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Park Board Auto captions

Monday, August 23, 2021

7:00 PM · 2h 5m
Topics tracked across meetings:
Blackberry Park Update 3/5
Wayfinding & City Signage 1/3
Section
1. CALL TO ORDER
1a
Membership
packet pp.3
Staff report:
Park Board About Staff Liaison Created in 1983, this board provides guidance and Milissa Ching, Operations Specialist direction in meeting the City’s parks and Email recreational needs by advising the Mayor and Parks & Recreation Director on matters relating to the Regular Members planning; acquisition, development; and operation 2025 - Vacant of parks, facilities and recreational programs inside 2022 of 2025- Danielle Githens the City limits. 2024 - Marlene Waxe 2024 - Zack Szablewski Membership 2023 - Chris Kovac The Park Board is comprised of nine regular 2022 - Bradley Book members, with four-year terms; and two 2022 - Ruben Nieto alternates, with two-year terms. All members are 2022 - Jonathan Richardson appointed by the Mayor and subject to 2022 - Linda Whitworth confirmation by the City Council. Terms expire April 30 of the year listed. For more information, see Alternate Members…
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
2a
Minutes of July 26, 2021
packet pp.5–7
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 07-26-2021 Park Board Minutes 7:00 PM Hillside Park & Virtual Meeting July 26, 2021 DRAFT MINUTES
4. REGULAR BUSINESS
4a
Introductions – Kirsten Chapman, Park Operations Manager and Peter Walters, Park Ranger (I)
Director · 10 min · Jeff Watling, Parks and Community Services · packet pp.9–17
Topics: Parks
Staff report:
Title 18 Update – Goals, Policy Changes, and Desired Outcomes (Oct 2020) Part1 – Umbrella Goals The following goals will be applied to every updated Chapter: ▪ Realign Land Use Code with community aspirations for the City, as provided for in adopted plans. ▪ Provide a transparent code update process that allows for groups and individuals to engage in the process. ▪ Reform regulations for more improved efficiency, equity, consistency and predictability. ▪ Address current laws, and best practices. ▪ Make the Code easier to understand and better organized for use by the public, property owners, and staff.
4b
Title 18 City Code Update – Project overview (D)
Director · 60 min · Minnie Dhaliwal, Community Planning · packet pp.19–31
Topics: Land Use
Staff report:
J E N N IFER F I N K , PA R K PL A NNE R & PROJ ECT A D M INIS TR ATO R REGULAR BUSINESS c)
4c
Blackberry Park – project update (D/A)
15 min · Jennifer Fink, Park Planner and Project Administrator · packet pp.33–43
Topics: Parks
Staff report:
Wayfinding & City Signage Update 8/23/21 | PARK BOARD
4d
Wayfinding and City Signage – project update (D/A)
20 min · Jennifer Fink, Park Planner and Project Administrator
5. REPORTS
5a
Chairperson's Report
5b
Youth Report
5c
Director's Report
0:00 okay welcome everybody call to order
0:02 here
0:03 for the
0:04 issaquah park board meeting on august
0:06 23rd
0:08 2021. thank you all for joining us
0:10 including a few community members i
0:12 understand that are out there as well
0:15 uh first thing that i want to do this
0:17 evening is to
0:19 take a roll call
0:20 so when i call your name please take
0:23 yourself off mute if that's necessary
0:26 and just acknowledge your
0:28 attendance uh zach
0:33 president
0:35 uh chris
0:39 president
0:41 reuben
0:56 thank you i think that covers everybody
0:59 that's online here for right at this
1:01 minute we have a couple people yet uh
1:04 hopefully will join us
1:07 uh has everybody had an opportunity to
1:09 review
1:10 minutes from our last meeting
1:14 uh any questions concerns comments
1:21 seeing anything zach i don't see that
1:23 you have a camera on so if you're waving
1:25 or doing anything i don't know what that
1:27 might be i assume
1:28 maybe you're on phone
1:32 in any event does anybody have any
1:34 objections to the approval of minutes
1:38 not seeing any objections i hereby
1:40 approve minutes from our last meeting
1:42 thank you everyone
1:48 we have a fairly busy evening tonight um
1:52 with four
1:53 items on regular business
1:55 uh we're going to have an introduction
1:57 of a couple new staff members which
1:59 we're all excited about to see
2:01 and we're going to have a presentation
2:04 from
2:05 many regarding title 8 code update which
2:08 is going to take the bulk of
2:11 what we're going to be dealing with this
2:12 evening
2:13 i and
2:15 a brief presentation on blackberry park
2:17 and a brief presentation on wayfinding
2:21 and uh so with that
2:24 i wanted to get started here with uh
2:26 public comments
2:29 is there anybody that's um
2:31 made an indication melissa from the
2:34 community of wanting to make a public
2:36 comment
2:38 i'm going to unmute each of them so they
2:40 can inform us that they'd like to um
2:42 we'll start here
2:44 with connie do you like to make a
2:45 comment this evening
2:49 it's well this evening i don't know it's
2:51 unclear as to whether this is my only
2:53 opportunity or not
2:55 well i'll tell you what connie i'll be
2:56 flexible with you and you know i don't
2:58 want to have you be able to make a
3:00 comment on each of the items but if
3:02 there's a specific item that you'd like
3:04 to talk after the presentation we can do
3:06 that
3:07 is it
3:08 is there anything that would be better
3:09 because
3:11 i may not have to say anything
3:13 right right so okay
3:16 so although i don't know that i want to
3:18 open that up after every one of them is
3:20 there is there any is there
3:22 is a particular uh item that you would
3:25 have interest in making a comment what
3:27 if i just send a note to the to the
3:29 administrator if i decide i won't have a
3:32 particular item that'll work okay all
3:34 right so nothing now okay no
3:37 anyone else
3:39 a moment
3:41 okay julian you are unmuted and i saw
3:44 your hand raised so please go ahead with
3:45 your comment
3:46 i just wanted to make a quick comment
3:48 about the signage
3:51 signage item
3:53 i was looking through the presentation
3:55 and
3:56 i think i'm not sure if the signs are
3:59 meant for vehicular traffic as well
4:02 but they do seem
4:03 on the larger side i would like
4:06 them to be more human scale
4:09 but again if it's also meant for
4:11 vehicular traffic then i think it's
4:13 acceptable
4:14 thank you
4:18 thank you for your comment
4:20 i think that'll become clearer maybe
4:21 during the presentation
4:23 hopefully maybe jen can mention
4:25 something about that
4:28 any other comments uh melissa
4:32 okay
4:33 so uh public comments are closed uh but
4:36 we'll bring we'll loop connie back in if
4:38 she makes mention
4:40 uh that she wants to make a comment
4:42 after a particular presentation
4:44 i assume that probably will be after
4:47 title 18 potentially
4:49 uh or after wayfinding potentially um
4:53 that's my guess knowing connie anyway
4:56 uh so with that it's time to get started
4:58 with our regular business items uh and
5:01 first item here on the agenda is
5:03 introductions um so jeff have at it
5:08 great thanks brad good evening everybody
5:10 i wanted to take a couple minutes here
5:12 at the beginning of the meeting and and
5:14 introduce two
5:15 new members to our department team uh
5:18 that are part of our park operations
5:20 division
5:21 um both started in the middle of may and
5:24 so i've certainly jumped right into our
5:27 uh super busy season
5:29 um i want to have a chance to share a
5:31 few words about both of them and then
5:33 invite them each to
5:36 share a bit about themselves uh maybe
5:38 their background
5:39 and certainly their observations um
5:42 uh these first couple of months on the
5:44 job so first
5:45 is kirsten chapman um our park our new
5:48 park operations manager
5:50 uh kirsten comes
5:52 to issaquah with 20 plus years of
5:54 experience
5:56 in king county parks
5:58 working her way up through that system
5:59 most recently
6:01 she managed six
6:04 parks divisions park maintenance
6:05 divisions throughout the county
6:07 um all each division probably similar in
6:09 size to what our park operations team is
6:13 all that to say just a tremendous amount
6:15 of knowledge
6:16 been very impressed with her leadership
6:19 certainly very
6:21 impressed with just her overall
6:23 experience of really all elements of the
6:25 park system
6:26 certainly very
6:27 fortunate to have her as part of the
6:29 team and
6:30 brings
6:32 a lot of passion for public spaces and
6:34 and the role that parks trails and open
6:35 space play in a community so
6:38 uh that's that's kirsten and then next
6:40 just a couple words peter walters is our
6:43 new park ranger uh you've updated you a
6:46 little bit uh earlier this year with the
6:49 park ranger program
6:51 this is a new program that we have
6:53 launched that that really is providing a
6:56 new element a new aspect to
6:59 customer service within our park system
7:02 peter you you may recognize peter uh he
7:05 spent some years working with state
7:06 parks also spent some years working here
7:09 with us in the city of issaquah
7:11 again just incredibly fortunate to have
7:13 peter um
7:15 part of the team just brings a
7:17 tremendous
7:18 gift of customer service um
7:20 understanding experience of public
7:23 spaces
7:24 as i have expressed before to all of you
7:27 with this new program this is a a
7:29 non-commissioned ranger program so
7:31 there's varying degrees of commissioning
7:34 of rangers commissioning meaning
7:36 do they carry a gun do they
7:40 write civil tickets etc we're taking an
7:42 approach that a number of cities around
7:44 us have taken as a non-commissioned
7:46 uh ranger so that customer service piece
7:49 that enforcement piece um
7:51 is really really important to be able to
7:53 do it with tact and do it with
7:56 um customer service uh we've had the
8:00 pleasure peter and chris kirsten and i
8:01 visiting a couple of other cities to to
8:04 check out how they do their work and uh
8:06 it's just been great to see some of the
8:08 the outcomes and work that uh peters
8:10 have been already been able to
8:11 accomplish
8:12 uh within um within the city so
8:16 i'm so excited to have them both on
8:17 board i think we're very very fortunate
8:21 have both of their
8:23 skills and experience so
8:25 welcome kirsten i don't know if your
8:27 camera is working yet but do you want to
8:29 pop on and say hi and share a few words
8:33 know if you can see me i don't see
8:35 myself down below on the ribbon so
8:38 i apologize if it's not working i'm
8:40 looking right at it though so if you can
8:42 see you're moving
8:44 we can hear you loud and clear
8:46 well that was an awesome introduction
8:48 probably work on my resume if i ever
8:51 decide to leave but at this point i i
8:54 love working for issaquah it has been
8:56 um a fantastic three months and i will
8:59 tell you um by contrast to having worked
9:02 for king county
9:03 the
9:04 the the level of community involvement
9:06 that we get to be involved with as
9:09 public servants is i've never
9:11 experienced quite this and i tell you
9:14 it's
9:14 it really feels like that kind of family
9:17 connection
9:18 and the community and even staff with
9:20 other staff so i've never felt this
9:23 supported before
9:24 and i will tell you too after having
9:26 seen the system now
9:28 um it's kind of amazing how many
9:31 types of sites are within the inventory
9:33 parks inventory that are available to
9:35 the public that you just don't see in
9:37 other parts of king county you know
9:39 where i can go on a hike i can go to a
9:41 baseball field i can go within just a
9:43 couple minutes i can see so many
9:45 different
9:49 so very very lucky i feel lucky everyone
9:52 that lives in issaquah should feel lucky
9:54 it's a pretty special system
9:56 um so i am just
9:58 over the moon
9:59 to be here and um
10:02 yeah
10:05 you know a little bit more about me you
10:06 know i kind of started in the parks
10:08 realm uh when i was 20 and i knew after
10:11 my first season working as a seasonal
10:14 that i was destined
10:18 pair with parks
10:20 so what i'd like to bring to the team um
10:23 is kind of that
10:25 um that sense of not just ownership but
10:29 looking at parks through the eyes of the
10:32 folks that come to use those sites so
10:34 you know what's the experience that
10:36 we're trying to bring to the public and
10:37 what is it that the public wants from
10:39 their site and how can we
10:41 do our best to be efficient and try to
10:43 achieve everyone you know the
10:45 expectations and
10:57 still there kirsten
11:01 i think we had a drop thank you and and
11:03 i'm thrilled to be here
11:06 there she is it's awesome kirsten thank
11:08 you so much any
11:10 any comments questions for kirsten
11:12 before we
11:13 jump over to peter
11:20 so glad you're here kirsten oh reuben
11:27 how do i okay i was just curious what
11:29 was your first seasonal job what were
11:31 you doing
11:40 hi my first season i worked at winita
11:42 beach
11:43 so a lot of the places i've worked and
11:45 whether
11:46 whether this is uh
11:48 i'm sure it's not my fault
11:50 most of them got incorporated into other
11:52 cities
11:59 thank you
12:02 great thanks reuben
12:05 all right so peter welcome i'll share a
12:08 few words
12:14 okay yeah happily um i want to start and
12:17 also say that it's been fantastic
12:19 working with kirsten um i've been wildly
12:23 impressed with how fast she's picked up
12:26 what's going on um you know i've worked
12:28 here previously and had some
12:30 introductions to the park um and it
12:32 feels like she got integrated faster
12:35 than i did
12:37 i've been wildly impressed with her um
12:39 one of the things that i agree with ron
12:41 is um i
12:43 love working with the city of esqua
12:45 we have a diverse park system that i
12:47 feel very fortunate to be able to
12:49 recreate in
12:50 and was drawn back here too by the
12:52 amount of support i feel um so i'm glad
12:54 she sees those similar things and i
12:56 think that's what's made it such a joy
12:57 to uh work with her i felt pretty
12:59 instantly like yeah this is awesome um
13:02 our first week together so i'm very
13:05 happy to be back on board and working
13:07 um as the park ranger uh
13:10 information for me i actually started
13:12 out in uh hospitals um so
13:15 that's
13:17 an odd uh journey but i missed being in
13:20 parks and recreation um so i just kind
13:22 of made the jump and since like
13:24 2013 been slowly working my way towards
13:26 this position through other parks and
13:28 recreation internships jobs i'm
13:31 eventually moving out here from michigan
13:32 in 2016 to work with state parks um so
13:35 yeah
13:36 that's that's the short of it
13:42 and if you hear the newborn screaming i
13:44 apologize
13:46 yeah i was just going to say congrats to
13:48 that peter said a few other things that
13:49 he's been juggling in life so uh
13:52 new dad as well which is really exciting
13:55 peter any any just observations real
13:57 quickly of what you've sort of seen
13:59 within our parks and uh where your time
14:01 and focus has been this this first these
14:03 first couple months
14:07 yeah um
14:09 i think
14:10 for a while it was a little frustrating
14:11 for a while covet really um interrupted
14:14 our way to get a uniform
14:16 and a way to get out into the parks
14:18 so that kind of took a while and then we
14:20 had the kids so it was kind of a slow
