City Council - Regular Meeting
City Council - Regular Meeting
Mon, January 29, 2024
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summary
Summary not yet available.
Agenda items (30)
Council Business
1Council BusinessPotential Property Acquisition (Marriner, approx 5 min)
2Council BusinessPotential Property Acquisition (Kraham, approx 5 min)
3Council BusinessPotential Litigation (Kraham, approx 5 mn)
4Council BusinessLabor Relations: Discuss Collective Bargaining (Monahan, approx 2 min)
5Council BusinessLabor Relations: Review Contract Proposal for the Police Guild (Monahan, approx 5 min)
8Council BusinessOld/New Business
23971Council BusinessAn Ordinance of the City of Bellingham, Washington, Suspending All Future Meetings of the Immigration Advisory Board (IAB) and its Subcommittees Until City Council Adopts an Ordinance Rescinding the Suspension
23989Council BusinessContract Award for Post Point Reroof Project, Group #1, Bid No. 3B-2024
23990Council BusinessContract Award for West Illinois Multimodal Improvements Project (ES561) Bid #22B- 2023 Community and Economic Development 1:30 PM
23991Council BusinessConsolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report: Housing, Services, and Related Accomplishments between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023
23992Council BusinessNorthwest Neighborhood Park Name and Playground Options
23993Council BusinessAn Ordinance Amending the 2023-2024 Biennial Budget - Amendment No. 10
23994Council BusinessA Resolution Supporting the Passage of Rent Stabilization Legislation by the Washington State Legislature, Including Washington State House Bill 2114 and Senate
23995Council BusinessAn Ordinance Relating to the Rental Registration and Safety Inspection Program; Amending BMC 6.15.020, 6.15.030, 6.15.040, 6.15.050, 6.15.070, 6.15.080, and 6.15.170; and Adding a New Section to Chapter 6.15
General Business
23985General BusinessMayor's Appointment to the Home Rehabilitation Program Loan Review Board (Information)
23986General BusinessMayor's Appointment to the Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission (Information)
23987General BusinessMayor's Appointments to the Community Development Advisory Board (Information)
23988General BusinessMayor's Appointments to the Water Resources Advisory Board (Approval)
Procedural (3)
23996ProceduralApproval of the 12/11/2023 City Council Committee and Regular Meeting Minutes
23997ProceduralApproval of the 1/2/2024 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes
23998ProceduralApproval of the 1/8/2024 City Council Committee and Regular Meeting Minutes
Consent Calendar
23999Consent CalendarWhatcom County Water District No. 2 Boundary Map Correction
24000Consent CalendarAuthorization of Payroll Labor Cost Payments Dated December 16, 2023 to December 31, 2023
24001Consent CalendarAuthorization of A/P Transactions Issued December 29, 2023 through January 04, 2024
24002Consent CalendarAuthorization of A/P Transactions Issued January 05, 2024 through January 11, 2024
24003Consent CalendarAuthorization of A/P Transactions Issued January 12, 2024 through January 18, 2024
Public Hearing
24004Public HearingA Public Hearing to Consider a Text Amendment to Bellingham Municipal Code 19.04.130
24005Public HearingA Public Hearing to Consider Text Amendments to Multiple Sections of Bellingham Municipal Code Title 20, Land Use Development
24006Public HearingA Public Hearing to Consider Text Amendments to Multiple Sections of Bellingham Municipal Code Title 21, Administration of Development Regulations
24007Public HearingA Public Hearing to Consider Text Amendments to Multiple Sections of Bellingham Municipal Code Title 23, Land Division
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Amend ordinance replacing RT-1 and RT-2 with RT-3 and RT-2 (Fair Haven Urban Village street width standard)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Amend wording on page 46 re: maneuvering area between parking/garage and private driveway
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve Agenda Bill 24-004 (text amendment to BMC 19.04.130)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve amendment to Agenda Bill 24-005 (wording change on page 46)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve Agenda Bill 24-005 as amended (text amendments to BMC Title 20 Land Use Development)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve Agenda Bill 24-006 (text amendments to BMC Title 21 Administration of Development Regulations)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve Agenda Bill 24-007 (text amendments to BMC Title 23 Land Division)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve Water Resources Advisory Board appointments
aye 1
voice voteaye
Award contract for Post Point Roof Project Group 1 (Bid 3B-224) to High-Tech Roofing Inc
aye 1
voice voteaye
Reject bid from New X Inc and award contract for West Illinois Multimodal Improvements Project to Dawson Construction LLC
aye 1
voice voteaye
Accept recommendation to name new Northwest neighborhood park 'Northern Lights Park'
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve ordinance amending 2023-2024 biennial budget (development specialist position part-time to full-time)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve ordinance suspending Immigration Advisory Board meetings (first and second reading, as amended)
nay 1 · aye 1
unknownnay
voice voteaye
Approve resolution supporting rent stabilization legislation (as amended, striking specific bill references)
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve December 11 city council committee and regular meeting minutes
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve January 2 city council regular meeting minutes
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve January 8 city council committee and regular meeting minutes
