City Council - Committee Of The Whole

afternoon everyone let's go a and get started uh we've got a fairly packed agenda this afternoon so I want to get move in here and respect everyone's time we have uh several items for the committee of the whole this afternoon the first one is Wacom County Health and Community Services response systems division presentation on diversion programs program data and Collective impact this will be a presentation from health and Community Services response division response systems division regarding the implementation and launch of the alternate Response Team the annual reporting on the ground level response and coordinated engagement with the grace program uh law enforcement assisted diversion uh also known as let everyone Advance with dignity or the lead programs and here to take us through is malora Christensen the response systems manager welcome hi good afternoon thank you so much for the opportunity to share today um my name is m Christensen I'm the response systems manager and the response systems division is part of wcom County Health and community services so we've been a division in the county for the past two years and today we're going to cover three of our diversion programs one of our newest programs the alternative response team and look at some program outcome data for both Grace and lead I wish we had a lot of time today and we could talk about all of our programs um but I would love to come back at some point and talk about mental health court our new co-responder

program and our street medicine program today's presentation is going to be highly focused on program data outcome uh I want to recognize that this presentation just on these three programs could be 3 plus hours long if we were able to dig into how our programs are operate the evidence-based practices that we use and being able to elevate the experiences of the folks we serve talking about the science of addiction behavioral change and the impacts of homelessness extreme poverty and trauma but we're not going to do that today we're going to talk about the collective impact of some of these programs and what that's having on the larger system of emergency and crisis our direct service programs work to improve the health and well-being of the individuals we serve while reducing their interactions with emergency and crisis Services we do this through providing person centered low barrier care that is effective compassionate and coordinated our other focus is to build bridges that improve communication and coordination between the Continuum of Care if the system of care can work if a warm handoff is effective from say EMS to the hospital hospital to a housing provider if that is effective then the burden on the system is reduced while the care for the individual is improved we do this system improvement work through building trust between many stakeholders that make up our larger system of care we do this the old-fashioned way we listen we're curious we try to understand what the

barriers really are and we create real connections between our partners this is a public health approach to Public Safety one that centers the response and interaction in showing up and doing our best to provide interventions that address the root causes of an individual's experience so in this very very busy slide you can see that we don't do this work by ourselves system transformation work is system coordination work we are so fortunate in this community to have tangible Partnerships willing to do this hard work alongside us just here in the chamber today we have quite a few response system staff and other Community Partners if you all just want to give a [Music] wave these folks show up every day to do uh what many might think is impossible inside of a fractured system when we don't always have what we need in this community and I just want to thank all of you and I also want to thank the council and the mayor and other leaders in this room for being willing to support this Workforce so we're going to talk about the alternative Response Team Art is a law enforcement version program the program responds to nonviolent specific Behavioral Health calls in the city of Bellingham instead of law enforcement um art has just completed its pilot year in 2023 and we spent the first months hiring working on Logistics how we were going to communicate what technology we needed what data collection we needed and then really focusing on our Partnerships with Bellingham Police Department

and watcom 911 starting in July of last year in 2023 art was at full operations responding to 911 calls in the city of Bellingham the program operates Monday through Friday 8:30 to 5:30 and the daily team consists of two Behavioral Health Specialists responding to appropriate 911 calls and an embedded Community Connector at watcom 911 so when a when a 911 call comes into um The watcom Dispatch Center the team does a really incredible job right away determining is there a fire or a medical concern if so within seconds that call goes to our Prospect Dispatch Center run by Bellingham fire and if there isn't a medical or fire concern that call stays at wcom 911 and those dispatchers are working with all the law enforcement agencies across wcom County and I do just want to take a moment to thank our dispatchers at both watcom and Prospect these folks do incredible complex work and I'm so grateful that for the Excellence that they bring to that so when art is operating Monday through Friday 8:30 to 5:30 the the dispatchers are working with the art Community Connector to determine if the call should be transferred to art or stay in the law enforcement dispatch this is done through a series of safety screenings and if appropriate the call is transferred to the Community Connector who sends out the art team and then uh would also support them while they're on scene uh the embedded Community Connector position as far as we know is really the only of its kind in Washington state right

now um and that that embedded model is possible because of the partnership with watcom 911 so a logic model for those that like this so art program staff respond to Diversion calls from 911 so that we can provide immediate assistance to people experiencing a crisis so that the response matches the individual need system burdens are reduced and then when we think about the large population Health outcomes so that people have access to the support services they need and people feel safe in their community so this is the first six months of art data that we have to look at again they were fully operational starting in July so in that 6-month period art took 830 calls out of the 911 system and of those 830 769 were Unique Individuals served of those calls 72% of the time art was able to connect with the person experiencing a crisis and that other percentage 12% of the time art was unable to locate the individual 8% of the time the call was canceled but what really stands out here is that only 1% of calls did do we need to have a backup with law enforcement or transfer the call back to law enforcement at wcom and many um people in this room were part of the stakeholder process when we were thinking about what would art need to look like and how would we keep this civilian team safe um and I I think this really highlights that what we have um stood up in this first 6 months we are sending the team to appropriate calls for two Behavioral Health Specialists so on average art spends

15 minutes um getting to the call and being able to respond and then spending an average of 45 minutes to an hour on scene with the person experiencing a crisis and these two metrics really highlight what art is adding to the community response we know that when someone calls 911 the caller is hoping for a rapid response and we also know a 911 call is often regarding a Community member that has unmet needs who's in crisis who maybe needs shelter or a meal or someone to talk to so looking at the types of community connections that art has made with these calls um no one will be surprised to see that shelter and housing Behavioral Health Services uh detox and crisis triage services and connecting to our homeless Outreach team are among um the largest numbers um when we talk to our staff about the gaps that they see in the system um they also highlight you know continuing lack of resources in housing and shelter and access to Mental Health Services day of and to substance use disorder treatment and I just want to say that even though we know that our system of care locally doesn't always have what we need right in the moment uh art is an example of providing a response that has the flexibility and training to support an individual in crisis who might need to access services so art gets on scene they deescalate the situation they support bystanders if needed they problem solve the immediate crisis for the person connect to services provide transportation if needed and then can

also make referrals to other services like race and Lead uh detox mental health services so I asked our partners how art is impacting their work and uh deputy director Allison everbeck said wacom's partnership with art is an absolute win for our agency and our community before crisis calls were labor intensive and a source of frustration for dispatchers who knew the resources we had to send were unlikely to solve the problem art staff are experienced collaborative quick to respond good what they do and so caring it is comforting knowing the person in crisis is receiving a timely appropriate and compassionate response and then I asked the same question of Chief Rebecca merzig and she said art is a great example of wam County Leading The Way with Innovation and finding long-term Solutions it is a meaningful and effective use of resources and allows our officers to handle more emergent calls for service I have received over overwhelming positive feedback from our First Responders in our community when the art program was originally designed this is some good news um it was to be funded by a 5050 split between the city of Bellingham and wam County and thanks to our legislators we have received three years of State funding from the state to launch this work along with an association of Washington City Grants and have not yet had to use local funds for art we do know that local funds will be needed and that 5050 split um uh will will be what's coming we will also continue to look

at other funding sources um as they become available so I would just say in closing about art uh it has been really exciting to see the program come to fruition to have such a big impact even in just the first six months of taking calls um and this year in 2024 we will continue to build on the partnership with BPD and watcom and we know that the embedded Community Connector position is really a key component to this model and we're going to continue to explore what that what that position could provide for the first responder Community thank you for your support of this program I am going to transition now because we have two more programs we're going to look at um we obviously really love our acronyms here in WAM and Bellingham um so Grace stands for ground level response and coordinated engagement lead has two names uh law enforcement assisted diversion and then just in the last year a second name was adopted nationally which is let everyone Advance with dignity so these programs are similar yet unique Grace focuses on high utilizers of EMS the hospital lawn enforcement and our legal system we've been operational since 2018 and we are really fortunate to have embedded intensive case managers at Bellingham fire at Bellingham Police and one with Ferndale fire excuse me Grace intensive case managers work with participants to address the root causes of the high utilization and support them out of cycling through crisis and into stability Grace was really one of the communities

for first steps into co-response and diversion work and Grace like all of our programs was created through a community engagement process that continues today Grace is funded 40% by city of Bellingham and 60% by wam County and the grace is current Grace program is currently a staff of six lead focuses on individuals who are well known to law enforcement and the legal system and have a history of low-level law violations stemming from uh untreated mleth health challenges homelessness and extreme poverty the lead program launched in 2020 and the lead Team Works closely with legal system and Social Service Partners to move participants out of the legal system and towards stability like all of our programs uh we're focused on serving individuals but also impacting the system that the participants are engaging with so the lead program impacts our local legal system by bringing those legal system Partners together on a regular basis to coordinate referrals and services lead is funded 100% through State and Regional funding no local funds are currently used to support this program and Lead is currently a staff of nine so we partner with other agencies to conduct Outreach and enroll people in case management services so that we can create individual support plans to help people navigate challenging life situations so that we have less EMS usage less police interaction less time in jail better quality of life reported better health comes and again that big population outcome so that

people have access to the support services they need and that everyone feels safe in their community so this is looking at program participants um over the past four years lead started in 2020 um and as you can see every year we've been able to increase capacity in that program uh Grace program numbers have stayed pretty consistent uh the 2020 numbers reflect a slight change in our services at the beginning of the pandemic with race and ethnicity Grayson lead participants mostly mirror the demographics of the County uh the wam County population is 86% white um 80% of Grayson lead participants are white um the other 20% served in Grayson lead were people of color in 2023 and the wam County indigenous population is 3% uh this group makes up 8% of the people served in these programs in 2023 quickly age um you'll see that uh lead tends to serve a younger population from 19 to 35 where Grace uh tends to serve older adults 45 years and up so this slide is an attempt to capture the complexities of the individuals that we serve in our programs the folks that we have the opportunity to walk alongside are struggling with a variety of life challenges uh this can range from coping with severe mental illness living outside with almost a complete lack of basic needs being met struggling with addiction broken families complex medical conditions extreme poverty and social isolation Grace and Lead are meant to serve the most vulnerable in our community and these beautiful and messy humans are

also full of dreams and goals and each of them have a story our job is to connect with that individual figure out what is at the root of what's going on and start to take steps towards health and stability uh you'll see that mental health is in the top two of both programs it's the number one risk factor for lead and uh with age and disability being the number one risk factor for Grace um just a quick stat uh for Grace about 50 to 60% of participants entering the program are experiencing homelessness whereas lead 80 to 90% of uh people being enrolled in the program are experiencing homelessness and we know that when folks are cycling through emergency and crisis Services there is a financial impact to our community um and that's what we're going to look at today uh the red highlighted risk factors represent uh our emergency and crisis Services which are provided throughout Wacom County and our large part of our government budgets okay so we want to understand the collective impact of our programs and we want to be able to quantify the impact to understand if it's uh having an impact on the crisis system as well as the individual So today we're going to be looking at how it's impacting the system and health and Community Services is really spending a lot of resources on our data collection and data infrastructure um so with the help of our health informatics and assessment team we have been building a data in inter sorry a data infrastructure that's uh needed to understand

this Collective impact um in our plat in our platform gelada uh we look at Community Partners that allow us to build a a data interface um so that we can analyze their data with our program participants so uh currently we have three of these in place so EMS jail stays and jail bookings uh the next year we'll be building additional data interfaces to include the 911 CAD system Bellingham Police Department longarm system the Wacom County Sheriff's Office Spillman the hospital and the prosecuting attorney's office so this really is just the beginning of the analysis that we want to be able to do so we'll be looking at program cohorts and comparing their time before the program and The Time After exiting the program um so 12 months before enrollment and 12 months after exiting the program so we're asking um is there a change in their utilization and did we make a difference through this intervention so this is for lead looking at two years and their EMS interactions so again lead was not designed to be focused on people who are high utilizers of EMS but we know that across our programs people are touching lots of different emergency and crisis systems 2022 cohort had 281 EMS contacts prior to enrollment and 23 in the 12 months after exiting the program in 2023 a larger cohort because the program was expanding 798 contacts in the 12 months before enrollment and only 70 After exiting the program so across those two years lead participants had a 92 per % reduction in EMS contacts