14:22 start for me
14:23 but just the past two months being out
14:26 there and on the ground
14:28 we see people that are very passionate
14:29 about the parks uh people love stopping
14:32 and chatting with me and seeing what's
14:33 going on people do not love me telling
14:36 them to leash up their dog
14:38 that's uh
14:39 that's a big one right there um
14:41 a lot of time this past month has been
14:44 spent with the homeless outreach effort
14:46 with amir who i can't speak highly
14:48 enough about as well
14:50 um so that's where a decent amount of my
14:52 effort has been
14:54 is doing homeless outreach and then just
14:56 trying to be a friendly presence in the
14:59 park um luckily things have gone very
15:02 smooth and already we've had a wide
15:04 variety of things come up my first day
15:06 that i had a uniform we had an eagle
15:08 fall out of its nest and we got to go
15:10 visit that and before i knew it uh
15:12 someone had handed me this eagle in a
15:14 box um so something i never thought i
15:16 would deal with um and then we've had
15:19 anything from homeless outreach
15:20 off-leash dog
15:22 someone put a
15:24 oh my goodness um
15:27 hammock someone put a hammock up in one
15:29 of our sequoias like a good 50-60 feet
15:32 um and it looked like just a weekend
15:33 warrior so it's been
15:35 excellent you never know what you're
15:37 going to deal with every day you go out
15:38 into the parks um
15:40 and
15:41 you know i always end up seeing friendly
15:43 people way more often than i have
15:45 negative interactions so that's that's
15:46 been fantastic so far
15:49 so peter i have a question should you
15:51 come around to virtually all the parks
15:53 eventually or do you focus on just a
15:56 certain amount of them
15:58 yeah uh it depends on what our focus is
16:00 um so right now
16:03 i've been trying to hit some of the
16:04 areas where we're having more of the
16:06 homeless outreach and consistent issues
16:09 so we've had more interaction at front
16:11 street properties than emily darst
16:13 but then in general i do try and make it
16:16 a point to try and hit all of our trails
16:18 open spaces and parks throughout the
16:20 month
16:21 um if we're having particular issues
16:23 kirsten and i are very of the mind that
16:25 we should try and activate those spaces
16:28 so i'm working on a plan to do some
16:29 interpretive programming at front street
16:31 and some guided hikes through the
16:32 pickering barn trail and emily darst as
16:34 a way that i can be there longer to
16:37 hopefully have contacts
16:40 and then activate that space so more
16:41 people are going through it so hopefully
16:42 any negative issues that we're seeing we
16:44 can kind of tone those down through
16:46 positive interactions but but yeah it's
16:48 a lot of space to cover um i've already
16:51 had like some of the tennis and friends
16:53 groups are very excited to see me but
16:55 then are like hey where were you and
16:57 it's like oh at a million other places
16:59 so i can i can try and be there but it's
17:01 hard to be everywhere at once
17:04 if you had to get engaged the police
17:06 with any issues
17:08 not yet um fortunately we haven't had
17:10 anything come up or rise to that level
17:13 this position does have a radio um so i
17:16 will have access to contact the police
17:18 um i guess that's a small lie we did
17:20 have someone vandalized property at
17:22 tibbetts valley park um and we had to
17:24 make a case number for police but that
17:26 wasn't like bringing anyone on contact
17:28 or having anything so
17:29 why that's a feature of the position uh
17:31 very fortunately we haven't had that
17:33 happen
17:34 great
17:36 yeah this position just as a quick
17:38 overview and again peter just
17:40 reflects this so well really is that
17:43 bridge between our park operations team
17:45 and
17:47 police from a public safety standpoint
17:49 so rather than waiting and relying on
17:51 them
17:52 though it's just one position and peter
17:54 does a great job and can't be all places
17:56 at once but just be able to be that
17:58 additional eyes in the park provides
18:00 some degree of enforcement
18:01 via support for our park maintenance
18:03 team and his his
18:05 partnering and work with kirsten has
18:06 already just been um paid off immensely
18:10 not to mention the crew as well but then
18:12 having that radio as peter said
18:14 um and being that support for uh police
18:18 so they're not having to respond to
18:20 everything in the parks but they're
18:21 certainly
18:22 in some ways able to respond quicker
18:23 with with um
18:25 peter and his radio so
18:27 exciting new program that we're just
18:29 jumping into
18:30 um kirsten as well
18:32 that has been a a long
18:35 if you may recall from some of my my
18:37 conversations earlier that's been a
18:40 having a park operations manager has
18:42 been vacant for quite a few years here
18:44 in innissequon really is a key position
18:47 uh to provide that strategic oversight
18:50 um that strategic leadership and how we
18:53 want to steward and maintain our system
18:55 and i can't be more
18:57 impressed or thrilled with um
19:00 just her expertise and and the
19:01 leadership she's providing in that so
19:06 happy to en to uh to introduce them
19:08 tonight and just can't be more thrilled
19:10 to have them as part of a really
19:13 impressive parks and community services
19:15 team
19:16 so thanks for letting me do that peter
19:19 kirsten thanks for joining us
19:22 yes uh so much i'm very been fortunate
19:24 to have actually known peter over a
19:26 number of years here now so i'm really
19:28 glad to see him on the team and um
19:31 and look forward to meeting uh kirsten
19:33 here at some point
19:34 uh or at least uh seeing your face uh on
19:37 on on a virtual platform maybe next time
19:41 uh so thanks for that uh both of you are
19:43 certainly welcome to continue on with us
19:45 here this evening but uh i'm sure you've
19:47 got a busy schedule as well and so
19:49 you're also welcome to
19:51 to move on if you would like so
19:54 thanks again and uh welcome to the
19:56 issaquah parks team
19:59 so that being said our next item on the
20:01 agenda is uh with minnie
20:04 uh going to give us a presentation about
20:07 title 18 code updates
20:11 so i don't know if you need to do any
20:13 introduction here jeff or not but if if
20:15 not
20:16 you can do it do it yourself i guess
20:18 yeah maybe a super quick one so so
20:20 minnie dolly wall is um
20:23 community planning department director
20:26 has been on board as she can tell you
20:28 but it's a couple of months now
20:30 i must say as a fellow department head
20:32 it's been great working with minnie on a
20:34 couple of
20:36 uh fronts she brings a great array of
20:38 experience planning and community
20:40 development experience with other local
20:41 cities so
20:43 she's here to give a an overview of of a
20:46 really important lift
20:48 in revising and updating the development
20:50 code which is known as title 18
20:53 so without
20:54 stealing any of her thunder or jumping
20:56 into subjects i don't really know as
20:57 well here's minnie
21:01 good evening everyone um so glad to be
21:04 here and get to know all the community
21:06 members and
21:07 and all the the number of hours you
21:09 spend your evenings uh you know because
21:11 you care about uh this wonderful city
21:14 and so um as part of our project we are
21:18 um updating our regulations and codes
21:20 and and we have um looked upon some of
21:24 your services to help planning and
21:26 policy commission and have a discussion
21:28 about open spaces and and landscape and
21:31 trees so you bring your expertise in
21:33 those topics to help
21:35 uh inform some of the discussion with
21:37 the planning and policy commission who
21:39 will then
21:40 make a recommendation to city council
21:42 for formally adopting the title 18 which
21:45 we which is the land use code so i'm
21:47 just going to give you a little bit of
21:49 background on what that that whole
21:50 project is what are the codes and so on
21:52 and so forth but before i do that i'd
21:55 would like to get uh to share my screen
21:58 uh melissa or um
22:00 can you make me do
22:03 do you have to give me permissions to
22:04 share yes i'm passing that over to you
22:06 right now you should have the
22:07 permissions now great
22:12 see
22:18 there it is
22:19 perfect so let me share
22:27 so everyone can see my screen without
22:29 the little
22:30 dots and things that i'm seeing
22:34 is it good
22:35 it looks good okay great
22:39 so like i said thank you for your time
22:41 tonight um so today we'll talk about the
22:44 title 18 land use code update
22:47 so um what exactly is land use code
22:51 it's a range of development regulations
22:54 so if anyone wants to develop the lane
22:57 it could be divided up how they plan to
23:00 use it if they want to build something
23:02 on the property different uses they want
23:04 put on the property and what kind of
23:06 landscaping and design
23:09 happens on that so all of that is
23:10 bundled in together with this
23:13 larger
23:14 code
23:16 and
23:17 a little bit of background on when this
23:19 was adopted in the city was in 1996 and
23:22 over the years it's become this
23:24 patchwork of ordinances
23:26 so then the city council formed a land
23:29 use title 18 ad hoc committee
23:32 it's made up of three council members
23:34 they were tasked with identifying the
23:36 stakeholders recommending a project
23:39 scope a public engagement plan
23:41 and making the policy decisions on this
23:43 code and that effort has started
23:47 and
23:48 in april city council awarded the
23:50 professional services contract to the
23:52 consultant team who will be assisting in
23:54 this effort
23:57 so a little bit about what you know what
23:59 is the framework for land use uh code it
24:02 has to be consistent with some
24:05 fundamental planning
24:08 framework in this state of washington so
24:11 the at the very beginning it's the
24:12 growth management act then that
24:14 establishes the vision for this area for
24:17 the next 20 40 years how is it going to
24:19 grow
24:20 how you know what are some parameters so
24:22 that happens at the puget sound regional
24:25 council's level
24:27 then king county has to adopt the
24:29 county-wide planning policies which are
24:31 again consistent with all those
24:32 underlying laws
24:34 and then isoqua decides what their
24:37 unique
24:39 cities plans need to be
24:42 but they have to be consistent with all
24:43 of these underlying laws and and
24:46 policies
24:47 and then once you have once we've
24:49 adopted the comprehensive plan it
24:51 informs what the regulations need to be
24:54 and how to get so basically the land use
24:57 regulations are an implementation tool
24:59 for these long-term visions for for the
25:01 region for the area for the city
25:05 so the growth management act which was
25:07 you know it's basically encourages smart
25:10 growth sustainable development
25:12 it was passed in the 1990s there's been
25:15 some amendments over the years but but
25:17 the basic premise here is that you are
25:19 keeping growth within a boundary so that
25:21 you're reducing the sprawl from taking
25:24 over your open spaces and and um and
25:27 extend so that people are spending more
25:29 time in their cars so that's discouraged
25:32 so efficient multimodal transportation
25:35 is encouraged
25:37 there are a variety of housing options
25:39 for people to live in
25:40 um there is economic development
25:42 people's property rights are protected
25:44 from arbitrary and discriminatory
25:46 actions
25:47 people can get their permit in a timely
25:49 manner and we administer them fairly
25:54 so the most important one for this group
25:56 is open space and recreation is part of
25:58 these laws from uh that establish
26:01 development in our uh state
26:04 under this law we have to encourage
26:06 retention of open space and recreation
26:09 areas so any of these policies have to
26:12 do that
26:14 we have to protect the environment and
26:15 enhance the quality of life we have to
26:17 engage the citizens and the planning
26:19 process and so on and so forth so so
26:22 that's a little bit of a very quick
26:24 brief summary of what growth management
26:27 planning in our state is
26:30 there are these some other laws where it
26:33 was determined you know many years
26:34 decades ago that some of these things
26:37 are
26:38 uh of interest statewide so as you
26:40 divide land it becomes important that
26:43 it's done in a consistent uh manner
26:45 throughout the state so there are
26:47 subdivision laws that happen at the
26:49 state level that we have to be
26:50 consistent with now critical areas which
26:53 are the wetlands the streams the steep
26:56 slopes um
26:58 and and so on and so forth are also
27:01 um there are state laws that we have to
27:03 be consistent with and and we have to
27:05 update our regulations every few years
27:08 so that we stay consistent with best
27:10 available science
27:12 the shoreline regulations apply in in
27:15 essequa and we have three
27:18 bodies of water that those regulations
27:20 apply to
27:22 the cpa is an acronym but basically it's
27:24 the environmental policy act that looks
27:26 at things that aren't met through the
27:28 codes but
27:30 are looking at more cumulative impacts
27:32 and and try to capture those through
27:34 that process
27:37 so um
27:39 now moving on to what are the city's
27:41 adopted visions goals and policies so as
27:45 some of you may have already volunteered
27:47 and some of these plans were being in
27:49 place and have your fingerprints on them
27:51 but we have a strategic plan in your
27:54 memo i included a link to these so you
27:57 can kind of look at those
27:59 if you're not familiar with them uh the
28:02 comprehensive plan is a requirement of
28:03 the growth management act and we have to
28:05 keep it updated
28:07 um we also adopted a centralization plan
28:10 many years ago and then have um you know
28:13 updated it
28:14 in over the years
28:16 um park's strategic plan uh so the
28:20 consultant that worked on the park
28:21 strategic plan berger is also helping us
28:24 with some of these topics that we need
28:27 your help in
28:28 in figuring out how what is envisioned
28:31 in this park strategic plan can then be
28:34 implemented through some of these
28:35 regulations um one it's so that it's
28:38 consistent two that we don't miss the
28:41 opportunities where there are these
28:42 connections between different parks
28:44 between different trails and development
28:47 occurs that we don't put the building in
28:48 the middle of it or and things of that
28:50 nature so so there's that consistency
28:53 issue but also how some incentives of
28:55 how to get this vision
28:58 established
28:59 as as development occurs um you know
29:03 we want to make sure that we are doing
29:05 it in a way that it's consistent with
29:06 the park strategic plan
29:08 so in addition to all those long-range
29:10 plans a city council
29:12 and the title 18 ad hoc committee
29:14 through the work with some community
29:16 members
29:17 and then planning and policy commission
29:19 also weighed in on some of these goals
29:22 issues objectives and outcomes
29:24 chart that's what we're calling it i
29:26 included the more detailed version in
