to this particular emergency has been much more comprehensive and
1:38:18 ↗ transparent. Maybe it's because we're a bigger organization and you have the
1:38:24 ↗ ability to do some of the and crossing of T's in response to things when
1:38:29 ↗ we were a smaller city. Maybe that was just harder to do. But this ordinance
1:38:35 ↗ in front of us feels very much of a piece with that transparency and thoughtfulness
1:38:40 ↗ about how to respond to emergencies. And as has been mentioned, the E word, the
1:38:45 ↗ earthquake word, right? We live in an area that has earthquakes and God forbid volcanoes
1:38:52 ↗ and other challenges. And so to, this precedent of thinking about
1:38:57 ↗ these issues and coming at it for some thoughtfulness ahead of time versus trying to
1:39:02 ↗ respond to the next one ad hoc is a great effort and much appreciated. Thank
1:39:08 ↗ you. I am not seeing
1:39:14 ↗ any other comments on the dais. Thank you very much, Council President.
1:39:20 ↗ It has been moved and seconded to approve Resolution 2024-28, providing for a low-income
1:39:26 ↗ fee waiver and fee deferral for certain building permit fees necessitated by an emergency or
1:39:32 ↗ natural disaster, with an amendment to change the area median income requirement in Section 1
1:39:37 ↗ to be at or below 80 percent of the median family income. All those in
1:39:41 ↗ favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. Those opposed?
1:39:50 ↗ carries unanimously 7-0. Stephen, thank you. Fantastic work.
1:39:56 ↗ Again, I think what Councilmember Mart said is really a credit to the staff that
1:40:01 ↗ they are really out there in front thinking about how they can be helpful. And
1:40:05 ↗ so that is great. Thank you very much. The next item of business this evening
1:40:09 ↗ is AB 8796, the comprehensive plan periodic update. The request before Council this evening is
1:40:15 ↗ to adopt the ordinance. The item was last before Council at the November 18th Committee
1:40:20 ↗ of the Whole meeting. And I'm sure Stephen is still standing up there, but I
1:40:24 ↗ can't really tell for sure. But I'm handing it over to Planning Manager Stephen Padua.
1:40:29 ↗ Stephen. Thank you, Mayor Pauline. That's correct. I am still up here. This is the
1:40:32 ↗ last step. the periodic updates comprehensive plan it's
1:40:38 ↗ the culmination of about two years of work made by the long-range team and community
1:40:44 ↗ planning development working with multiple staff from all the city departments to work through all
1:40:49 ↗ the different elements in the comprehensive plan and facilitating discussions with all the
1:40:55 ↗ respective boards and commissions to go through the policy work and incorporating the direction and
1:41:00 ↗ feedback from our council committees And so I want to thank our staff for all
1:41:05 ↗ the hard work that went into this update. We believe that is a very strong
1:41:10 ↗ foundation of policies to guide a lot of the policy work and a lot of
1:41:14 ↗ the implementation for city planning for the next 20 years. So thank you for City
1:41:19 ↗ Council for the opportunity to present this. The administration proposes adoption of the conference plan
1:41:25 ↗ as presented tonight. you steven um council president
1:41:31 ↗ if you could work the room for questions i think we have come to the
1:41:37 ↗ end of a very long process and i'm not seeing any questions on the dais
1:41:42 ↗ that is great thank you very much put my script back up here um is
1:41:48 ↗ someone prepared to make a motion yes i move to adopt ordinance number 3084
1:41:56 ↗ Adopting the 2024 periodic update of the Issaquah Comprehensive Plan pursuant to the Washington
1:42:02 ↗ State Growth Management Act chapter 36.70 a RCW
1:42:08 ↗ regarding King County tax parcel number 20 24 0 6 9 0 1 5
1:42:16 ↗ amending the land use designation map of the Comprehensive Plan adopting an amendment to the
1:42:22 ↗ zoning map providing for severability and establishing an effective date.
1:42:28 ↗ Second. It has been moved and seconded. Is there any council discussion?
1:42:34 ↗ Again, Council President, if you could let me know if there's anyone with their microphone
1:42:38 ↗ up or indicating a desire to speak. Okay, we'll start with Council Member Joe.
1:42:44 ↗ Thank you, Council President. As many of you know, I have a job where I
1:42:50 ↗ have to review comprehensive plans. in snohomish county and the good
1:42:56 ↗ comprehensive plans are ones that have numerous studies over numerous years that have
1:43:02 ↗ built a foundation over time and have found the community direction
1:43:08 ↗ they know what the community is thinking they have a strategic plan on different issues
1:43:12 ↗ whether it's housing or human services along the way the cities that really struggle are
1:43:17 ↗ ones that have not invested and done those studies over time scramble to get them
1:43:23 ↗ done they're haphazard they're not based on the law they're not based on the
1:43:29 ↗ way that these strategic plans should work and they get tripped up and they
1:43:35 ↗ have problems and they really struggle to put a comprehensive plan together we are in
1:43:40 ↗ the first category here in Issaquah because we invest in strategic plans on
1:43:45 ↗ climate human services emergency management water systems sewer systems of these different
1:43:51 ↗ elements along the years between 2017 and 2024 have been done and it
1:43:57 ↗ makes the comprehensive plan process much more
1:44:04 ↗ deep and insightful but it also makes it easier on staff and council to say
1:44:09 ↗ these are the things that we've done in the past these are the the direction
1:44:13 ↗ these are the directions that we've heard from our community this is the information that
1:44:17 ↗ we have and it's easier for us to together a comprehensive plan so it's a
1:44:21 ↗ long-winded way of saying thank you to the administration thank you to staff for doing
1:44:26 ↗ the hard work of putting these plans together and making sure there's transparency to our
1:44:30 ↗ community and transparency to the council each step of the way it makes the comprehensive
1:44:35 ↗ plan process much smoother and I think that is reflected in this
1:44:40 ↗ comprehensive plan that we're seeing so Stephen thank you so much for all the work
1:44:45 ↗ you've done thank you to the planning development Department for all the work that
1:44:51 ↗ has been done on this. It's been fantastic And I'll be supporting the motion. Thank
1:44:56 ↗ you Councilmember Hull Yeah, lots of lots of
1:45:01 ↗ landing the plane tonight in this meeting so just to reiterate some of my comments
1:45:06 ↗ from the last meeting and once again excellent work outstanding work by staff The level
1:45:11 ↗ of staff work has been really impressive and you know, we've really been able to
1:45:15 ↗ see that in our committees and how you've aligned with the functional plans and the
1:45:20 ↗ different requirements by many different jurisdictions, reworking literally
1:45:26 ↗ entire chapters, seeing almost no difference in terms of structure between before and after. So
1:45:31 ↗ like even just the level of detail and the work going into that, the different
1:45:35 ↗ comprehensive, hey, look at that, comprehensive plan matrices that you've put together
1:45:41 ↗ and the red line document, the many red line documents that you've done. with boards
1:45:46 ↗ and commissions the touches that we've had over several years at council committee before it
1:45:50 ↗ even came to full council this new and more accessible online platform is also very
1:45:56 ↗ exciting so I'm very eager to see how that works up like I said last
1:46:01 ↗ month this work really does have significant meeting not just the people who live here
1:46:05 ↗ today but certainly all who choose to live here work and play here in future
1:46:11 ↗ years so again Huge thank you to staff and everyone who participated in very happy
1:46:17 ↗ vote yesterday I'll just throw in my
1:46:22 ↗ comments echoing much of what I've heard there But I really want to focus on
1:46:27 ↗ the Commission's you know the Planning Policy Commission 24 meetings on this
1:46:38 ↗ various parts of the comprehensive plan also went to the Arts Commission the Environmental Board
1:46:43 ↗ transportation and fire Advisory Committee the Economic Vitality Commission and the Equity Board
1:46:49 ↗ so this didn't come to us just as a repeat of the
1:46:55 ↗ previous comprehensive plan with adjustments from staff and state regulations it really came
1:47:01 ↗ through a community process of understanding what was being
1:47:06 ↗ presented in all of the nitty-gritty detail and So I just want to take the
1:47:12 ↗ time to thank the board and Commission members who really sat there and did the
1:47:17 ↗ hard work so that things came to council at a place where we could really
1:47:24 ↗ see the difference between that previous plan and this one and that how
1:47:30 ↗ that is how it demonstrates the Nature of our community now and into the future
1:47:35 ↗ and not just the last time the comprehensive plan was adopted So just wanted to
1:47:40 ↗ add in that kudos there as well in appreciation
1:47:46 ↗ And I am not seeing any other comments at this time
1:47:52 ↗ Thank You council president, so I'll just reread the motion it has been moved and
1:47:56 ↗ seconded to adopt ordinance number 3084
1:48:02 ↗ adopting the 2024 periodic update of the Issacole Comprehensive Plan pursuant to the Washington State
1:48:08 ↗ Growth Management Act, Chapter 36.70A of the RCW
1:48:14 ↗ regarding King County Tax Parcel Number 20-24-06-9015,
1:48:22 ↗ amending the land use designation map of the Comprehensive Plan, adopting an amendment to the
1:48:26 ↗ zoning map, and providing for severability and establishing an effective date. All those in favor
1:48:32 ↗ signify by saying aye. Thank you those opposed.
1:48:40 ↗ That also carries seven and no thanks very much again to all of the council
1:48:45 ↗ president said all the boards commissions and the council committee work and the staff work
1:48:51 ↗ that went into this 10 year update so appreciative. If I can
1:48:56 ↗ interrupt we've got a request on the dais maybe for a five minute break. Let's
1:49:01 ↗ take a five minute break. Thanks, Council President. Thanks.
1:51:54 ↗ So, that's what I'm going to do.
1:53:52 ↗ here.
1:53:59 ↗ Mayor, we're ready whenever you are. Thank you very much,
1:54:05 ↗ City Clerk. So just, we are coming back from a short break. We are looking
1:54:10 ↗ at AB 8911, the Citywide Strategic Plan five year update. action before
1:54:16 ↗ council is to approve the resolution and this item was lost before council at the
1:54:21 ↗ November 18th committee of the whole meeting I'd like to invite assistant to the city
1:54:24 ↗ administrator Dale Markey crimp to the podium welcome Dale thank you madam mayor members of
1:54:30 ↗ the city council members of the public including a task force member here tonight
1:54:36 ↗ my name is Dale Markey crimp I'm the assistant to the city administrator and I'm
1:54:39 ↗ here tonight to present you with the administration's final proposed updates on the R issaquah
1:54:45 ↗ strategic plan. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to prevent is to present you with
1:54:50 ↗ the final proposed updates to the strategic plan, including some
1:54:56 ↗ minor changes from our last meeting based on council feedback for adoption. As a reminder,
1:55:02 ↗ this update pertains only to the plans goal area, goal statements, objectives and recommended actions.