looking at these two cohorts we're switch to Grace and again Grace is specifically looking at people that are high utilizers of EMS and other systems see this reflected in the numbers 2022 cohort had 1,600 EMS interactions before and only two a little over 200 After exiting the program and the 2023 cohort although smaller size uh had almost 3,000 EMS contacts in the 12 months before enrollment and almost 355 After exiting the program so an average annual reduction of 87% so we're looking at jail bookings same formula but now we're looking at lead participants with the 22 and 23 cohorts in these two years we see an 83% reduction in jail bookings for lead participants that have completed the program so we can also look right now at total days spin in jail again we see an impressive reduction in total days in jail when we compare the 12 months prior to 12 months after exiting the program a 92% reduction so as I mentioned before as we're building this data infrastructure we're building these interfaces that talk the data systems talk to each other so right now we don't have that in place with law enforcement and other agencies yet but through the partnership with BPD we have been able to do some preliminary analysis and so we were curious when someone is enrolled in the lead program for more than 6 months do we see a reduction in the amount of times that BPD officers interact with them so with this specific lead cohort we compared 12 months prior to enrollment with the amount of

times BPD has interacted with folks after they had been in the program for 6 months or more and we see a 67% reduction in BPD interactions after someone has been in the program so we're going to do a little bit of math so in order to think about the cost diversion or of cost avoidance that these programs support we have to make the behavioral prediction that if there were no inter if there were no intervention for these individuals that the utilization of emergency and crisis Services would continue at a similar rate so if we agree on that then we are able to calculate the avoided or diverted cost to the community when an individ ual receives the appropriate care it's important to remember that cost aversion and cost avoidance is not cost savings so just with the three data sets that we have installed so EMS jail bookings and days in jail we assign a dollar amount to those um so $55 for jail booking 221 for a day in jail and over 5,000 for an EMS ride so we can take this calculation and apply it to the Grayson lead cohorts that we just reviewed so you'll remember from an earlier slide that lead participants show a 92% reduction in potential costs associated with jail and EMS so looking at three years of data with just these three data sets we see a cost diversion of over 3 million so with Grace we have 5 years of program data to analyze and again we're looking at EMS and jail information we see an annual average of an 85% reduction across these years with just those three

data sets we see over $16 million in cost diversion and this does not include hospital stays this does not include law enforcement interactions um or the cost of legal system I think this data also shows that these efforts allow our emergency and crisis services to be free to be available as First Responders and that increases public safety U so I just want to say something that I said at the beginning which this is a public health approach to Public Safety we're pretty encouraged by these numbers um and this an analysis confirms what we already know from our clients which is that when we have the ability to show up and meet people where they're at when we can address the root causes of their crisis when we can bring the provider Community together and creatively problem solve and when we can stick with people even when it's doesn't seem like it's working uh we know that Grace and Lead participants and other programs in our community are helping individuals not only stabilize but Thrive and as I said before we're talking about data today but I'd love to come back and have the opportunity to talk about the human stories that this data reflects um so in closing I just want to say that our community system of care is strong in spite of structural barriers that we have we're getting better as a system following the evidence of what interventions work and we're strengthening that system by listening to each other by respecting each other and figuring out where action needs to

happen um this is really a glimpse of not just our work but of our community strength and when I was talking about Partnerships before and that we don't do this alone you know we're able to look at the data of these specific programs and we see that it's working but it's working because we have a Continuum of Care and we have a system that is not afraid to say why isn't that working how can we figure this out how can we put our heads together and our resources together and I'm really really proud to be a part of this um so thank you for your time and I am happy to answer any questions thank you for the present presentation Miss Christensen committee members questions council member hman um I've been really excited for this presentation um this is Art Grace and Lead are just such amazing programs in our community and know that there was a lot of hope that these programs would um do what was intended and and seeing these outcomes is just absolutely outstanding um the the just those numbers of course the the individual stories of people and their success is um to be celebrated but also just the the numbers when it comes to the costs avoided are pretty spectacular um it and just highlights what an amazing uh return on investment these programs have um both for the lives that they improve but also for um for spending our public dollars wisely uh it's it's incredible um one question that came up during the presentation for me was the for the the art the 1% of calls that are

diverted back to law enforcement can you give examples of what might lead to calls being diverted back to law enforcement I could but we also have some amazing experts in the room so if if uh director everbeck is willing to talk about that I will defer can you hear me no Okay so most commonly the reason for a call being sent back to law enforcement would be some sort of safety hazard whether that's the presence of weapons that were previously unknown or if someone becomes more aggressive than they had been perceived to be when we originally diverted the call away from law enforcement if the person starts making threats to harm themselves or others and the responders on scene believe that they will follow through with those threats then they would back away or if there's been a crime committed that law enforcement needs to investigate any other questions go ahead council member um well I want to begin by thanking you for the presentation it's made my day um this deserves to be Front Page News four years ago none of this existed uh I think the rout for a lot of it began with the community's decision to vote down the jail initiative twice because it was just a jail initiative and beginning uh with the uh incarceration reduction prevention task force and other efforts um there was concerted effort to figure out what it is we wanted the public and we all wanted instead this is what we wanted instead and so there was work by you and by other people to get it off the ground now it

is off the ground and it's delivering exactly the results we wanted not only do I want want this to be front page news I want them to quote you a public this is a public health approach to Public Safety I think that's what we heard there was a lot of rhetoric and protests in the street and concerns and and and sometimes some very negative rhetoric but if you listen they were asking for something and I tried to put it into words myself but these are think the words I was looking for people were definitely concerned about public Public Safety but even the law enforcement knew that they weren't the tool but that was the tool we saw the public trying to use this is the tool we wanted this is the approach we wanted I really if you're listening out there press I really want this to be uh on the front page I do have a question um I thought I understood the dis differen between all the programs but now I'm not sure I do uh for example you said you want to come back and talk about a co-responder to program yet is is the art not considered a co-responder program and then art also referred to mcot which is the county I think mobile crisis Outreach team I thought that was a co-responder like program um so what is this co-responder program I don't yet know about and um why would art refer to mcot because I kind of thought of them was already very similar can you help me understand those differences yes absolutely uh you know what you're touching on is that we already have a pretty robust

system of care in wam County that these programs have been added to and they're confusing uh a lot of people here in this room navigate those systems every single day and they find them confusing so I think one of the challenges that we continue to kind of run up against is how do we communicate to the the public what's available on how they access it the alternative response team was a huge step in that direction which is is someone calls 911 they don't need to know who mcot is who Lake walkom Center heart team is how to get a hold of the homeless Outreach team right they're calling 911 because they have a concern and then the 911 team now with the Community Connector position is able to say you know what that sounds like an art call or let's let's take that and ask the mobile crisis Outreach team to go instead because it's more appropriate call for them and so it's really a a move for our system to be able to say let us triage the call as opposed to the community needing to know I keep I always reference this I met a downtown business owner probably three years ago who had a spreadsheet of all the different programs and what days they worked and then they'd be like it's Tuesday at 900 p.m.

who can we call right that point it was 911 um and so I think like this is all an effort to make sure that we get the right response when there's a crisis in the community so the mobile crisis Outreach team is part of our Statewide crisis system every county has an mcot like team um and but they're not attached to the 911 system right you access them through calling the Volunteers of America crisis line or 988 and providers in this room understand that but I see your face and I recognize again that the the larger Community doesn't understand the nuances of that so what having the Community Connector at dispatch is allowing us to do is saying let's let that happen inside dispatch to figure out what would be the right Community Based response and I think we'll see in the next year an expansion of that team now um in the response systems division we have six diversion programs today we're talking about three we just launched a co-responder program with the sheriff's office so we have Behavioral Health Specialists that are partnering with the behavioral health deputies responding to 911 calls and supporting communities um across wam County uh we have a mental health court uh which therapeutic Court run both a municipal court and district court and then we recently launched a street medicine program uh with our nurse practitioner and an RN and that's all very new work and so I'd love to come back at some point and talk about that as well thank you uh council member Anderson thank

you um thank you for the presentation I too was looking forward to seeing what the numbers would look like um speaking of numbers I'm thinking of capacity um with art being relatively new I I have questions on all three so with art um are we finding that we're getting where we can perhaps dispatch more often than we're capable at any given time because of resources so some of those other situations may not be able to be appropriately um sent through ART um and then also uh with Grace and leads since those are enrolled there's a certain amount of Staffing and system capacity um I'm just wondering are we able to meet um the needs of all those who are referred to those programs or we in a situation that we're at capacity and so some of those referrals are not going forward and if you have any idea what that Gap might look like for service are we not meeting the needs of 200 referrals a year because we don't have capacity um yeah thank you for the question so I'll start with art I would say that we are not yet overwhelmed with calls and I think that is also part of the launch that we did which was thoughtful and let's make sure we're not sending out a team to calls that would be inappropriate so in this next year in 2024 I mean we'll really be looking at that um how are are there calls that are staying in dispatch that actually would be appropriate for art and how do we do that analysis that's really kind of The Next Step um the other question for us is does this need to be a

7-Day a week program um that would be an expansion of staff for us and program capacity but I I again just want to say that all of our programs I we know the need is great and we also want to make hiring and program development decisions that are going to work for the community and so that does take a little longer than maybe some would like um and so in this next year will I I hope by probably July we would kind of have a decision does art need to be expand expanded to be and this is the program that it is or are we good with a Monday through Friday program and even in Seattle their um uh police-based co-response program is Monday through Friday as well so we know our First Responders and dispatchers who are working 247 uh the question is how do we match that in the in the right way so we'll be looking at the data for that um with graceon lead um lead has expanded almost every year and that has to do with um the legislative dollars that have been connected to the Blake decision um so lead is very much connected to what the legislature continues to decide uh uh based on Blake um we are receiving additional dollars this year and we'll be able to expand the program by another two staff um it's a question of how big do we get and how do we maintain the quality of services that we want to provide we do have a weit list in lead and we do have a weight list with Grace uh Grace because we look at high utilization right someone might be seen by EMS eight times in the six months

before we engage you know what if that number could be lower right what if we could do more Upstream prevention work to make sure that someone doesn't get labeled as a high utilizer that's all work that needs to happen and I just when we talk about expansion I know it would be helpful for me to say we need four more people and this is how much it's going to cost but what we really need is investment in the larger infrastructure because we don't have places for people to go where they can access the services that really address the root causes then we can do great intensive case management the community paramedics can transport people we can right there's so many things we can do but if we don't have somewhere for them to be where they can stabilize we still see there's an impact and it's positive but often that takes a lot of time um and it would be great to be able to um start to make those very strategic Investments across the system so both uh for the alternative Response Team you mentioned that the average excuse me the average response time is about 15 minutes um which someone's in crisis might feel like a long time is is there conversation about ways to shorten that response time um or is that does it seem like a sufficient am um acceptable amount of length of response time yeah I I mean I think we would always love to think about how do we um reduce that time um again I think as we see the program get more mature I anticipate that number to maybe go down a bit because

we are this is really just the first six months of operations and although you know I I think there was still a lot of learning during that time um where the team is located is an option um you know uh are they based out of somewhere or are they mobile non-stop waiting for that call so I think there's a lot of things to consider and we'll be looking at that in the next year Stone thank you so much for the presentation also just for um the expansive reach of team members who are working on um and in coordination with these programs so one thing that was surprising to me was related to the art numbers when it said 830 calls right and 769 Unique Individuals served so I just want to make sure I'm understanding that correctly that those are as you said not the same people right and so I would expect more I guess repetition when we're thinking about um just the need in the community when you feel like people are in crisis and that whether or not that's how long that stabilization right lasts and you know the need for um continued support so that was surprising to me one of the things was um looking at what council member hutman was just asking I was curious about whether the new Public Safety right office downtown if that was right a possible networking opportunity where that might help reduce response times for art in particular and so along those lines my real question was was whether we have any data regarding sort of geographical data about where those calls were coming from or