29:28 your packet
29:30 so that establishes uh some of the goals
29:32 and the desired outcomes
29:35 that the city council
29:36 desires out of this a title 18
29:39 update so there are about 13 goals um
29:42 but you know protecting our health sides
29:45 providing adequate parking but using
29:47 land efficiently
29:49 conserving and protecting
29:51 environmentally critical areas from loss
29:54 enhancing wetland and riparian corridors
29:58 improving public awareness
30:00 of development and construction
30:02 activities
30:03 increasing housing diversity
30:05 preserving tree canopy
30:08 um retaining neighborhood charm
30:11 and distinctive character um then you
30:14 know creating a livable community which
30:16 you know parks department and the parks
30:18 planning that they're very key to to
30:21 having meeting some of these um goals
30:24 that the the community desires
30:27 sustainable development and climate
30:29 goals are also desired um
30:31 again you know management of travel
30:34 number 11 which is what we need your
30:37 help on is successfully implement the
30:40 park strategic plan and green necklace
30:42 through land use regulations um
30:46 and so it's definitely uh what council
30:48 has charged us to to do and uh and
30:52 where we've started work on that
30:55 um again you know i think most of you
30:58 may be familiar with a strategic plan
31:00 but there is growth and development is
31:02 one of the the goals um so there's a
31:05 whole chapter on that environmental
31:07 stewardship is another goal
31:10 so what through this what we want to do
31:12 is establish some of those common things
31:15 desired in those goals to be implemented
31:18 through title 18 land use code update
31:22 just a little bit of background for some
31:24 of you that may um
31:26 you know need a little refresher on
31:28 comprehensive plan is actually a 20-year
31:31 plan it's required for the city to do
31:34 and it looks out at
31:36 uh you know how the region's going to
31:37 how the city is going to grow in the
31:39 next 20 years and there are certain
31:42 mandatory elements that each city has to
31:44 have in their comprehensive plan
31:47 parks and open space plan is not one of
31:49 those so some cities don't have it but
31:51 issaquah made the choice that this is
31:54 important and that parks recreation
31:56 trails in open space is a separate
31:58 element in the comprehensive plan
32:02 and then we have of course the most
32:03 recent park strategic plan
32:06 the golden policies of this plan
32:09 coincide with the growth management
32:11 act's goals for development of parks and
32:13 recreation facilities
32:16 and you know the goal is to provide
32:18 opportunities for current and the
32:19 growing population retaining some of
32:21 these natural open spaces preserving
32:23 fish and wildlife habitat
32:25 and providing access points
32:30 these are two main documents that we'll
32:32 be looking at so again like i said in
32:35 the comprehensive plan there are
32:36 multiple uh elements that we have in our
32:38 comprehensive plan here but land use and
32:41 parks and recreation
32:42 are the ones uh this group is going to
32:44 focus on
32:47 so the way the lane the comprehensive
32:48 plan is set up you know there'll be a
32:50 goal
32:51 um and i included these links but this
32:53 is just one example so if the goal says
32:56 maintain and enhance the natural system
32:59 and features of the city
33:01 and surrounding area from potentially
33:03 negative impact
33:05 and then the policy underneath that goal
33:08 talks about how we can do you know some
33:10 of the policies would be
33:12 encouraging efficient use of land by
33:14 clustering your buildings um
33:17 or providing
33:19 limiting how much impervious surface you
33:21 can have how much open space you need
33:24 and things of that nature
33:27 and then the land use code is really
33:29 going to get into the details of what
33:31 does this really mean if you build that
33:33 many units you need to have x amount of
33:36 space per unit so it really gets into an
33:39 implementation of what that really
33:41 uh can be accomplished as as uh private
33:44 development or
33:45 uh development occurs uh in the city
33:49 uh here's an example from your proxima
33:50 parks
33:52 from your
33:53 park strategic plan
33:55 the goal
33:57 talks about enhancing and diversifying
33:59 and expanding
34:00 parks trails recreation and open space
34:04 for today and for future generations
34:07 so the policy underneath talks about
34:09 secondary connections you know how do we
34:12 connect the neighborhood and the
34:14 development of the city's primary trail
34:16 system
34:18 through connectors trails
34:20 spur trails and so on so the lane use
34:23 code will then say
34:25 if you do redevelopment or if you do
34:28 development then this is the width of
34:30 the trail that you need to connect to
34:33 uh or um you know you have to
34:35 accommodate for or adopt the
34:39 the trails uh plan
34:41 in the in the land use or reference this
34:44 plan so that it's consistent and as
34:46 redevelopment occurs we
34:49 we keep these things in mind that the
34:51 goals and policies and the
34:54 park strategic plan were put together by
34:56 the community
34:58 um here i just took some pictures from
35:00 your
35:02 from our park strategic plan
35:04 uh again some pictures that show what a
35:06 green necklace character looks like how
35:09 different places are supposed to be
35:11 connected
35:12 what they need to look like well so in
35:15 the land use code if there's an
35:16 opportunity to maintain these
35:17 connections we want to make sure those
35:19 are either
35:20 uh you know created at the time of
35:22 development or those
35:24 opportunities are preserved um
35:28 obviously as you probably all know um we
35:30 do collect park impact fees as
35:32 development occurs so those are adopted
35:35 and and they're based on the type of
35:37 development that occurs that goes into
35:39 the parks capital
35:41 fund
35:43 again this is from the park strategic
35:45 plan that discusses different types of
35:47 open spaces what are different types of
35:49 connections so a lot of work went in
35:52 from all of you from the community of
35:54 establishing this green necklace map we
35:58 want to make sure that as
36:00 the land use code is updated that these
36:02 are consistent and opportunities are
36:04 preserved and
36:05 and maintained but also created
36:10 so some other things um for land use
36:13 code update we also have the central
36:16 support plan that talks about most of
36:18 the development in the community should
36:21 livable sustainable compact where
36:23 pedestrians are a priority and
36:26 and balance of mix of uses
36:31 and again it all circles back to
36:34 all of these long-term visions
36:36 then title 18 is an implementation tool
36:38 that's going to have the language
36:40 that gives us predictability as
36:42 redevelopment occurs what can what is
36:45 desired outcome from uh getting that
36:48 development
36:50 so like i said the title the land use
36:53 code update is a huge uh
36:55 chunk of code um and regulations
36:58 but for the purposes of this update
37:00 we've split them into six different
37:03 categories
37:04 so the first one is the natural
37:06 environment the second is landscape a
37:09 green necklace in open space
37:11 and that's where your role comes in
37:15 and we and then the other ones are
37:17 zoning and uses building and design
37:20 other development standards and other
37:22 processes and procedures
37:24 so we're trying to engage with other
37:26 boards so for instance the natural
37:29 environment we've asked for help from
37:32 environmental board to assist planning
37:34 and policy commission
37:36 have a discussion on those topics
37:39 for the landscape and open space topics
37:42 uh we've asked your uh commission
37:45 to have that discussion with the
37:47 planning and policy commission
37:51 and we're hoping uh for that to occur on
37:55 september 9th
37:56 um and at the end of the day what that
37:59 will mean and we'll go into more details
38:01 on september 9th and and you know prep
38:03 you for this but this is just to give
38:05 you a little primer
38:06 of uh
38:08 when we get development we're looking at
38:10 uh development of a site you know what
38:13 do these connections mean how do we
38:15 improve the pedestrian connection how do
38:17 we integrate nature with a defined sense
38:20 of place
38:22 and it used to be in the central square
38:25 but now it's the park strategic plan how
38:27 do we bring nature and add to green
38:29 elements to form a necklace
38:31 through these developed areas
38:35 physically visually or both
38:39 and
38:40 you know buildings and pavings cover a
38:42 lot of the site but we need to draw the
38:44 nature ingredient to soften the
38:46 urbanizing community as we as more
38:50 compact development occurs landscape is
38:52 more important and it's not just a
38:53 filler of unused space it needs to be
38:56 more
38:56 deliberately thought out so the land use
38:58 code has a chapter on landscaping it has
39:01 a chapter on trees um
39:04 that we'll be getting into on september
39:06 9th
39:08 again when we
39:10 this is how it's it works out on the
39:12 ground so when someone wants to develop
39:15 their property they give us all these
39:16 plans
39:18 of where the parking is going to be
39:19 where the building's going to be where
39:21 the landscaping is where the trail
39:23 connections are
39:25 what kind of community spaces can be
39:27 produced
39:29 and then
39:31 it goes through a whole public process
39:33 we collaborate we have pre-applications
39:36 we do a staff report sometimes these
39:38 projects go to development commission
39:41 we give them a notice
39:42 to proceed
39:44 then they come in and apply for their
39:46 construction permits and at that time
39:48 they can build and once it's fully done
39:51 then we give them an occupancy
39:54 for to occupy those buildings so that's
39:56 sort of the the trade you know the
39:59 various steps in the development process
40:02 so that pretty much concludes a very
40:06 you know
40:08 quick
40:11 discussion of what land use code is
40:14 what these long-term visions are what
40:17 undertaking we're doing with this update
40:21 and i'm open to answer any questions
40:23 either in this meeting or if you want to
40:25 you know call me outside of this meeting
40:27 i'm happy to to have one-on-one
40:29 discussion with you and get into more
40:31 detail if you desire
40:34 hi jeff so uh jeff i see your hand up
40:37 you wanted to add something yeah just a
40:39 really quick add and thank you minnie
40:40 for that
40:42 really broad overview and certainly as
40:44 we roll into fall and have this
40:46 opportunity to have a little bit more of
40:47 an interface with this a title 18 update
40:51 um yeah i
40:54 i want to ask for forgiveness of the
40:55 park board i was going to send you a
40:57 little email uh last week but uh things
41:00 got a little a little crazy if you could
41:02 mark your calendar for thursday
41:05 september 9th
41:07 this is really a first opportunity for
41:09 that interface those of you that were
41:11 around when we were doing the park
41:12 strategic plan might remember in 2017 we
41:15 had a couple of joint
41:18 meetings with the planning policy
41:19 commission about the green necklace um
41:21 and having an opportunity to to as we
41:24 were moving that park strategic plan
41:26 towards adoption
41:27 to really setting some some further
41:29 clarity um and goals and vision for the
41:32 green necklace so
41:34 this is a chance for us to help the ppc
41:37 in in their effort right with title 18
41:40 um september 9th
41:43 is a chance to get a little deeper mini
41:45 if i'm not mistaken
41:47 again the goal of the meeting on the
41:49 ninth will be to really focus on that
41:51 landscape
41:52 section um
41:54 um with a little bit more detail and
41:56 focus
41:57 yeah so so the way we envision september
42:00 9th um is that you know there's the
42:03 burger who's helping with some of these
42:05 topics and then there is
42:07 another consultant who's helping with
42:08 the tree chapter update so the tree
42:10 chapter what we're going to try and do
42:12 is give you code update memos that will
42:15 give you a little bit of background
42:17 don't feel overwhelmed by them there may
42:19 be you know we're going to try and give
42:21 you as much information as possible but
42:23 you feel free to to look at it and at
42:26 your level what you think you want to
42:28 get out of that but the basic idea is to
42:30 identify
42:32 what are the gaps in the regulations uh
42:35 how are they inconsistent or what what's
42:38 missing from our regulations um in in
42:41 when we when we compare them to some of
42:43 these long-term visions
42:45 or if you have other ideas yeah
42:47 the lens you're looking for is really as
42:49 residents right not as i mean we're not
42:51 a bunch of professional planners but
42:53 it's really is this called residents
42:55 uh what are you seeing and again having
42:57 that opportunity to
42:59 um just be another another layer of
43:01 perspective as that work is happening
43:04 is that is that a safe way to put it
43:06 many yeah that that is correct so the
43:08 the it we are dividing this whole update
43:11 process into three phases the first
43:13 phase is identifying where the gaps are
43:15 where the missing pieces are
43:17 the second
43:18 uh phase is going to be where we
43:20 actually um
43:22 you know write up the code language
43:24 based on the proposed approach and
43:26 direction we're given at the at this
43:28 after this first phase and that'll be a
43:30 public hearing to actually solicit
43:33 comments from the public on an actual
43:36 document
43:37 and then planning and policy commission
43:39 will then deliberate um and finalize
43:42 their recommendation so that'll be phase
43:44 three so right now we'll be in phase one
43:46 an introduction to the topics
43:48 uh and really looking for feedback what
43:50 you think we should be looking at for
43:53 implementing the vision uh in our uh
43:56 land use regulations
44:00 so many you i think you kind of touched
44:02 upon this but i just wanted to clarify
44:03 so is berger then going to be providing
44:05 a landscape architect then as their
44:08 element of expertise to this effort
44:10 correct they're assisting the city with
44:12 doing the gaps analysis and uh preparing
44:15 the the the draft for uh the landscape
44:18 chapter the green necklace
44:20 uh you know the parks and open space
44:22 piece
44:24 it may be sprinkled throughout some
44:26 other chapters because those regulations
44:28 may go into but but they're helping with
44:29 this effort initially and then the trees
44:33 are
44:34 are a separate thing um you know which
44:36 talk about retention how much needs to
44:38 be retained what are some details of
44:40 planting what kind of tree permits do
44:42 you need so that's a separate chapter
44:44 and another consultant is helping with
44:46 that but on september 9th we hope to
44:48 cover the green necklace the open space
44:52 and the landscape chapter and the trees
44:59 questions from the board
45:02 you can just raise your hand if you have
45:04 something
45:06 and zach and danielle you don't have uh
45:09 video and so you'd probably have to make
45:12 a ch something in the chat