1:55:09 ↗ In some cases, this necessitated small changes to other parts of the goal area, but
1:55:14 ↗ the update largely focused on the objectives aligned actions and success measures
1:55:21 ↗ once more for posterity sake provide a little bit of background the original artists across
1:55:26 ↗ strategic plan which was the first strategic plan for our city was adopted in 2019
1:55:31 ↗ following an 18-month process grounded in community engagement and input that process led to a
1:55:36 ↗ plan with six goal areas which are seen here and represented in our goal area
1:55:41 ↗ wheel one to five objectives in each goal area potential aligned actions to each
1:55:47 ↗ of those objectives and two to four success measures per goal area even
1:55:53 ↗ without knowing just how much our world would change following the adoption in 2019 there
1:55:59 ↗ was always a plan to formally review and update the strategic plan in five years
1:56:04 ↗ time as a final refresher the following process was
1:56:10 ↗ followed during this update task force was selected by the mayor in January 2024
1:56:16 ↗ this task force consisted of 11 regular members three alternates including three members of the
1:56:22 ↗ City Council and members of the Issaquah Equity Board Environmental
1:56:28 ↗ Board Economic Vitality Commission and Transportation Advisory Board the task force
1:56:34 ↗ met six times between late February and late June of 2024 working together and with
1:56:39 ↗ city staff subject matter experts and to support the revision of the plan's objectives
1:56:45 ↗ aligned actions and success measures the task force then presented their recommendations
1:56:51 ↗ to city council in july 2024 and following that presentation city staff reviewed these
1:56:57 ↗ recommendations and further applied the strategic plans prioritization criteria as well as
1:57:03 ↗ council feedback to refine these recommendations into a near final draft
1:57:09 ↗ this near final draft was then presented at a special meeting of the city's boards
1:57:14 ↗ and commissions attended by members of 10 boards and commissions over 40 of our board
1:57:19 ↗ members and commissioners in mid-september following that engagement
1:57:25 ↗ staff again revised the document to include that feedback and shared that
1:57:31 ↗ again near final draft with the issaquah community through the issaquah insider on the city's
1:57:37 ↗ website and through direct outreach organizations community partners and
1:57:43 ↗ individuals that was made available to the to the community throughout October until early November
1:57:50 ↗ given the feedback obtained during that time again city staff made another final revision
1:57:56 ↗ before coming to the council committee of the whole on November 18th with a final
1:58:00 ↗ draft I've shown you this slide before and I think it's worth
1:58:06 ↗ sticking on one more time like the original plan and as this process indicates
1:58:12 ↗ this update was grounded in community member input and feedback that ensures that our strategic
1:58:18 ↗ plan continues to reflect the sentiment and values of Issaquah's greatest asset our community members
1:58:27 ↗ there are four main themes represented in this update that I think are worth commenting
1:58:32 ↗ on one additional time the first overarching trend in this update
1:58:38 ↗ is emergency preparedness and resilience and public safety emerging from the
1:58:43 ↗ pandemic and validated by our recent wind event
1:58:49 ↗ emergency preparedness response and recovery are paramount
1:58:55 ↗ it's something that was a much smaller focus in the original plan and takes up
1:58:59 ↗ a much more prominent space across the goal areas in this plans update
1:59:05 ↗ the city's resilience both in its infrastructure and and in its social connection is also
1:59:11 ↗ essential and plays a key role in the update you see across multiple goal areas
1:59:17 ↗ in this update. And last but certainly not least, while the city council astutely added
1:59:22 ↗ a public safety objective in 2021, this update sees a build out
1:59:28 ↗ of that objective to include aligned actions. The second trend in changes
1:59:34 ↗ you'll see are around continued investment in climate action. the 2021
1:59:40 ↗ adoption of the Issaquah Climate Action Plan the city has made significant progress and now
1:59:46 ↗ the focus is on how to ensure climate action is not simply the work of
1:59:50 ↗ one small team but integrated into the work of all of our teams across the
1:59:54 ↗ city the third trend in this update is housing affordability and livability
2:00:01 ↗ whether it's affordable housing or housing affordability the ability to work live and
2:00:08 ↗ recreate here in issaquah remains a concern and is an even greater focus
2:00:14 ↗ in this particular update and last but certainly not least operationalizing equity
2:00:20 ↗ well equity has always been one of the guiding principles of the plan the original
2:00:25 ↗ plan lacked clarity on exactly how equity would be pursued this
2:00:30 ↗ update provides concrete recommendations in its actions for how the city city can take next
2:00:36 ↗ steps on this commitment mentioned in previous presentations the original
2:00:42 ↗ plan had six goal areas and 16 objectives this final recommended update
2:00:48 ↗ retains these six goal areas and proposes 22 objectives including new objectives in the five
2:00:54 ↗ goal areas listed here additionally as was shared at the
2:00:59 ↗ previous presentation this update proposes aligning success measures to objectives rather than goal
2:01:05 ↗ areas to better track progress and ongoing actions that may not have an end date
2:01:11 ↗ within a single or even two years so that both the administration staff and
2:01:17 ↗ City Council can track progress towards those goals over time these
2:01:23 ↗ measures are a combination of the original plans measures the measures from the city's performance
2:01:28 ↗ management plan and a handful of measures for which departments already have data that they
2:01:33 ↗ are gathering presented its final draft
2:01:39 ↗ proposal to the City Council as mentioned on November 18th the City Council requested consideration
2:01:45 ↗ of the following changes ahead of the final proposed update a revision to the new
2:01:50 ↗ environmental stewardship objective focus on applying a sustainability lens on planning and project management
2:01:57 ↗ further specificity on how the City Council will work to address the epidemic of loneliness
2:02:01 ↗ and excuse me, the city will work to address the epidemic of loneliness through human
2:02:06 ↗ services, arts and public spaces. The addition of success measures with the new
2:02:11 ↗ infrastructure objective, the revision of success measures within growth and development, revised
2:02:17 ↗ language in the growth and development background, and some narrative around the lessons learned and
2:02:22 ↗ therefore the updates made to this plan. response to that feedback the
2:02:28 ↗ administration made the following revisions ahead of this final document the
2:02:33 ↗ administration revised the language on environmental stewardship objective to make it more understandable and clear
2:02:40 ↗ specifically outlining the intention for each department and
2:02:45 ↗ workgroup to have a process for assessing not only the climate impact of projects and
2:02:50 ↗ programs that they're running but understanding the best way to mitigate those impacts and enhance
2:02:55 ↗ climate benefits This will be done through establishing a plan and project review process and
2:03:00 ↗ training project managers on how to follow this process. The administration added actions within
2:03:06 ↗ two economic and social vitality objectives related to the epidemic of loneliness, building community and
2:03:12 ↗ nurturing connection, including recently added language, which I'll pull up momentarily, around
2:03:18 ↗ developing, implementing, and participating in partnerships and initiatives to reduce loneliness and social isolation.
2:03:26 ↗ administration added success measures in growth and development and within the new infrastructure objective
2:03:32 ↗ and The mayor penned a letter explaining lessons learned and how they informed this update
2:03:38 ↗ The administration did not make changes to the background language in the growth and development
2:03:44 ↗ The recommendation tonight is to approve the resolution adopting amendments to the citywide strategic plan
2:03:49 ↗ as part of the five-year plan update Following this meeting The administration
2:03:55 ↗ will prepare for implementation and work plan tracking beginning in Q1 2025.
2:04:01 ↗ And in January, we'll bring together our leadership to begin the implementation of this new
2:04:05 ↗ strategic plan. So again, this is the recommendation for tonight. I'll
2:04:11 ↗ pause here for questions. Thank you, Dale. Council President,
2:04:17 ↗ if you could indicate whether or not there are folks in the room or whether
2:04:21 ↗ or not Council Member Hunt. any
2:04:23 ↗ questions uh
2:04:29 ↗ council member hall can you remind um me
2:04:35 ↗ what the concern that we had with the background and growth and development was and
2:04:39 ↗ what the rationale was for the administration and not changing i'm just drawing a blank
2:04:43 ↗ on that yep absolutely so the the issue that was brought up and i'll pull
2:04:47 ↗ up the language for everyone to see um was a conflicting or
2:04:53 ↗ attention between the language in the background and the language of one of our new
2:04:58 ↗ objectives so let me just take a moment to pull up both
2:05:07 ↗ this is gonna be small at first and I promise to zoom in
2:05:45 ↗ highlighted on the screen a second sentence in the opportunity section excuse me I misspoke
2:05:51 ↗ not background but opportunity this sentence was brought up specifically in conflict with the
2:05:57 ↗ revision to one of the below objectives so that the sentence reads in the face
2:06:01 ↗ of this growth is quite has chosen to direct development to the valley floor to
2:06:04 ↗ protect existing neighborhoods in our forested hillsides and plan for growth around the future light
2:06:09 ↗ rail station it was noted that this sentence might feel as though it is in
2:06:15 ↗ or in conflict with some of the way the objectives are worded
2:06:21 ↗ below, namely a focus on thinking about infill and thinking about
2:06:26 ↗ missing middle housing. I'd also invite, when discussion
2:06:32 ↗ comes up, either council member to speak to that as well. Sorry,
2:06:38 ↗ and you had said, thank you, by the way, and you had said the administration
2:06:41 ↗ decided not to make any changes there. Can you walk us through that? It was
2:06:46 ↗ just determined that a change wasn't needed. That it didn't feel as though it was
2:06:50 ↗ in. Didn't really see the tension. Didn't really feel that it was that intention.
2:07:01 ↗ Council President, is there anyone else that would like to ask a question at this
2:07:04 ↗ point in time? I am not seeing any.
2:07:10 ↗ Thank you so much.
2:07:16 ↗ someone care to make a motion yes let me bring that
2:07:24 ↗ would you like to make the motion on some of my remarks thank you I'd
2:07:29 ↗ like to approve resolution number 2024 dash 29
2:07:35 ↗ adopting amendments to the citywide strategic plan as part of the five-year plan update second
2:07:43 ↗ Thank you both. It has been moved and seconded. Is there any council discussion? Sure.
2:07:48 ↗ I'll just say that having been on council for a while, done a number
2:07:54 ↗ of these, and this was a very, as we have discussed numerous
2:08:00 ↗ times in this room, it was a very thoughtful process involving
2:08:07 ↗ leadership beyond council and in the community, with with dale's amazing
2:08:13 ↗ ability to herd cats and so i'm excited about this today
2:08:18 ↗ and i will note uh with councilmember martz
2:08:24 ↗ that he was one of those cats so he is not saying that against anyone
2:08:29 ↗ else he you know that whole thing when when you point your finger you point
2:08:33 ↗ three back at yourself for sure for sure Looking through I see a
2:08:39 ↗ deputy council president de Michelle and then councilmember Hall Thank you
2:08:46 ↗ So the cats comment is sort of throw me off here so so I because
2:08:50 ↗ I was going to mention that or to command the Ad hoc committee that worked
2:08:56 ↗ on this I thought they did an excellent job and especially I think I mentioned
2:09:02 ↗ this when the first draft was presented that I really appreciated the emphasis on Bringing
2:09:07 ↗ the arts in which I don't believe had been so emphasized earlier
2:09:13 ↗ And the equity piece as well And I wanted to particularly
2:09:19 ↗ think Chris rich Chrisley Chris richly who's been here At almost all of our
2:09:25 ↗ meetings following the process for his group and I really appreciate your representation that you've
2:09:31 ↗ given to that group and And so I think this is a really good
2:09:36 ↗ platform for us to move forward as a city And I just think that there
2:09:41 ↗ was an immense amount of work tonight feels like the culmination of so many things
2:09:48 ↗ and what a great amount of work has been done here and Is setting us
2:09:53 ↗ up for so much success into the future? So thanks to that group in that
2:09:58 ↗ group of cats. I guess so. Thanks So, Member Hall?
2:10:04 ↗ I'm allergic to cats, so no cat metaphors here. You
2:10:10 ↗ know how thrilled we are with the product and the process, so I won't say
2:10:16 ↗ much more about that since we've had an opportunity to say it so many times.
2:10:20 ↗ A couple things come to mind. The updates that were made with
2:10:26 ↗ regard to some of what we spoke about with her loneliness and isolation and community
2:10:31 ↗ building. Excellent updates. I think it reflects the need very well.
2:10:37 ↗ There was one in particular that I was I feel bad wordsmithing stuff this late
2:10:41 ↗ too, but there was one in particular that I thought maybe a few words could
2:10:44 ↗ be removed and I I think that there might be some potential alternative language So
2:10:50 ↗ I just wanted to ask for that. There is a small change. It's actually on
2:10:53 ↗ a different one, but I will share it with you. Okay, so rather than
2:11:00 ↗ retracting words from the one that included around the use of City owned and public
2:11:06 ↗ spaces We wanted to propose adding Some language to the other
2:11:12 ↗ action. So there was a there's an action Within the the more human services I
2:11:17 ↗ would say heavy objective and so we'd like to propose adding the following words so
2:11:23 ↗ currently reads I believe develop and implement initiatives to reduce loneliness we'd like to have
2:11:28 ↗ that to have more of a partnership orientation so looking at other partners in the
2:11:33 ↗ community that we could work with on this part on developing those initiatives and also
2:11:38 ↗ participating in initiatives that are driven by some of our community partners and so we're
2:11:43 ↗ proposing this slight update to language to take more of a partnership approach to that
2:11:50 ↗ that meets my needs so thank you for looking at that I appreciate it just
2:11:53 ↗ for kind of context for council there was one in particular that said kind of
2:11:57 ↗ focused on city-owned properties and I wanted to make sure we weren't limiting ourselves to
2:12:01 ↗ supporting community partners when they're doing community building work so this definitely gets that
2:12:07 ↗ kind of that so thank you again yeah there's not really much more to say
2:12:13 ↗ again yeah thrilled with what we've got. Everyone that I've talked to who's on the
2:12:17 ↗ board, including someone I know very well, always says, Dale was amazing
2:12:23 ↗ this, Dale was amazing that. Like, come on, we get it. So, just kidding. We
2:12:28 ↗ so appreciate everything you've done. We appreciate all the other staff who also come in
2:12:33 ↗ with the ownership of the functional plans who were able to walk everyone through all
2:12:36 ↗ of it. So this is very much a thanks staff, an appreciation for staff and
2:12:41 ↗ community members who participate night. so again thank you and i'll be voting yes
2:12:49 ↗ and i'll just throw my comments in on all of that as one of the
2:12:53 ↗ cats at that meeting who was herded by dale um i think i've said it
2:12:59 ↗ before i never felt so mentally exhausted after a meeting as i did
2:13:05 ↗ coming out of those meetings because We were just used at such
2:13:10 ↗ a fast pace in order to come up with all of the needed
2:13:16 ↗ requirements. And so having all of those community members just working together and
2:13:22 ↗ Dale kind of pulling it out of us and pushing us in different directions was
2:13:27 ↗ just quite amazing to see. testament
2:13:33 ↗ to our community and the staff leadership on all of that that we were able
2:13:38 ↗ to produce this as a result of those six meetings and many many other
2:13:44 ↗ conversations so my appreciation as well and I am
2:13:50 ↗ not seeing any other comments on the dais Thank You council president and thank
2:13:56 ↗ you for those comments Again, tough one on everything that was said about Dale and
2:14:01 ↗ her team that supported her. That's fantastic. So if there is no further discussion,
2:14:07 ↗ the motion before council is to approve resolution number 2024-29-29,
2:14:15 ↗ adopting amendments to the citywide strategic plan as part of the five-year plan update. All
2:14:21 ↗ those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed?