where those individuals were located when those 911 calls were were made because I'm just curious if we see any patterns there yeah that's I I will let uh director everbeck touch on the geographic piece I don't know if that's something that we're able to look at and then I'll answer the other question I don't have specific numbers for you I certainly can get them I have looked before at how much what percentage of the calls diverted to Art are in the downtown core because that has specifically been an area of concern and question for various people over time I was surprised to find that there isn't a majority of calls in the downtown Corp it's really pretty spread out throughout the community and I think that's because we're not just responding to issues with people experiencing a loss of or lack of housing it's a variety of issues it's w checks on elderly family members it's checking it on someone who may be suicidal so there are a lot of other interactions that you might see outside of the downtown Corps as well and then uh with the downtown Public Safety Office our our two Grace intensive case managers that are partnered with Bellingham fire has have been relocated there and so um that's their office at this time um and so a slight shift to Grace during this six-month pilot is that 40% of the time those teams will not be doing intensive case management but will be available to to respond to overdose calls in partnership with EMS um so still very early so we're waiting to

kind of see the data on that but yeah committee further questions okay seean I'll take a turn here here real quick um kind of get over time a little bit but I think it's important to acknowledge a couple of things one is um the folks that are in the room the people that are the responders to the calls that put in the work uh within the systems thank you for the work that you do it is very much appreciated and I know that a lot of the work is um kind of it's not seen by the public at large so thank you I wanted to acknowledge that um second um a lot of work went into these programs to develop them and get get them off the ground uh Grace if you if you connect the dots Grace was first lead was second and then art was third and a lot of people including people in this room were part of that development and I think what's unique um for me is that I've traveled to a lot of communities and talked about Behavioral Health items and this this type of work and what I see is that Bellingham and wam County are very unique in that we've um our approach is to to go head-on with these with these issues and the thing that works for me the most is the partnership between the county and the city and um a lot of these um a lot of the service calls are in Bellingham yet it's housed at the county and so that partnership is super super important and I want to make sure that we continue that and that we value um that partnership um I've always believed that if you can you should and if you should

you must and I think that that's what we that's what we do in this work so thank you for coming today and thank you all responders on the in the audience today uh with that we'll go to the next dig item thanks Mora sure sounds great I know some of my colleagues need to leave and I will not be offended if you leave during my presentation sorry about that next item is wam County Health and community services update an annual report presentation uh Wacom County Health and Community Service uh Director Erica lottenbach welcome will provide an update on the Department's current projects and we'll present the 2023 annual report floor is yours thank you I may have seen M's presentation last week and uh Tyler Scher pulled rank made me go after her instead of him so here I am I I can't I can't uh say it's going to be quite as compelling as M's presentation it's pretty phenomenal but uh but I do want to give you a little idea about what we uh what we've been up to the last year and what's coming in 2024 we produced our very first annual report which you all have a copy of now um that has some of these highlights but I want to go over a few things and just ground you a little bit in in our Ever Changing department and so I'm going to just start with our department overview I have some of my colleagues here that I can introduce as well um that you may not have met so we have community and organizational development and that is um run by our manager Dr Lynette Bennett who's in pink

raising her hand there uh and that's our data and information team so when malora was talking about all the data and informatics and assessment that went into that that is uh that's um lynnette's team that is that's doing that for our entire department and really um really trying to think about these complex systems and breaking them down uh she also manages our Partnerships and strategy team which is Communications policy Equity Workforce Development and emergency preparedness some of those crosscutting um components of our department um moving on Community Health and Human Services and backck waving there uh she has a very uh Broad and diverse division which includes our nurse Family Partnership Food Systems housing and homelessness developmental disability veterans substance use prevention children with special Healthcare needs and uh her team is responsible for administering the healthy Children's Fund so a lot in that division as well our communicable disease um I our manager of that team shmika Brooks couldn't be here today but uh her team in addition to the sort of communicable disease things that we talked about for years um at this very In This Very place um they uh they manage um our syringe services and harm reduction program uh they work with I said this the wrong way but they're very active in sexual health and um STI prevention and treatment work and uh we also uh see all of the latent and active TB cases in the county as well as due tuberculosis screenings for

uh new refugees in the county and our tuberculosis doctor is right there Dr Harley uh one of our two Health officers and then our environmental health programs um include and um Sue I think was coming late because she had another meeting but that includes solid waste and recycling programs food safety so all the uh restaurant inspectors uh school health and safety we have dedicated resources to support schools and um living environment on-site septic drinking water and um and also working on uh mitigation of climate change um our financial services let's see oh yeah there's Sabrina H our financial services manager who uh who keeps um our very large budget um uh running along all of our contracts we have over 300 contracts coming in and out all of various funding sources um and um and making sure that that all moves smoothly and our response systems um you've heard from Mur and that's her Division and then we have um our leadership team so um as you know I'm the director and then we have our co- Health officers Dr Greg Thompson and Dr Amy Harley so that is that's us now um which was very different than a few years ago and uh if you're a visual person this is our sort of rolled up orc chart so you can see kind of how it all fits I want to talk a little bit about our budget um and I want to thank you for that purple slice of the budget uh city of Bellingham there uh but I but I just kind of want to talk a little bit about some of the the largest uh this largest pieces of the pie

so tax revenues um are our largest single funding source that includes uh the developmental disabilities millage the veterans millage uh healthy Children's Fund the behavioral health sales tax uh two different housing funds um 1406 and 1590 um and then some some small sort of um miscellaneous tax revenues that we receive uh the second largest and I broke it into two so State uh is both that that large red slice as well as the lime green slice and the reason why I broke it into two is because uh foundational Public Health Services or fphs is uh is an attempt by um a very successful attempt by the legislature over $324 million Statewide in supporting Health departments and our State Health Department and so the goal of this is really to uh level the plane field so no matter where you are in in Washington state no matter how small larger County there are certain uh there are certain Baseline level of expectation and Staffing that all those Health departments have to make sure to uh to sort of level the plane field no matter where you live that you have access to uh services for good health and uh and that is now a full 7% of our overall County budget and just to give you a sense this is about a $60 million budget so it's a very large chunk and um and at this point um and it sort of varies between 5 and 6% but at this point our County's general fund is only 5 to 6% of our budget so 90 four to 95% of our budget is through outside funding sources grants um and um and state and

federal funding as well so um as well as some fees fees for service Etc so uh so we we work very very hard to try to be um to try to be poised for new funding opportunities and try to be Innovative in the ways that we work so we can retain those those outside funding sources okay and just a little look back up high many of you were very involved with our strategic planning process and I appreciate this uh the five PS Drive our work so promoting Health through policy and systems Improvement preventing disease and injury providing accurate and reliable health communication and information preserving a healthy environment and preparing for and responding to emergencies and of course overarching all of this is advancing equity and partnering with Community none of this work we could do without uh our wonderful Community Partners and our elected officials and um City and County government and that this is our strategic plan for 2023 to 2027 and these are our four uh overarching strategic priorities Community Partnership and engagement really bolstering that uh in a postco era and um in finding ways like malora talked about to to dig into systems understand why they aren't working and work with Partners to address them and improve them organizational infrastructure that's really the nuts and bolts of making sure that that our infrastructure is meeting the needs that we have for program goals for growth for Staffing Etc and then Workforce Development we think about this not only

internally to our department but also really for the community if if our housing providers or our Behavioral Health Providers or Human Services providers are struggling with Workforce that hurts our whole system and so really how do we bolster those efforts and create pipelines work with higher ed uh have internship opportunities more broadly uh and make sure that people who want to work here can um and have opportunities and also that uh providers are are well staffed and supported and then last quality management a lot of that work that you saw in M's presentation is really this this orientation to how are we doing okay are we doing well do we have Aries for improvement how do we dig into the data to understand how we can do better and um and always be transparent and accountable to the community right I'm going to talk about a few highlights and I'm not going to talk about the first couple because you heard about some of this uh but our street medicine program oh lace Lacy was here she's our nurse practitioner she and um are and another um nurse are working to develop and have developed a street medicine program that really meets and malora will come back and talk to you more about this but I'll just give you the very high level overview but they're working to to meet people's needs uh for medical care and services out out in the field and so they are they are mobile they're field-based and uh they go to the permanent support of housing facilities they go to base camp they

go to encampments they work with people on the street and the goal is to engage with them to address immediate injury and wound uh issues that they may have and and to make sure that they're getting their needs met so they aren't cycling in and out of the emergency room in order to get their service their their needs met so really trying to engage with folks and get them into longer term Health Care needs and then uh last year we uh really exciting initiative we realized that we had a reserve Fund in our Behavioral Health fund and thought about what are the priorities for our community our community health Improvement plan uh and other plans I've said youth mental health we know this right our covid community health impact assessment shows us that youth mental health is a major concern in our community and so we were able to earmark $3 million of reserves and worked with every school district in the county to be able to uh to quickly deploy dollars through interlocal agreements so they could hire more behavioral health staff and more supportive services we're also working through um a uh tella health and teletherapy program for all of the school districts that we will pay for out of that fund so teachers staff and students can all access t theapy on demand and that is coming that's coming very soon in fact um Dr Harley's been working on that so um really appreciate that effort as well and then uh last year I um last year I think it's really important to focus on the arpa

childcare Investments but we have now dedicated uh just about $13 million in arpa for uh for child care Investments 7 million in uh capital projects uh 2 and a half million in Supportive Services like emergency vouchers for families and other Investments and we have another round of about $2.3 million for more for a second round of capital projects so we we are moving forward with those with those funding and those will uh we will see just in the first round of of the capital projects we added 277 Slots of child care and we were able to preserve 84 slots that um were at risk of going away without additional funding so starting to see some incremental investments in that having um having a benefit countywide and I'll talk a little more about the healthy Children's Fund um in 2024 highlights and then of course as you know many of you have been very involved in our work around um overdose prevention uh many of you have been involved with the fentanyl um multi- agency coordination group and other efforts like all the All Hands event and um and some of those uh those efforts to really think about not only what are the funding sources and what are the things that we need to use money to to fix and what are the what are the system challenges what are the coordination challenges what are the the institutions not communicating with each other challenges that we can work through uh so really continuing that work in 2024 so what's ahead in 2024 um I know that council member list loves

the data so this one's for you uh we are putting out just in the next couple of weeks um wcom Community Health insights this will be a really extensive realtime look at data in Wacom County as it relates to State and National averages and we will update it whenever new data is available so this is like uh we had a community health assessment in 2018 and it was a static document this will be updated whenever there's new data sets and it has um I dare I say hundreds of indicators is that correct hundreds yes okay um and and as you can see just this is one snapshot but you can see that um even the poverty indicators um are by race and sex age uh has Trends and then data notes so you can see where we pulled that data from so uh wherever possible we'll disaggregate the data by geographic area by age by sex um by income if that's relevant Etc so that's coming very soon and I'll make sure you all have a link to that which is exciting wam healthy Children's Fund so there is uh there's work that's ongoing work that's coming soon um and we have several rfps that um we've already put out one for housing instability for families we're working um on uh supporting douas and adding doulas to services and uh and peer-to-peer supports for families um as you may remember and we could do a whole briefing on healthy Children's Fund of course but uh the two overarching goals for that were uh Early Learning care and vulnerable children and families so trying to make sure that we balance um the