45:15 so then melissa can pick that up
45:19 any questions or comments from the board
45:28 not seeing anything i guess you covered
45:29 it really well here
45:31 minnie
45:34 i give connie an opportunity if she had
45:37 any interest in jumping in i think this
45:39 might be a an agenda item that she might
45:42 have some
45:46 comment
45:47 indeed i said want to comment please in
45:50 my in my notes
45:54 uh the parks board
45:56 doesn't get a lot of opportunity to try
45:59 to deal in code implementation
46:02 so i don't feel that this is an
46:05 easy ask of the park board
46:11 i want to i want to give you some of the
46:14 tools that i use and some of the things
46:17 that just make me absolutely batshit
46:20 crazy
46:21 about
46:23 the overlap of the
46:25 shall we say natural environment
46:28 on our parks and oddly you get
46:31 landscaping
46:32 so what i do
46:34 is i cruise around town on foot or in my
46:37 car and i look at parking lots and i say
46:41 wow that's awful why
46:43 why does it have no trees
46:46 and then
46:47 you think to yourself what do i want it
46:49 to look like for example look at lazy
46:52 boy
46:53 and you say to about lazy boy why does
46:56 lazy boy have no trees in their parking
46:58 lot
46:59 and then you look at um the new
47:03 roundabout that goes to costco and the
47:06 plantings
47:08 and that whole road section and you say
47:10 to yourself
47:12 it doesn't look like anybody maintains
47:14 this who's responsible for maintaining
47:17 the things that we do plant and how is
47:20 that funded in perpetuity and is it
47:23 written down anywhere that we can
47:25 actually make sure that this actually
47:28 happens
47:29 and then you think to yourself self what
47:32 did jeff's face look like
47:35 when we were trying to figure out what
47:37 the gateway park should be
47:40 and how do we get rid of that grimace
47:44 so that we know every time we have new
47:46 development it is not a battle
47:49 to get an awesome park in facilities for
47:52 those people in a way that is maintained
47:56 and protective of the environment and so
47:59 to me it's a basic swot analysis and we
48:02 don't seem to be doing that in this
48:04 critical area update what are the
48:06 strengths of our town and what do we
48:08 actually do well
48:10 and what do we do
48:12 badly and so how can we make the bad
48:16 things really good and how can we
48:18 leverage the things that we already do
48:20 better but in order to understand
48:22 comments that you might want to make you
48:24 actually have to look around your world
48:27 and say
48:28 is this good or is this bad and if you
48:31 become familiar not necessarily with
48:33 just your parks themselves but with the
48:37 development as it works with parks
48:40 then i think you'll have an easier time
48:42 coming up with suggestions on how to
48:46 make it um
48:48 better
48:50 and and so
48:52 here's here's another little one
48:55 if we have a line of mature trees
48:58 that are going alongside of a road
49:01 should we have a rule saying that we
49:03 must take down those trees
49:06 in order to plant landscaping
49:11 and so how do you make that decision
49:14 and obviously i'm talking about tibbetts
49:16 fell at tibbetts creek park and newport
49:19 way
49:21 um and and these are all the things that
49:23 we go through on a daily basis we have
49:25 some rules saying we don't even need
49:27 trees at all in a parking lot
49:29 we can just use vertical upright
49:31 metallic units
49:34 and that is considered appropriate
49:37 decoration for a parking lot do you
49:40 agree that that is correct should we do
49:43 that um if we're trying to water our
49:46 stuff should we have more pervious
49:47 pavement in our parking lots and
49:50 unfortunately you guys who are parks
49:52 oriented never quite i think had to
49:55 think this way but
49:57 please in order to be able to provide
50:00 awesome information
50:01 try to make yourselves do it every time
50:03 you go out and about for the next month
50:05 and write yourself notes and of course
50:07 shoot them off to your parks people
50:09 because they love it when you do that
50:11 and um
50:12 and i think i'm going to stop there
50:14 because
50:15 i i don't know how else to make it
50:17 easier for you
50:19 but bless your hearts for trying
50:22 thank you
50:23 thank you connie appreciate the insight
50:26 i knew you had i knew you had some good
50:28 wisdom here to bestow upon us here so
50:31 and i think that's a good recommendation
50:33 to at least keep our eyes open as we're
50:35 moving around town here over the next
50:36 couple weeks before we have this
50:38 september 9th meeting
50:41 any other uh jeff you got something
50:45 you have peter in the comment box um
50:47 looking to make a comment if you have a
50:50 second okay
50:51 jeff will do you and then peter
50:55 oh sounds good yeah no i was just going
50:56 to piggyback on on a couple things
50:58 connie said and i think get confirmation
51:01 from minnie and it's an important
51:02 perspective change so title 18
51:05 development rigs are not
51:07 you are being asked to think beyond
51:10 our public parks open spaces and trails
51:12 that's so often what your realm is and
51:15 what our conversations are
51:17 this opportunity to speak into title 18
51:19 and those development rigs really are
51:22 yes they govern our public development
51:24 but it really is that
51:26 perspective of private
51:28 uh development as well
51:31 and so yeah important to sort of
51:34 think of that perspective as you're uh
51:36 as connie suggests looking around town
51:38 observing things and bringing that
51:41 little broader
51:42 private and public
51:44 uh perspective and not just
51:46 uh the public realm that we're so often
51:48 talking about would you agree with that
51:51 minnie
51:52 sure yeah absolutely
51:54 um yeah you know i i think it's
51:59 your you may have expertise in a lot of
52:01 things that
52:03 we are missing out so i think from your
52:05 lived experience yes you may all be
52:07 focused on how to design you know how to
52:10 fund the parks where to design them what
52:12 kind of spaces what the community
52:13 desires
52:15 but the chance through the title 18
52:17 update is to bring that into
52:20 into a reality for the future
52:21 generations because the development is
52:23 not going to get you know produced
52:25 tomorrow i mean you you you design a
52:28 park you build a park it's instantaneous
52:31 you get to see it
52:32 with the development regulations it
52:34 happens over time but it has to be
52:37 planned and thought of uh early so that
52:40 you don't miss those opportunities so
52:42 sometimes these things it takes a while
52:45 for it to come to fruition but but if we
52:47 don't do the planning if we don't think
52:49 of these interplay between these
52:51 different plans uh then we we can miss
52:54 those opportunities
52:58 uh peter you had something
53:02 yeah um this might be a wee bit obscure
53:05 i guess i should say but connie when i
53:07 was listening to her just made me think
53:09 about it as far as like an environmental
53:11 and focusing on climate impacts of the
53:14 future i would really hope that uh we
53:18 think boldly about parking lots as far
53:21 as just not
53:22 requiring them um i this this gets way
53:26 into the weeds i guess on some of the
53:27 carbon footprinting and choices people
53:29 make but
53:31 some cities have higher parking
53:32 requirements and it really limits
53:34 options but i think eliminating parking
53:37 lower parking people are encouraged to
53:39 think of alternate opportunities and
53:41 routes and we already provide stuff like
53:43 the 200 bus which is a free bus we have
53:45 a great transit system built in
53:48 so as far as long-term planning i think
53:50 that really helps lower our carbon
53:51 footprint uh give people alternate
53:54 or opportunities of transit and really
53:56 focus us to focus on how we want people
53:58 to transit around our own city so
54:00 i don't know if it belongs there but
54:02 just like an obscure
54:04 climate change 50-year oriented goal um
54:07 on some very obscure policy choices so
54:11 otherwise
54:12 that's about it
54:15 thanks peter i mean i actually i do
54:16 think that that's applicable i mean it's
54:18 something we need to be thinking about
54:19 in this process um
54:21 and and probably also shows the
54:23 importance
54:25 of connections that we really tried to
54:29 include in the park strategic plan you
54:32 know as the future of moving around the
54:34 city without necessarily having to be in
54:36 a car to do that and
54:39 we haven't really talked too much
54:40 necessarily about transit opportunities
54:42 as a part of that but
54:44 certainly uh walking ability and
54:47 bicycles and that kind of thing is
54:48 something i think we had focused on so
54:51 and i think the whole climate change
54:53 part of it is is something that we need
54:55 to be paying attention to
54:59 any other comments or questions from
55:01 board members
55:05 melissa are you aware of anybody else
55:07 from the community that has come in on
55:09 this i didn't think there would be um
55:14 okay um thank you minnie appreciate that
55:16 presentation gives us a good overview
55:18 and something to think about as we
55:20 prepare for the september 9th meeting um
55:23 and we'll get something more out to the
55:25 board in terms of when that occurs and
55:28 all of that is still a couple weeks out
55:32 and maybe you anticipate that'll be a
55:34 virtual joint meeting and the time of
55:36 that again
55:37 6 30 p.m
55:39 6 30 p.m virtual
55:42 really panels
55:44 we'll get you guys the invite uh sent
55:46 out um so
55:48 and that's primarily between the parks
55:50 board and um
55:52 planning and policy communicating policy
55:54 right okay yeah and a week prior to the
55:56 meeting we'll send you a packet uh with
55:58 some information about what the
56:00 meeting's going to discuss
56:02 okay
56:04 sounds good again thank you so much and
56:06 look forward to seeing you in a couple
56:08 weeks
56:09 thank you
56:10 thank you
56:13 so with that i think we'll move on
56:18 [Music]
56:20 blackberry park and jennifer's gonna
56:23 just a bit of an update and discussion
56:25 on that
56:28 listen can you please make me a
56:30 presenter
56:36 okay that's coming your way
56:38 yep you got it thanks
56:40 hi everybody
56:44 me just a quick second here
56:50 everyone see that
56:53 not yet
56:59 it's
57:00 about now
57:02 all right oh it's coming
57:05 yep here we are okay
57:09 great
57:11 give me just one quick second here to
57:13 get my screens oriented
57:17 so um thank you for
57:21 having me again tonight um blackberry
57:23 park it's been a little bit since we've
57:26 given you
57:27 an update in the last one um so i'm just
57:30 going to kind of
57:32 give you a quick update as to where
57:33 we've been with some of the engagement
57:35 and where we are in the design process
57:42 so as you all may remember blackberry
57:44 park is in the
57:47 south cove neighborhood and
57:51 the recreational facilities that are
57:54 there were built with community
57:56 interest and this park came to the city
58:00 2017 i believe
58:04 for from king county
58:06 and so the play equipment that is there
58:08 does not meet city standards and so
58:10 we've been working with the neighborhood
58:12 to figure out how to
58:14 make some additional improvements
58:17 we started this engagement back in
58:19 february with our first community
58:21 workshop and online survey we had about
58:24 20 meeting attendees
58:27 and
58:28 we got 149 responses
58:31 and the topics of that engagement were
58:33 the different types of play and
58:35 potential materials they would like to
58:37 see within the park
58:40 we met with the design team and
58:41 reconvened with the community back in
58:43 april 28th
58:45 to further discuss
58:48 some design
58:49 options and this was really
58:52 highly attended meeting and we received
58:55 281 survey responses
58:59 the topics of that meeting were more
59:01 themed place concepts with more specific
59:05 play options for people to really react
59:08 we presented two
59:10 themes to the community
59:12 and we received
59:14 pretty clear direction
59:17 as to which way they wanted to go and
59:19 what that was with the casters castle
59:21 being a designed
59:23 the preferred design theme
59:26 as well as they really wanted to retain
59:28 the pickleball courts
59:30 so as you may recall from
59:32 past meetings here's just a view of
59:35 caster's castle and what some of the
59:37 concept looked like
59:40 and then also the little red fish
59:42 concept
59:45 so with all the feedback from that
59:47 second community workshop
59:50 the consultant team has been working to
59:52 create a proposed final design there was
59:54 also in those surveys an opportunity for
59:57 some online written comments as well and
1:00:00 we also receive comments from the
1:00:02 workshops themselves
1:00:03 but all of this feedback is directly
1:00:05 informed the park's design
1:00:08 the design
1:00:10 demonstrates what we can afford with the
1:00:12 current available project budget
1:00:15 and as part of a separate project in
1:00:17 2022 we will resurface the pickleball
1:00:20 courts hearing a high need
1:00:22 from the community to retain those and
1:00:24 also keep them
1:00:26 as a pickleball location because this
1:00:28 neighborhood loves their pickleball
1:00:33 so right now there is an online survey
1:00:35 that is out and it's been advertised to
1:00:37 the neighborhood and if you've not um
1:00:40 i'm so i'm showing you exact pictures
1:00:42 from the survey that's online and we're
1:00:44 really just wanting
1:00:46 feedback from the community since this
1:00:48 is very representative of caster's
1:00:50 castle it's been tweaked a little bit to
1:00:52 fit our available project budget however
1:00:55 we want to make sure we have hit the
1:00:57 nail on the head with the community and
1:00:59 we're really just asking them
1:01:01 did we get it right what other comments
1:01:03 would you have after taking a look at
1:01:06 so here's one aerial view
1:01:08 here's somewhat of another
1:01:10 aerial view
1:01:15 and then kind of a ground view as you'd
1:01:16 be walking through the park as to what
1:01:18 the experience would be we'd have a
1:01:21 couple of swings and a basket swing off
1:01:23 to the left
1:01:25 as you walk in
1:01:27 we've got some logs with some patterning
1:01:29 on the sidewalk
1:01:30 there's some rubberized surfacing
1:01:35 and then we've also got this play gym
1:01:37 with some steppers and some ghost forest
1:01:41 logs and a slide and some other logs for
1:01:44 the kids to play in and
1:01:46 some ropes as well for them
1:01:50 and here's some of the material palette
1:01:52 that we would be using um to kind of
1:01:55 create some of that driftwood look that
1:01:57 you would see you know that beavers use
1:01:59 in their
1:02:00 lodges
1:02:01 as well as kind of the water theme
1:02:04 with the blue
1:02:07 and here's some ideas of the what the
1:02:09 proposed final design um here's some
1:02:12 larger features so you can see how they
1:02:14 might be used um by the children
1:02:17 and so we've got this
1:02:19 survey out right now on the web page if
1:02:23 you go to
1:02:24 issaquah.gov forward slash blackberry
1:02:26 play area you can find the link and the
1:02:29 survey will be up
1:02:31 through the end of this month so august