2:14:29 ↗ carries unanimously seven to no. So the next two agenda items will be presented jointly
2:14:35 ↗ AB 8924, the 2025 council calendar and AB 8925 council
2:14:40 ↗ vacancy process and timeline. The request before council is to approve the
2:14:46 ↗ resolution on the calendar and to comment and approve on the council vacancy
2:14:52 ↗ process and timeline. So I'd like to have deputy city clerk, Chris Grabowski come up
2:14:56 ↗ to the podium.
2:15:08 ↗ Mayor Pawley, council members, good evening. It's very weird to be on this side of
2:15:13 ↗ the dais, I have to admit. So I'm before you tonight to present the proposed
2:15:19 ↗ 2025 city council calendar. City Clerk Gieser will follow with the
2:15:25 ↗ presentation on the vacancy process and timeline. Tonight we're seeking
2:15:31 ↗ direction from you on the 2025 calendar and if you have any recommended changes to
2:15:37 ↗ the council calendar that's being brought forward this evening. On the council vacancy side of
2:15:43 ↗ things, Tisha will be asking for any changes to the application, any changes
2:15:47 ↗ to input on the vacancy timeline, and any additional
2:15:53 ↗ requested outreach. On my portion of the event tonight,
2:15:59 ↗ by way of background, Council approved Resolution 2024-07,
2:16:06 ↗ which adopted a cultural and religious holiday calendar and established a policy of avoiding
2:16:12 ↗ scheduling city meetings on religious and cultural holidays of utmost significance.
2:16:20 ↗ IMC 2.06.020 states that the regular meetings of the city council
2:16:26 ↗ will be held as set forth by annual resolution so this will be the third
2:16:32 ↗ year that the council has adopted an annual meeting calendar to establish council meeting dates
2:16:38 ↗ in 2022 the council adopted the 2023 calendar and then in 2024
2:16:45 ↗ just after the new year council adopted the 2024 calendar
2:16:53 ↗ So a little bit of the background that we go through in the clerk's office
2:16:57 ↗ to develop the council calendar. So in prep in preparation for creating the 2025 council
2:17:03 ↗ calendar, we looked at the cultural and religious calendar and determined where there were conflicts
2:17:09 ↗ with council and committee meetings. We rescheduled the council and committee meetings to
2:17:16 ↗ the next Monday or Tuesday of the month where practical, where the next Monday or
2:17:21 ↗ Tuesday had a conflict the meeting may have been moved out further
2:17:27 ↗ or in rare cases to a Wednesday but for the most part we
2:17:33 ↗ tried to avoid scheduling anything on a day other than Monday or
2:17:38 ↗ Tuesday changes were also made to the calendar to minimize meetings
2:17:44 ↗ that fell during the school school districts midwinter break and spring break
2:17:50 ↗ April and February
2:17:56 ↗ so this slide shows that November of the 2025 calendar did have
2:18:03 ↗ some significant impacts which resulted in PDC having to be moved
2:18:09 ↗ to the first week of December to avoid encroaching on the Thanksgiving week it may
2:18:15 ↗ be difficult to you can see that that the City Council regular meetings are shaded
2:18:20 ↗ in gray on this slide and Committee of the Whole is shaded sort of a
2:18:24 ↗ purple color services safety and parks is on the 18th
2:18:31 ↗ of November of this coming year and mobility and infrastructure is on the
2:18:37 ↗ 24th but to avoid encroaching into that Thanksgiving week with travel plans we moved the
2:18:45 ↗ Development and Environment Committee meeting for November into the month of December
2:18:53 ↗ and then the council has winter break in 2025 so
2:18:58 ↗ currently there are no I'm going to go back a slide sorry
2:19:04 ↗ I did want to point out that there is a regular City Council meeting scheduled
2:19:08 ↗ on Monday November 3rd which is prior to the general election day there is also
2:19:12 ↗ a City Council meeting scheduled for Monday August
2:19:18 ↗ 4th which is before the primary so those Council can
2:19:24 ↗ decide whether or not they want to keep those days or or direct staff to
2:19:29 ↗ make changes to those dates
2:19:35 ↗ So typically the council has three City Council retreats scheduled throughout
2:19:42 ↗ the year on Saturdays There are none scheduled at this time, however, and this is
2:19:46 ↗ due mainly to the council vacancy that is looming. The administration will propose three dates
2:19:52 ↗ to the council or poll the council for their preference on
2:19:58 ↗ retreat dates after that vacancy has been filled. IMC 2.06.020
2:20:06 ↗ also allows for summer and winter breaks for the council by eliminating the regular meeting
2:20:11 ↗ on the third Monday in the months of August or December.
2:20:18 ↗ So that really kind of wraps up my portion of it at this time. If
2:20:22 ↗ there are any questions, we can hear them now or I can turn it over
2:20:26 ↗ to the clerk Keeser. We do have some questions on this
2:20:32 ↗ area. I'll start with Councilmember Joe, then Councilmember Hall. Good evening. Could you go to
2:20:37 ↗ the April, the month of April on your slides? I do not have the month
2:20:42 ↗ of April on the slides, but I can answer a question for you. Okay. I'll
2:20:45 ↗ direct my colleagues to look to the month of April in 2025. The Iskua School
2:20:50 ↗ District Spring Break is April 14th through the 18th, and there currently is a City
2:20:56 ↗ Council Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled on that day. In your presentation you indicated
2:21:01 ↗ that you're trying to not have a meeting during the spring break was there a
2:21:05 ↗ reason to put that on the calendar there or Is it an option for us
2:21:09 ↗ to move that to the 28th at our discretion? I also can move that to
2:21:15 ↗ the 28th or any other date at their discretion the reason we we avoided Scheduling
2:21:21 ↗ committee meetings during during council break or during those school breaks. You'll see that
2:21:29 ↗ February during the midwinter break that Monday also coincides with President's Day so there
2:21:35 ↗ wouldn't be a City Council meeting on that date anyway we did keep the Committee
2:21:40 ↗ of the Whole meeting in April but you're certainly as a body welcome to move
2:21:46 ↗ it if you'd like okay there's just two of us that have kids in school
2:21:52 ↗ still it will be maybe another year before we have no kids in school unless
2:21:57 ↗ we have a appointment to a vacancy that a person has young children in school
2:22:02 ↗ so I was just curious thank you very much
2:22:08 ↗ madam mayor members of the council you know I don't think there's any objection if
2:22:12 ↗ the council this evening would like simply say I would
2:22:15 ↗ we'll take that as a friendly
2:22:21 ↗ amendment I would greatly appreciate that I made my spring break plans not more than
2:22:26 ↗ three days ago Fantastic councilmember Hall
2:22:34 ↗ You brought up the council meetings before the primary and general election. That's not something
2:22:38 ↗ we would need to If if we were concerned with that as council, that's not
2:22:42 ↗ something we would need to change tonight anyways if we didn't want to I mean
2:22:47 ↗ It also could we cancel council meetings sometimes because there aren't any there isn't anything
2:22:51 ↗ from the planning calendar to pull into the meeting right so that is correct. That's
2:22:55 ↗ also something that could be done at mayor's and council's discretion later on it absolutely
2:23:00 ↗ is at your discretion I think just and I'll make comments at the end of
2:23:05 ↗ the evening one of the one of the reasons the night is as good as
2:23:09 ↗ it is is because we will have a 12-month calendar and so if you're thinking
2:23:13 ↗ now that you don't want those meeting I think from the administration standpoint would rather
2:23:17 ↗ know that in my experience most councils don't want to meet the night before municipal
2:23:23 ↗ elections if there are members of the council on the ballot you're busy doing other
2:23:28 ↗ stuff and that's just practical reality so you might get to two weeks before
2:23:35 ↗ people say oh gosh why do we have a council meeting I've got a new
2:23:38 ↗ XYZ we're saying tonight we recognize all those things and if the council would prefer
2:23:44 ↗ to direct us to reschedule those meetings in August and November we're happy to do
2:23:49 ↗ it and and know that now as we plan the calendar
2:23:55 ↗ I mean that's my kind of initial reaction is that it would it seemed to
2:23:59 ↗ me to be a best practice to not have council meetings so close to an
2:24:03 ↗ election regardless of the election I'm open to that also might be
2:24:09 ↗ challenging given already our religious and cultural calendar and understanding where meetings go there so
2:24:15 ↗ I guess I just throw that out there is kind of my thought would be
2:24:18 ↗ we should try to avoid scheduling those weeks but I'll throw that to council to
2:24:21 ↗ see what Okay, and then
2:24:28 ↗ I had questions. I just have to find them. I noticed that in January, the
2:24:34 ↗ Mayor's State of the City meeting is listed as a special meeting proposed for Thursday,
2:24:38 ↗ January 30th. And I'm wondering if there's a reason that we aren't utilizing the open
2:24:44 ↗ Monday, the 27th of that week instead. That is an excellent
2:24:50 ↗ question. I will defer to City Administrator Bob Coates on that. the the state
2:24:56 ↗ of the city is an event that the Chamber of Commerce puts on at a
2:25:00 ↗ third-party site we anticipate that a majority of the council attends and so it is
2:25:05 ↗ a notice-only meeting okay fantastic hey that's a
2:25:11 ↗ good reminder of that um
2:25:17 ↗ okay I think that is all four questions so
2:25:24 ↗ want to move on to the other topic? So we will let the August and
2:25:29 ↗ November dates ride for now? Leave them scheduled?
2:25:32 ↗ Do we want to do comments later on
2:25:39 ↗ various stuff? I'm not sure how the clerk wanted. If you wanted to do it.
2:25:45 ↗ Okay, because we were going to, it's up to the, Madam Mayor, how would you
2:25:48 ↗ like to, would you like to deal with the council a vacancy and then come
2:25:52 ↗ back and talk about I think because the calendar is fresh in their mind,
2:25:58 ↗ maybe we should just do them separately. And I did see that Council Member Hunt
2:26:02 ↗ had her hand up as well. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was
2:26:08 ↗ clarifying what you just said, which was asking if you would like comments now. Oh,
2:26:13 ↗ okay, great. Well, I guess what we should be doing then is Council Member Hall
2:26:18 ↗ did make a suggestion about those two meetings
2:26:24 ↗ and wonder if you want to have a conversation on the dais about that and
2:26:31 ↗ then we can maybe move to the next presentation any comments about moving those I
2:26:35 ↗ think city administrator made a good point that the night before can be a busy
2:26:40 ↗ time for those that happen to be in a candidate's chair
2:26:47 ↗ I'll just throw out the comment I think there are potentially
2:26:53 ↗ seats and the mayor's up so this would be a particularly difficult year
2:27:00 ↗ or having a lot of council members out and doing things that being said I
2:27:05 ↗ think November is pretty tight so unless there is a recommendation
2:27:11 ↗ of either canceling that meeting or moving it to the week before on October 27th
2:27:17 ↗ I don't really see how we get around that I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN
2:27:23 ↗ HEARING WHAT COUNCIL MEMBERS SAY. I DON'T SEE ANYBODY ELSE ON THE DIOS, SO IF
2:27:27 ↗ YOU WANT TO GO TO COUNCIL MEMBER HUNT. SURE. COUNCIL MEMBER HUNT. THANK
2:27:33 ↗ YOU. I THINK FROM A POLICY STANDPOINT, AVOIDING THE DAYS IMMEDIATELY BEFORE
2:27:39 ↗ THE ELECTION IS A GOOD THING FOR US TO DO. IF IT'S
2:27:45 ↗ UNAVOIDABLE, THEN THAT'S A DIFFERENT SITUATION. generally having that as one of our guidelines,
2:27:51 ↗ like we've made guidelines previously, I think that's a good guideline to have.