needs of both of those priority areas uh Early Learning and Care is a new area for us and some of these are complex uh so thinking about subsidies for families we're working through that and we'll hope to have recommendations to council uh in the coming weeks we are adding um auxiliary services like PT OT speech therapy and Behavioral Health uh to be actually located in some of the larger Child Care Facilities so parents aren't sort of shuttling around for different needs at different times uh we are working with um with higher ed to develop a professional development Hub we have found so there's a certification that's required by state law and uh required to be to have providers up to date on that in the next two years and only 30% of our current child care providers um have that necessary certification so we want to make sure that we're not only adding new slots but also keeping the Wonderful Child Care Professionals that we have and um and being able to accommodate their needs for uh for lowcost training for training at a time that meets um their their needs Etc so working with higher ed to build out this professional development Hub not only to retain um those that we have but also to build that Workforce in order to meet the demands and then um more funding for capital and Child Care Facility expansions um we've also worked to uh provide 32 small child care providers with startup funds and those are all countywide uh from $10,000 to $100,000 um per child care provider in

order to um in order to either um upgrade facilities expand facilities Etc so they can add more slots and then one that we've heard a lot about um that I'm that I'm looking forward to see the benefit of is just basic needs for our vulnerable families diapers formula uh childproofing supplies Transportation costs to medical appointments Etc and so we're putting out um an RFP for that shortly so we can um we can get more services and um and supplies to parents that need them so lots more on that but there's a lot of activity happening um feeling really positive about uh the trajectory and our ability to really meet the needs by year 10 for those 5,000 slots um so a couple other things being talked at a lot today so I apologize um so a couple other things Way Station September of this year and I I'm sure you've heard about this this is that our old Health Department uh facility on State Street it will provide 16 respit beds for folks exiting the hospital that need additional time to uh to recover that maybe don't have stable housing or don't have a home um or or unsheltered uh it's also case management uh hygiene services so uh showers and and laundry services and uh Unity care will provide Behavioral Health and health care services there as well this is a partnership with peace health opportunity Council uh Unity Care Northwest and um and watcom County and upstairs will be our syringe Services Program our EMS program uh our art and uh and Grace team and Lead team will have

offices there as well so uh so it's a kind of a multi- multi-team approach that we're taking and really looking forward to opening that facility uh continued work on overdose prevention um tomorrow is the health board meeting and our County Council has proposed some strategies and hopes that we take further action around overdose prevention and Fentanyl and they're considering a resolution tomorrow and uh and follow shortly following that I anticipate that our executive will put out um an executive order with some really tangible action steps that we can take moving forward so um we'll of course keep you in the loop on all of that but those will be consistent with uh the Mac Group recommendations with our opioid task force recommendations and others couple more climate vulnerability assessment our environmental health team uh has contracted with a consultant that is doing a really thorough assessment of uh of who is most vulnerable in cases of heat and smoke and uh we'll soon have I think we'll have that in June but it's really looking countywide and uh and we know that there will we know of some folks that will be vulnerable of course are unsheltered residents but also thinking about who are homebound seniors that don't have air conditioning who are the um the little ones that maybe have asthma that the smoke would particularly exacerbate their condition and how do we make sure that we have um sort of a gap assessment but also some strategies for moving forward to support

families and and individuals uh with these continued uh occurrences of heat and smoke in the summer and then lastly we passed a very large ballot measure in November for a new jail but also for a lot of programs and services so we're really working on the uh 23-hour crisis facility we received more funding for that in the legislature this year so it's almost whole which is fantastic we we can really get moving on that the Bea Behavioral Care Center at the jail thinking about program design around that and then of course as malora mentioned um our expansion of the diversion programs that we have so a lot of work around Behavioral Health as it relates to Justice involved populations okay so with that I'm going to stop and I'm happy to answer questions thank you director lotb committee uh CC M lest um first of all Erica thank you very very much uh you have a huge department or it seem like you should have 2,000 people working for you given all the work you're doing I have a couple small questions one on the street medicine program um what level of practitioners out there on the street basically do they have the ability to prescribe medications or can they contact someone and can they deliver prescriptions or or you know get someone connected to prescription medication right there great question we have a nurse practitioner that can prescribe and she does and she is often a gap prescriber when people are in transition from either jail and needing to get an appointment for a

provider she'll provide Gap um Gap prescription um and also they're starting to really think about what does it look like for Street medicine to provide in the field I fall a little bit so I'm I'm thinking uh about um a young man I met in a homeless Camp who had a serious infection in his thumb and he was going to lose it but for reasons of his own life he wasn't going to go to the ER so it wasn't like he could get a temporary prescription and then need follow up there might never be a follow up unless there was continued Street Care Medicine sort of thing about that sort of population that that is the target population yes thank you yep yep thank you committee Council Mar hman um I'm also very interested in the street U medicine program I didn't realize that that was happening but clearly very needed um when did that program start and then also uh how when when is it an operation how often is it in operation I'm gonna refer you to malora okay how about now um so when Grace first started in 2018 and 2019 we hired a nurse practitioner that was always part of the grace model um as the response systems division has become larger and is impacting additional systems we um added an RN and so now that they're a team of two and they serve the whole division as well as our Community Partners so even though it started out as a as a Grace specific Focus now it's much larger so um the we started talking about it as a street medicine program in 202 3 but we've had the provider we've had a

nurse practitioner in the program since 2019 and is that five days a week yep Monday through Friday um during business hours um so Lacy and Ashton work really closely with our Outreach teams um they're supporting folks that are at different encampments um tiny home Villages permanent support of housing when we ran our severe weather shelter they were able to support there and the beautiful thing is that they're not tied to a clinic and so people don't have appointments per se so they really are able to be mobile and respond to things as they come up um and as as Erica was mentioning there's a lot of Need for bridge prescriptions when someone's just in between and so um the nurse practitioner position has been really critical there Anderson thank you and thank you for the presentation I agree that um it's amazing how much work you you guys have the responsibility for um pandemic that lovely thing we all experienced which probably we weren't going to talk about that anymore I did not get the memo so I'm sorry can't pull it back in it's okay it's more of a positive well maybe it's a positive thought um before it happened I remember paying attention to news outlets internationally seeing what was coming um from the other continent and a lot of countries were really kind of caught on their heels um and of no disrespect because if this if the federal government isn't ready for it you know it's hard to expect people out of municipal or county level to be ready for it um I personally

not that I'm a doomsday person but I I just kind of feel like that's probably not going to be a one-off never happen again and I'm assuming that that there's been that um conversation of you know what have we learned by this and developing policy and then how are we going to implement best the next time a pandemic hits our shore um do you feel that as a county we will be prepared the next time a epidemic um hits um based on the lessons learned I would I would say yes and no doctors do you have any thoughts on this if you want to come down I'll I'll it's things like keeping ppes keeping stock piles of medication being ready for implementation plans of distribution of essential Goods I know for myself I keep a 3 month supply of my medication now yeah and there is a Costco pack of toilet paper in the basement so I mean there's a few lessons that I've learned but I think I think yes and no I um you know we're certainly more ready for a respiratory virus um but but what you're talking about like the type of PPE that we'd use for covid isn't the same as um as a lot of other a lot of other viruses that would be of concern um I think we have we have a team that is really Nimble and knows how to do this work well and knows how to activate quickly uh the ESS of our severe weather shelter is a direct reflection on our ability to pull staff uh and and rep prioritized work and their interest in supporting as a as a department so I think uh we have a lot of the sort of basic organizational

uh basis in order in order to address something but the big question mark is what is it going to be how is it going to be transmitted and where will our state and federal government be because is um I think that was not throwing anyone other than the bus but it wasn't well coordinated and that trickles down to local communities just like we're seeing with opioids right we we have 3,000 counties all creating separate strategies around opioids so I'm glad you you recognize the parallel between the OPI crisis and what happened with the pandemic but Stone I'm sorry go ahead oh it was on okay now that we're down here I don't know that I have a whole lot more to add other than the fact that I mean there are a lot of things of course happening on the national level I think I think there were a lot of lessons learned in terms of the importance of Rapid Diagnostics the importance of supply chain in terms of these things I think the biggest lesson honestly and I don't know how well we've learned that is the lesson around politicization and uh working together and moving forward rather than than polar izing and and working at odds with each other as as residents of the country and that's going to be an ongoing challenge I think the other biggest lesson that public health learned is the importance for communication and communicating Nuance I think that um from the beginning it was easy to give a simple message even when simple messages were not um what we needed that we needed a this is

what we think is happening and these are the other Alternatives and things may change with time and the message may change with time because the of what we're dealing with is going to change over time and I think we've learned a lot about the the dangers of having simplified messages I don't have a lot to add either but I would say I would just um also reflect that um one of the benefits of fphs funding is that sort of standardization of core functions and capabilities within Health departments across the state and even though that was in the works before the pandemic um that sort of infusion of funding has allowed um a stability of the infrastructure in public health that I think will be much better positioned the next time this comes around so thanks doctors ccstone so just briefly I was um going to mention I know it's been raised with um members of our immigrant Community as well as through the immigration Advisory board but when you were mentioning about you know heat and smoke and what happens a lot of times concerns related to Medical you know healthare as well as the impacts especially for members of our community who are working Outdoors you know a lot of times right those are private businesses farms and sometimes housing is again in the same location and be I recognize it's beyond the jurisdiction of the city um but because those concerns have been raised I'm just curious if the county has any approach to outreach specifically to that population yes that population

will be included in the assessment and uh We've hired a latinx coordinator actually who is uh working with our um our latinx population all over the county uh and and will be involved with how do we implement this the results of this assessment yeah but it's a big it's a big question yeah go ahead um Erica you talked about the healthy Children's Fund in particular talked about um sport shortterm but then more support coming later for uh new child care providers new child care facilities expanded child care providers expanded facilities um I just started looking into an issue and I'm wonder if You' help me with it U for these new or expanded Child Care Facilities have you yet encountered encountered how often um needing uh a new uh building permit or building fees or permit fees are those are those yet a hurdle uh that has been confronted by anyone because I'm wondering if locally we can do something about removing that hurdle good question I'd have to ask our team and I can get back to yeah yeah but very good question any further questions uh I'll just time in real quick we're we're kind of going over time a little bit here but I just wanted to say that I I remember the first meeting that you came and presented to the city council was in March of 2020 and that was our last iners meeting for uh years and I just I was looking through the packet here and the you know the amount of um not just um people and programs but organization and like longterm thinking and strategy that

has been been developed since that time has been pretty remarkable so I just wanted to say thank you for all the work that you do on behalf of the community thank Youk you all yeah of course yeah anything else all right thanks director LL so next up and uh committee what I was going to do is um have the next presentation take place and then call A A Brief break just because we're going to have a we have a long afternoon here is that does that please the body here okay all right so next up is uh justice project agreement update the wam County Executives office will present on the current status of the Justice project agreement including describing the policy framework Financial framework and the County's ress to date on the Justice project implementation project here to take us through is Tyler Scher a microphone please there we go good afternoon Council um Tyler schroer Deputy executive very excited to be here uh today and give the city council an update on the Justice project uh I may be going uh last in the order but I um have nothing but complim ments for the discussion that happened earlier from Aur Christensen and director lenbach in regards to the efforts that the health department and our community in general are moving forward and I don't think we timed it but I think that the timing of today's presentation on the Justice project the implementation plan strategies the funding that we are able to successfully accomplish and the discussion kind of specifically with M's

group really kind of hits home today so today I'm going to give an overview on the first year updates uh talk through the policy framework um acknowledge the financial framework discuss a little bit the community partner participation and advisory boards uh talk briefly on the timeline for the 23-hour crisis Relief Center which is one of the facilities that we were talking about that we need to be able to continue to practice some of the alternative response efforts that we're accomplishing and then a timeline a very brief highlevel timeline on the jail and behavioral um Care Center I I want to start off with uh recognizing and um acknowledging the work of the city Administration with the transition with May Lund and um Forest Longman the deputy Finance um director has been a a very um seamless transition and the conversations have been going on for many months in regards to the facility and finance agreements and uh today's discussion is to update Council talk through it and then walk through a timeline for those agreements um on how the public safety tax uh will be able to be shared to accomplish the construction of a new facility and to also uh invest in the implementation plan strategies that we got done talking about in the implementation plan there was 18 firste strategies I'll go through these quickly um but what we wanted to recognize is that um We are continuing to do that effort continue to move forward with those strategies uh so uh the the sales sales tax measure