aye 1
voice voteaye
Authorize legal department to enter into consent decree with Ecology regarding RG Haley site
aye 1
voice voteaye
Ratify 2023-2024 collective bargaining agreement with Bellingham Police Guild
aye 1
voice voteaye
Approve consent agenda
aye 1
voice voteaye
Verbatim transcript available
31 transcript segments indexed
[Music] go ahead and get started here uh we are at the January 29th uh regular city council meeting uh I'll call this meeting to order so announcements and upcoming meetings city council uh Bellingham city council meets all requirements of the state of Washington open public meetings act and I wanted to read a special um announcement for tonight we have live simultaneous Spanish Spanish language interpretation at this meeting uh please keep this in mind Council as you are speaking try to keep or to speak more slowly than you normally would and speak clearly interpretation headsets are available at the front of the room there in that black box over there um Zoom participants May access interpretation by clicking on the language option at the bottom of your screen and then roll call please Hannah Stone here Holly hman here skip Williams here Lisa Anderson here Michael lillquist here jce cotton here Dan Hamill here all council members are present okay thank you so we have four public hearings uh this evening and um so the following four agenda Bill items are independently listed on this evening's agenda because each item relates to a different chapter in Bellingham Municipal Code titles 19 20 21 and 23 respectively however all four items have a similar purpose to provide clarifying language correct grammatical errors standardized regulations and provide consistency with the comprehensive plan as such the public hearings for these four items will be Consolidated um if you wish to
speak on any uh any one or combination of these four items please feel feel free to do so and just want to make sure that the the comments we're going to take for for uh these items are for these items only only have a public um comment s uh session later sorry I can't speak I I do want to make a an amendment though however for the second uh public hearing item and that is to move to amend section 12 of the ordinance replacing rt-1 and two with rt-3 and rt-2 a p um hold on it's around 24 director lion you want to provide a little more further Clarity on that one yes I'd be happy to um in the Fair Haven Urban Village we have a requirement for uh the 3/4 width standard for the streets uh there was a reference in there that we were taking specifically the neighborhood that incorporates uh fourth 6th 8th and 10th from Don IND calill and there was an errant reference in there to rt1 and two and that should have been two and three so it's just shifting the R1 and two to two and three okay motion's been made by the chair is there a second um I'll go ahead and give it to council marquist so motion's been made by the chair or um second to by council member list any further discussion go ahead council member Anderson since we're always using abbreviations and not everybody um has gone through the Planning Commission um I'm assuming that is residential transition correct um okay and the and the number generally refers to the kind of level of intensity with that so if you think about it
just geographically if you're not familiar with it you're going from kind of downtown faan and transitioning into the neighborhoods and on the on the edge near padon Creek it's a slightly more dense area where you have multif family and it transitions into a little bit more compact single family uh so the the three is generally referencing a slightly higher density and the two is transitioning down from there yeah I just want to make the public aware what RT stood for City attorney Mariner do we need to do I need to read these into the record each of these individually yes I would I would read each one uh because those are the titles of the ordinances okay so I'll just go ahead I can read them all at once here okay so um two uh agenda Bill 24 4 is a public hearing to consider a text amendment to Bellingham Municipal Code 19.04 130 agenda bill 24005 is a public hearing to consider text amendments to multiple sections of Bellingham Municipal Code titled uh 20 land use development agenda bill 24006 is a public hearing to consider text amendments to multiple sections of Bellingham Municipal Code title 21 administration of development regulations and agenda bill 24007 is a public hearing to consider text amendments to multiple sections of Bellingham Municipal Code title 23 land Division and then I'll just go ahead and turn it over to director lion thank you and good evening Council uh mayor and members of the public my name is Blake lion I'm director of planning and Community
Development I have with me Kathy Bell Sarah om man and Chris beeh are also with our planning department um I'm going to go through just a quick introduction uh to some of these items and then if you have any specific then staff's here to dive into the details of those but as you mentioned in your opening comments that we do kind of keep a running list of different text amendments and often times those are to um codify interpretations that have been made at the staff level to provide a different uh degree of clarity or correction as necessary or when things are pointed out we try to make some uh you know some amendments or improvements to the processing of those so the four different chapters that are before you this evening uh chapter 19 in total deals with our impact fees and so we have an example uh and a request for a change in there where we have been using a policy statement uh that the attorney's office provided us back in um in 2012 and was like okay it's we need to codify that and be able to address that and and be able to make the changes appropriately so we're recommending those changes in in title 19 and then as we go forward into Title 20 that's our Land Development code that has a lot of our setback regulations and one of the examples that I'll bring forward to you tonight was um we identified the community doing a lot more of the heat pump and exchanges and often times there's a need for those to go on the side of property and if that home is built uh up to the