2:27:57 ↗ Also, I wanted to comment on the school breaks. When we go to the next
2:28:03 ↗ topic and are talking about the vacancy as well, I think it's important, regardless
2:28:08 ↗ of the current of the council I think it's important to have accessibility in the
2:28:14 ↗ in the calendar and so you know accommodating folks that do have younger kids in
2:28:19 ↗ school is is really important and one aspect of that is scheduling so I think
2:28:24 ↗ generally it is important as we look at the schedule to make sure that we're
2:28:28 ↗ accommodating things like like school schedules in the way that we're doing business
2:28:36 ↗ okay and I see council member right wanted to opine on the
2:28:43 ↗ primary election because we do take most of the week month of August off it
2:28:48 ↗ really does you know that's the only week essentially in August that we have planned
2:28:52 ↗ right now so I would be fine with moving that fourth meeting but I would
2:28:56 ↗ say move it to the 11th and cut into our our break if we're gonna
2:29:01 ↗ do that I think we should not go a month without a without a meeting
2:29:06 ↗ and I also well primaries are important generals I think maybe more important I don't
2:29:09 ↗ know I mean it's just it's just finite number of
2:29:15 ↗ days so an infinite amount of business madam
2:29:21 ↗ mayor of members of the council what we would recommend then is you would move
2:29:24 ↗ the August meeting to August 11 and then the November meeting to November 10
2:29:32 ↗ and then if we need to add another cow as we're going through the budget
2:29:35 ↗ process we can do that as we're working on it it's the mid biennium
2:29:43 ↗ on everything that we'll be a lesser process at the midpoint of the biennium but
2:29:49 ↗ we could then have the regular meeting on November 10 so we'll take that as
2:29:54 ↗ an amendment to the resolution and mayor I'll note that I'm seeing
2:30:00 ↗ head knob nods on the dais so general support for that idea
2:30:06 ↗ that's great thank you for clarifying the administrator City Clerk, would you like to
2:30:12 ↗ do the second presentation?
2:30:15 ↗ Council
2:30:23 ↗ Vacancy. Tisha Gieser, City Clerk. We'll get a motion to approve that calendar at the
2:30:27 ↗ end of this section here, and we can take care of both items. So I'm
2:30:32 ↗ here to talk to you about the Council Vacancy Process and Timeline of three questions,
2:30:38 ↗ really just generally taking feedback on the process and timeline tonight. So on
2:30:44 ↗ November 26, King County Elections certified their election, and that included formalizing
2:30:50 ↗ the election of Council Member Hunt to serve as a in the State House for
2:30:56 ↗ District 5. So we are anticipating, congratulations, we are anticipating a
2:31:02 ↗ vacancy in Council Position Number 6 in early January and per the Council's rules,
2:31:08 ↗ I come to you and ask for approval of a timeline for the appointment schedule.
2:31:14 ↗ And under state law, you have 90 days by which to fill this appointment, otherwise
2:31:18 ↗ King County gets that honor. The person who's appointed to fill position
2:31:24 ↗ six will serve until the November 2025 election is certified. So that person could
2:31:30 ↗ choose to run for that seat, in which case they would need to be elected
2:31:35 ↗ in November, and then they'd serve the remainder of the term. Position six's term goes
2:31:41 ↗ until December 31st, 2027.
2:31:48 ↗ This process involves, has traditionally involved individuals who are interested in being
2:31:54 ↗ considered filling out an application that is available on the city's website. We'll talk in
2:32:00 ↗ a few minutes about the outreach that we have done and would plan to do
2:32:03 ↗ for this vacancy. One of the things I'm hoping for some input on tonight is
2:32:08 ↗ the application. The questions are split between this slide and the next slide, but these
2:32:14 ↗ are the 10 questions on the 2019 application, a cover letter
2:32:20 ↗ or a letter of interest was required to be uploaded, and then an individual could
2:32:25 ↗ choose to upload additional letters of support. Each of the 10 questions
2:32:31 ↗ allowed for, I think it was 1,000 characters, so around six sentences.
2:32:38 ↗ And a reminder, you will be provided in reviewing these applications. So again, we'd like
2:32:42 ↗ your input on whether you see some changes to questions or would like some changes
2:32:48 ↗ or any other element of the application. Here are questions 6 through 10.
2:32:56 ↗ Give you a minute to look through those.
2:33:05 ↗ Okay. I'm going to move to the next slide here. You didn't want that feedback
2:33:10 ↗ now, did you? I was going to talk through a few more slides and then
2:33:15 ↗ like welcome your input and happy to go back to those. So just a
2:33:20 ↗ reminder, we haven't gone through this process in a few years. So on the screen
2:33:25 ↗ here is the timeline and process for the most recent two vacancies. In
2:33:31 ↗ both cases, the seats were open January 1st. And in both cases, there was around
2:33:36 ↗ a six week period for people to fill out that online application. Your council rules
2:33:42 ↗ then provide that each applicant, well, I'd say first I would confirm that the
2:33:48 ↗ applicants met any requirements to be appointed to the seat and then anyone who did
2:33:54 ↗ would have the opportunity to present to you. They have up to 10 minutes to
2:33:58 ↗ provide a verbal presentation. That's typically occurred at a council
2:34:04 ↗ meeting. The city council then has an opportunity to go into executive session to discuss
2:34:10 ↗ the qualifications of the applicants. our last two
2:34:16 ↗ vacancies we also added an applicant meet and greet which was sort of an informal
2:34:20 ↗ opportunity for council and members of the public and staff to meet the appointees
2:34:26 ↗ and in both cases that occurred before a meeting it was sort of reception style
2:34:31 ↗ for around 90 minutes or so and then you can see here the appointments themselves
2:34:36 ↗ took place you know about a month after the vacancy at that final meeting where
2:34:41 ↗ the appointments are made most recently in 2019 the council also choose chose to do
2:34:46 ↗ some additional Q&A before making their appointment. So given
2:34:52 ↗ that, as a starting point for tonight, I did plug in some dates that sort
2:34:57 ↗ of match those time frames, but we're getting a little bit of a later start.
2:35:02 ↗ So the potential timeline on your screen here is something I'm looking for your input
2:35:07 ↗ on tonight. Just a couple things to think about. We certainly want to make sure
2:35:11 ↗ there's a big... We want enough time for
2:35:17 ↗ people to be able to fill this application out over the holidays. It's not ideal
2:35:21 ↗ timing. And so I think having a birth to work with.
2:35:27 ↗ The timeline here is seven weeks again looking forward to input just another thing to
2:35:31 ↗ keep in mind if we have a lot of applicants We're probably going to need
2:35:33 ↗ two meetings to get through those 10-minute verbal presentations And then looking for input
2:35:39 ↗ on that meet-and-greet if it's something you would like to continue this year if so
2:35:45 ↗ I have a potential date here and then of course the appointment date is important
2:35:49 ↗ as well Real quickly, as far as planned outreach, our
2:35:54 ↗ communications team is working on a video to highlight this opportunity, largely
2:36:00 ↗ using existing footage. They're working on that now. We think we can get that and
2:36:05 ↗ start pushing this opportunity as early as next Monday. That is the time we'd need
2:36:11 ↗ to have those questions in our online form. And then our communications team would be
2:36:16 ↗ looking at using all our usual applications to outreach so our website
2:36:22 ↗ is a quote inside our social media and I will say we would plan to
2:36:25 ↗ do something a little more direct to our boarding Commission members provide them a little
2:36:29 ↗ more direct outreach and empower or encourage their staff liaisons to make them aware
2:36:36 ↗ So we already heard some of your recommended changes for the council calendar, and now
2:36:40 ↗ I'm looking for input you have on the application, on the timeline, and
2:36:46 ↗ any additional outreach you'd like to see over the course of this process.
2:36:53 ↗ Thank you, City Clerk. Council President, if you want to manage the room for any
2:36:59 ↗ of those three questions that the City Clerk has put up there on the council
2:37:03 ↗ vacancy, that'd be much appreciated. Let's start with council questions because I
2:37:09 ↗ think that will clarify some things before we get to feedback on any of those
2:37:13 ↗ questions Deputy Council President de Michelle Right Tisha you
2:37:19 ↗ mentioned that there are you know that they you would be looking at whether or
2:37:23 ↗ not they were qualified and When I was on the school
2:37:29 ↗ board we unfortunately had than one time when people applied or ran and it
2:37:35 ↗ turned out that they weren't even residents of the Issaquah School District you know so
2:37:40 ↗ could you kind of go over what would be the qualifications that we would be
2:37:44 ↗ looking for and how would that be handled would we be responsible
2:37:50 ↗ or are the people who apply responsible for making sure that they're qualified can you
2:37:55 ↗ just kind of give us a little bit more about that please I'd be checking
2:37:59 ↗ with King County to make sure they were registered voters in the city limits and
2:38:04 ↗ I believe they must be 18 years of age if I remember right so I
2:38:08 ↗ would I'd have that list so I need a little bit of buffer between when
2:38:11 ↗ the applications are due and those presentations happen so I'll be providing them those folks
2:38:16 ↗ details and be working on confirming their residency and that they're registered voters
2:38:23 ↗ I have a second question if that's okay I know council president myself have been
2:38:28 ↗ very interested in having a Sort of council mayor
2:38:34 ↗ Place where people could come who might be interested in applying and we have that
2:38:38 ↗ conversation with them So have we thought about working that into this schedule at this
2:38:43 ↗ point? the mayor has expressed some interest in that as well and we
2:38:49 ↗ were hopeful that with the seven week window and applications being due in late january
2:38:55 ↗ that would provide an opportunity to do something like that early to mid-january but it
2:39:00 ↗ hasn't been you know put on the count it hasn't been scheduled
2:39:06 ↗ councilmember hall just a functionality question of the form is the
2:39:12 ↗ thousand character a limit form for answers or is that something we can play
2:39:18 ↗ in terms of response? That's something you can play with. I mean, my observation is
2:39:22 ↗ that there are 10 questions, which is a lot. So it was probably to help
2:39:26 ↗ prevent people from filling out pages and pages of content. But you could certainly reduce
2:39:31 ↗ the questions, increase the limit. That is totally up to you. We will make sure
2:39:36 ↗ that the form, the application is available to view and download before someone starts
2:39:42 ↗ filling it out so they can contemplate responses or work on them you know offline
2:39:47 ↗ okay thanks Councilman right then council member Martz
2:39:53 ↗ oh thanks question about the background and application I was reading through the questions
2:39:59 ↗ and I think they're all great but nines doesn't seem to fit nine seems very
2:40:04 ↗ specific about a very specific policy area where everything else is a bit generic and
2:40:10 ↗ you know why if that's one we want to keep in there then why have
2:40:14 ↗ affordable housing not environment not human services not transit not public safety on
2:40:19 ↗ and not parks so maybe we can recraft that into you what what
2:40:25 ↗ role I mean what's you think is the number one policy question facing the council
2:40:30 ↗ at this time or something of that nature but this one just it was it
2:40:34 ↗ was probably appropriate at the time it seems may be overtaken by events Do you
2:40:39 ↗ have a question, Council Member Merz? I do. I thought you were going to ask
2:40:45 ↗ me if that was a question. Yeah, uh-huh. I'm wondering if
2:40:51 ↗ what the feedback has been on the meet and greet portion of this.
2:40:58 ↗ We don't generally chit-chat. We have a dinner once a year,
2:41:05 ↗ but the success or failure of a council member does not generally revolve around their
2:41:11 ↗ ability to schmooze a room. So I'm just curious for my fellow council members, because
2:41:17 ↗ I'm just looking at this, and obviously, you know, and I'm sure all seven
2:41:23 ↗ of us are aware of this, this is not a council that naturally gravitates to,
2:41:26 ↗ like, four, three votes, but, you know, we do have the thing where the mayor
2:41:29 ↗ can't be a tiebreaker on a financial issue, right? So we are at risk for
2:41:34 ↗ two months that if a financial issue came up, we got to a three three
2:41:38 ↗ we would be locked up so I'm
2:41:44 ↗ wondering if the meet and greet is if people feel it's essential yeah and so
2:41:49 ↗ I will speak to that and I think the term meet and greet is used
2:41:52 ↗ in two contexts here one as proposed which is a
2:41:58 ↗ meeting in the middle after applications are due to to
2:42:04 ↗ council members and things like that I will say as a previous applicant
2:42:11 ↗ one of the reasons I found that useful was some of the community members who
2:42:17 ↗ were applicants did not reach out to individual council members to talk to them
2:42:23 ↗ during the application process and so that was their way of feeling like they could
2:42:28 ↗ express themselves during the meeting but I hear you on that
2:42:34 ↗ concept that I think Deputy Council President de Michelle had expressed was
2:42:40 ↗ more of a hey come meet your counsel so that applicants before they
2:42:46 ↗ put in their application could ask questions and see if this is something they
2:42:52 ↗ wanted to do and also be able to ask questions
2:42:58 ↗ About how to put in an application what you would have to do to run
2:43:02 ↗ and so I view that as a little different concept and deputy council president
2:43:09 ↗ yeah, let's clarify a little bit because I think We've got different pictures
2:43:15 ↗ in our mind here. So I was thinking of two different events and the one
2:43:20 ↗ was The council mayor talking to potential applicants and then the
2:43:26 ↗ meet and greet and I had a different vision of it than you were describing.