1:02:36 um so as i mentioned this design is
1:02:39 being shared with the neighborhood
1:02:40 and um
1:02:43 got a nice email list i've been working
1:02:45 with and it's also out on social media
1:02:48 our next steps would be to get any
1:02:51 feedback make any modifications
1:02:54 to the drawing if needed and then create
1:02:57 a construction set of drawings for
1:02:58 permit submittal
1:03:00 the permitting process is likely going
1:03:02 to take us two to four months to get
1:03:04 through
1:03:05 and construction is likely going to
1:03:06 start late this year or early 2022. and
1:03:10 again as i mentioned also the pickleball
1:03:13 resurfacing would also occur
1:03:15 in 2022 as well
1:03:17 and i think timing wise they might align
1:03:20 nicely
1:03:21 further information can be found on the
1:03:24 project webpage there there's the earl
1:03:26 again
1:03:28 and with that that's pretty much my
1:03:30 update as to where we are in blackberry
1:03:35 uh jeff got something
1:03:38 yeah just real quick thank you jen great
1:03:39 great overview i i think just in handing
1:03:42 it off to you brad and park board i
1:03:44 think the opportunity is to
1:03:46 again get any answer any of your
1:03:47 questions
1:03:49 um also just i i think um
1:03:52 uh get a sense if if you all think we're
1:03:55 headed in the right direction
1:03:57 a couple of just overview
1:04:00 i guess comments to this project um
1:04:04 you know you may recall as we ventured
1:04:06 into this understanding
1:04:09 both blackberry and hillside park
1:04:12 understanding the scale of them as
1:04:13 really neighborhood parks walk-in
1:04:16 neighborhood parks
1:04:18 as we think about play we also wanted to
1:04:20 make sure the scale of this play
1:04:23 area and these play areas fit
1:04:25 that we're not intending these to be a
1:04:27 destination a destination park
1:04:30 that generates a lot of traffic it
1:04:31 really is that the service area we're
1:04:33 looking at is that south lake sammamish
1:04:37 so getting their feedback will be really
1:04:38 important um just one addition about the
1:04:42 the project budget and certainly staying
1:04:44 within it focusing the project budget on
1:04:46 play and and
1:04:48 uh that commitment to replacing the play
1:04:51 and then at the same time
1:04:53 recognizing we'll have some 2022
1:04:55 operational dollars to
1:04:58 resurface the pickleball court
1:05:00 to create that
1:05:02 address that need to i think really
1:05:04 helps us leverage our dollars and get
1:05:06 more bang for our buck in terms of
1:05:09 making this park improvement so
1:05:11 would love any feedback you all have on
1:05:14 where we're at and we're getting close
1:05:16 to moving into
1:05:19 final feedback from the neighborhood and
1:05:21 permitting
1:05:24 thanks jeff rubin you have something
1:05:26 yeah it's actually more of a generic
1:05:27 question on all the different progress
1:05:29 going on i noticed that you know all the
1:05:32 new materials the rubberized materials
1:05:34 the different of materials has that had
1:05:36 an impact either
1:05:38 to enhance your maintenance efforts or
1:05:40 people about the same i'm just curious
1:05:43 you know you're replacing one set of
1:05:44 playground equipment with more modern
1:05:46 stuff i wonder what the maintenance
1:05:48 impact is for you yeah in terms of
1:05:50 surfacing options on play it's certainly
1:05:53 become a lot more flexible reuben i
1:05:55 would say um and if kirsten's still on
1:05:57 she could certainly jump on but you know
1:05:59 when you look at the opportunity for
1:06:01 rubberized surfacing
1:06:03 the maintenance that the annual
1:06:05 maintenance is far less quite frankly
1:06:09 wood chips are are workable but the
1:06:11 amount of touch that we have to do
1:06:13 either in replacing adding
1:06:17 wood chips travel too throughout other
1:06:19 parts of the park whereas rubberized
1:06:21 surfacing doesn't so maintenance wise
1:06:23 it's it's more friendly it's also far
1:06:26 more accessible
1:06:27 as we look at really creating accessible
1:06:29 play where we can have rubberized
1:06:31 surfacing or some of these other newer
1:06:33 surfacing that that creates
1:06:35 accessibility for all
1:06:37 uh physical abilities um
1:06:40 that is tremendous
1:06:42 so a big a big added bonus to
1:06:45 a surface like that as well
1:06:47 and one last question
1:06:49 in the design elements um you never see
1:06:52 garbage cans or waste receptacles
1:06:54 i'm just wondering um
1:06:57 i'm sure they'll be there and what that
1:06:58 what that is in
1:07:00 oh yeah they'll be there they're going
1:07:02 to be our standard ones and they're so
1:07:04 routine we didn't even put them in there
1:07:07 you know bear proof ones yes they are
1:07:11 exactly and then just to comment you
1:07:13 know we are going to have a combination
1:07:15 of the rubberized and play chips just to
1:07:18 make the budget but we're going to be
1:07:20 using the rubberized under the swings
1:07:22 where they really tend to um shift a lot
1:07:26 more than the um
1:07:30 more so than with the play chips so
1:07:33 that's really one of those high touch
1:07:35 areas that can really reduce our
1:07:36 maintenance immediately by having that
1:07:38 rubberized surfacing under a swing
1:07:41 versus the play chips
1:07:43 thank you
1:07:45 any other questions or comments from
1:07:47 board members
1:07:51 i'm not seeing any of the people who
1:07:53 don't have video on if you can
1:07:55 somehow maybe send a chat or something
1:07:57 if you wanted to make a comment or a
1:07:58 question
1:08:00 just one question
1:08:02 is the is the plan to completely shut
1:08:03 the clark while the updates are being
1:08:06 made or are you gonna do it in stages
1:08:10 the park would be fully impacted i think
1:08:12 it's going to be the easiest way to do
1:08:14 that because of equipment access staging
1:08:17 areas
1:08:18 removal of
1:08:19 you know
1:08:20 invasive vegetation it is going to be
1:08:22 quite impactful so
1:08:24 it would be closed during that whole
1:08:28 it's such a small park as well it'd be
1:08:31 hard to keep some portion of it open
1:08:34 yeah but it
1:08:35 it's probably a two to three month
1:08:38 process at max
1:08:41 so i have a couple things i wanted to
1:08:43 comment or a question
1:08:45 the surveys those are
1:08:47 those are specific to the neighborhood
1:08:49 right this is not open to the community
1:08:52 is that correct
1:08:54 uh the first one actually was um
1:08:58 we didn't get a
1:08:59 too many responses from outside the
1:09:01 neighborhood and every with every survey
1:09:03 i keep adding
1:09:04 those who provide us our email contacts
1:09:06 i provide them direct um
1:09:09 connection
1:09:10 for future surveys and communications on
1:09:12 the project
1:09:13 but the majority would be people in that
1:09:16 neighborhood though correct correct yeah
1:09:19 and i've been encouraging them to share
1:09:21 which is partly why there was such an
1:09:23 increase between the two meetings um the
1:09:26 neighborhoods really talking about it
1:09:27 which is great
1:09:30 uh i noticed a little hard to tell in
1:09:32 graphics sometimes in the graphics
1:09:34 though all the white logs is that
1:09:36 intended to be
1:09:38 natural driftwood is that what's going
1:09:41 to occur or what
1:09:43 so they are it is a log um
1:09:46 and it just has a white finish on it to
1:09:48 give that ghost um appearance it will
1:09:51 fade in time um and then the wood will
1:09:54 slowly
1:09:56 turn to gray and silver naturally but
1:09:59 initially it's going to be a little on
1:10:01 the whiter side
1:10:03 but then as that fades off
1:10:05 we can either restain it or we can just
1:10:07 let it fade to the gray
1:10:10 yeah i would think natural would be
1:10:14 be better than you know
1:10:15 my only concern there would be white
1:10:17 painted logs probably wouldn't be very
1:10:19 aesthetically uh
1:10:21 yeah it's not a solid white it would be
1:10:23 something that you can see the grain
1:10:25 through it's more like a light wash you
1:10:27 know if you've ever seen paint and water
1:10:30 mixed down where it just kind of changes
1:10:32 the tint of something that's what this
1:10:34 would more be like the rather than
1:10:36 a pure white column out there
1:10:39 and i didn't notice it went by pretty
1:10:41 quickly but i didn't notice anything
1:10:42 about a blackberry patch has that now
1:10:45 decided to just remove that altogether
1:10:48 correct yes it would be removed from the
1:10:52 and that's because the community just
1:10:54 said why keep it
1:10:56 a bit of both um coming to the
1:10:58 realization they are invasive species we
1:11:01 have we did have option to have some
1:11:03 raised garden introduce some other types
1:11:07 budget wise we can't get there but
1:11:08 that's not right now
1:11:10 with the cost of the play elements but
1:11:12 that's not to say that down the road
1:11:13 they couldn't be introduced
1:11:17 other things there were some other
1:11:19 comments too about how we might pay
1:11:21 homage to blackberries without having
1:11:23 blackberries there so
1:11:25 but they would be removed yeah it was i
1:11:28 i would say majority of neighborhood
1:11:29 response was hey we don't need the
1:11:31 blackberries there anymore
1:11:33 we want more field space or play space
1:11:36 so as we tried to balance all of those
1:11:39 yeah the plan now would be remove the
1:11:41 blackberries as is and as jen says if
1:11:44 if there's a desire for
1:11:46 blackberry
1:11:47 picking one month out of the year we
1:11:50 would want to create
1:11:52 we'd want to create it in a way that is
1:11:54 far less invasive um
1:11:56 right
1:11:58 so at some point if we don't add that we
1:12:00 might even give some consideration to
1:12:01 renaming the park
1:12:06 this is yeah
1:12:12 you know honestly that the origin story
1:12:14 of this park really being
1:12:16 the neighborhood built this as as it was
1:12:18 king county property and so we really uh
1:12:22 like all of our parks are stewards of of
1:12:25 the parks for others but um
1:12:27 you know that name has real meaning for
1:12:29 that neighborhood so
1:12:30 i don't think the city would ever take
1:12:32 the lead in initiating a name change
1:12:34 unless the neighborhood wanted to
1:12:38 any change in lands i mean any
1:12:40 additional landscaping like all the lawn
1:12:42 and all of that is that just going to
1:12:43 stay the way it is or is that going to
1:12:46 be updated
1:12:48 we will have to renovate some of the
1:12:50 lawn as part of this just due to
1:12:52 construction activity
1:12:54 but there is no irrigation out
1:12:57 system at the site so um
1:12:59 you know we are going to have to modify
1:13:02 we are introducing trees or there are
1:13:04 none on site right now
1:13:07 and those will be watered with water
1:13:11 until they get set okay
1:13:14 any other comments or questions
1:13:19 not seeing any so thank you jen
1:13:21 appreciate that it's good to have an
1:13:23 update and we'll talk further on that as
1:13:26 things progress probably the next after
1:13:28 the next um survey i assume right
1:13:32 after they after the community looks at
1:13:34 what's out there now okay yeah yep the
1:13:37 survey is out right now through the end
1:13:38 of this month and then we'll collect any
1:13:40 feedback and um hopefully start
1:13:43 proceeding soon uh with our permit set
1:13:46 yeah we'll we'll continue to
1:13:48 provide you updates as we prep for for
1:13:50 permitting and start that process and um
1:13:54 keep you all informed so okay thanks jen
1:13:58 thanks dan sounds good um i guess that
1:14:01 just segues right into wayfinding
1:14:03 jennifer so you're still on the hook
1:14:30 can you hear me yep now we can we can
1:14:35 that's a good thing
1:14:38 all right so
1:14:41 i'm glad we're having this opportunity
1:14:43 to share with you kind of where we are
1:14:46 in the wayfinding and city signage
1:14:54 update what is wayfinding
1:14:57 wayfinding is a system of signs and
1:15:00 visual cues that help people navigate
1:15:02 through a city getting residents
1:15:04 visitors and employees to destinations
1:15:06 such as cities facilities parks trails
1:15:09 businesses schools and transit stops
1:15:12 a successful signage system
1:15:15 provides a sense of identity and a sense
1:15:18 of place
1:15:19 it helps in decision making when moving
1:15:22 throughout the city and it also informs
1:15:24 modes of travel such as vehicles walking
1:15:27 biking and even rolling scootering
1:15:30 these days
1:15:31 um this project also includes signage
1:15:35 city of issaquah gateways facilities
1:15:38 parks open space trailheads trails and
1:15:41 directional signs for vehicular as well
1:15:44 as pedestrians
1:15:48 as part of this design process
1:15:50 pre-coven uh through a rfp process a
1:15:54 request for proposal process
1:15:56 we contracted with kpg
1:16:00 at that time we created a steering group
1:16:02 which consists of many neighborhood
1:16:08 folks including chamber of commerce
1:16:10 downtown issaquah visit issaquah
1:16:13 food bank
1:16:15 department of natural resources arts
1:16:17 commission
1:16:19 park board brads on that and
1:16:22 other folks to help guide us in our
1:16:25 process making sure we're getting some
1:16:27 signage that reflects issaquah
1:16:30 we've also been working
1:16:32 head to internal staff meetings because
1:16:35 as the signage system becomes part of
1:16:37 the city
1:16:38 we really need to be thinking about
1:16:39 maintenance installation costs and
1:16:43 lighting and are we putting the signs in
1:16:45 the right locations for each of our
1:16:47 facilities as well as for visitors and
1:16:49 residents
1:16:52 we also met with the youth advisory
1:16:54 board and had a really fun workshop with
1:16:58 you might remember ryan updating you a
1:17:00 couple months ago about that process as
1:17:02 we were in the month of may doing a full
1:17:06 month of public engagement
1:17:09 as part of that public engagement you
1:17:11 may recall seeing these signs out
1:17:14 they were in 12 different locations
1:17:16 throughout the city and we tried to meet
1:17:18 people where they were at as well as
1:17:20 doing a massive um
1:17:24 survey to the public
1:17:26 and also doing a lot of social media and
1:17:28 promotional e-blasts
1:17:31 we ended up reaching over 11 000 people
1:17:34 with our outreach and this was one of
1:17:36 the biggest survey responses we have had
1:17:39 throughout the city
1:17:41 from those 11 000
1:17:44 touches 25 percent of them proceeded to
1:17:47 the survey
1:17:49 and 1
1:17:50 306 people
1:17:52 successfully completed the survey
1:17:55 our survey was published in english as
1:17:57 well as spanish and mandarin
1:17:59 which is really nice it was one of our
1:18:01 first bigger efforts
1:18:03 to also do that
1:18:06 but these concepts
1:18:09 when we sent out the survey for the
1:18:11 public engagement this was really
1:18:14 as you know with design it is an
1:18:15 iterative process and then the survey
1:18:18 was purposely set up to be more
1:18:20 qualitative to understand what people
1:18:22 liked about each concept than to pick a
1:18:25 clear winner
1:18:26 and we focused on six design elements
1:18:29 for each of the different concepts so
1:18:33 each of the four concepts had a series
1:18:35 of six
1:18:37 items that people could comment on about