setback then there wasn't any accommodation room for that mechanical equipment so we've made some changes to the code to allow for those needs that meets consistent with our climate action strategies and our comp plan but we figured we needed the implementing code uh to be able to change that we've got a couple other examples in title 21 which is how we do our administration of the code not the actual regulations themselves but how we go through those administrative process and trying to streamline some of those efforts um and then title 23 has to do a little bit more with our land Division and some of the requirements one example in that uh body of work is that we have multiple different uh expiration timelines associated with those and there was actually direction from the council that said hey let's look at consolidating those and making that a little bit easier for our applicants to make sure that they all uh extend to the same duration of time and they're not having different expiration dates Associated so a lot of this is clean up efforts and just trying to you know make our codee a little bit more effective and efficient we'll have u in future endeavors we'll have bigger changes that we'll look at like the house bill 1110 and some of those bigger things that we'll bring in front of you but a lot of this is just again those little efficiencies cleanups and clarifications where are necessary so I'm going to stop there uh certainly turn it over to Kathy or if you have any
specific questions we're happy to dive into the details of those but don't need to belabor it unless you have spefic specific question member soon my apology I stepped away for just a moment but um I know that you'd called the amendment and it was seconded by list but we didn't vote on that did we and that's on page 58 for your reference the one that we were referring to we didn't vote on that yet but I just didn't know if we were going to vote before we moved too much further or if that was being held till later just so we don't forget sure okay all right said page 58 any further discussion on that one okay uh go ahead CC mquest I just want to say this is a really excellent change there was a lot of controversy about this a couple years ago we didn't have Clarity or you had to reach into the code to find the flexibility you needed I appreciate it being in black and white where I think it needs to be further discussion see none all those in favors signify by saying I I opposed abstentions recusals seeing none motion carry sorry any other questions right now okay I think we can just go to the public hearing then at this point Miss guts we don't have anybody signed up tonight to speak is there any anyone that wants to speak to the text amendments here in the packet okay seeing none I'll turn it back to council Council go ahead council member Anderson thank you I'm I'm hoping for some clarification on page 46 give everybody a moment to get there um under the note um number two
it says applicable only to lots that lack Street abutment and are served by private access easement the maneuvering area between the back of the parking or the garage carp Port Entry and the private driveway shall not be greater than 10 ft or less than 18 ft so greater than 10 feet but lesser than so it can't be greater than 10 but it can't be lesser than 18 it seems like there's a conflict there um could that be explained if I'm maybe I'm really missing something it almost seems like those should be opposite I'll tell you the concept and then you can tell me if you still think is written so the um written incorrectly so this is a change that we made um with the infill toolkit and the whole concept is we want to deter people from parking in their driveways if on on kind of those tweeners that are like about 15 16 ft long because then if there's a pedestrian facility associated with that private driveway those cars will overhang into that pedestrian facility so what we have found is that if we make it so short then they would be sticking halfway into the driveway and so that seems to work well and it forces people either to use on street parking Andor their garage parking and if we make it long enough like 18 ft then it's actually sufficient to park in the driveway where they're not hanging over The Pedestrian so we want it to be in we don't want it to be between 10 or 18 has be 18 or greater or less than 10 I understand sorry I I understand the goal behind it I'm just
wondering if you think anybody reading this is going to be bringing you questions what does this mean it almost seems like it needs to be clarified as an if statement um and we're certainly open to suggestions this should be very similar if not identical to what we have in the infill tool kit and um our implementation of that has been working but we're always looking for improvements if there's a way that we can approve it to make it more clear yeah I'm I'm not ready to Wordsmith on the Fly code um it just makes me nervous that we might be coming back later putting this on a list to provide clarification in the future it just when I read it it seems to be a conflict um if you think developers or Builders are not going to have a question what does this mean or if you have the Staffing time to provide what your intent was I will leave it to your best judgment but I'm always very useful in these kind of situations as well and that's harder to do in the in the text but yes duly noted thank you ccil member elquist if the intention is to prohibit parking areas between 10 and 18 fet in length why don't we just say cannot be between 10 and 15 18 ft of length that maybe we can we can word Smith on the Fly and have it say the maneuvering area between the lack back of the parking of the garage for private entry should not be between 10 and 18 ft in length to prevent cars park cars from overhanging into the driveway I make that motion second uh motion has been made by council member list