2:43:30 ↗ So maybe it's useful for us to kind of talk about that. And I forget
2:43:36 ↗ which process it was, but there was a time when the city council was filling
2:43:43 ↗ a vacancy and the community was invited to come and talk to all of
2:43:49 ↗ the applicants. So it wasn't just the city council talking to them. forget who was
2:43:55 ↗ that might have been you or was it Victoria or oh okay so
2:44:01 ↗ that was the vision I had for the quote-unquote meet-and-greet was more of a community
2:44:06 ↗ y'all come talk to the finalists and then provide us a little
2:44:12 ↗ feedback and that would be part of the deliberations Having
2:44:18 ↗ had some community feedback on those folks so a little bit different concept that I
2:44:22 ↗ think we're talking about and and also I was thinking of two different discrete events
2:44:28 ↗ one was the free application deadline and one is After
2:44:34 ↗ well, we've narrowed it down to the last three four or five candidates
2:44:41 ↗ Council member Martz it sounds like there are two things that I've heard from you
2:44:46 ↗ to be clear I was referring specifically to the proposed February 10th yeah between the
2:44:52 ↗ applicant presentations and so what I heard was
2:44:58 ↗ maybe one issue with it being a chit chatty you know
2:45:04 ↗ all of that and then the second being the extended period of time that we
2:45:09 ↗ would be in a particular 3-3 vote is that yeah in the hope that
2:45:15 ↗ could we collapse that schedule a little bit if we didn't do but I but
2:45:20 ↗ I bet if people think that event is important I'm the only one that thinks
2:45:25 ↗ it's a cocktail thing
2:45:29 ↗ then good feedback so
2:45:36 ↗ thinking through any other questions maybe before we go to
2:45:43 ↗ feedback on process okay no let me look through my notes
2:45:50 ↗ councilmember hunt yes councilmember hunt thank you thank you both um
2:45:56 ↗ i have a question about the intent of the meet and greet if it is
2:46:00 ↗ after applications have already been submitted then it is more Is the intent
2:46:06 ↗ more for counsel to use that
2:46:12 ↗ meet and greet in their consideration of the vacancy and to
2:46:18 ↗ see the applicants in that setting? Or is it because there was also the intent
2:46:24 ↗ mentioned of having a more casual setting for the applicants to get more information? So
2:46:29 ↗ I'm wondering how people are thinking about the intent of this.
2:46:35 ↗ throw in a naming structure to clarify between these I think what what has been
2:46:41 ↗ presented here maybe call that a meet-and-greet and maybe the free application point
2:46:47 ↗ call it a question and answer session or something like that that differentiates between the
2:46:53 ↗ two so I think answering the question about what is the intent of the meet-and-greet
2:46:59 ↗ would be useful so I I can't
2:47:06 ↗ speak to what got the meet and greet started. My recollection is it was something
2:47:11 ↗ that was done with the 2018 and 2019 vacancies. It does not appear it was
2:47:15 ↗ done in 2016. So there must have been some feedback there. My recollection is that
2:47:21 ↗ it was in part to provide a less opportunity to enter for the council to
2:47:25 ↗ interact with the applicants and also to include the invite the public to come out
2:47:31 ↗ and meet the applicants however I will say and I don't know if you recall
2:47:35 ↗ your participation we did not have many members of the public attend and I do
2:47:38 ↗ think that could be a challenge again just you know weeknight 530
2:47:44 ↗ before a meeting city facility so you know you So that is
2:47:50 ↗ one of the questions tonight is does this council think that might be a valuable
2:47:54 ↗ opportunity and if so would you like it to look similar to how it did
2:47:57 ↗ before or look different.
2:48:03 ↗ Tisha do you think you could put oh I think we have the questions up
2:48:06 ↗ there just off to the side. Yeah so
2:48:12 ↗ it looks like we've got kind of three questions one about the application.
2:48:18 ↗ about the timeline and another around outreach so
2:48:24 ↗ deputy council president de michelle There we go having
2:48:31 ↗ difficulty with that tonight You know I agree with council of Martz that I think
2:48:36 ↗ that the timeline I would like to see us fill that vacancy
2:48:44 ↗ Earlier rather than later I
2:48:50 ↗ think possibly if I had to choose between the two Outreaches or the two meetings
2:48:56 ↗ that we're proposing I would think that I would favor the one prior to applications
2:49:02 ↗ being The application deadline so that we can talk to potential
2:49:07 ↗ candidates and predict potential applicants It's also in some ways
2:49:14 ↗ also operate as a way to talk to people who might be getting ready to
2:49:19 ↗ run in the general election there will be a general election next year for the
2:49:23 ↗ vacancies and I think it's a good practice for us to do that so it
2:49:28 ↗ could be to fill the vacancy but also just general questions about how do I
2:49:32 ↗ run for City Council and you know what does it take to to run a
2:49:37 ↗ campaign so I'll choose that one and then remove that
2:49:43 ↗ second meeting the the so-called meet and greet and collapse the schedule so that
2:49:49 ↗ we get that person on board much much earlier we've got a lot of important
2:49:54 ↗ things coming up next year and I think it it behooves us use another
2:50:00 ↗ vocabulary word behooves us to to get that vacancy
2:50:06 ↗ field faster and that person on board As soon as possible so
2:50:12 ↗ that's why thank you And do you want to make any comments on the changes
2:50:17 ↗ to application or the outreach I do agree with councilmember Ray that that one question
2:50:22 ↗ does seem out of Place the others I don't have any problems with any of
2:50:27 ↗ the other questions, but that would seem so very specific to housing affordability and
2:50:34 ↗ So possibly we could do some wordsmithing on that or eliminate it one or the
2:50:38 ↗ other. Thank you Councilmember
2:50:44 ↗ Hall. Thanks. Yeah, going down the list,
2:50:50 ↗ a couple thoughts on the application. I
2:50:56 ↗ was going to bring up the question nine as something we should talk about, too.
2:50:59 ↗ I think that's a good point because, man, if I were designing a list of
2:51:03 ↗ questions from Zach to prospective candidate, it would include transportation and stuff like that, too.
2:51:10 ↗ safety funding, that kind of stuff. But we can't ask a question about every issue
2:51:16 ↗ in the known universe. So maybe it does make sense to pull that or rework
2:51:20 ↗ that somehow. I mean, I guess my overall thinking on this is I'd almost rather
2:51:24 ↗ have half the questions with more writing.
2:51:30 ↗ And some of the questions could be even combined into one, like the first and
2:51:33 ↗ the second one. Another one that I noticed was I think we're
2:51:40 ↗ our best to remove the use of the word character now and so question seven
2:51:43 ↗ has a quality of life and is equal and its character so maybe we remove
2:51:47 ↗ and its character from that question um i guess yeah so i'll just kick that
2:51:53 ↗ to council too and see what you all think about i don't know maybe consolidating
2:51:56 ↗ questions i don't want to wordsmith a list of questions at 10 p.m i think
2:52:02 ↗ easier would appreciate if we don't as well um But so those are my thoughts,
2:52:07 ↗ kind of initial thoughts on the application part. The
2:52:12 ↗ process, maybe I'm just not feeling strongly one way or another
2:52:18 ↗ on the meet and greet. I came in loving the idea and even thinking, oh,
2:52:21 ↗ this would be a cool opportunity to even invite former council members. So we have
2:52:26 ↗ current applicants and former council members and current council members all talking about what it's
2:52:30 ↗ like to be in the seat and getting to know one another. But I think
2:52:36 ↗ council member Martz brings up a good point and then the other point there too
2:52:38 ↗ is what if someone can't show up to that and then is our You of
2:52:45 ↗ art is our view of a particular candidate the bias by the fact that they
2:52:48 ↗ weren't there that they were there I don't know how to think about that either
2:52:51 ↗ So maybe I'll also just pose that to the rest of the council and I
2:52:55 ↗ don't necessarily have a strong feeling one way or the other to include the meet
2:52:58 ↗ and greet or not at this time Is that the only any additional requested outreach?
2:53:03 ↗ you've got a good outreach plan i think maybe also leaning on any
2:53:09 ↗ uh community non-profit that we have strong partnerships with or fund through grants who have
2:53:15 ↗ strong communication networks that we can get them to share out the message and stuff
2:53:19 ↗ too but um what you have is good those are my thoughts okay councilmember
2:53:25 ↗ ray followed by councilmember marx great thanks um
2:53:31 ↗ I think my question kind of got to my thinking about the application I can
2:53:35 ↗ like that's member Hall's idea of maybe fewer questions and we can consolidate them that
2:53:40 ↗ wouldn't be a horrible thing in terms of the timeline I'm a big
2:53:46 ↗ fan of moving faster rather than slower and I have an interesting idea
2:53:52 ↗ at least I thought was interesting and that is instead of doing the meet-and-greet maybe
2:53:56 ↗ what we do is me back this train up a little bit in all the
2:54:01 ↗ other vacancies we've had some of the candidates would reach out to the council members
2:54:05 ↗ and set up one-on-ones and of course it did buy issue because they had the
2:54:09 ↗ initiative you had a chance to talk to him you knew him better they were
2:54:12 ↗ definitely a stronger candidate so I'm not sure it's a bad bias but maybe
2:54:18 ↗ what we can do this go-round is leverage somebody help to broker those
2:54:24 ↗ meet and those individual meetings between the applicants and the council members instead of making
2:54:29 ↗ that onus solely on them to do the outreach and that can obviate the need
2:54:34 ↗ for actually for the meet and greet so if someone says hey you know or
2:54:39 ↗ when they do when you're meeting with the applicant you can say hey would you
2:54:43 ↗ like to meet with the council members I can help set something up so just
2:54:47 ↗ a thought you guys can chew on that and then I I really like Council
2:54:53 ↗ or Deputy President DeMichel's idea of meeting ourselves available prior to the
2:54:58 ↗ application window talk about what's involved answer questions I did a couple of sessions or
2:55:04 ↗ at least one with mayor Pauly before the last election it was really interesting really
2:55:09 ↗ fun I was gonna say something snarky about councilmember Joe but I won't
2:55:15 ↗ but anyway I think that's a really great a great great way to go all
2:55:21 ↗ we got was you You weren't there but that's that's why it's so
2:55:27 ↗ important that we do the outreach. I love you. You know that it's it's the
2:55:31 ↗ hours late. But I think that that that would be very valuable to do that
2:55:35 ↗ ahead of time. My thoughts. Council member Marks. So.
2:55:42 ↗ I think the goal of this process ultimately is to. To
2:55:48 ↗ cast a wide net. And then to try to identify folks who have the skills
2:55:54 ↗ that will make them I think the more things we can do
2:56:00 ↗ before the deadline help lower the bar the barrier to entry and to make it
2:56:05 ↗ seem less formidable and less scary I'm all for and I will personally meant to
2:56:11 ↗ do as many of those things as we want to do I
2:56:17 ↗ and I phrase it that way because I think Councilmember Hall's point about questions you
2:56:22 ↗ know I want to see somebody who I hope to see in somebody's written
2:56:28 ↗ sample that they have thought about some of the issues that are in front of
2:56:33 ↗ us. Housing is extraordinarily difficult. I mean, if somebody has the solution for affordable housing,
2:56:38 ↗ we should hire them. The governor should hire them, right? All we can do is
2:56:42 ↗ hope to try some things and move some needles. So
2:56:48 ↗ I'm all for maybe a smaller number of questions worded in such a way that
2:56:52 ↗ we get thoughtful answers out of folks.
2:56:59 ↗ And then, and I've said before, once we have the applications in, once
2:57:05 ↗ we've interviewed people, I'm not a big fan of the meet and greet, and I
2:57:10 ↗ will share why. I am not good in big group settings. I am not a
2:57:14 ↗ big room schmoozer. I cannot work a room very well. I have sensory issues where
2:57:19 ↗ multiple conversations are difficult for me. And so I love Robert's Rules of Order because
2:57:25 ↗ there's only one person ever talking at a time. That's the whole thing. So I
2:57:31 ↗ hate those things. And I can do them, but it's like pulling teeth for me.