was passed of course by 63% of the wam County vote we are working towards establishing a Justice project operation panel committee um and and then also um looking into establishing the Justice project Finance Advisory Board some of those we need to talk through as the details of the interlocal agreement are work worked upon we have hired a construction manager for the 23-hour crisis Relief Center we have secured the $245,000 grant to build off of the data efforts uh to establish and collect data and develop data dashboards a lot of that work um you will see uh we are looking towards the health department work and the data that M was able to recognize as a foundation for that work and to be expanded Beyond into the criminal justice efforts as well continued efforts on Workforce shortages I think this is one that we as a community and a region need to um just always focus on and the partnership with North Sound Behavior Health and then also um looking into and considering incentives through the county Behavior Health fund uh today has been a great conversation in regards to City County partnership and one of the efforts associated with the strategies was to improve coordination um the multi- agency coordinated um opiate Response Group is another effort associated with that we have added capacity uh with one FTE and considering a few more in regards to mental health court which was a strategy in the implementation plan we're looking to increase capacity of the existing diversion

programs I don't need to speak to that because I think um there has been a lot of discussion about that today but what what I I will say is is that the partnership between the county and the city and the utilization of the public safety dollars um will be able to help support those diversion programs and others as we move forward so just keep that in mind as we have these discussions it was spoken earlier a little bit um secured 11.3 million from the state legislature on the crisis Relief Center uh and $4 million from Wacom County there are still some dollars that we need about a million um to um complete the funding but we do expect to release a service provider RFP this summer uh to accomplish um that project and I have a timeline at the end of this efforts in the first year strategy IES would was to identify additional treatment facilities um and we I just wanted to take this time to acknowledge lumination work on their secure withdrawal Management Facility um the county is also scoping a temporary crisis Relief Center a location maybe to help support some of the downtown efforts and um prior to the crisis relief actually being constructed and then looking at a re-entry Center utilizing Behavior Health funds and opiate settlement dollars that those efforts are just to the beginning and we need to think through those increased transportation services a part of the discussion that malora had earlier is the ability to help transport from one to the other and provide that

service in connection which has been important and we've accomplished some of that work um we the the county and the city continue to work through um Supportive Housing needs and and looking to accomplish additional construction of those facilities uh this was a specific needs assessment uh that we will be looking at uh releasing uh this month or next we did Issue a housing RFP the county um to for $2.7 million uh no projects were proposed that focused on this population and so we're going to be reconsidering and reassuring that effort um one of the efforts that the incarceration prevention reduction task force and the subcommittees need to continue to work on is making changes in the court system complement to the council members that um participate in the task force and the work they have associated with that and then just continued State advocacy we can't shoulder the burden of the behavior health and public safety issues locally uh we can only support them and we really need to accomplish state federal uh and other dollars to accomplish that work so a policy framework and a discussion um to bring the city council um from last June where there was a lot of discussion in regards to the ballot measure through November and into today if you step back a little bit and think about the big picture commitments uh we want to invest significantly in incarceration prevention reduction programs using as I indicated local state and federal funds for the next four to six years dedicate

revenue from the new sales tax to build a jail that is adequately sized after that four to six year time frame dedicate 50% or more of the sales tax revenue to expanding incarceration prevention programs and services the commitments that I speak to are really laid out in the Wacom County ordinance 2023 39 and the associated Justice project implementation plan that has 15 different strategies in regards to incarceration prevention and one of those strategies is the construction of the jail and Behavioral Care Center in the discussion last year there was a lot of um discussion on the adequately sized um Correctional Facility so um looking at the size of the facility which hasn't been yet determined we will be based on Fair analysis of jail use booking population growth and taking into consideration strategic Investments to avoid a necessary incarceration looking to when and if we as a community have to expand that facility and developing a mechanism of additional bed capacity if it reaches 85% of operational capacity and then also uh looking at other alternatives to expansion and really establishing protocols to utilize other County or Regional facilities uh to accommodate bed needs and one thing I would say is especially in the time between now and the construction of a new facility I know that there is booking restrictions that are currently in place and we need to think through and continue the partnership in regards of of ways to to accomplish some additional utilization

long-term investment in incarceration prevention uh I think council member lillquist you and others kind of hit a point which is um this effort that was successful at 63% of countywide vote doesn't happen very often in our community um was because we looked to um investing at least 50% of the proceeds count countywide towards those implementation strategies a lot of detail earlier today but really expanding incarceration reduction programs looking at community- based behavior health and substance use disorder treatment facilities the re-entry programs Supportive Housing and and and and and and other diversion programs a funding partnership so sales tax proceeds um for this specific type of Public Safety tax is split 6040 between the county and the cities by the RCW uh when you look at the population of the Cities Bellingham receives approximately 27% and all the other cities receive approximately 133% a jail and behavioral health facility um is estimated as of today to cost approximately $150 million to accomplish the goals that we have laid out for incarceration prevention Investments a Target Debt Service would cost um between that four to six year after the four to six years approximately $6.3 million that Target then leaves 50% for incarceration prevention program that's the calculation that we've really been working on um with the city's and um other experts in regards to identifying a projection that meets those goals and the agreement is is written to that effect

continued discussion in regards to funding partnership in June of of 2023 um you'll remember a letter was signed by all seven Mayors and that letter um was committing participation to fund an adequately sized correctional facility and Behavioral Health Center we're willing to fund virtually any new Correctional Facility we one thing we need as cities is capacity City We As Cities will commit a portion of nearly all of our sales tax proceeds for four to 6 years to drive the bond amount to something around $100 million for this contribution the cities expect no booking restrictions and no Capital fees associated with the prum authorizing ordinance commits All County and city of Bellingham tax proceeds to the implementation plan strategies the small cities cities less than 20,000 can use proceeds on any eligible Public Safety expense future implementation plans that will be developed will have coob input City Bellingham input through the incarceration prevention reduction task force and the finance Advisory board and the draft inter locals that we've been working on stipulates consultation with and approv removal from the city of Bellingham for those future implementation plans that's one thing that um didn't happen last June the implementation plan was approved by the County Council it was supported by the the the city council and the city administrations the agreement will um put that review and approval by the city of Bellingham because the city of bellingham's Public Safety

tax will help help support those efforts moving forward back in June of last year and through these discussions you know Bellingham really in the past has signaled agreement with the framework uh applaud the county for committing a minimum of 50% towards those prevention programs committed to working with the county to come up with an agreement that commits the city's revenue from the proposed tax to accomplish those other projects and uh looks forward to our continued coordination and shared investment as outlined in the implementation plans and I think you've seen that and continue to see that um working together a financial framework so the agreement that you um will see um Coming forward to the city council and the county councils um is um set up with the goals in mind that I spoke to earlier if you look at a year one partnership snapshot in 2025 um the public safety tax will collect approximately $14 million the counties contributes 100% towards jail Capital $8.4 million towards the capital project and The Debt Service into the future in discussions with the city of Bellingham and other cities um did identifying a percentage that the cities would contribute to that same jail capital and Debt Service a 75% became a number that um was able to accomplish the jail construction commitment but then also commit 25% of the city of Bellingham share um starting in June and and moving forward towards implementation plan projects so approximately a million dollars in those first

four to six years and then growing um the city of Bellingham will be able to utilize four implementation plan strategies some of the strategies that we talked about earlier today the the small cities would um collect and and their remaining 25% for Public Safety purposes at $450,000 when you get to year 7 um in in theory we've built and are operating a new correctional facility and in 2030 or 2031 the total revenue would be approximately $17.5 million countywide large green slice is is that that would be going towards implementation plan strategies that would be $4.2 million from the county and approximately 100% of the city of bellingham's leftover revenue or or Revenue at $4.7 million that's how this community will be able to invest into the implementation plan strategies while also accomplish the construction and The Debt Service of the new facility in total um that would be more than close to $9 million countywide uh towards the expansion and new programs in incarceration prevention just to step back a little bit and talk about the financial assumptions um today we're looking at $150 million facility interest rates are approximately 4.4 on municipal bonds and sales tax revenue growth which is a conservative perspective goes up about 4% every year the agreement will be written to talk through um once true Capital costs are known in 2026 it'll take about two years to identify the size the actual um facility type and those true Capital costs um the interlocal will be

flexible to respond to the actuals and spread the impacts equitably between the County in the cities this is just a visualization that we had um going in and I think the important part here is that that really shows the gray section is the city of Bellingham implementation plan contributions and then the blue section is the County's dollars that could be available for that for that purpose as well so a status of the interlocal discussions um this conversation for those that have been around have been going on for decades um I've participated in the conversation for about the last 10 years and am very um satisfied with the continued partnership with the city of Bellingham and look to bring forward an inter local um that walks through the commitments that the that that that were discussed last June and that were included in the ordinance um and um by by April so I'm currently work working with the with forest and the city Administration in regards to the final details of an interlocal agreement um those will be presented uh in April and a followup of the conversation that we're having today can be some questions and answers with the councils uh for uh May to be a consideration of those agreements by all councils so that by June the interlocs can take effect uh which is the month or near the month that the first revenues are distributed by the Department of Revenue so today is March 25th so there's a lot of time April uh May and into June to have continued dialogue and and any

questions or answers during that time frame one of the components is uh the community and partner participation advisory boards so there is is the incarceration prevention reduction task force that we all are familiar with and that will monitor the progress of the implementation plan through annual reports to the County Council provides policy recommendations to the county executive and the County Council on the implementation plan and spending plans and the memberships that most people are aware of are there as well new to the uh frame workk is a Justice project operation and planning committee that committee will be that will be a subcommittee of the incarceration prevent prevention reduction task force and is intended to provide community and sub subject matter experts on the implementation priorities in the spending plan as well as advisoring the task force specifically on its recommendations and the oversight of the finance Advisory Board will provide Financial oversight on the funds collected and make recommendations on the finance and operations of the jail Behavioral Health and other facilities associated with the plan um the finance Advisory Board as indicated in the ordinance reports to to the um I iprf and the County Council as well as with this last agreement the agreement that we're talking about the Bellingham City Council on the financial performance of the fund and the associated programs it's intended that it will work closely with the county executive and

the and the mayor of Bellingham in the development of those spending plans and in this is the um membership that is on that Advisory Board um from the ordinance I would say that one component of the discussions with the city Bellingham Administration has been how those three boards work together as it relates Ates to the city council and and the County Council and making recommendations and we can walk through that in a little bit more detail the next time we have conversations in regards to the agreement want to complement the the city administration of of really ensuring that the city of Bellingham consultation and approval is in the agreement um there's language that requires the city of Bellingham to approve those future implementation plans uh and the county Executives office will continue to coordinate um to incorporate bellingham's priorities and updates to and future iterations of the implementation plan and the spending plan one of the discussions earlier today was in regards to the programmatic work of the response um systems Division and the efforts that um that are being accomplished and it was indicated that we need to accomplish the facilities um to be able to take the next step in some of the expansion of those programs one of those facilities the crisis Relief Center a 23-hour facility um to allow for people that are in crisis to get off the streets and be provided medical assisted treatment um that's not in the jail facility uh we in our community um don't