and seconded by council member Anderson so further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed extensions motion carries 70 further motions counc member pardon me um City attorney Mariner do we need to vote on each one of these individually each one of the Amendments yeah yes oh each of the ordinance I'm sorry the ordinances yeah yes you you should vote vot on each one separately okay we do we have a motion for the first ordinance move approval motion's been made by council member Huffman seconded by council member Williams council member Stone sorry just pointed clarification which ordinance are we looking at then this is uh 24004 page six it's to amend uh 19 18.04.1 or 130 does that clarify okay great motion's been made go ahead counc Merson I'm sorry I was frantically trying to find my other question of clarification do you mind if I ask it now okay so uh page 27 um under section one lot line a front number two um so a corner lot the front lot line shall be that lot lines which ab but designated arterial if neither or B both street is designated arterial the Builder owner shall have the option of selecting which lot line shall be the front of the lot line is that um the other lot line abing the intersection Street shall become the flanking is that just their ability to decide the arterial will be the lot line or the frontal or is it in reference to um basically on a corner lot they're going to have two different lot lines so they get to
determine which one that they want to adhere to based on those regulations is that how that based on the code that's how that would be read the frontage roadways are of corresponding value if they're both arterials then yes okay if one is a lesser designation then you're taking the higher ranking one you want yeah and just for clarification the reason that's important is because because opposite the front becomes the rear and there's a greater set back in the rear and so that's why if it's an arterial if only one is an arterial then that one is the front which makes the opposite the rear so it has those implications thank you I assumed that but then I also know what happens with assumptions so I just wanted to verify I was reading that correctly thank you further questions on any of the items before us here okay seeing none all those in favor of um passing agenda Bill 240 04 signifi by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 so let's move on to the next one 245 move approval second uh motion's been made by council member Huffman and seconded by council member Williams to approve agenda Bill 245 are are there any other questions or considerations go ahead so I believe this is the one where was aend was a proposed amendment from council member list and seconded by council member Anderson to change that wording on page 46 do we need to vote on that Amendment first or yeah let's vote on the amendment we'll go back to the main SAR um approval thank you we already
had a motion from list in a second by Anderson so we just need to vote okay all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 let's go back to the main uh for two fors 005 um This was um motion by council member Huffman second by council member Williams any further discussion is as amended as as amended uh seeing on um all those in favor will signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 move on to 246 move approval second uh motion's been made by council member M Williams second by council member Huffman are there any further uh discussion points is this the one also as amended this is the one that had the RT change in it the last one okay this one was has not been amended thank you any further discussion questions okay all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed AB extensions recusals motion carries uh last one move approval second motion has been made by council member Williams second by council member Huffman any further discussion go ahead Council M Bar Anderson since this is our last one I just want to um thank planning staff because these seem to be little changes and I know the public isn't aware of all of them that are in here but they can be significant when there are questions that delay development but I also want to thank the Planning Commission for the work work that they did in November I happened to be able to watch that on Thursday and talked back at the TV a lot and then staff were able to
answer questions and um the Planning Commission asked really good questions throughout this whole process so by watching that I really was able to get some in-depth um Insight based on the presentation so you guys did a great job um Planning Commission and staff vetting through all of these and I know that the Planning Commission had brought up some additional things and we have also heard um or there's letters in here from the building industry and things that they would like to see and I'm sure those other changes will be coming forward in the future so um anyway thank you for the good work and thank you for the Planning Commission because you made my job a lot easier going through this stuff discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 next up as mayor's report mayor L good evening Council um I'd like to begin with a several appointments tonight and good evening to everyone that's here in the community um the first wave of appointments is Just for information only and that will be that I'll be appointing Kyle white to first term on the home rehabil rehabilitation program Loan review board I'll also be appointing Lindsey Payne Johnston to a first term as the downtown representative to the mayor's neighborhood advisory commission I'll be appointing bayy Collins and Jasmine fast to the Community Development Advisory Board and then for council's approval I am suggesting I am appointing Fiona McNair Franchesca