2:57:37 ↗ And I don't think it's affected my ability to be an elected official, although maybe
2:57:41 ↗ it affects my ability to campaign. So that's my thoughts on it. So we should
2:57:47 ↗ do the things that cast a wide net, and then we should do the things
2:57:49 ↗ that help us glean people have the skills to be effective
2:57:54 ↗ and I have councilmember hunt
2:58:02 ↗ as well you may have Pauli firstly I I did want to
2:58:10 ↗ my timeline, I intend to serve on this council until
2:58:16 ↗ I am sworn in. So that does reduce some of that time where you would
2:58:21 ↗ not at the state legislature. So that would reduce some of that potential time
2:58:27 ↗ where there could be a 3-3 tie, as was mentioned earlier. And this is a,
2:58:33 ↗ for me, I did check in with the city attorney if it were appropriate for
2:58:38 ↗ me to be weighing in on this conversation and she has has told me that
2:58:42 ↗ it is so I intend to be as helpful and answer any questions and be
2:58:46 ↗ as candid as possible to help this council navigate the upcoming
2:58:52 ↗ vacancy and so in that in that spirit I wanted to make sure that that
2:58:56 ↗ was that was clear and it's a it's a huge honor to serve on this
2:59:01 ↗ council and so I I wanted to make sure to say that my intent is
2:59:06 ↗ to serve as long as possible before I begin my next public service.
2:59:12 ↗ On the application, I agree with Councilmember Hall when I
2:59:18 ↗ was looking through the questions. Some of them are pretty specific, and I think that
2:59:24 ↗ you could have a question more about community engagement see how the applicant handles that
2:59:30 ↗ question rather than have one about if the community is not in agreement on a
2:59:34 ↗ topic and one about how would you engage the community more broadly, giving them some
2:59:39 ↗ more space to see how they would take the question, I think would be more
2:59:44 ↗ informative as you're evaluating these. And I think it would also give the
2:59:50 ↗ applicant more potential sort of space
2:59:56 ↗ to take the question the way they want to take it, which I think could
3:00:01 ↗ be helpful. I also noticed that one of the questions talks
3:00:07 ↗ about regional boards and commissions, and it says, what qualifies you for that service? I
3:00:12 ↗ wonder if that one could be reworded, because unlike
3:00:18 ↗ some jobs, lived experience and lots of different qualifications you a good
3:00:24 ↗ public servant and I wouldn't want somebody to read this and think maybe they need
3:00:29 ↗ a specific thing to qualify them to serve on a regional board, for example.
3:00:35 ↗ So if that one could be, you know, what experiences would you bring to that
3:00:39 ↗ regional service or what professional background, those sorts of things to make it clear that
3:00:45 ↗ there's not a specific qualification in that regard that
3:00:51 ↗ meets that criteria. I also know that certain people are more sensitive
3:00:57 ↗ to the word qualification in an application. And so just to make sure that we're
3:01:03 ↗ not dissuading anyone from filling out the application with the wording like that.
3:01:10 ↗ On the changes to input on vacancy timeline. So
3:01:18 ↗ I was a previous previously appointed to a vacancy that is
3:01:24 ↗ how I started on council. I think one thing to make really clear is that
3:01:30 ↗ we are it is it is absolutely possible and I think encouraged to reach out
3:01:35 ↗ to city council members early to you know talk with all of us about what
3:01:40 ↗ it's like to serve on council and that's that's really helpful for the
3:01:46 ↗ council and it's also really helpful for the applicant. So I wanted to make sure
3:01:50 ↗ that that is always a possibility that can start now or could have, you know,
3:01:54 ↗ you could have reached out previously. That's always great. So making those outreach
3:02:00 ↗ at any point is good. I don't feel strongly about the meet and greet,
3:02:06 ↗ except that I want to make sure the process is accessible.
3:02:14 ↗ I completely agree with Councilwoman Martz. We want to have a wide net. We want
3:02:19 ↗ to make sure the process is accessible. And so if there are some folks that
3:02:24 ↗ are feeling like the meet and greet is something that they would
3:02:30 ↗ engage well in that venue and that makes them more likely to apply, then that
3:02:35 ↗ could be a consideration. I don't feel strongly because I think the intent is to
3:02:40 ↗ be able to apply. the meet and greet is more just to have a different
3:02:42 ↗ venue for the council to evaluate. And that leads me to one other thing, which
3:02:47 ↗ is the 10 minute presentation, which is something that has been done for many, many
3:02:54 ↗ years is a super important part of the process. And to me, I think that
3:02:59 ↗ that 10 minute presentation, that really is similar to what we do on council. We
3:03:04 ↗ talk to our fellow council members and we describe our position on the issues and
3:03:12 ↗ we're coming at a certain policy question from the perspective that we are.
3:03:18 ↗ And so I think that 10 minute presentation to me that's really important. I was
3:03:22 ↗ glad to see that that continues to be one of the steps in the process.
3:03:26 ↗ And then additional requested outreach, I just think cast as wide a net as possible
3:03:31 ↗ to use all the mediums we can make sure that we as council members are
3:03:36 ↗ accessible to the community and hopefully Hopefully folks will hear
3:03:41 ↗ about this, but I think just as wide a net as possible.
3:03:48 ↗ Okay, looking through Councilmember Hall, I'm going to wait on a second to go to
3:03:53 ↗ Councilmember Joe. Thank you. Just so I'm very clear in my
3:03:59 ↗ comments, as the hour is late, I would recommend removing question number nine about
3:04:05 ↗ housing affordability. In general, my philosophy is it's not so much answer that I'm getting
3:04:10 ↗ from the questions that are listed but how the person thinks through the questions and
3:04:16 ↗ express themselves express their point of view that's more important to me so I'm not
3:04:20 ↗ going to comment on any of the other questions in particular I would also be
3:04:25 ↗ in favor of what council member Mars is talking about in terms of eliminating the
3:04:29 ↗ meet-and-greet there are many people in our community that might have sensory issues as council
3:04:35 ↗ Mars does but also anxiety in social settings can be an issue in terms of
3:04:41 ↗ meeting large crowds and it is part of our job but at the same time
3:04:45 ↗ we don't necessarily want to make it a barrier that prevents people from at least
3:04:50 ↗ applying and trying to go through the process and I think that we as council
3:04:55 ↗ members should be able to get a pretty good bearing and idea the makeup of
3:05:01 ↗ a particular candidate by the answers that they give and the presentations that they give
3:05:05 ↗ and we don't necessarily need to have Mean greed is is my opinion on on
3:05:10 ↗ that one and then I I would recommend that we try to do this as
3:05:15 ↗ quickly as possible I acknowledge it and thank Councilmember Hunt for agreeing to
3:05:21 ↗ stay on as long as she is doing there are some council
3:05:27 ↗ Elected officials that resign right away and and then leave their their elected body and
3:05:33 ↗ alerts so thank you for Doing that is as we go forward and those are
3:05:38 ↗ my brief comments. I'm looking forward to you Hearing and reading all the applications for
3:05:44 ↗ for this position. Thank you Okay looking
3:05:50 ↗ around yeah, I think I am the last of the first round of comments so
3:05:56 ↗ I will start in with questions. I agree. I think we could streamline the application.
3:06:02 ↗ I suggest combining questions one and two about why are you qualified and why do
3:06:08 ↗ you want to serve? I think we can eliminate question number seven. It's just really
3:06:13 ↗ old language and not something that we promote at this point. I think questions three
3:06:19 ↗ and five are really similar. Let me
3:06:25 ↗ pull it up. Question three is what do you consider to be a school's biggest
3:06:29 ↗ opportunities or issues and what would you do to address them? Number five is if
3:06:34 ↗ selected to fill the vacancy, what is one thing you would like to accomplish during
3:06:38 ↗ your term of office? I don't see how those are different as a concept.
3:06:45 ↗ And then I also think we can eliminate question number nine on housing. I
3:06:51 ↗ think there's two questions that try and get at how do you handle community feedback
3:06:55 ↗ questions four and ten I think those could be combined as a concept so
3:07:01 ↗ there's a lot of just good combinations there I think question number nine
3:07:07 ↗ regarding housing a concept of what is important
3:07:13 ↗ to counsel at the time but the way that I would want to phrase it
3:07:17 ↗ you know one of the things we as a council rely on heavily is our
3:07:22 ↗ knowledge of the strategic plan the comprehensive plan of the community survey and so I
3:07:28 ↗ would ask a question that says look over these documents and
3:07:34 ↗ call out an issue that's important to you and discuss know your
3:07:39 ↗ perspective on that and you know what what you would do to improve that in
3:07:44 ↗ the community I think that gets at the sense of a lot of what we
3:07:49 ↗ do is reading over documents analyzing them and presenting a case on
3:07:55 ↗ it and so that as a question allows someone to choose their
3:08:00 ↗ important item rather than it just being affordable housing and show us they've done
3:08:06 ↗ some of their homework and they want to talk about an issue that's
3:08:12 ↗ important to them so those and then I also agree with
3:08:18 ↗ councilmember Hunt's point about question number six regarding regional representation and the idea of
3:08:24 ↗ being qualified I think that's that's really important so those are my comments on
3:08:29 ↗ the questions I think from From my perspective to
3:08:37 ↗ get a wide net, one of the things is recognizing some people will be deterred
3:08:43 ↗ by either a long application or uncertainty whether or
3:08:49 ↗ not they're qualified or ready. And so having that Q&A session
3:08:54 ↗ ahead of the application due date really important and I think
3:09:00 ↗ mayor we talked about how that could be utilized both for your presentation on how
3:09:06 ↗ to run for office which gives an opportunity to present some information but then
3:09:12 ↗ also have kind of an informal question-and-answer session with council members to say
3:09:19 ↗ you know am I qualified can I reach out to you what you looking
3:09:25 ↗ for in a prospective council member and so that gives somebody the
3:09:31 ↗ option there i would recommend that maybe we tack on 45 minutes or an hour
3:09:36 ↗ ahead of our january 21st meeting for that so that we don't have to extend
3:09:42 ↗ the process we're still keeping the january 25th
3:09:47 ↗ application due date but this gives somebody an opportunity to ask questions before
3:09:53 ↗ applications are due I agree with councilmember Martz that I don't
3:09:59 ↗ think the meet-and-greet is necessary to help council make a decision and could deter
3:10:05 ↗ applicants so I would say either utilizing that date to make a decision
3:10:11 ↗ earlier or recognizing that at least I think in the previous two sessions of applications
3:10:17 ↗ we had number of people that applied and so whether or not we
3:10:23 ↗ would potentially have to utilize that date to get through other
3:10:29 ↗ applications I think would be good and then for outreach I appreciate the
3:10:35 ↗ concepts presented there I would really like us to utilize
3:10:41 ↗ email and do direct notices any of our community partners that we can think about
3:10:47 ↗ things like the essoqal food and clothing bank the chamber our HOA is anyone that
3:10:52 ↗ we have a large relationship that can help us amplify this and
3:10:58 ↗ making the direct ask to them to make that amplification
3:11:04 ↗ encourage their members and their community members to look at this and apply I think
3:11:10 ↗ is a great way we're that we do that with the board and Commission
3:11:16 ↗ members and so why don't we do it with other areas where we we have
3:11:20 ↗ a direct relationship so those are my comments there mayor
3:11:26 ↗ are you comfortable if I go around for second round sure I do can I
3:11:32 ↗ add a few things yeah council president yeah then let's go second round I'm not
3:11:36 ↗ as concerned about the six person council in that just have to
3:11:43 ↗ work harder to get a majority. So a 3-3 deadlock just means a no.
3:11:48 ↗ And you have to continue to talk on the dais to get to a 4-2
3:11:53 ↗ somehow. So it's workable. But I do agree very strongly with the comments
3:11:58 ↗ about accelerating, making sure that the timeline is very efficient. And so that as Council
3:12:04 ↗ Member Hunt is leaving for her next position, you are really... to know what the
3:12:10 ↗ options are for filling that seat. So I think that's great. I do think we
3:12:14 ↗ don't have enough clarity on the questions right now and that maybe we might be
3:12:17 ↗ able to take advantage of your rescheduled legislative breakfast to present you a
3:12:23 ↗ draft of some questions and add some time that you'll be able to take a
3:12:29 ↗ look at a new draft because we've heard a lot of interesting suggestions and I
3:12:32 ↗ just don't think we'll be able to Smith tonight to get you to a place
3:12:36 ↗ where you'll be saying let's go ahead and say move ahead with that process. I
3:12:40 ↗ think it the the meet and greet is maybe not as important as including in
3:12:46 ↗ the application so that all those applying see that it is a suggested best
3:12:52 ↗ practice to reach out to council members. I did hear before that some knew to
3:12:56 ↗ do that and some did not. And so I think it's important to make sure
3:12:59 ↗ that's in on the application as well as Council President, Dean Michelle's,
3:13:06 ↗ you know, let's do a more of an informational session earlier on, schedule that earlier
3:13:11 ↗ in the process, because every time we do it, we get people who have attended
3:13:16 ↗ just to find out what it means to run and said that they weren't running
3:13:19 ↗ in the next cycle, but they appreciated having the information just to think about it.