have this at this point um it'll build on the crisis stabilization Center work and um we anticip at moving that work forward as soon as possible and I think in the third quarter of this year I'm going out for an RFP for the architect uh it's for construction in 25 and 26 one of the works we're currently doing is um identifying the service provider that will likely be operating that facility uh it's new as it relates to the operations of these types of facilities in Washington state there are a few throughout the nation that we have looked to we want to make sure the operator is on board before we start to do the design so we have a a a very good understanding of what type of facility should be built for the best care of the individuals that are there just so that somebody asked the question later on um we put a slide in here on jail construction timeline um we're going to be working this year on the design committee on the preparing of the rfps and some of the pre- pering consultation uh in the first quarter of next year of 2025 really going towards the design development and the construction plans identification and the anticipation is that we would go out for bid in 2026 for construction in 27 and 28 that timeline matches up with the agreement the allocations of the public safety tax between the commitment to um construct the facility and meet the 50% dollars for incarceration prevention purposes I think that's my presentation um this is where you can answer any questions

but I think this diagram is best to to hang up it's just the a diagram from the wam County Justice project uh wam County needs assessment and again today's conversation and regards to providing crisis response to those that need it the most with the funds available to construct a facility and as well as invest upwards of $9 million a year in the near future into those other services is a complement to the city of Bellingham a complement to wam County uh and and a compliment to the vision of the groups that's in this room um to be able to to uh accomplish that funding countywide thank you Deputy exe executive schroer committee go ahead thank you Tyler for the presentation I maybe it was just a happy accent but I think it's excellent that your presentation follow the earlier ones because as was identified in the response systems what's lacking is not actually capacity in those response systems but in what the services that are available in the community and that is exactly what I'm seeing here like you I've been involved in this for at least a decade and those early proposals were not balanced I think you were in the room in like 2017 when Council Terry boram and I went in on the second jail thing and said no this doesn't have enough in there for prevention and I was exhilarated when uh you threw out the number $30 million because I was 30 million we'd never had before that 30 million didn't materialize cuz it failed but I had a pipe dream and I remember about year ago I was

saying I want 100% of bellingham's money to go towards prevention and Services I thought I was being a radical and it was a pipe dream can you go back to the year seven snapshot can you go backwards which one Council a year seven you the year one and year seven snapshots yeah year seven that's my pipe dream that's what I thought we couldn't get that's that's not me and Terry bornean urging please can we have more money as you say that's $9 million year after year after year and growing this is this is the rebalancing we needed um and then the other thing if you compare the year one to the year two here's what the understanding that I really had to achieve the year seven picture where more than half the money goes towards what we want it to go towards we need to do this front-end loading but those six years are not six lost years as we've seen the system that we need is already being built it has been built over the last four years it will continue to be built before year seven but when year seven rolls around then we will have nine or growing funding we never had that we can plan on to support what we build over the next years so that a decade in we will we will have something we never had before so my pipe dream is coming true and by the way this is all a pitch for why I would like to be appointed to the financial oversight board because this is what I really want to see happen I I want to I want to really want to see this happen that will make me happy I think that is what

our community uh would like to see and and I'm I'm glad to see it's coming true committee other comments questions uh Mr cotton great um thank you for this presentation um I'm curious if the the county executive's office has um investigated uh the possibility of construction um taking place under project labor agreements and um if there's a timeline for some of those determinations and next steps if so yeah um council member cotton um good question there has been some dialogue um in regards to um work with um the labor unions on the facility and I know that the County Council has had some discussion from a a general perspective of of all County projects and how they may work with labor agreements um but there hasn't been a specific dialogue in regards to the jail facility I think that that conversation will likely happen and I think um understanding certainty and direction from the council and from the administration on this large of a facility it's important to have certainty on on how that plays out and where it goes council member Anderson I I just want to thank you for the presentation um having been a voting member for previous levies to the current um I think we've gotten this one right and just the county does have a um apprenticeship program not the same thing as a Workforce agreement but um at least we know that this Project's going to meet the threshold for union jobs on on the construction site but anyway I just want to thank you and um I don't know if uh when

you're going to be appointing the finance um committee or working towards that but I'll support uh Michael liquis uh request council member Williams to end this conversation being one of the newer members out up here after being involved in the prior efforts um council member lillquist is right every everybody in this community this is what we were looking for but I just want to say thank you to you and to all of our presenters today because I've been sitting here trying to kind of get a handle on what is the bigger picture here that we are trying to trying to get to and the information that you all have presented to me today paints that picture very clearly and so I just want to say thank you for that and thank you for doing the work you have done to get us here I deeply deeply appreciate it any other members uh see on I'll take a turn um so the it's like the third to the last slide was the the 23-hour crisis Relief Center you don't have to put it up there just my question is is that um how do we ensure that whoever the provider is for that for that Center will take people that are actually in crisis um when we've heard stories from uh First Responders um at crisis stabilization Center where they um were not able to drop off the person or it sometimes took a lot longer than um than it could or should have so how how do we address that piece and I just assume that this is not an ITA facility um good question council member ham Hamill I think I might ask malora Christensen to

come up and provide some additional details to it thank you thank you for your comments uh council member Hamill um one of the things that the legislature baked into the 23-hour crisis Relief Center is that this is a no wrongo facility and uh you know I think that what we've learned in opening the the new crisis stabilization Center in the last few years is that some of the licensing requirements and the way that um doing inpatient Services is set up through the state has its limitations of who gets in the door and how quickly they can get in the door and what we know is that our First Responders need a place where they can take people drop them and then get back to work right very similar to kind of the 911 call we need the system we need to get the right people to the right place and then let the system make sure that that care happens so we know that with the crisis stabilization Center there are some limitations on who really is going to be able to go to acute detox and who is going to be able to go to crisis triage uh we are also making a lot of steps and improvements in making that more low barrier um but the 23-hour crisis Relief Center will add a new place where folks can go prior to going to the crisis stabilization Center and you know it really is a model that allows someone to come in and there isn't requirements of what they're there for we can spend that 23 hours to figure out what's next and we don't have that facility right now and so I I I recognize your

comments um I think that we've learned a lot and we want to make sure that when this facility opens we don't have any of those um same barriers thank you many further questions comments okay see none thank you for the presentation we will take a short break here it's 2:53 let's come back at 3:00 so 7 [Music] minutes [Music] e okay we'll go ahead and resume um the next item is an ordinance of the city of Bellingham Washington amending the 2023 2024 banial budget amendment number 11 uh the attached ordinance amends the 2023 2024 by annual budget by adding expense Authority and positions it adds 2.6 full-time equivalent custodial positions to the public works or to public works for the new downtown public restrooms due to open later this year and budget Authority in planning and Community Development for interfund charges related to restroom operations it also provides funding for the golf course to purchase equipment and here to take us through is Forest Longman longan uh Deputy Finance director thank you very much uh not a ton to add to that the 2.6 positions uh custodial that's turning a part-time position into a full-time position adding another custodial maintenance staff and then adding a supervisor uh because that work group uh with those additions gets to a Tipping Point where we need a second supervisor uh on the golf course side the this is straight ahead to purchase a couple mowers and a sprayer uh which will process through the fleet uh um fund and will then be in

our Fleet replacement program for next time they need to be replaced so I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about any of that um thanks committee we're looking for a motion here I move to approve council member Williams moves to approve second uh council member Huffman second the motion any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions motion carries 70 Bring It Forward tonight thank you next item is a consideration of a request to initiate the review process for potential annexation of approximately 146 Acres located in bellingham's northeastern Urban growth area known as the Britain Road Northern Heights annexation per RCW 35.13 point1 125 a meeting must be held by the city council to determine whether or not to initiate the review process for the proposed annexation Council must determine whether the city will accept reject or geographically modify the proposed annexation whether the city will require simultaneous uh adoption of zoning regulations and whether the city will require the Assumption of all or any portion of the city's indebtedness if Council chooses to initiate the review of the annexation request approval of the resolution in the packet starts the review process this action does not constitute final approval of the annexation Council will hold a public hearing prior to a final decision on the proposed annexation at a later date following a thorough review of the proposed annexation by the city's

interdepartmental annexation team and you to take us through Chris be good afternoon Council thank you um just a quick uh step back and just reminder what the the basic process is for people that haven't been through it before so when we do annexations historically the petition process is the most common uh for most cities and that's certainly true in bellingham's case in this instance um we received a petition for annexation last fall for the Northern Heights uh Britain Road area which you see outlined in red up there it's in the far northeast corner of our Urban growth area it's immediately adjacent to an area went through the exact same process a couple of years ago when was annexed in 2019 and uh the process is initiated when 10% uh a petition is presented with 10% of the value of the properties in the proposed annexation area we've received that petition and the related application that comes with it in fact the application we received the petition includes enough signatures to also meet the 60% petition which would be the next step if you were to choose to initiate proceedings today um we're here with this meeting following that application or uh receipt of that complete applic and again as the the agenda Bill indicates this is your decision not to Annex the area but to initiate a process where we do our due diligence we have um again if you approve the resolution before you that initiates the process the applicant then provides the the petition with up to 60% or more

of the value and they they do have that in hand that gets certified by the county and then we have 180 days to do a deeper dive with a multi-departmental team to look at the fiscal impacts and all of the related uh impacts to the city to provide the full range of urban services to this neighborhood we then submit that to the county Band review board they do their examination of that report and other rural service jurisdictions like fire districts and water districts have an opportunity to either invoke jurisdiction or just examine those those uh report elements and if they're okay with that they don't invoke jurisdiction after 45 days if if that passes through which is what has typically happened in the past because we've been pretty good about being in convers ation with all of these different rural service providers as we go through this process then it comes back before you with a public hearing and then a final deliberation as to whether um this becomes part of the city of Bellingham or not the final piece would be the setting of an effective date for annexation so if this were to uh move forward today our 180 days would be somewhere in the fall and you would make a decision soon after that and then if the decision would be to add it to the city the typical process is we go with the next roll over of uh State and County and interj jurisdictional tax revenues and that's usually April 1st of the following year and that's the exact process we did in 2019 so just sort of a

high level overview of what that looks like thanks Mr be uh committee counc Marone I just had you answered the question but I just wanted to confirm I guess with the city attorney as well that um so this is a situation although I was just thinking about it in comparison to sort of when an initiative comes forward with community and if you've obtained a certain number of signatures then it goes forward and it's not necessarily a matter of discretion by the council but in this case even though they met the threshold right 10% we still make a determination about whether or not to initiate and move forward to the next step it's not sort of an an automatic that if you've collected those signatures then it moves forward Allan Mariner City attorney that's correct as Mr behe said that ultimately it's a council decision uh right now it's just giving the the green light or not to to do the due diligence uh and then it'll come back uh if if you do give the green light it'll come back for a final decision after staff is evaluated and it will be a council decision council member Anderson then list thank you um I'm not going to support this and I'm going to give my reasoning why um I've been on record that I would not support any annexation until our Police Department is funded to capacity that we can provide the services our community expect which is a community policing level and until we are at the levels that we have um all of our special operations back and running um I think

expanding the city boundaries um where there's going to be an expectation of equality of services is not a correct direction to go right now we're going to be having a potential Financial deficit coming up will have to be addressing the other thing is is with the and I know these things would be answered in my third part of why I'm not supporting it but um with that fire station there um I have concerns taking on that which I feel could be a possible liability finan Al um we've kind of knew and got confirmation that we're um subsidizing Fire District 8 um because we don't bring in enough revenue for the cost of operation of all the Staffing that's required and that was when I made a motion last year to actually get a full financial analysis and when it came back there is a deficit that we're subsidizing um if we take over that fire station I know that they last year ran a levy which did not pass and they're not bringing in enough money and so I I understand and I have compassion for the aspect that um that area May struggle for services based on their their budget situation they're currently facing but mostly is because we have a I think 180 days in order to do the work and even though staff may say that they have the time to do the work we have a lot of projects going through planning right now that haven't come back and part of it is is Staffing bandwidth to be able to do the work so to take on another project and tell planning you've got a timeline to go through and do