white and Rick edert John Pepple Martin ystad Kirsten mcdan Benjamin Karens Brett bin and Laura Weiss to the new Water Resources Advisory Board move approval second uh motion's been made by council member Anderson and second by council member Williams any further discussion see go ahead Mr list I just want to thank you for an impressive roster of people I see some familiar faces and some new ones as it's really good any further discussion go ahead Council M Anderson um I also want to Echo it there's several names on there that have served an incredible service to the community during the post-point discussions and also have been members of the WB and I was a little bit nervous about who may be appointed to this and looking at the resumés and the backgrounds um it seems like a a very well qualified um great team to start forming this um so look forward to the work that they bring forward any further discussion okay see none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals uh motion carry 70 mayor anything else a couple things I wanted to give an update on the fleet mechanics agreement and for the public uh the fleet uh that the city maintains has more than 400 pieces of Rolling Stock and that can look like anything from lawnmowers to our electric sedans to um our Advanced Fire Apparatus including our ladder trucks which actually was the topic of some social media posts which is why I'm speaking to that issue tonight and the city and that the Guild of the
Pacific Northwest employees Local 1 1937 have successfully completed negotiations related to the wages for the fleet mechanics and that the agreement reached has many important items to both boost wages and help prepare the city and both our valued Workforce for the dynamic future of Fleet operations as we move forward importantly it resolves all issues raised in the unfair Labor practice and grievance that was filed by 1937 just before I took office and pending approval by the Civil Service Commission this completes a negotiation process that began into 2016 so I feel very good about this in addition we are nearing completion on a successful recruitment for five vacancies that we currently have in the fleet division which would return our Fleet mechanic Workforce to full Staffing levels as a new mayor I was directly involved in the specifics of this negotiation and I am hoping to use it as a launching point for future negotiations for developing a city wide framework for making the city of Bellingham the very best place to work and I would like to thank all of the city employees and their uh representatives for their willingness to partner on Solutions benefiting the city and our community at large I also wanted to spend just a minute talking about severe weather and our snow responses and in response to the single digigit temperatures which was a topic of the last mayor um report in early January the city opened an additional daytime warming Center which continued
operations into some of the snow days and for the seven days that the center was open we hosted between 23 and 67 guests each day where we provided hot beverages snacks a lunch a new winter clothing in addition to the warm place to go and it really was a collective commitment and I'd like to give special thanks to to the city's leadership team to council members that participated in this effort along with the opportunity Council hot member teams and especially the hot member teams they really were the secret sauce to making that effort so successful I'd like to acknowledge Lighthouse Mission Ministries Bellingham Public Schools leadership staff and a host of others that helped make this vital service happen and as the extreme cold turned into snow we received a lot of kudos and also some questions about our snow response especially regarding Street clearing Public Works responded to the snow with eight snow plows and two deicing trucks and they focused on the Main arterials and bus routes and that these routes cover more than 338 Lane miles within the city of Bellingham it's significant we received about 120 requests for service during the snow event outside of of the main arterials and that many people had to wait until the priority routes were clear but I would like to thank everyone for their patience and also acknowledge that we cannot get to all of these requests but there was one request in particular that I wanted to highlight and it's a heartfelt story that shows the
importance our um of the work and Care our team uses when delivering services to to the community and while we don't know the exact circum ances we received a call from a father who was worried about getting his daughter to the hospital for cancer treatment and the operator who received the request was able to plow this Community member Street and that the father called back later that day to say thank you and as it was reported to me expressed gratitude for helping to save his daughter's life so while not everyone was able to get their street plowed we did come through in a shining way in this moment so I wanted to to thank everyone that is involved in this effort from the snowplow operators who work 24 hours a day clearing streets to the maintenance workers responding to frozen pipes and clearing Pathways firefighters that responded to damag fire sprinklers and electric hazards and the police officers that responded to both vehicle collisions and pushed many stuck vehicles and of course there are many city employees who work out in the weather in these conditions and who work behind the scenes and whose jobs require that they report to work no matter the conditions and I want to give them my heartfelt thanks as well and lastly I just wanted to say I had the um the experience of attending the fire and story event over the previous weekend and there were 4,000 community members that gathered for um folk light and lore it was host Ed by paper whale with various business and