3:13:23 ↗ So those are a couple of comments. And if you want to head around the
3:13:27 ↗ room again, Council President, that would be appreciated. so it sounds like there maybe as
3:13:32 ↗ an additional concept of do we want to adopt these
3:13:38 ↗ questions here and really work on it or do we agree with the mayor's recommendation
3:13:43 ↗ to take it at our legislative dinner so starting with councilmember Hall yeah that's
3:13:48 ↗ exactly what I was gonna get at was I mean I was gonna suggest that
3:13:53 ↗ council leadership just work with the city clerk and gather up with a feedback that
3:13:57 ↗ we've given and would it down to five or six questions but if the administration
3:14:02 ↗ wants to do that and present us a draft that's also fine you know again
3:14:10 ↗ I think it's important you all sign off on it and so since we'll have
3:14:13 ↗ an opportunity to do that it looks like week after next it delays this going
3:14:18 ↗ out but I don't know that that's horrible I think that you know there's been
3:14:23 ↗ too much discussion about the questions it's hours late you want to come back together
3:14:28 ↗ next week for a special meeting we can but right now we're gonna have you
3:14:32 ↗ two nights the following week so okay but we can and we can also work
3:14:38 ↗ with council leadership the mayor city clerk there'll be plenty of folks I think once
3:14:42 ↗ you see them again they'll have the spirit of what's been discussed this evening but
3:14:46 ↗ it'll be worth your time to spend 10 or 15 minutes just to sign off
3:14:49 ↗ as a group okay no that sounds good to me and then the only other
3:14:52 ↗ thing I wanted to say was president iron complete mind meld I was hoping we
3:14:57 ↗ could have some sort of question around the vision alignment with the vision that we've
3:15:01 ↗ set in our strategic planning documents whatever they be and I like the way that
3:15:05 ↗ you framed it and like which one is important or to describe one thing from
3:15:09 ↗ what anyways you guys will get into it's late thank you I didn't see through
3:15:14 ↗ with deputy council president then councilmember Merz just
3:15:20 ↗ in the spirit of casting a wide net just a reminder that we adopted a
3:15:25 ↗ provision where low-income candidates for the office if they are successful
3:15:31 ↗ and get elected can take advantage of some supplements and I would hope that
3:15:37 ↗ we do that as part of our outreach and make sure that that is information
3:15:42 ↗ is included in our outreach materials that's my remarks
3:15:48 ↗ I want to plus one something that I heard after I spoke that I want
3:15:52 ↗ to make sure and I don't think it's anything we get rid of but the
3:15:56 ↗ 10 minute presentation is the heart of the application process right
3:16:02 ↗ because we all know that it all comes down to when it's 1030 at night
3:16:06 ↗ right and you're still having a charged issue right your ability to pull your thoughts
3:16:11 ↗ together coherently and have a civil conversation is
3:16:18 ↗ the number one skill that that the seven of us have and that anybody would
3:16:23 ↗ need to have so you know that's it that's the I wouldn't want to see
3:16:28 ↗ that shortened in any way I really do like the idea of a question that
3:16:34 ↗ involves you know reading I think the strategic plan is a great starting point you
3:16:41 ↗ asking somebody to be to get familiar with that because one of the dirty secrets
3:16:46 ↗ is that many of us when starting on council don't know very much about how
3:16:51 ↗ the city actually operates right I came out of PTA world right and I knew
3:16:57 ↗ I knew some city council folks but I didn't come off of DC or PPC
3:17:01 ↗ right and so and a lot of talented amazing people would be in the
3:17:06 ↗ exact same boat right so giving somebody the opportunity to say okay we want you
3:17:11 ↗ to go do a little bit of homework and then talk to us about it
3:17:13 ↗ I think is a great idea
3:17:19 ↗ okay so I haven't heard any problems with
3:17:25 ↗ having the administration council leadership clerks work on the questions and then present them at
3:17:30 ↗ the or December 18th
3:17:37 ↗ meeting so I think that sounds good clerks I would say
3:17:43 ↗ is there any if that concept of a Q&A session ahead of the
3:17:48 ↗ application due date if we add that on to January 21st and I guess
3:17:54 ↗ I'm not sure if I've heard a yes or shaking heads of Okay,
3:18:00 ↗ generally seeing support of that concept. Yeah. One, just two quick
3:18:05 ↗ comments. One is if we do keep the deadline for submitting applications January 25th,
3:18:11 ↗ that's a real tight, it's only a few days after the January 21st. So a
3:18:17 ↗ suggestion would be to extend the application deadline or move up the pre-application
3:18:24 ↗ meeting, which could also be just, you know, would not need to necessarily occur
3:18:30 ↗ in conjunction with a council meeting and then just the second comment is understanding if
3:18:35 ↗ we're approving the questions on December 18th their outreach would be rolling out
3:18:41 ↗ the week of Christmas so just so for your awareness that is gonna
3:18:47 ↗ it's a necessary step I think but we are compressing that a little bit okay
3:18:53 ↗ good feedback um would be also
3:18:59 ↗ comfortable with a January 13th ahead of the council committee of the
3:19:05 ↗ whole doing kind of a Q&A session given that
3:19:11 ↗ feedback of it being very the 21st being very close to the 25th so I
3:19:17 ↗ guess my question there would be do you need that feedback for us before we
3:19:22 ↗ adopt the calendar not really
3:19:30 ↗ Not necessarily. I guess, and some of this could probably be developed after this meeting,
3:19:35 ↗ but is this something where we're wanting the entire council or a quorum of the
3:19:40 ↗ council attending, or is it something where the mayor teams up with a few council
3:19:43 ↗ members and it might occur not as a meeting, but maybe at an offsite
3:19:49 ↗ location like a cafe? So maybe some input onto-
3:19:56 ↗ I have a couple of thoughts on that city clerk last time we did it
3:20:00 ↗ we used a room over at the community center but I do think setting it
3:20:06 ↗ up in chambers would be fine basically it's consisting of
3:20:12 ↗ one PowerPoint presentation that already exists and having two council members join me for
3:20:18 ↗ a Q&A session so it wouldn't have to be I like the date of January
3:20:23 ↗ 13th. I think that's a good choice. It wouldn't have to be a notice meeting.
3:20:27 ↗ It would be something that we could probably just do with myself and two council
3:20:33 ↗ members. That was what we did last time. Similar, something similar to that last time.
3:20:39 ↗ Okay, I'm seeing head nods over here. So that seems good.
3:20:46 ↗ There is a, still that question then of do we, feel
3:20:52 ↗ comfortable about the idea of waiting until December 18th if that means the initial
3:20:57 ↗ community engagement is happening right before the holidays or
3:21:04 ↗ do we want to take the feedback that has happened on the dais and have
3:21:09 ↗ council leadership and clerks work on it over the next few days and get it
3:21:14 ↗ out earlier
3:21:23 ↗ for feedback. I've heard Deputy Council President DeMichelle say yes. Councilmember
3:21:29 ↗ Hunt. I think that there was a lot
3:21:35 ↗ of feedback, but it was largely consistent, and it was along the lines of consolidating
3:21:41 ↗ some of the questions and making them more general and then giving the applicant more
3:21:45 ↗ words to answer. And so I think I liked the proposal of
3:21:52 ↗ that you made of various combinations and so I would be comfortable with you and
3:21:59 ↗ Council Deputy President DeMichel as the leadership. Maybe listening back to
3:22:05 ↗ our conversation and then making those changes. And I'll even
3:22:11 ↗ throw out there if anybody wants to email their comments so that they're more succinct
3:22:16 ↗ that is also a opportunity. I
3:22:22 ↗ saw you typing up your notes on that yeah yeah no
3:22:28 ↗ no no serial meetings you're right you could email the city administrator
3:22:35 ↗ okay so generally head nods we're kind of okay with making that happen a little
3:22:40 ↗ bit quicker so that we don't get into the holiday period for community engagement okay
3:22:51 ↗ Mayor members of the council while we have the city clerk walk through the calendar
3:22:55 ↗ she understands that take the general direction that the administration will work with
3:23:01 ↗ council leadership to finalize the questions and follow the calendar that the works about to
3:23:06 ↗ describe
3:23:14 ↗ okay and just to confirm I think the feedback we heard was that the the
3:23:18 ↗ meet-and-greet on February 10th could be foregone part of the timeline
3:23:24 ↗ okay so getting back to the 2025 council calendar i heard three changes that we
3:23:30 ↗ would assume if someone is willing to make a motion to approve the resolution oh
3:23:36 ↗ the vacancy calendar okay Okay, so
3:23:42 ↗ what I heard is I took some detailed notes on the application questions, largely consolidation
3:23:48 ↗ and getting questions that draw out thoughtful responses and aren't pigeonholing people into something
3:23:54 ↗ particular. I heard that we'll forego the meet and greet after the verbal
3:23:59 ↗ presentations, but we will add a pre-application opportunity on January 13th for
3:24:05 ↗ applicants to learn more about applying for the process. like we can keep our application
3:24:11 ↗ period open from december 9th through january 25th and i
3:24:17 ↗ would like confirmation it sounds like you are comfortable keeping the appointment date on that
3:24:22 ↗ final meeting in february but i guess that is a question we could move that
3:24:28 ↗ up to february 10th okay i'm hearing that from council member i'm seeing multiple head
3:24:33 ↗ nods Can we that's a committee of the whole would we just add in
3:24:39 ↗ a regular meeting? We'd add a special council meeting. Okay. Thank you to accomplish that
3:24:47 ↗ Right, so madam mayor members of the council if that's clear we'll come back with
3:24:52 ↗ a motion on that shortly Madam mayor then we can go back to the
3:24:58 ↗ council calendar and present the Suggested motion
3:25:06 ↗ if I'm understanding you correctly city administrator it's just the first motion that we're going
3:25:11 ↗ to be asking for tonight well let's do the
3:25:17 ↗ council calendar first and then we'll okay so is
3:25:23 ↗ there a motion and a second to approve resolution number 2024
3:25:37 ↗ 30 okay adopting a city council calendar for 2025 the changes to adjust the
3:25:43 ↗ April committee of the whole and August and November regular meetings to avoid meeting the
3:25:47 ↗ day before the primary flash general election somebody care to make that motion
3:25:54 ↗ will do so I move to approve resolution number 2024-30 adopting a city council
3:26:00 ↗ calendar for 2025 with changes to adjust the April committee of the whole and August
3:26:05 ↗ and November regular meetings to avoid meeting the day before the primary slash general
3:26:11 ↗ election second great it's been moved and seconded is there any council
3:26:16 ↗ questions and council president if you could let me know if there's any questions in
3:26:19 ↗ the room not seeing any questions but do
3:26:25 ↗ you would you welcome comments oh sure there's no questions is there any
3:26:31 ↗ discussion I would just say I very very much appreciate the
3:26:37 ↗ concept of having an annual calendar at this point it has worked out very well
3:26:43 ↗ and I think I heard recently that you know the school board and others potentially
3:26:48 ↗ have a month out pre-arranged and so
3:26:53 ↗ this is quite a luxury to have this and while it is a lot of
3:26:59 ↗ work at this point in time it very much helps us throughout the year make
3:27:04 ↗ sure that we have all of our ducks in a row so I appreciate that
3:27:08 ↗ Thank You council president are there any other comments in the room not seeing any
3:27:12 ↗ okay has been moved and seconded to approve resolution number 2024-30,
3:27:20 ↗ adopting a city council calendar for 2025, which changes to adjust the April committee of
3:27:25 ↗ the whole and the August and November regular meetings to avoid meeting the day before
3:27:29 ↗ the primary slash general election. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye.