your due diligence I know those projects like the health and safety inspection of the housing um the um good Lord the Locking mailboxes for our multif family and our developed housing that have low income that we have male theft we've been talking about that for three years and waiting for that to come back to us and then also inclusionary zoning and our tree canopy there are so many wish lists that not wish list there are so many things that we have put a burden on our planning department um of work that we want done that I'd like to see some of that come back before we take on another project and ultimately we're going through a comp plan update and I feel that looking at an annexation should be part of that process so even though this is citizen initiative and we have that ability to say no I would like full information on all of our um ugas um our areas of annexation so that we can do that analysis of how much is it going to cost us to bring serves and then make that appropriate decision looking at the full pallet versus just one spot so with those reasonings um I'm going to be voting no this is not the right time it doesn't mean that it's not going to happen in the future doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in a few years but just today this is not the right timing for this to come forward cist um I have three things I'd like to talk about um and I'll address some of them and ask to be recognized again um with regard to the the Police Service Le levels that's an

important thing to bring up in over the past decade or so most of the financial analyses that I have seen for annexations is that our biggest problem has to do with um deficits in infrastructure and the big infrastructure cost what is not usually a problem is the money to pay for increased Fire and Police Service not the infrastructure but the Fire and Police Service because each new annexation does bring in new tax revenue and that that new tax revenue is usually enough to pay for the increased staff so those usually cover itself it's usually the um It's usually the infrastructure maybe I'm actually going to tie my two two of the questions together so I'm interested in looking at this very much interested in looking at this um at this point I would like to either signal uh that I want these questions answered or if you can answer them now are there any structure overhangs we need to be worried about in this location what is the particular um potential for new development because I'm seeing a creek that runs right through it and then goes uh through where where where gundies is and um in addition to that one of the other questions is do we accept the geographically do we accept the boundaries of this modification this annexation as proposed or do we look to change the boundaries in way which make more sense logically it what is immediately du to the south of this is that will that be like a little lost doughnut hole that's not in the city uh so those kind of uh go together

any infrastructure overhangs is there any real develop potential to this or we annexing areas that's already developed and what will it do to the boundaries and adjacent areas that might also be considered for annexation simultaneously I I can answer a few of those now if you'd like me to take a moment the um and first let me just back up too on the the um Levy lid lift that was on the ballot last fall for fire district 21 District 4 because they're administratively Consolidated at this point um that Levy Li lid lift did pass so that they are um back up to the level where Bellingham can have a a mutual Aid um agreement with them and and be reassured that they'll be staffed at that level um with respect to the uh the statistics on kind of the housing capacity and the different development potential in the area there are um again it's it's 146 Acres there are about 288 homes in the area right now predominantly single family detached homes um the best estimate is somewhere around 700 residents based on recent census and kind of normal occupancy ratio so that's kind of the the current picture of the neighborhood the um northern Heights and related uh subdivisions that you see in the South and then up in the Northern Area there uh were developed largely in the 1990s they're all on city of Bellingham Water and Sewer utilities and for the most part they have um existing again utility service contracts with no protest agreements attached to them um so they were it was anticipated at

some point that these would be annexed into Bellingham again this was uh back when the Bellingham extended utilities into the urban growth area so it predates our current practice of not doing that um the the applicants represent uh most of but not quite all of the vacant land that you see in the kind of middle and on the east side of Britain Road there and down near the Britain Road um uh McLoud intersection and our land Capacity Analysis puts it somewhere around a 100 units under the existing zoning in that area which is the urx county Zone when we bring that zone into the city as we did to the area just to the north um it's part of the same used to be part of the same county Zone it would become likely part of if we bring it into the city the same part of the Barkley neighborhood area 28 it's a residential single medium density designation would be what what that area would become uh for the comparable City Zoning best estimate is about a 100 additional housing units give or take depending on if they utilize the infill toolkit or other options within our development code none of that includes the provisions of House Bill 1110 which we're in the midst of figuring out so I would say that 100 units is kind of a lowball figure for what could potentially be there someday um and again it just depends on developer choices and property owner choices about how they implement the various elements of our current code or what our code can evolve into um with respect to the utilities

the the County engineer um as per the interlocal agreement that was renewed in 20122 um look through the list of U of infrastructure elements throughout the urban growth area and there are none listed specifically for this area so there are no encumbrances that we would be taking on uh paying off like Road Improvement projects or um other similar kinds of things um part of the the deeper dive that we would do um as a city um for infrastructure would be over the next 180 days would be to look at things like the storm water systems the water and sewer systems in this area and figure out are there any deficiencies with those um we do have Public Works fire and police represented here today if you have specific questions about what that process looks like but again that's part of that that deeper dive again most of the property in the area that's developed was developed in the relatively recent past in the 1990s is when most of the homes were built ready the thoughts questions Michael so actually I'm just gonna ask two questions because that really did wrap up several issues uh that I think are important uh to any final decision and they're worth evaluating so I I would actually support docketing this to get the answers the other has to do with one of the determinations we're supposed to make is do we accept the boundaries the other one is will we require simultaneous adoption of zoning regulations and the way I'm reading that is yeah we have to adopt zoning regulations but will

they the same or equivalent zoning regulations I think that's a mistake um the whole point behind annexation is that something can't happen under current County development rules and could happen under potentially under New City Rules we really ought to rezone or prezone I've had this conversation before with sever County council members Mr Lions you and I have talked about that I really think annexation should go forward with an an evaluation not just of what the equivalent zoning would be but what the new zoning ought to be those ought to be simultaneous decisions because they are uh linked so um I would vote that we when we do uh if we do choose to dock at this is that we engage in a pre-planning Prez zoning process to potentially do a simultaneous rezone um Mr L that see you're queuing up do you think that is um a good approach I do and I think that one of the things I would would encourage you to consider as well is that under and Chris alluded to it earlier under the state's uh passage of houseal 1110 um we as a city that have a population of over 75,000 people qualify as a tier one city and then that those rules would be applicable under under um that future consideration under zoning which does not apply to County uh property so that is one piece that would it doesn't exist today that will exist in the future Chris did do you have anything more you want I was just going to just say that the uh urx zoning in in this area and throughout the it's a Zone that's present

throughout the the urban growth area for Bellingham that's an example of the the pre- zoning uh that you're describing that we did in the 1990s and early 2000s with the county and that's memorialized in the Urban Fringe cbera plan that's part of the County's comp plan and in the reinforced in the interlocal agreement um that is something we could go through a similar planning exercise to update with the county um but that is what that represents is the um that that zoning that would be activated once fully inside the city of Bellingham right now that that zone allows between six and 12 units per acre but that cannot be done until it has water and sewer and other critical utilities so the the development that you see there today occurred when we were still in that process of expanding utilities the undeveloped properties in this area the reason that they are applying for annexation is so that they can realize that that future zoning if you will it's it's existing today but cannot be realized until the city provides that full range of services committee uh council member Williams so if I'm understanding this properly this is the first step to evaluating whether or not this is going to be uh um uh proposed right a after this vote today all of the questions that have been raised are going to be answered in 180 days exactly this is the this just kicks off the process and says um we're we're not giving approval to bring this area into the city yet we need to know more this gives

staff that green light to go and do that deeper dive Department by Department to put together a Consolidated report that paints that complete picture the county looks at it and then it comes back to you for a final decision and a public hearing where the public gets to comment as well well based on that then I'm going to move move approval of this uh ordinance sir second second motion's been made by council member Williams second by council member Huffman council member Anderson just curious um what projects do you foresee might be delayed um due to committing Staffing time to to this I mean how much Staffing is it going to take how much time um I imagine we're not hiring anyone or Consulting anyone to do the work I obviously I have great I have big concerns because we have a lot out there and I've been waiting three years for inclusionary zoning and um I would really hate for it to be delayed another 180 days Beyond where it's delayed now no it's it's definitely a fair question and we do have a lot to balance um the the uh couple of things I would mention the character characteristics of this annexation namely the the part of the urban growth area the existing County zoning and then the service providers that are in this area providing um fire service uh other kinds of Public Services are very similar to the area that uh in the just adjacent to this that we annexed in uh 2018 and was was actually finally in 2019 um it it is so so there are a lot of known to it um that being

said you know it is it is a certain level of effort to bring that information forward especially on a timeline um it is an interdepartmental effort for sure the city annexation team covers every Department in the city uh planning his lead on that and our long range group will be providing the the bulk of kind of the organizational administrative work on that um but there is a lot to be done again by you know Public Works fire police finance and other departments to as to their levels of service to to um provide that to this area so it's it's not something we enter into lightly it is also something that we balance with you know from a growth management standpoint um we do aim to bring these areas into the city to unlock the development potential and to provide the full range of services to areas like this neighborhood that we've already been serving with water and sewer for a number of decades now so it's this it's this tension um when is the right time to do it um over the past 20 years we've we've approved an annexation about every year to year and a half on average um and so it's just one of those one of those ones where if you look at the um again the staff me staff memo referenced our annexation strategy document this area along with the others in this corner of the growth area were designated for near-term or immediate annexation if and when those petitions came forward so that's again why that application has been received and and why it's before you right now because

it was it it has that again um some of the city services but not all and so we're um we're again the the annexation strategy points to bring it in sooner rather than later I share your concerns thank you for them um I'll offer two other things and I wanted to invite Moshe to provide a little context on um some of the timing issues one of the things I'll remind the council about and while I don't necessarily like this answer we did get through the State Legislative process an additional six months on the comprehensive plan cycle so instead of it being due um in the middle of June 25 we now have an additional six months which gives us just a modum of of capacity it's not a lot to to rely on but um Moshe also wanted to respond a little bit on the timing good afternoon Moshe Quinn with planing Department uh in regards to the 180 180 day timeline that's a state requirement that's not to do the full review it's just the time needed to do the BRB report and submit that for review so we always get additional time after that what we need to do a full analysis of the annexation as you may be aware in the past some annexations take several years to get through so we're not encumbered by that time limit we just have to have the report prepared and ready for BRB review within that 180 days BRB is boundary Review Board of the county correct okay Council marstone gu in um following up on on those questions with respect to timing one of the things raised about the comp plan right and as part

of the comp plan process would we be looking at the other ugas and you know analyzing potential annexation or or where we're at and so I'm just wondering as far as timing if there are any um pressing reasons right to move this forward now versus in 6 months to a year after that additional work's been done are we in any way sort of recreating the Reel or replicating work that could be in some way Consolidated I'm just wondering about prioritization for for this now versus and and also I guess whether that's within the perview of the council to if it's decided not to initiate this work now is it still sort of on the table where it could be brought forward later or is there some stipulation with respect to whether we move forward is it one and done sure to the to the first part of uh the question um when we're doing the comprehensive Plan update and we'll be looking at growth Alternatives be looking at the city-wide zoning things like our residential single and multis zones around the city this area would be looked at um much like the rest of the growth area as a uh not just in its current state of not being annexed but also as the eventuality that that eventually the entire growth area will be part of the city so it really doesn't it doesn't really matter from the perspective of that kind of really long range long-term growth pattern analysis we would look at it as just it's already within our growth IA it already does have a a land use pattern attached to it and so we would be

looking at that as if we were to change our residential single medium zones to a different kind of land use pattern or incorporate changes we would include this in that conversation um yeah with respect to if this is your opportunity for the petition and uh application that have just come in this past fall um and again as as Moshe indicated there's some latitude after that 180 day due diligence and the report to the BRB and it will come back to you um again for a public Hearing in consideration and they're and we do have some annexations that have been out there for a while because they were missing one or more kind of critical pieces um utilities or roads or things of that nature um so so there is that Latitude at this point if if um it if the resolution uh is is voted down and does not pass then this application really goes away at that point there's no it doesn't go into a holding pattern um so that's just kind of a it either goes forward at this point we do that due diligence and then it's up to council to decide when it comes back what to do with it but um once that application comes in that that's we're following that kind of state prescribed guidelines and timeline on making sure it gets considered within a certain period of time okay any further questions ccon just to clarify so if if if it was voted no to day it doesn't go in a holding pattern but is there any um code or rule that restricts them from just resubmitting the material in the future like the signatures