nonprofit sponsors and um it was a unique event and I just wanted to share that I have a meeting on the calendar with paper whale to talk about more future events and how we can get um some of those events from our Waterfront up into our downtown core so and a mayor's report thank you thank you mayor okay we'll now move on to the council standing committee meetings our first meeting this morning was Public Works natural resources and that was chaired by council member Stone thank you very much president Hamill um this morning on the public works and natural resources committee I was joined by council members Anderson and Lila Quist um we had two items before us so the first was agenda bill 23989 this is a contract award for post Point rof project group number one bid number 3 b-224 so the post Point rof project group number one will perform replacement of roofs and related construction on six existing buildings at the post Point water waste treatment facility the city publicly opened three bids on January 11th 2024 high-tech Roofing Inc was the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of $988,000 91 including any applicable sales or use tax the engineer's estimate was 1,386 335 and the project includes an apprenticeship hour requirement so I just wanted to make note that in the um contracts coming forward now it does reference generally that the apprenticeship hour requirement is included and just highlighting that in the memo it notes that although um it
notes that um so subject to the apprenticeship program requirements of BMC 4.94 um what that does is the utilization requirement focuses on 15% of the project labor hours um that are then included in the apprenticeship program and so we were joined this morning by Public Works director Eric Johnston as well as Joel fun assistant director for Public Works Transportation um and this morning there was a motion to award the contract for bid number 3 b-224 to high-tech Roofing Inc and I so move second a motion's been made by council member Stone and seconded by council member Anderson further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions or recusals motion carries 70 thank you um the second item before us this morning was agenda bill 23990 so this is a contract award for West Illinois multimodal improvements project this is es5 561 bid number 22b d223 the West Illinois multimodal improvements project adds sidewalks bike Lanes pavement markings fiber optic conduit flashing beacons storm water improvements and new curb and gutter in select locations from Meridian Street to Lynn the meridian and West Illinois intersection will have the traffic signal removed and a roundabout install installed the project also adds bike Lanes pavement markings and three crosswalks with flashing beacons along Meridian and Gerard streets the city publicly opened eight bids on December 14th 2023 new X in submitted the lowest numeric bid but it was determined to not be
responsible as described in the staff memorandum which was attached in the um in the packet so Dawson construction l LC is the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of 3,486 n140 including any applicable sales or use tax the engineers estimate is 3,6 48,500 and includes an apprenticeship hour requirement so once again that apprenticeship um requirement focuses on the um the 15% of project labor hours included in the contract per BMC 4.94 and this morning we were joined by Public Works director Eric Johnston as well as a presentation from Freeman Anthony um who is an engineer inin Public Works and also joined by um Mike Wilson was with us as well Public Works assistant director and this morning there was a motion to reject the bid submitted by new X Inc and award the contract to Dawson construction and I so move second motion made by council member Stone and second by council member Anderson so further discussion seeing n all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 there was no further business end of committee thank you the next was uh community and that was that was chaired by council member cotton thank you council president uh today for this committee um I was joined by council members Huffman and uh council member Stone uh we had one agenda item um that's bill number 23991 um this was the Consolidated annual performance and evaluation report Housing Services and related accomplishments between July 1st 2022
and June 30th uh 2023 um this is for information and uh discussion uh the Federal Department of Housing and Urban uh development requires the city to submit a Consolidated annual performance and evaluation report keeper uh each year detailing the Housing Services and related Community Development projects and programs in which the city has invested the city's Caper includes not only the HUD funded activities but also related activities funded by the city's local sources and the period reviewed is the city's prior HUD program year which runs from July 1st to June 30th and staff review red um the report highlights um there was also some um robust discussion of um mobile home park um preservation as well as development by local Community Land trusts and if you're interested in um listening to that discussion it's recorded at um cb.