1:18:40 the aesthetics whether or not they like
1:18:42 the art
1:18:44 did the colors work well together
1:18:46 the composition the shape
1:18:48 material finish did they like with the
1:18:50 materials and also did the sign itself
1:18:53 reflect
1:18:55 the character of issaquah
1:18:59 some of the additional
1:19:00 of the 1300 comments we received over
1:19:03 600 written comments
1:19:05 a lot of them were yes no thank you
1:19:08 but we did get a lot of additional input
1:19:11 that really focused on color preference
1:19:14 though there was some concerns
1:19:16 about making sure the signs are visible
1:19:18 within our environment we're dark much
1:19:20 of the year as well as we live in a very
1:19:23 green environment making sure that these
1:19:25 signs are legible
1:19:27 both at night when driving but also in
1:19:30 our dark environment when our days are
1:19:32 very short
1:19:34 this is also for residents and
1:19:36 non-residents it's for drivers and
1:19:38 non-drivers but it was also interesting
1:19:41 to see some of the demographics are the
1:19:43 changes by group preference
1:19:46 overall
1:19:47 flora and fauna number one probably got
1:19:50 the highest overall marks
1:19:52 however mountain silhouettes
1:19:56 received a lot of favorable comment as
1:19:59 especially about
1:20:01 the color and also clear
1:20:04 character
1:20:06 and as well as
1:20:07 composition
1:20:09 color also in the topography and
1:20:11 waterways now with the younger group
1:20:13 like the issaquah youth advisory board
1:20:16 they tended the younger generations
1:20:18 really tended to kind of hit this more
1:20:19 modern theme um with that that
1:20:22 simplicity resonating with them
1:20:27 so what we have done through all the
1:20:28 feedback we received from these
1:20:31 different signs knowing
1:20:34 they're all there were good things about
1:20:36 each sign things people liked more than
1:20:38 other things like they may like the
1:20:40 color on one
1:20:42 the composition on one
1:20:44 and which one resonated issaquah and we
1:20:48 worked with the consultant team to
1:20:50 decipher all of that
1:20:52 information into one
1:20:55 preferred concept
1:20:57 and so right now this is our proposed
1:21:00 design
1:21:04 reflects the issaquah alps i'll focus
1:21:07 here on the center
1:21:09 gateway sign this is going to be the
1:21:10 largest of all the sign types
1:21:14 as part of this process we had only
1:21:16 shown the monument signs but there is
1:21:18 going to be a suite of signs for both
1:21:21 major vehicular routes pedestrian routes
1:21:24 regional trails vertical gateway signs
1:21:29 for multi-purpose trails there's also
1:21:31 going to be facility signage park
1:21:33 signage trailhead signage
1:21:37 trailhead signage for more
1:21:40 rural areas versus urban areas so um
1:21:43 but this concept
1:21:45 really reflects the four issaquah alps
1:21:49 uh right here to the left where my if
1:21:51 you can see my cursor it is this is
1:21:54 tiger mountain and then we have squawk
1:21:56 mountain here and then the ridge line of
1:21:58 cougar is down on the bottom and the
1:22:01 grand ridge is over on this side
1:22:06 so we've also have these vertical
1:22:08 signs here and as well
1:22:11 and as a group
1:22:13 we met just last week with the
1:22:16 steering committee again and as we were
1:22:18 looking at some of these cons
1:22:21 sign concepts one of the pieces of
1:22:23 feedback we received is that
1:22:27 hills they loved the shape of the hills
1:22:29 but the color wasn't sitting well with
1:22:32 folks
1:22:33 and also um they felt that there needed
1:22:35 to be more symbology about the city of
1:22:38 issaquah
1:22:39 and these signs are supposed to be
1:22:40 timeless they're supposed to last
1:22:42 generations
1:22:44 because this is a huge financial
1:22:46 investment for the city
1:22:47 but also if the city logo changes how
1:22:50 are we going to do that and how do we
1:22:52 integrate art and make
1:22:55 it this issaquah
1:22:57 while still making it timeless so
1:22:59 there's a lot of things that we need to
1:23:01 balance
1:23:02 as preferences like we said design is an
1:23:05 iterative process
1:23:06 but here you can see we have some
1:23:08 different facility signage
1:23:11 and maybe a smaller sign for up on the
1:23:14 pool but also directional being there's
1:23:16 alternate entrances to some of the
1:23:17 parking lots
1:23:19 we also have our trailhead signage
1:23:23 trail
1:23:24 recreational directional signage and
1:23:26 then more of a ballard system with
1:23:29 universal symbology that might be more
1:23:31 found on the rainier trail and again
1:23:34 some park signage
1:23:38 so right now what we're doing is we're
1:23:40 like i said we just met with the
1:23:42 steering group last week we had heard
1:23:44 some of their
1:23:45 concerns we're also going to be
1:23:49 we met with city staff and we're here
1:23:51 tonight with you
1:23:52 and we're really going to be
1:23:54 taking the feedback received and
1:23:56 modifying the designs
1:23:58 but our goal is to start working towards
1:24:00 a finalized design as i mentioned
1:24:02 sign design and arch is an iterative
1:24:04 process and so we're going to be doing
1:24:08 until we feel we get it right
1:24:11 we will then share it with the
1:24:13 the final concept with the public when
1:24:16 we feel we have it getting right
1:24:19 and we'll create a final way findings in
1:24:22 signage master plan
1:24:24 we will also produce
1:24:27 some prototypes to make sure the
1:24:28 materials are good
1:24:30 one thing i haven't really talked about
1:24:32 is some of these signs are going to be
1:24:33 lit like the gateway signs the vertical
1:24:36 gateway signs and a few of our building
1:24:38 signs may also be lit so how how are the
1:24:41 materials we using going to respond to
1:24:43 light and how could light potentially
1:24:45 change some of these elements as well so
1:24:48 there's a third dimension and as we
1:24:50 start producing prototypes
1:24:52 you know we all have different screens
1:24:54 we all have different monitors things
1:24:56 look flat until things get produced and
1:24:59 are real and you can work with a
1:25:01 production team to dial those in what i
1:25:03 see on my phone versus my computer
1:25:06 may be different than what your computer
1:25:09 reads or looks like so we'll be really
1:25:11 dialing in those colors
1:25:13 textures within the reproduction to make
1:25:15 sure we're getting this just right
1:25:18 and then once we've
1:25:21 done this we'll eventually update city
1:25:23 council there's no plan yet as to when
1:25:26 that will occur again
1:25:27 we want to make sure we get the design
1:25:29 right and then with city council we will
1:25:32 discuss
1:25:33 what the phased implementation plan is
1:25:37 there is in the proposed
1:25:41 or the adopted
1:25:43 22 to 26 capital budget right now we
1:25:46 have a proposed budget of 200 000 per
1:25:49 year but again we'll have to wait and
1:25:52 see if that gets funded through the
1:25:53 budget process
1:25:55 at this time
1:25:57 so with that
1:26:00 i can
1:26:02 take any questions or i also have some
1:26:04 photo simulations to show you how some
1:26:07 of those other sign types
1:26:10 didn't really read well in the
1:26:13 environment
1:26:14 and so i can show you how some of the
1:26:16 proposed signs look
1:26:22 uh reuben see your hand up
1:26:24 yeah i'm just wondering um given you
1:26:26 talked about the investment of the signs
1:26:28 how long they might last
1:26:30 what would be the materials of the sign
1:26:33 great question
1:26:34 we're looking at using
1:26:36 some steel
1:26:37 on some of the more gateway signs but
1:26:40 some of the other signs we're looking at
1:26:42 doing like a vinyl wrap
1:26:44 much like that is done right now on some
1:26:47 of the
1:26:49 utility boxes with
1:26:51 that wrap it's
1:26:53 vandal-resistant
1:26:56 economical it lasts long it's uv
1:26:58 resistant
1:27:00 very easy for maintenance so we're
1:27:03 looking at a combination of different
1:27:04 things depending upon the environment
1:27:07 but um
1:27:09 vinyl overlay would be a lot of the a
1:27:11 lot of the signage
1:27:13 thank you
1:27:14 but then some of the um just to add into
1:27:16 that to add depth and dimension we have
1:27:20 talked about separating some of the
1:27:21 panels with little risers like at city
1:27:24 hall to pro you know it looks very flat
1:27:27 right now but it might have a little
1:27:29 depth and dimension
1:27:37 jeff did you want to
1:27:39 did you have something to say
1:27:42 no i was just scratching my beard
1:27:45 no i do have some photo sim simulations
1:27:48 if the board would like to see how some
1:27:50 of those
1:27:51 other sign types um looked in the
1:27:54 environment i'm happy to show those if
1:27:57 it would and if you don't yeah if you
1:27:58 don't mind maybe as you transition to
1:28:00 sharing i can give a little bit of
1:28:02 overview well some of my observations so
1:28:04 having
1:28:05 sat on on the the steering committee
1:28:07 meeting on thursday
1:28:10 yeah it was really helpful to get their
1:28:12 feedback and thoughts on composition and
1:28:14 content as jen said
1:28:18 color was a really really important
1:28:20 topic and and something that
1:28:22 i think resonated
1:28:25 uh with the steering committee that i
1:28:27 think was really important is um
1:28:30 the core tin collar didn't feel quite
1:28:33 right um that uh though there was
1:28:36 support and sort of reflecting the
1:28:38 hillsides that the alps of
1:28:40 issaquah
1:28:42 we need to try and find a color that
1:28:44 works a little bit better so it's that
1:28:45 kind of feedback that's really really
1:28:47 helpful
1:28:49 and helpful with any observations you
1:28:51 might have tonight as well
1:28:53 i think jennifer is scheduling some time
1:28:56 with the art commission to have a
1:28:57 similar conversation transportation
1:28:59 advisory board so again i just can't
1:29:01 emphasize enough
1:29:03 the iterative nature of this and really
1:29:05 getting multiple perspectives from
1:29:06 residents
1:29:08 both in feedback online but also from
1:29:10 our boards and commissions
1:29:12 um to to really land on something that
1:29:15 feels like it reflects this aqua um
1:29:19 part of this effort and and boy i know
1:29:21 this this desire existed even you know
1:29:24 more than five years ago when i arrived
1:29:26 i i think one of our goals to this
1:29:28 effort too is if we're able to create a
1:29:31 standard for our trailheads our parks
1:29:34 our city facilities in a way the goal is
1:29:36 to declutter
1:29:38 some of the signage that exists around
1:29:40 town we have multiple different
1:29:41 varieties of types of city signs
1:29:44 and public signs so
1:29:46 this would be something as it's
1:29:47 implemented that in a way sort of not
1:29:50 only standardizes but simplifies
1:29:53 city sort of public signage to city
1:29:55 facilities
1:29:57 over time so with that jen take it away
1:30:01 and thank you for that jeff you know i'm
1:30:03 planning on going to the arts commission
1:30:04 on the 13th still working on scheduling
1:30:07 the tab and then you know we'll
1:30:08 definitely reconvene with the steering
1:30:10 group again until we get this right
1:30:13 so with that i'm going to quick
1:30:15 whoops
1:30:17 hold on i'm sharing the wrong screen
1:30:20 holding i see any hands from anybody
1:30:22 here to make comments or questions
1:30:24 before we move
1:30:26 danielle
1:30:28 go ahead danielle
1:30:30 yeah thanks um
1:30:32 a couple comments um one is i think that
1:30:36 i i like to propose the current
1:30:38 rendition of um the signs a lot better
1:30:41 than the four options that were six
1:30:43 options or whatever it was um before
1:30:45 so i think that we're making good
1:30:46 progress i do
1:30:49 agree that to me
1:30:51 those
1:30:53 those hillsides or the the alps should
1:30:54 be green um it just seems like it would
1:30:57 speak more to this across character so
1:30:59 i'm glad that you're hearing that
1:31:00 comment as well
1:31:01 um and then i have a question with
1:31:03 respect to um
1:31:06 kind of making things simple for people
1:31:09 to see
1:31:10 um i noticed that on one of the signs
1:31:13 that you showed it had um perhaps some
1:31:16 like visual images about what was
1:31:19 maybe on that trail or i we flipped
1:31:21 through it pretty quickly but i was
1:31:22 wondering if there's a
1:31:24 thought as to add
1:31:27 you know images as to what's in a park
1:31:29 like for example like a restroom or
1:31:34 a picnic shelter like that type of stuff
1:31:38 yeah so for a lot of the directional
1:31:40 trails we'll be identifying you know
1:31:42 whether or not you can
1:31:44 take a horse on it can you do a bike and
1:31:46 some of those things and in our parks
1:31:48 like confluence park prime example we
1:31:51 can put one of those ball trail ballards
1:31:53 out there and with a directional sign
1:31:55 restroom going this way so people would
1:31:57 know where those are going we'd be using
1:32:00 um universal icons um for that so yeah
1:32:04 most definitely it helps simplify and
1:32:07 guide
1:32:08 um people
1:32:09 so yeah so great i love that idea um and
1:32:12 then i also
1:32:14 i have mentioned this a few times but i
1:32:16 think that
1:32:17 um before and i know this is a long-term
1:32:20 project but before
1:32:21 we actually um have the signs i think
1:32:24 some we really need to look at our
1:32:26 naming convention again at our current
1:32:28 parks because i think that
1:32:31 if we have a more standard
1:32:33 naming convention that also will help
1:32:35 identify and
1:32:37 simplify kind of for people
1:32:39 you know what type of park they're
1:32:41 encountering you know whether it's just
1:32:44 a space to sit or it's a trail head or
1:32:47 whether it's an active recreation park
1:32:50 or playground neighborhood park so
1:32:53 i'm just going to put that right in
1:32:54 again
1:32:56 great point and we've had that
1:32:58 discussion internally as well
1:33:02 chris is that it daniel yep chris
1:33:08 i think i saw your hand chris
1:33:10 yep and so in looking at these you can
1:33:12 see how
1:33:13 the core 10 coloration is
1:33:16 attractive but not representative and
1:33:19 crasting with
1:33:21 backgrounds
1:33:23 but still not representative looks more
1:33:25 like sedona or something like that
1:33:28 and then uh
1:33:30 but then if you look at the greens
1:33:33 natural colored greens it
1:33:35 lost a little bit so i was wondering if
1:33:37 maybe there's a chance to do a
1:33:39 almost like a core 10
1:33:41 shadow element behind it
1:33:45 help draw your eye to it but then
1:33:48 pick what the representative
1:33:51 dark greens
1:33:53 thank you for that chris i'm going to
1:33:54 quick walk through these photo
1:33:56 simulations so you can see why
1:33:59 there's elements of the green sign that
1:34:00 were really drawn out and are
1:34:02 represented in the final concept but you
1:34:04 can see how they really aren't showing
1:34:06 up well in our landscape
1:34:09 so here's some monument and gateway
1:34:11 signage and some vertical
1:34:13 gateway signage along
1:34:15 city entrances and regional trails
1:34:21 here in the parks and at julia's bone
1:34:25 it really just gets lost with our
1:34:27 surrounding
1:34:30 environment and we really need these to
1:34:33 be seen to help provide you know
1:34:35 vehicles with direction