all of that leg work within a certain amount of time is that still valid or does it all have to be redone I'll remind you that uh we did pass the um I'm trying to the words escaping me right now but it wasn't it's not a moratorium but a restriction on applications coming through while we're the comp plan cycle so this application predates that determination and so we would be processing it if the vote is to not proceed formally then this application goes away and then we would need a resubmittal in the future but regardless does the signatures expire that you know as far as their mailings the you know more than 10% of the households is there an expiration on that it's a onetime shot and then the work needs to be redone or could it be resubmitted again with all of that information I mean I I don't ever remember reading anything that there's an expiration on that part of it last time I looked into a lot of the annexation when we're out at Alderwood uh Alan Mariner City attorney um if you were to vote down the resolution that would end this process and I believe they would have to to go and re redo the process to come back so it's not like it just sits out there this is the first step the final first step and maybe the last step unless you pass the resolution the other thing that I wanted to uh comment on uh um council member stone is that the petition method which since I've been with the city that's the method we've annexed is property owner driven so we're dependent on them

making sub mitting their petition it's not like we can say hey let's Annex that area that's not the process that we' used so the property owners have gone that were interested in in being annexed they've gone through a lot of work and uh they've initiated it your decision is whether to do the due diligence or not we don't control when those petitions come in council member Anderson thanks sorry to push this line but I just don't feel um assured that those signatures expire that people signed a petition I know this particular process ends now but is there something in code or rule that prevents them from just resubmitting the materials again um is there a shelf life um when someone says I believe I guess and I don't expect you to answer it this immediate minute but I would appreciate an email in the for just future educational aspect um confirmation um where it's cited either in state law in our rcws are um in our code that says they cannot resubmit their materials again that they have to redo all of that leg work again because I think that's a really important uh delineation in this situation right now because there is cost and expense of doing doing that pre-work but I personally don't believe that it expires um I've read a lot about comp plan process on the Planning Commission and when we went through Alderwood and I'm familiar with the the two legs of having it come through and I don't ever remember anything in the application process that says if it's denied or if it's

not approved that all of this work is no longer able to be considered valid in the in the future on a resubmission so I'd like that to be clearly defined um for and I I can more clearly uh respond to you by email I'll respond to all counsel but I would point out that I apprciate part part of the problem is you have uh petition signed by existing Property Owners Property Owners come and go all the time so the idea that you can pull it back at any time as people buy and sell property uh and so you have different people living in the area that might be annexed um I'm pretty confident that it just doesn't hang out there forever well thankfully they only need 10% and they reach 60 so I would hope there's not a 50% uh attrition rate in moving in the next few years hey um motion's been made in seconden and just reminder we do have other items here in front of us including a new item that's been added to Executive session so I'd like to like us to keep moving here um any further discussion um seeing on I'll chime in real quick um I I agree with the council member um in terms of her perspective on the workflow and what I see as an issue is potentially service capacity out there so I'd want to understand that a little bit better I drove out there yesterday and those are all single family detached um houses in the development that's there and um if we can get a 100 more units in I think that would be great I think they're going to be pretty expensive um and as far as uh 1110 being

implemented by the developer that's that's their discretion so there's no guarantee that we're going to have um any more density um anyway so but however I think that it's worth discussing and exploring further so I'll be supporting the motion all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed no extensions recusals I count 6 uh one correct okay I'll bring It Forward tonight thanks for bringing up those points thank you thanks for the presentation uh this is an ordinance relating to the wam Museum and repealing Bellingham Municipal Code uh chapter 2.39 Bellingham Municipal Code chapter 2.39 establishes that the Wacom Museum Foundation or Foundation a Washington nonprofit corporation shall operate the Wacom Museum since 2009 the city of Bellingham uh henceforth uh referred to a city and the foundation of parties to an operating agreement that contains substantially similar requirements to BMC 2.39 more specifically reflects the current relationship between the city and the foundation and clarifies each party's obligations on December 28th 20123 the city and the foundation entered into a new operating agreement with a term ending on December 31st 20128 among other things the 2023 agreement contains provisions regarding the composition of the foundation's board of directors these Provisions in the new agreement are inconsistent with BMC 2.39 to effect effectuate the agreement is therefore necessary to repeal BMC 2.39 and here to take us through is uh senior assistant City

attorney Sarah Chaplan could you turn on your microphone thank you sir excuse me I will repeat thank you council president Hamill um as you just stated in late 2023 the city and the Waka Museum Foundation entered into an updated operating an agreement and that agreement is in your packet for your review and among many other things in that agreement it spells out funding for the museum it spells out uh the duties of the city and the museum with respect to the operation of the museum and it also incorporates as an exhibit a memor a memorandum of understanding signed by the city and the Union Local 1937 about the Staffing of the museum and in making these updates to the operating agreement we noticed that there's an inconsistency with a specific provision about the makeup of the M Museum foundations board and there's an inconsistency between that and the Bellingham Municipal Code chapter 2.39 which also has some requirements about the makeup of the museum foundation's board so in order to effectuate um the new updated agreement we need to repeal The BMC 2.39 and also more generally we notice that it's a bit of an outlier that in our code we have imposed requirements on a non- city board or a board a 501c3 uh nonprofits board of directors we see that those sort of requirements in our code with City boards and commissions but usually for when we want to navigate a relationship or a partnership with a nonprofit outside organization we more typically do that in a contract or in an

operating agreement not also in our code so just more generally it makes it more simple more simple if we can just have one agreement that we're looking at to determine what the requirements are so if in 5 years we go to update this again we can look at the operating agreement as opposed to then having to look at the operating agreement then going and looking at the code reconciling them again and the one final thing I will point out um we and deciding to peal the chapter in its entirety it's fairly short if you had a chance to review it but all the provisions that are in the code chapter are also included in the operating agreement for example the requirement that the museum submit an annual report to the city that's in the operating agreement as well I'm here to answer a questions you may have and Patricia leech the executive director of the museum is also here welcome um thanks for coming today I appreciate it and thanks to the presentation committee goad council member Anderson thank you um and I'm the council uh liaz on for the museum and I appreciate um legal and finance meeting with me earlier to talk about these changes and um I've kind of read through them I didn't have any additional questions so I appreciated the frontloading of the information but um I think it makes a lot of sense to do a correct alignment to make sure that um are codes are going to be the lack of will align with the agreement so with that I move approval motion's been made by council member

Anderson seconded by council member liquis Is there further discussion for this matter seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 I'll bring it forward this evening thank you for the presentation thanks director leech for coming thank you okay next item this is an inter inter agency agreement with the Department of Commerce off for a climate planning Grant the Washington State Department of Commerce has made several grants related to growth management available to cities like Bellingham Bellingham is approved for this climate planning grant for uh Mr lion director lion thank you uh council president ham Blake lion director of planning and Community Development um you may recall that in last year's legislative session there was a house bill 1181 I believe it was that um required local jurisdictions to include a climate chapter in their next periodic update of the comprehensive plan and so in accordance with that we've gone through and applied for com Commerce is made available to us grants this particular grants over the threshold amount so we're bringing it forward to you you you'll see on your agenda there are also two other uh grants that we're in receipt of um that are on your consent agenda as well so we do have staff here on you get WTH is available and as well as um staff from our climate office if you have specific questions about this item but other than that we're looking forward to accepting that money and

helping assist in our comprehensive plan and development of that CH thanks for overview and thanks for hanging in there this been a long long afternoon so um committee CC M um we need a motion on this yeah okay sorry I'm trying to find that um I I would move we whatever approve this inter agency agreement authoriz contract authorize this interc agreement I um I'm looking at the deliverables so on page uh 294 of our packet is the deliverables um and I really like it I I think some of the key pieces that we've been missing have them in the technical pieces um I'll call them the non-technical pieces it has to do with uh doing an equity analysis uh an equity engagement plan um uh looking at Community resiliency hubs uh there's a lot of things in here that I think are really important work and I'm glad to see that uh not only that they're going to be done but now we have to do them they're require deliverables um I did want to bring up a question I had earlier had to do electrical vehicle uh action plan I I didn't see anything here which led me to know what our next steps would be on supporting electrification of transportation and what further steps we can take towards um supporting the transition I didn't see in these deliverables it doesn't need to be in these deliverables but it would be nice if it was in our broader deliverables as a city I wonder if I can get any um any kind of reaction to to that question uh right now at this point two items in the uh in the deliverables

there one is a public education plan that will highlight the health benefits Financial benefits climate benefits of of using low carbon Transportation WR really broadly so getting the word out uh to the community about uh walking busing biking continuing work that's been happening in Bellingham for for a long time and and then we're also reserving some dollars to carry out some of the items that will be identified in our vehicle electrification implementation plan that's in progress right now there are items in there such as um uh green development policies that'll help support EV implementation while those are spelled out in our vehicle implementation plan there may be more work to do either on a staff level or a consultant level and we're reserving some of those Commerce funds to help move that in place thank you Anderson you kind of uh alluded to the an answer for the question I was going to have um there's a lot of work to be done here in a kind of a a fast timeline and I was wondering with Staffing are we staffed adequately in order to address all of these tasks or were you planning on a shortterm hire or Consulting um advisory and it sounds like there may be the possib ility of some of these funds being utilized towards that yeah we can apply them to both staff funding as well so we can um uh Bank our hours against these dollars or hire on consultants in some of those cases Consultants would be critical to get the work done in in time and we do have an extended timeline

with this um if the dollars are not used during this this period um they'll be available for is it another two years after that 2029 yeah 2029 so we have we have a um Extended time period to use use the dollars there but yeah great um we're feeling the same and I'll just say we have a body of work within with the climate office and administration right now trying to really understand because we have council's approval for an additional staff hire in the climate office and so we're really trying to seek to understand and scope that position to meet this growing and evolving body of work so that is ongoing right now C Williams um seeing as how we are discussing this now I will make the second to councilman liquis motion okay motion's been made by council member liquis seconded by council member Williams any further discussion to authorize this contract seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 sorry wow man legislative confusion up here um that takes us to our final item uh before I will announce the executive session items and that is old and new business and the mayor has requested to go first and I'm going to go ahead and Grant that privilege thank you council president Hamill um I'm excited to announce that while we were deliberating earlier today um that the port of bellingham's Commissioners unanimously voted to terminate ABC recycling's lease with the port and that the port actions today while they pertain only

to the Waterfront and the shipping terminal um operations we are going to be working to understand how this impacts um ABC's plans for the proposed Marine Drive operations for the city step forward to be co-lead in the environmental review process we we imagine that the termination of the lease will have significant impacts on what that looks like and we will also work with all of you to understand how this shapes your direction regarding the noise ordinance those will be two immediate um bodies of work that Administration begins and I just want to say personally that I think this is a positive development for our community it's certainly a positive development for staff time we've been talking about especially um with uh constraints on the Community Development and planning department they have hundreds of hours um alongside legal and the mayor's office pertaining to this matter and so um I'm personally looking forward to working with Port leadership as we engage in who are the tenants to follow um that will enhance our Waterfront a working Waterfront that advances um a vision for a working waterfront that's more in alignment with our community's expectations and I just want to acknowledge that I'm very grateful uh for the port leadership and the Commissioners who took this vote today and um I'm looking forward to working alongside them to advance a more mindful vision for our Waterfront so with that I'll turn it over thank you mayor council M Anderson nope I'm glad the

mayor made the announcement that I was probably going to like smile too much through so you did it very tactfully thank you okay other council members for old and new okay I don't see any we do we will have old new again tonight thanks mayor for the announcement I'll go ahead and read the executive session um outline here so we have three items for executive session the first is potential property acquisition with stamps for 3 minutes second is potential property acquisition with stamps also for 3 minutes and the third is potential property acquisition with cram for 5 minutes so I count I went to Fair even college so I need to add this up my hands um 11 minutes um so I'll come back at just after 4 4:00 probably like 4:02 thank you