3:27:36 ↗ Those opposed? That carries seven and O. There is
3:27:41 ↗ another motion that is listed up on the heads it would somebody care to make
3:27:47 ↗ that motion and are we believing that the
3:27:53 ↗ amended is what we had just discussed okay yeah I would move to approve the
3:27:58 ↗ process and timeline for filling the 2025 City Council vacancy of position number six as
3:28:03 ↗ amended second it's been moved and seconded is there any
3:28:09 ↗ additional council discussion and council president can you let me know if you see any
3:28:12 ↗ indication in the room just throw a comment in there very much
3:28:18 ↗ appreciate the conversation of counsel I think it shows that we are taking this very
3:28:23 ↗ seriously there are very very big shoes to fill with councilmember Hunt moving
3:28:29 ↗ on to the state legislature and we will miss her advice and perspective
3:28:35 ↗ terribly so we will be looking looking for applicants who are able to
3:28:43 ↗ wade through all of those policy conversations
3:28:49 ↗ any other discussion not seeing any well thank you
3:28:56 ↗ uh it's been moved and seconded to approve the process and timeline for filling the
3:28:59 ↗ 2025 city council vacancy of position number six as mended all those in favor signify
3:29:05 ↗ by saying aye aye opposed carries
3:29:11 ↗ unanimously seven and oh as well thank you for that discussion of both of those
3:29:17 ↗ issues committee and regional report councilmember Joe
3:29:23 ↗ thank you madam mayor Cascade Water Alliance board meeting or December has been cancelled the
3:29:29 ↗ Cascade Water Alliance public affairs meeting has been cancelled that's
3:29:36 ↗ and then the LTAC meeting we're working on scheduling for the second week in December
3:29:43 ↗ we were scheduled to meet the Wednesday after the cyclone hit so we canceled that
3:29:49 ↗ meeting so look to the city website for date and time of that meeting there's
3:29:54 ↗ a poll out right now with the LTAC committee members that concludes my report thank
3:29:58 ↗ you thank you councilmember Joe councilmember Hall just to say that the next board meeting
3:30:04 ↗ of the Eastside Fire and Rescue Board of Directors is next Thursday, December 12th
3:30:10 ↗ at 4 p.m. at our headquarters on Newport, and that concludes my report. Thank you.
3:30:15 ↗ Council Member Hunt. Thank you, Madam Mayor. There will not be a meeting of the
3:30:21 ↗ Planning, Development, and Environment Committee in December, and this concludes my report.
3:30:26 ↗ Thank you. Council Member Wray. No report this evening. Thank you. Council Member Marks. Thank
3:30:32 ↗ you. Sound Cities Association Public Issues Committee will be meeting on Wednesday, December 11th. from
3:30:38 ↗ 7 till 9 p.m. in a virtual meeting. We will be taking action on electing
3:30:44 ↗ a pick chair for 2025 and vice chair. We'll be taking action on regional board
3:30:49 ↗ and committee assignments. There'll be discussion, King County long-term waste disposal options,
3:30:55 ↗ as well as the 2025 SCA legislative agenda. And
3:31:02 ↗ then the Services, Safety and Parks Committee is not meeting in December this
3:31:07 ↗ concludes my report. Thank you. Deputy Council President DeMichelle.
3:31:14 ↗ Thank you Mayor Pauly. Eastside Human Services Forum Board will meet on December 12th.
3:31:20 ↗ Eastside Transportation Partnership will meet on Friday December the 13th.
3:31:26 ↗ And the regularly scheduled meeting of Regional Transit Committee on the 18th has been cancelled.
3:31:32 ↗ And that ends my report. you counsel President Walsh thank you
3:31:38 ↗ the King County Affordable Housing Committee meets this Thursday and we're going to review three
3:31:44 ↗ sets of letters as we continue going through the housing elements of the comprehensive plans
3:31:50 ↗ so we have comment letters for Renton Clyde Hill and Newcastle then we've got
3:31:56 ↗ a second set of letters for those who submitted late so they're ahead of the
3:32:02 ↗ deadline but they won't get their feedback in until after the deadline so that's Black
3:32:07 ↗ Diamond Lake Forest Park Kent and Duval and then a fun little set for
3:32:14 ↗ non submission those cities in King County who have chosen not to submit their housing
3:32:20 ↗ elements which includes Mercer Island Normandy Park Pacific Skykomish and Euro Point
3:32:28 ↗ i will also note that carnation and snowqualmie are deferring their review until
3:32:34 ↗ after the growth management planning council decides on the growth target
3:32:39 ↗ reconciliation recommendation so we've got a lot of things coming in at the very end
3:32:46 ↗ that we are dealing with and that concludes my report thank you council president for
3:32:52 ↗ the mayor's report this evening there is not going to be an executive session at
3:32:56 ↗ this meeting And a couple of, a little bit more
3:33:01 ↗ information on our windstorm recovery. So Issaquah was hit with one of the worst windstorms
3:33:06 ↗ in recent memory, and it will take some time to clean up and restore the
3:33:09 ↗ Issaquah community. City staff have been hard at work with debris removal and assessing
3:33:15 ↗ damage to public property so that we will be able to take advantage of any
3:33:20 ↗ state or federal resources available. Staff is also working with property owners to assess damage
3:33:26 ↗ to private property. The county encourages homeowners and businesses to report damages from the storm
3:33:31 ↗ by going to the KCEmergency.com website. To the Issaquah community, do not
3:33:37 ↗ hesitate to reach out if you need assistance. If the city cannot provide direct assistance,
3:33:42 ↗ we can connect individuals and families with community members and businesses to any resources that
3:33:48 ↗ are available. Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. there will be another community debris
3:33:54 ↗ collection event at Tibbetts Valley Park for Issaquah community members to drop off small-scale vegetative
3:33:59 ↗ debris related to the windstorm at no cost. There will be two drop-off locations, one
3:34:04 ↗ at Tibbetts Valley Park and another at the parking lot off 12th Avenue,
3:34:10 ↗ northwest. For more information on accepted materials and
3:34:16 ↗ restrictions, please visit the City's website. In the collection events this past Sunday, the city
3:34:21 ↗ collected 400 cubic yards of debris from 220 vehicles. The city
3:34:27 ↗ estimates that between city resources and Recology staff, at least 2,500
3:34:33 ↗ cubic yards of debris have been collected since the storm. The city is excited to
3:34:39 ↗ announce a great resource for expiring or existing businesses in Issaquah. The city is
3:34:44 ↗ launching the How to Do Business in Issaquah website in print. The guide provides a
3:34:51 ↗ checklist of items to consider when starting your new business with additional details and resources
3:34:55 ↗ throughout the booklet. Existing businesses can use the guide to learn more about permitting, employees,
3:35:00 ↗ taxes, and sustainability opportunities. Copies will be available at city facilities and the
3:35:06 ↗ Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce. You can also find the information online at issaquahwa.gov slash
3:35:12 ↗ business and click on the Doing Business tab at the top. our partnership with the
3:35:16 ↗ Greater Issaclá Chamber of Commerce is just one more way to help businesses start and
3:35:20 ↗ grow in Issaclá. And there is still time to see Village Theatre's production of
3:35:26 ↗ Legally Blonde. The musical before
3:35:32 ↗ the show ends on December 22nd, and I had absolute pleasure of attending the Legally
3:35:37 ↗ Blonde on opening night. It was one of the best shows I've seen at Village
3:35:41 ↗ Theatre so far. our local theater and take your family and friends to see the
3:35:45 ↗ marvelous musical before it's gone and back to our agenda for this evening
3:35:51 ↗ we are moving into good of the order does anybody have any items for good
3:35:54 ↗ of the order before I go through some calendar dates and again council president if
3:35:59 ↗ you can let me know if there's anyone in the room indicating a desire to
3:36:02 ↗ speak yes we've got councilmember Joe thank you planner
3:36:08 ↗ Steven Padula mentioned the House for the Future of the I-90 Crossing. It's
3:36:13 ↗ December 5th, 5 to 7 p.m. at Tibbetts Creek Manor. And if you're interested in
3:36:19 ↗ attending, it's a casual drop-by event. And we encourage people that are interested in the
3:36:25 ↗ I-90 Crossing to attend. On a more uplifting note, the Holiday
3:36:31 ↗ Elected Leaders Party, also called HELP, sponsored by the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce,
3:36:37 ↗ is being held at 5 p.m. on December 9th. at the xfinity store in
3:36:43 ↗ bellevue square if you're interested in attending as an elected official you can go to
3:36:48 ↗ events at bellevuechamber.org to register and let them know that you would like to attend
3:36:54 ↗ that concludes my uh go to the order comments thank you thank you anyone else
3:36:59 ↗ um mayor i would just ask do your comments include um addressing
3:37:05 ↗ the legislative session reschedule Okay,
3:37:11 ↗ fantastic. Then nothing else from this side. Great. So this is the
3:37:16 ↗ last regular city council meeting of the year. On Tuesday, December 17th, the council will
3:37:21 ↗ be having a holiday dinner scheduled at Tuesday, December 17th at Highlands
3:37:27 ↗ Bistro, which is formerly called Slaver of India. We'll be meeting at 6.30 p.m. and
3:37:33 ↗ you are welcome to bring a guest. Please RSVP to Lindsay Marsh by December 9th.
3:37:39 ↗ Wednesday December 18th we have a rescheduled legislative meeting if the close
3:37:44 ↗ legislative delegation has come up with Wednesday December 18th from 6 p.m. to 730 p.m.
3:37:50 ↗ for a rescheduled legislative meeting and does I want to make sure council president can
3:37:56 ↗ go around the room and make sure that this time does work for all of
3:38:00 ↗ our council members that'd be a good thing to know tonight yeah I am looking
3:38:05 ↗ through and maybe seeing What is the time?
3:38:13 ↗ Hang on one second. It's in the evening from 6 to 7.30. Yep, 6 to
3:38:18 ↗ 7.30. Penny, I've seen some night. Thumbs up.
3:38:26 ↗ Yes. Not in the morning. I thought you said the morning, and I was like,
3:38:29 ↗ no. I know. We're used to having a breakfast, but no. Yeah.
3:38:36 ↗ I have seen a bunch of thumbs up and then city administrator. Then the question
3:38:40 ↗ is Would you like food if so, do you want dinner?
3:38:47 ↗ You're gonna you're gonna get continental cuisine the night before So what would you like?
3:38:55 ↗ So we would feed dinner that we we we can sort this out Yeah, we
3:39:00 ↗ can work out with council leadership if we want so we will we'll provide dinner
3:39:04 ↗ then as well That's
3:39:08 ↗ great. Okay. Moving on. There is no executive session this evening,
3:39:14 ↗ and so there being no further business, we're going to adjourn our meeting tonight at
3:39:19 ↗ 1041. Thank you all. Thank you.
Approved minutes
Extracted from the next meeting's packet, where this meeting's minutes were approved as a consent-calendar attachment.
Open PDF

Attendance

Council / Members (7)
Barbara de Michele
Zach Hall
Victoria Hunt
Russell Joe
Tola Marts
Chris Reh
and Council President Lindsey Walsh
Staff (4)
Wally Bobkiewicz, City Administrator
Andrea Snyder, Deputy City Administrator
Rachel Bender Turpin, City Attorney
Tisha Gieser, City Clerk

Motions and votes (7)

AMENDMENT: Amend Exhibit A of the ordinance, “Summary of Revenues, Expenditures & Fund Balance”, to remove the proposed funding for the Light Rail Study: $100,000 in 2025 and $100,000 in 2026 from the General Fund. A vote was taken on the following motion: MAIN MOTION: Adopt Ordinance No. 3083, adop…
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Councilmember Reh
Failed 3-4
In favor: Victoria Hunt, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
Opposed: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Russell Joe, and Councilmember Marts
Approve Resolution No. 2024-28, providing for a low-income fee waiver and fee deferral for certain building permit fees necessitated by an emergency or natural disaster with an amendment to change the area median income requirement in Section 1 to be at or below 80% of the median family income
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Deputy Council President de Michele
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
Adopt Ordinance No. 3084, adopting the 2024 periodic update of the Issaquah Comprehensive Plan pursuant to the Washington State Growth Management Act, Chapter 36.70A RCW; regarding King County Tax parcel number 2024069015, amending the land use designation map of the comprehensive plan; adopting an …
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Councilmember Hall
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
Approve Resolution No. 2024-29, adopting amendments to the Citywide Strategic Plan as part of the five-year Plan update.
Moved by Councilmember Marts · seconded by Council President Walsh
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
Approve Resolution No. 2024-30, adopting a City Council calendar for 2025 with changes to adjust the April Committee of the Whole and August and November regular meetings to avoid meeting the day before the primary/general election.
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Deputy Council President de Michele
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
Approve the process and timeline for filling the 2025 City Council vacancy of Position No. 6 as amended [as discussed above, to: • Consolidate the application questions based on Council feedback and allow for longer responses. Council Leadership to review final questions. • Remove the meet and greet…
Moved by Council President Walsh · seconded by Deputy Council President de Michele
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Walsh
APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED. a) Minutes: City Council Committee of the Whole, Nov. 18, 2024 MOTION: Approved
Moved by WALSH · seconded by DE MICHELE
Carried 7-0
In favor: Barbara de Michele, Zach Hall, Victoria Hunt, Russell Joe, Tola Marts, Chris Reh, and Council President Lindsey Walsh