1:34:38 so these are some of the things that the
1:34:40 steering committee was working with sign
1:34:42 concept 2
1:34:45 it reads a little better in the
1:34:46 environment which is likely why it
1:34:48 received a favorable color
1:34:53 process
1:34:54 but again people weren't recognizing uh
1:34:57 really relating to mount rainier and two
1:35:00 we're also not wanting to look like the
1:35:02 issaquah alps trails club
1:35:05 logo either you know we as a city need
1:35:07 to be independent have our own image
1:35:11 and though their logo is great um very
1:35:15 wonderful
1:35:16 we just need something different for the
1:35:18 city itself
1:35:20 we get a lot of legibility on these
1:35:22 darker signs
1:35:24 for directional purposes
1:35:29 again the rest doesn't really do
1:35:32 terribly much for those
1:35:34 again that sign concept 3 really
1:35:36 resonated
1:35:39 with folks but there's a lot of concern
1:35:41 again about legibility but knowing these
1:35:43 gateway signs were lit
1:35:47 they don't really do much in some of
1:35:49 these other situations and
1:35:51 understandable these could be various
1:35:53 materials have different element of
1:35:55 shine or glisten to them that would make
1:35:58 them stand out more but
1:36:00 overall you can just tell
1:36:02 good way to see how legible something is
1:36:05 is to squint at it and if you squint at
1:36:07 it and it disappears then it's not very
1:36:09 legible
1:36:12 and then sign concept 4
1:36:16 had quite a bit of visibility when this
1:36:18 got a nice favorable
1:36:22 color combination response but people
1:36:25 didn't really get this topography and
1:36:27 waterways um
1:36:28 concept
1:36:30 so um
1:36:31 i think people didn't it didn't really
1:36:33 hit home with a lot of folks but you can
1:36:36 see how the blue becomes a little more
1:36:37 legible within the landscape the letters
1:36:40 pop a little bit more
1:36:42 as well as the corten as you were just
1:36:44 mentioning chris having that ax having
1:36:46 that as an accent rather than more of a
1:36:49 main theme
1:36:51 be a way to go
1:36:53 one thing we are considering doing as
1:36:55 part of these
1:36:56 signs and you can see here is these
1:36:59 directional signs is carrying the color
1:37:02 down the post
1:37:03 to let you know hey this is a city
1:37:05 informational sign
1:37:10 and then here are some of the proposed
1:37:15 designs photo sims so you can see how
1:37:17 these would relate in the actual
1:37:19 environment
1:37:21 as well
1:37:25 and like the julius bloompool one that
1:37:27 would have lighting on it just due to
1:37:29 the hours
1:37:31 up on the building itself
1:37:34 so you can see how these read in the
1:37:36 natural environment a little bit
1:37:39 the blue definitely stands out against
1:37:41 the green on this vertical gateway
1:37:44 having the brown kind of offsets with
1:37:46 the vegetation at the bottom
1:37:49 so a lot of a lot of design elements and
1:37:52 characteristics and so all of your
1:37:54 feedback
1:37:55 is really helpful in helping us
1:37:57 hone this in i think one question i have
1:38:01 to the board is
1:38:03 do you feel like colors aside do you
1:38:05 feel like
1:38:07 the the trees and the hills and the
1:38:10 shape
1:38:12 how does that sit with you um
1:38:15 well i you know i'll speak in in the
1:38:17 sense that um
1:38:19 certainly i don't see the color being
1:38:21 appropriate i've mentioned that it's too
1:38:24 southwest oriented um and i understand
1:38:27 the green is a challenge it may have
1:38:30 something to do with bordering or
1:38:32 some way of dealing with that so that
1:38:34 the entire sign is not green like some
1:38:36 of those earlier ones
1:38:38 to me the the you know i like the
1:38:40 silhouette of the alps i think that
1:38:42 that's a great representation
1:38:46 the silhouette of the trees at the base
1:38:49 is fine but the problem from what i from
1:38:52 my perspective is the hills look barren
1:38:55 again almost like southwest so so if
1:38:58 there's a way of introducing some
1:39:00 silhouette of
1:39:01 forest
1:39:03 forested hills rather than
1:39:05 you know plain more barren hills i think
1:39:08 that would be a greater representation
1:39:10 of this aqua
1:39:12 you know the challenge you know frankly
1:39:14 i do like the color combination artfully
1:39:17 the problem is i don't think it's a good
1:39:18 representation of the city
1:39:21 and and that's that's the challenge to
1:39:23 get accurate
1:39:25 and you know i'm not sure just yet
1:39:28 you know the best way of doing that but
1:39:31 you know i think it's getting closer
1:39:32 with the colors i do have a little bit
1:39:34 of challenge with some of the blue you
1:39:36 know we've
1:39:38 you know i know that we're kind of
1:39:39 heading in that direction a little bit
1:39:41 for visibility but
1:39:43 you know blue has an awful lot of
1:39:45 different shades to it and it's really a
1:39:46 matter of zeroing in what the best shade
1:39:48 is going to be and we need to make sure
1:39:50 it's not looking like walmart and that
1:39:52 would be
1:39:56 yeah and so because i remember the
1:39:58 amount of feedback we had with with
1:40:00 atlas apartments and a lot of objections
1:40:03 when that went in and we just need to be
1:40:05 careful that
1:40:07 that we don't have that kind of thing
1:40:08 going on
1:40:10 yeah actually blue is one of the colors
1:40:12 in the city style guide we have like a
1:40:14 taupey color an orangey color this blue
1:40:18 and a brighter green which is um almost
1:40:20 too bright that it's trendy um that if
1:40:23 we're trying to look at signage um
1:40:26 would not last uh 20 30 40 years
1:40:30 which is really what we're striving for
1:40:32 is to find that right color that is
1:40:34 representative of issaquah
1:40:38 meets our currently branded style guide
1:40:41 but also
1:40:43 pushes the envelope for for the future
1:40:46 and becomes that timeless element that
1:40:49 we need in the system because this is
1:40:51 going to take many many years to
1:40:52 implement and it's a big lift and we we
1:40:56 definitely want to make sure we're
1:40:57 getting it right
1:40:59 so it's a great comment about shades of
1:41:01 shades of blue bread i think jane
1:41:03 crickman if i'm wrong in this case this
1:41:05 this shade of blue is the one for our
1:41:07 style guide if you went to our city
1:41:09 webpage
1:41:10 and scroll down there's some
1:41:12 kind of fun art with um
1:41:15 topography art with the
1:41:17 silhouettes of the of of the alps that's
1:41:19 in the same shade of blue on our on our
1:41:22 web page so there is some continuity
1:41:24 this blue is
1:41:25 reflected elsewhere in in city um
1:41:28 communications and signage
1:41:30 yeah and jen could you talk a little bit
1:41:32 about um you know i know there was a lot
1:41:34 of discussion earlier on about um
1:41:37 wildlife
1:41:39 our old emblem was you know salmon you
1:41:42 know we had talked about that and you
1:41:45 could talk about why wildlife is no
1:41:47 longer kind of a part of it
1:41:50 again
1:41:51 part of
1:41:52 some of the reason as as we were looking
1:41:54 at comments there were things about oh
1:41:57 yes the fish but know the fish and it's
1:41:59 our logo and should the logo change
1:42:03 we also as we look um
1:42:07 on let me go back to this other screen
1:42:13 not necessarily should the logo change
1:42:15 jim but if if the logo changes the logo
1:42:18 changes yes because
1:42:20 this one
1:42:22 it happens all the time but as we look
1:42:25 so we substituted the trees as part of
1:42:27 that artful element as well as somewhat
1:42:30 of the composition
1:42:31 knowing that it is the intent if you
1:42:33 look at these directional signs over on
1:42:36 the left hand side of the screen there's
1:42:38 this little shape at the top
1:42:40 we hope to work eventually with an
1:42:43 artist to help work with the community
1:42:45 in the different neighborhoods to be
1:42:47 able to put
1:42:49 a neighborhood
1:42:50 symbol or sign up there and we felt that
1:42:53 there might be opportunities within the
1:42:55 various neighborhoods to come up with
1:42:56 their own creative
1:42:59 concept and if by not putting it on the
1:43:01 sign it left that for particular
1:43:04 neighborhoods perhaps to come up with
1:43:06 their own like the creative arts
1:43:08 district can put their logo up here as
1:43:11 we are going to be putting
1:43:13 a small emblem on
1:43:16 some of these signs that say city of
1:43:18 issaquah down here that's going to have
1:43:20 the fish on here
1:43:22 so it is going to be there but just not
1:43:24 as a massive um
1:43:26 piece like before because there were
1:43:28 some people that were relating to it
1:43:29 some that weren't and so we really are
1:43:31 trying to just hit that
1:43:34 hit everybody in this in this design so
1:43:42 uh other comments from the board i don't
1:43:45 i'm not seeing everybody so it's hard
1:43:47 for me to know if somebody has to add or
1:43:49 wants to add something
1:43:52 uh reuben you got something
1:43:54 yeah um brad you mentioned uh the one
1:43:57 design you didn't care for because it
1:43:58 didn't have it didn't show like trees in
1:44:00 the hills
1:44:01 but when i look at these signs i see the
1:44:04 ridges
1:44:05 have some kind of a
1:44:07 texture to them that indicates trees to
1:44:10 maybe we're looking at two different
1:44:11 signs i can't tell yeah i think it's
1:44:14 just in some respects it just may be
1:44:16 washed out by the coloring this uh this
1:44:18 to something
1:44:20 the rough edge which to me indicates
1:44:23 sort of a forest type
1:44:25 right right yeah right and that's what
1:44:27 this does the
1:44:30 the kind of the tiered faded color on
1:44:32 there it does have that kind of
1:44:35 sticky top
1:44:36 yeah yeah i think reuben how we
1:44:38 interpreted both brad's comment and
1:44:40 again it came up with some other
1:44:42 steering committee members is how do we
1:44:44 how do we emphasize that these are
1:44:46 forested hillsides you know how do we
1:44:48 make sure that in whatever sign type it
1:44:50 is it really
1:44:52 reflects
1:44:53 we're not just celebrating hill
1:44:55 silhouettes of hills but these are you
1:44:56 know it's forested hillsides that is um
1:44:59 so much of what is about
1:45:02 and how and how can we possibly
1:45:05 integrate you know the green issaquah
1:45:07 initiative into this focus somehow
1:45:10 without washing out the color of green
1:45:13 you know because that that is a problem
1:45:14 that we had with it but
1:45:17 to not have any greenness
1:45:19 although i see the trees in the bottom
1:45:21 there look like they may have a little
1:45:23 bit of a texture of the earth color of
1:45:25 that so i mean i think that's
1:45:30 you know i think it's heading in the
1:45:31 right direction
1:45:33 with color or some additional
1:45:35 silhouetting um
1:45:37 what's hard too brad is you know
1:45:39 when you look at mountains and you look
1:45:41 at a series of mountains they actually
1:45:43 get kind of grayish
1:45:45 blue purple fade out
1:45:47 when they're dark green like that they
1:45:49 get this like
1:45:50 and and that doesn't really reflect well
1:45:53 um also
1:45:54 graphically on this and so
1:45:57 you know try and make it look like it
1:45:59 really looks it um
1:46:02 you get that legibility thing coming in
1:46:04 too so it's it's been a fun process to
1:46:08 play with i have to say
1:46:13 uh other comments or questions from the
1:46:16 board on this i know we've still got
1:46:19 several steps yet to go on this and
1:46:23 for clarification on timeline that i
1:46:25 understand you're planning to have the
1:46:28 done by the end of the year
1:46:30 it's our goal yes um but you know if we
1:46:32 need more time to dial this in we'll
1:46:34 definitely take what time is needed so
1:46:37 you know we're at the a really critical
1:46:39 point right now to
1:46:42 finalize these designs i mean
1:46:44 hearing that everyone's
1:46:46 relatively happy with the hillsides and
1:46:49 the trees and the shape
1:46:51 you know that's a lot of
1:46:53 the design right there so i think we're
1:46:55 getting close
1:46:58 so yes we'll definitely come back to you
1:47:00 and come back to the steering committee
1:47:03 before we take this out to the public
1:47:06 comment and i saw a note from melissa
1:47:09 danielle you had something further dad
1:47:16 danielle
1:47:21 danielle
1:47:22 no no that was my hand was raised from
1:47:24 earlier okay okay
1:47:27 any other comments from the board
1:47:30 uh brenda i see your hand up
1:47:38 i can't hear you
1:47:46 melissa you
1:47:48 are you able to unmute her i just did oh
1:47:51 thank you uh what i was noticing of the
1:47:53 signs i really don't like the brown
1:47:55 hills that does look very southwestern
1:47:57 to me but when i look at the
1:47:58 perpendicular signs uh
1:48:03 they show a very nice silhouette of
1:48:05 trees and i can see mountains in the
1:48:07 background that have
1:48:09 that appear to have trees on them so
1:48:11 that's it looks more issaquah this other
1:48:13 looks like foothills of the desert right
1:48:19 well i'd like to hear that we're having
1:48:21 consistent comments so that's really
1:48:23 good and they're not all over the place
1:48:27 thank you
1:48:29 that's good feedback
1:48:31 and i didn't know if connie was still
1:48:33 with us and had any comment or not i
1:48:35 think she may have had some input but i
1:48:38 don't know if she's even still with us
1:48:47 not hearing anything i well
1:48:49 they they wouldn't let me yet okay there
1:48:51 you are we hear you go ahead you have to
1:48:54 unmute me so we went to the effort of
1:48:56 looking at um
1:48:58 the national park signs right and so
1:49:02 what we noticed with the national park
1:49:04 signs
1:49:08 uh the trees are much larger in the
1:49:11 foreground
1:49:13 and so part of
1:49:16 this is
1:49:19 we don't really experience issaquah
1:49:22 this far away the trees are very close
1:49:26 and the hills are a little distant and
1:49:28 so part of it is that perspective
1:49:30 and then of course if you border it in
1:49:33 white
1:49:34 you're gonna see the green pop
1:49:36 if you border in a different color and
1:49:38 the green is on the inside then you will
1:49:40 still see the green
1:49:42 it's only when you
1:49:44 have the green be the whole sign and
1:49:47 that's
1:49:48 that's
1:49:49 what the other one was
1:49:51 and so
1:49:52 if you've ever tried to make campaign
1:49:54 signs in issaquah you soon learn the
1:49:56 tricks of how to make things visible uh
1:50:00 from a car
1:50:01 now having spoken to many people when i
1:50:04 had my store about getting lost in
1:50:06 issaquah
1:50:08 um this does not address
1:50:12 people being lost in issaquah and i was
1:50:14 interested
1:50:15 to hear that part of the
1:50:18 definition of success was
1:50:22 getting people to businesses for example
1:50:25 this doesn't seem to do that at all so
1:50:28 i'm not exactly sure
1:50:30 how this plan is meeting its definition
1:50:33 of success this seems to be only getting
1:50:36 people to
1:50:38 city owned
1:50:40 items and saying welcome to issaquah and
1:50:43 and so
1:50:45 for me people are confused they don't
1:50:47 know whether they're on the north side
1:50:49 of the freeway the south side of the
1:50:51 freeway they don't know what the zero
1:50:53 out street is going east and west and