meetings.org and uh no further Business Report end of committee report thank you council member um the next was Parks and Recreation and that was chaired by uh council member Williams thank you very much president Hamill uh we had one item on our agenda as well and it was agenda Bill 23992 uh which is addressing the naming of a Northwest neighborhood park um as part of a 6.6 acre private residential development project known as Aurora Court a new neighborhood park will be designed will be designed and constructed by the developer and and dedicated to the city the need for a neighborhood park in the Northwest Corridor was identified in the recommended faciliity section of the 2020 parks recreation and open space plan and and building sorry and uh building and dedicating a public neighborhood park is a condition of of approval of the Aurora Court preliminary plat um the development partnered with the parks department uh to solicit Park name ideas and before I go on the uh the park itself is A8 acre small Park in that uh development uh project and so the developer partnered with the parks department staff to solicit Park name ideas gather input regarding playground programming options we received a very comprehensive uh uh report from laye Potter our Park development manager on the various aspects of the park and the results of the name ideas voting and the playground option survey were shared with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board prior to our meeting today and the board
members have selected by majority vote the name for this park and it is to be Northern Lights Park and uh it was forwarded to us today for a final vote a motion was made to accept the recommendation and it passed and so I move acceptance of that recommendation second okay motions been made by council member Williams and second by council member Huffman is there any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose abstentions or recusals motion carries 70 any further business from Parks no okay I'm sorry after that the meeting was AJ okay sounds good thank you we'll move on to the committee of the whole we had um we have four items but we decided to move one to the next uh Council meetings we just went through three of them the first one was the ordinance amending the 2023 2024 banial budget and essentially it it it adds a um it makes one position a development specialist position go from part-time to full-time and so the budget impact is $40,000 um but it it provides um a very needed uh service within the the planning and Community Development Department and this afternoon the uh committee um moved in favor and ISO move second motion's been made by the chair and second by council member Lilo Quist any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 the next item was an ordinance of the city of Bellingham Washington suspending all future meetings of the immigration Advisory
Board and its subcommittees until city council adopts an ordinance resending the suspension the attached ordinance relates to the immigration Advisory Board and would temporarily suspend all future meetings of the board and its subcommittees until Council adopts an ordinance resending the suspension pursuing to the to the establishing ordinance the broad purpose of the IAB was to number one review and evaluate existing policies and make specific recommendations regarding city council or city policy related to immigration matters and two to analyze city data to determine compliance with E2 SSB uh 5497 and three to support Community involvement in and discussion of regional issues and decisions about our City's future as it relates to immigration the purpose of the uh proposed action is to provide an opportunity for the council the mayor and designated staff to realign its work with the Immigrant community in Bellingham there was an extensive discussion this afternoon and there were several motions that were made I'm going to ask um Miss guts to help me kind of walk through those motions if you will okay so the first amendment was striking language that the immigration Advisory board members terms would continue to run during the suspension okay um I'll move approval motion's been made by the chair second by council member list any discussion so are you just moving for first we don't need to adopt the amendment since we already adopted it earlier today we can just that suffices
yeah okay um the second amendment was just removing section one from the findings of fact um um city council adops above whereas recital as findings fact in support of its action so it just struck that language as well okay and so no no motions needed on that one we'll need to move the if you guys you moved it for um you approved it this afternoon with the amendment and then it'll need to be moved for first and second reading tonight okay so we need a motion I'll I'll move approval second motion's been made by the chair second by council member Williams any discussion council member uh list so prior to us actually discussing and making the Amendments you just heard about there was another uh motion made that was approved by the majority of the council um with regard to exactly what will happen if and when we decide to suspend the IAB it was important to me and I think to many other council members that this not just go off into next steps without any lack of clarity about what we were doing and so the motion really uh formally request Administration to form a work group a work group with city leaders IB members and whoever else is needed to uh discuss ways to improving the effectiveness and the function of the IAB as an Advisory Board to the city one of the things that I heard in the comments that I received to myself and council members is a misunderstanding that this was a motion to in any way disband the IAB um I don't want to disband the IAB I voted in favor of it and I