1:50:58 our signage gives them no guidance
1:51:02 in figuring out how to negotiate
1:51:04 issaquah
1:51:05 unless we live here and we just know but
1:51:08 so many of the people are coming off of
1:51:10 i-90 they've never been here before or
1:51:12 maybe they were here once five years ago
1:51:14 and they have no idea where they are and
1:51:17 so then they just go because they can't
1:51:20 what they thought they knew
1:51:22 and so i don't see that that solves that
1:51:25 enormous tourism problem which was one
1:51:29 of the reasons that we
1:51:31 had this whole sign initiative
1:51:36 10 years ago 15 years ago 20 years ago
1:51:38 same conversation
1:51:40 so um
1:51:42 i think that this conversation needs to
1:51:45 be expanded again to something larger
1:51:48 to how to have a successful sign system
1:51:51 in issaquah that serves all those
1:51:54 purposes
1:51:55 so i don't
1:51:56 i i don't see that this does that now
1:51:58 again y'all are the parks board so it
1:52:01 makes sense to have this conversation be
1:52:04 about how to get to
1:52:06 municipally owned
1:52:08 items but
1:52:09 you left me that opening with your
1:52:11 introduction so i took it and
1:52:15 there you go so i agree with what
1:52:16 everybody else said
1:52:18 and i hope to see changes rather than
1:52:22 just going with the
1:52:24 what you proposed and the other thing i
1:52:25 didn't understand
1:52:27 is uh
1:52:29 what the budget is how much you've spent
1:52:31 how much more you have to spend how much
1:52:33 you're going to ask the city council to
1:52:35 understand how many signs one might get
1:52:38 in a fiscal budget year
1:52:40 because the reality of how long this is
1:52:42 going to take is a huge thing and i want
1:52:44 to see the money and we're just working
1:52:46 on making a budget right now
1:52:48 and so if the parks department wanted to
1:52:51 do an ask
1:52:52 then they would know what to ask for and
1:52:54 they could get behind doing some budget
1:52:56 asks what you guys need to do this year
1:52:58 oh i'm off topic again so
1:53:01 i can hang up okay thank you connie for
1:53:03 your input we'll consider those items
1:53:06 jeff did i see you have a hand up
1:53:10 yeah i'm looking at i'm looking at the
1:53:11 clock though and and want to respect
1:53:13 that clock i can follow up with connie
1:53:15 on on those on those points okay
1:53:21 so i think that's it that's a good
1:53:22 enough time for a wrap on that thank you
1:53:24 so much jennifer for giving us an update
1:53:26 and the board will hear more as we
1:53:28 fine-tune this along the way here so
1:53:30 stay tuned
1:53:32 appreciate everybody's feedback brad
1:53:34 thanks for that
1:53:37 so onto reports and we'll
1:53:39 we'll make it quick
1:53:41 i'm up first here on reports and um
1:53:45 i have a couple things and i'll just
1:53:47 touch upon them
1:53:49 we had talked about maybe having
1:53:52 meetings in person next month that isn't
1:53:54 going to happen
1:53:55 uh you know covet has
1:53:59 arrived once again here and so we're
1:54:01 going to have to probably stay virtual
1:54:02 for the next few months maybe november
1:54:05 we'll see
1:54:07 but for now
1:54:09 we're going to be staying virtual
1:54:12 we didn't really
1:54:15 utilize this tonight but
1:54:17 in part because i kind of wanted to talk
1:54:19 about it first jeff and i talked a
1:54:21 little bit about introducing a new
1:54:25 alert system to each agenda item
1:54:29 as you have seen some of the agenda
1:54:31 items blackberry and wayfire had a d
1:54:34 a to them we're going to
1:54:37 kind of
1:54:38 refresh things a little bit to the point
1:54:40 where when we see d a that means that
1:54:43 we're still in the process of moving
1:54:45 things along
1:54:47 and the discussion is about that and the
1:54:50 a is kind of the
1:54:53 a board giving somewhat element of
1:54:57 support
1:54:59 you know a step-by-step process so that
1:55:02 we're not just
1:55:03 getting to the end and having you know
1:55:05 one action item and that's it we can
1:55:08 maybe have a few action items along the
1:55:12 of the process
1:55:14 uh and it's good for the board to kind
1:55:16 of step forward to say yeah we agree
1:55:18 with the process and then it's moving in
1:55:20 the right direction or something along
1:55:22 those lines so just be on the lookout in
1:55:25 the future we'll we'll maybe add some
1:55:27 more action items for our discussions
1:55:29 you know to show
1:55:31 the support from the board on on
1:55:33 whatever item that we might be talking
1:55:35 about
1:55:37 so i wanted to just clarify that um
1:55:40 real quick like i attended a cokety work
1:55:42 group meeting on july 28th it was a
1:55:44 quarterly meeting
1:55:46 things that really apply here in
1:55:48 issaquah is herrera is currently going
1:55:50 through a design process of laughing
1:55:52 jacobs creek
1:55:55 there's a restoration process underway
1:55:57 with tibbetts creek between uh trout
1:56:00 unlimited in this nequalmy tribe
1:56:03 there is
1:56:05 i can't even read my notes here at this
1:56:07 point oh there's a aquatic weed control
1:56:10 going on in lake sammamish
1:56:12 a pretty substantial effort of partly
1:56:15 studying the impact of aquatic weeds on
1:56:18 the impact of the lake
1:56:20 uh so a good bit is happening uh with
1:56:22 that by trout unlimited uh as well
1:56:25 uh and the last part of that from the
1:56:28 kokanee group was
1:56:30 we talked about the uwrp urban wildlife
1:56:33 refuge partnership
1:56:34 it's getting much closer to getting some
1:56:36 visualization for the community
1:56:39 there was a two-year funding effort
1:56:41 they're very close now to having that
1:56:43 completed and once that's now done
1:56:46 uh you'll be hearing a lot more from
1:56:50 they're already showing themselves a
1:56:52 good bit now on facebook
1:56:54 i also attended uh the
1:56:57 climate action plan on july 28th
1:57:00 i won't get into any details of the only
1:57:02 thing they wanted to say is there's
1:57:03 going to be a next quarter or next
1:57:05 meeting in october the intention is to
1:57:08 have a draft of that plan
1:57:10 by december so that that can then move
1:57:13 forward next year
1:57:16 last item that i wanted to talk about is
1:57:18 a task force that were that the city is
1:57:21 putting together
1:57:25 basically
1:57:26 [Music]
1:57:31 capital improvement funding efforts
1:57:35 moving forward
1:57:37 and so we're there's going to be a
1:57:39 three-month process from september
1:57:40 through december
1:57:42 uh where this task force from all
1:57:45 various different uh departments
1:57:48 and boards and commissions are going to
1:57:50 start talking about some other efforts
1:57:53 to get
1:57:54 funding
1:57:55 implemented
1:57:56 and so i'm going to represent the board
1:57:59 with this task force that we'll be
1:58:01 meeting a couple times a month
1:58:03 through the end of the year
1:58:05 but i wanted to introduce a subcommittee
1:58:08 essentially with the board to get a
1:58:09 little bit more feedback from the board
1:58:12 rather than just me talking in this task
1:58:14 force of actually getting some
1:58:15 additional support
1:58:18 and ideas from the board itself
1:58:21 uh and so i would like to get a
1:58:23 subcommittee put together and i'm asking
1:58:25 for volunteers
1:58:28 to do that
1:58:29 we'll talk separately in terms of what
1:58:32 that might mean as i foresee it it's
1:58:35 really going to just be
1:58:37 sharing the information as it comes
1:58:39 available so that you can at least see
1:58:41 it and provide some input to me
1:58:43 and the subcommittee we can decide on
1:58:46 what meetings and how many you know i
1:58:49 don't see a lot of meetings quite
1:58:50 frankly i just want to have some other
1:58:52 people within the board engaged in this
1:58:55 process
1:58:56 so that we can actually have you know
1:58:58 more of a
1:58:59 a collective effort to some extent in
1:59:01 terms of what information that we
1:59:03 provide to the task force
1:59:05 so with that being said is there anybody
1:59:07 that would like to volunteer for a
1:59:10 subcommittee
1:59:11 for this
1:59:14 i'd be happy to do that thank you
1:59:16 danielle
1:59:17 i was looking hope hopefully looking
1:59:19 forward to that
1:59:20 yep i'm looking forward to that it's
1:59:22 been a long time coming so yes i know
1:59:25 pretty exciting project yes anybody else
1:59:28 on the board like to join us for this
1:59:29 effort
1:59:33 reuben thank you reuben
1:59:37 anyone else
1:59:47 going once
1:59:49 we have a small group which is fine
1:59:52 going once going twice
1:59:56 okay thank you reuben danielle
2:00:00 and zach i see stepped in here i
2:00:02 appreciate that zach
2:00:05 we got three and i think that between
2:00:06 the four of us that makes a really nice
2:00:08 subcommittee
2:00:09 and i'll get back to all four of you
2:00:11 here as we get closer to getting more
2:00:13 information from the city as this task
2:00:15 force gets put together but thank you
2:00:17 for that and we'll talk further
2:00:19 uh ryan you're up next sorry to kind of
2:00:22 shorten the time a little bit but we
2:00:24 always look forward to hearing from you
2:00:27 thank you brad um jennifer i just want
2:00:29 to give props to you on the sensory play
2:00:31 at blackberry park from my
2:00:34 experience as a camp counselor the
2:00:36 especially the five-year-olds they
2:00:38 really love to touch things while they
2:00:40 were at camp after spending so long
2:00:41 indoors so i really love to see the
2:00:43 inclusion of that
2:00:44 um in the plan so great job with that um
2:00:47 in terms of these advisory boards work
2:00:50 uh we don't meet in the summer so we
2:00:51 haven't done anything since the last
2:00:52 meeting but in terms of stuff going on
2:00:54 this week
2:00:55 we have a meeting with jeff on wednesday
2:00:57 which we're all very excited about to
2:00:59 sort of talk about uh the structure of
2:01:01 the board our our mission statement and
2:01:03 sort of see
2:01:06 how we want to move without going
2:01:07 forward the board's been around i think
2:01:09 this is our 26th year of the youth
2:01:11 advisory board and so
2:01:13 uh sort of reevaluating how we did
2:01:15 during the pandemic and what our life
2:01:17 was like before that and seeing if we
2:01:18 want to sort of
2:01:20 merge those two models we use together
2:01:23 and also just get to know each other
2:01:25 since this is the first time with some
2:01:26 of our new members
2:01:28 and then we also have a meeting with the
2:01:30 human services
2:01:32 department on thursday to go over their
2:01:34 strategic plan since they wanted some
2:01:37 youth input on that and that is all i
2:01:39 have for the advisory board
2:01:41 thank you so much ryan appreciate it all
2:01:43 your help
2:01:46 so jeff it looks like you're wrapping us
2:01:47 up here for the evening and
2:01:50 i will wrap it up quickly
2:01:52 yeah no ryan hey i'm looking forward to
2:01:54 that sitting down with you it's advisory
2:01:56 board too it's going to be uh fun and
2:01:59 brad thanks for highlighting the
2:02:01 uh that capital uh funding long-range
2:02:04 capital funding task force group and for
2:02:06 stepping up and representing the board
2:02:07 and and
2:02:09 the rescue board members um having a
2:02:11 subgroup to lend support and that'll be
2:02:14 i think really really helpful so
2:02:16 great to see that taking shape
2:02:18 um as brad said we're we're gonna be
2:02:20 back to virtual for a while it was sure
2:02:21 nice seeing you all at um hillside park
2:02:25 and and meeting with our our neighbors i
2:02:27 honestly really like that format and i
2:02:29 hope that maybe in future summers um
2:02:32 maybe as opposed to taking tours of
2:02:34 multiple parks let's let's go visit our
2:02:36 neighborhoods and get out to the
2:02:38 community uh that could be a really fun
2:02:40 format so i'd love to to brainstorm that
2:02:43 um as we as we move forward um with
2:02:47 us going back to ritual um yeah and and
2:02:51 our goals is really doing our part in
2:02:53 getting rid of the delta variants um
2:02:56 with the state mass mandate our
2:02:58 recreation facilities as of today are
2:03:00 back to
2:03:01 mass required while you're inside the
2:03:03 community center or senior center or
2:03:05 pickering barn
2:03:07 and all of our programs and services
2:03:08 that go with that we want to continue
2:03:10 and we're ready to certainly adapt our
2:03:13 programs as needed to make sure they're
2:03:15 safe spaces for our residents
2:03:17 um our last summer concert of the season
2:03:19 it's hard to believe our eighth concert
2:03:21 is tomorrow night
2:03:23 um i'll be there to give a big thank you
2:03:25 to the to the audience they've been
2:03:27 extremely well intended
2:03:29 also with guidance and i'll say this
2:03:32 this is going to be recorded so no one's
2:03:33 seeing this live but if you're planning
2:03:35 on attending
2:03:37 please bring a mask
2:03:38 i'm going to encourage all the audience
2:03:40 as as the state has done for outdoor
2:03:42 events on outdoor concerts uh let's mask
2:03:45 up and and try and be smart and and
2:03:48 enjoy the concert but but certainly
2:03:50 protect ourselves and protect one
2:03:51 another
2:03:52 last item i have is
2:03:54 we opened up reopened
2:03:56 um central park pad three in our turf
2:03:58 replacement project uh late last week uh
2:04:02 jennifer great job on that project
2:04:04 kirsten and the park operations team
2:04:06 were really instrumental in giving us
2:04:07 feedback on that
2:04:09 you all were instrumental in that so
2:04:12 a shout out to brad and i wanting to
2:04:14 have this d
2:04:16 model i think the turf conversation if
2:04:18 you recall that earlier this year was a
2:04:19 great example of that
2:04:21 really giving you an opportunity to give
2:04:23 us advisory action items
2:04:25 but but the discussion we had to really
2:04:28 pivot away from crumb rubber we now have
2:04:32 opened up central park pad 3
2:04:34 with a pure organic 100 organic infill
2:04:38 with cork and sand
2:04:40 it's going to be real exciting to see
2:04:42 what kind of feedback we get from the
2:04:43 users please go up and walk on it i
2:04:46 think you'll be surprised in a couple of
2:04:47 a couple of points it's much cooler
2:04:50 and it doesn't smell like less schwab
2:04:52 tires as you're as you're walking uh on
2:04:55 the field as well so
2:04:56 um again i think just a great example of
2:04:59 providing great amenities for the
2:05:00 community but also
2:05:02 doing it in a much more environmentally
2:05:03 friendly way so
2:05:06 just again thanks for your feedback and
2:05:08 and helping to inform that project and
2:05:11 exciting to get it open for the
2:05:13 community
2:05:15 that's it
2:05:16 thank you jeff appreciate that
2:05:18 anybody have any announcements or other
2:05:20 business they wanted to bring up
2:05:24 not seeing any we ran a few minutes over
2:05:26 thanks for
2:05:28 uh joining us this evening and uh
2:05:30 and hanging in there and so
2:05:33 we'll do it again next month or and a
2:05:35 reminder that something will come out
2:05:37 shortly uh
2:05:39 about the september 9th special meeting
2:05:41 with uh ppc
2:05:43 i appreciate everybody that can join us
2:05:46 on that would be helpful so
2:05:48 uh with that i appreciate uh everything
2:05:51 and uh meeting is adjourned
2:05:54 thank you
2:05:56 all right everyone all right