thank council member stone for bringing forward the idea in the first place um but I do wish the IAB would be more effective and the metaphor that was used this afternoon is how do you fix an airplane that's flying maybe you need to land it on the ground in order to repair the airplane and make it work better I don't want to suspend the IAB um but the only way I could see myself um agreeing to that is if we had a plan in FA place next steps outlined about exactly how we're going to start discussing ways to improve it and some things already preliminarily work on its processes its resources the way the members uh are chosen um other issues like that so that motion was also made and it doesn't need to be repeated tonight the direction has already been GI the administration the administration had already been working on that idea on its own so we're in alignment there um I think it's important for not only for me to uh even contemplate the idea of suspending the IAB but it's I think is important for members of the public to understand that we're not just going to suspend it and do nothing there has to be something we're doing to bring it back thank you further discussion can you restate the mo motion Miss guts I just have it moving for first and second reading as amended during the committee of the whole meeting ordinance uh all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed no my motion carries does that satisfy the whole agenda Bill okay great thank you just give me one second
here the next item was a resolution supporting the passage of rent stabilization uh legal or legislation by the by Washington State Legislature including Washington State um House Bill 21 14 and Senate Bill 5961 those are companion bills that are going through the process of the state legislature today or today on this this session today we um we had some amendments I just want to make sure that those are included in the um the vote here tonight and the amendments were to uh strike uh section two of the of the resolution which stated the city of Bellingham supports those two compan companion bills um which would uh contribute to rent stabilization and so there was some discussion about maybe generally supporting um rent stabilization legislation and then the the um the end of the first uh part of the title had some language in there surrounding those two bills as well and that language got struck and this afternoon the the committee moved approval with those changes and I so move second motion has been made by the chair second by council member Williams any further discussion go ahead council member lillquist at the risk of repeating what I think you said the reason for striking the specific bills is those bills may change or they may be resurrected with a different bill number and so we wanted to support any legislation that supported rent stabilization not just ones with those names and numbers okay thank you um what's up there was one more well there's a change to a
recital can you go over that real quick sure we added one recital it was in information only which indicates on January 8th 2024 the Bellingham city council authorized council member Michael lillquist to sign in support of House Bill 2114 which occurred in the following day uh via the Washington State legislature's web portal that was just adding to the kind of the history of our interaction with these bills okay any further discussion seeing on all those favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries uh 70 um approval of the December 11th uh city council committee and regular meeting minutes move approval second motion's been made by council member Williams seconded by council member Huffman any discussion on that one seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 approval of the uh January 2nd uh city council regular meeting minutes move approval second motion's been made by council member Williams and seconded by council member Huffman any further discussion on that one seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 uh and then finally approval of the um January 8th city council committee and regular meeting minutes move approval second motion's been made by council member Anderson seconded by council member Williams any discussion on that one uh all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed abstentions recusals very good motion carries 70
um I just want to bring up one item under old and new that I forwarded um I requested that the administration uh come back to us with an agenda bill that would explore the um the possibility of making the out llarge position a four-year term versus a two-year term it's the only one that's a two-year term on Council and I'm doing that because I want to have parody U between all council members and not have one outling um position that has to run every every couple of years so that was um brought up under old and new business uh with nothing further I'll go ahead and move to Executive uh session so we had five items here um this afternoon so just bear with me there's there's a little bit of content here the first one was potential property acquisition it was with Mariner uh staff provided information on a potential property acquisition that was for information and discussion no action was taken the second was also a potential property acquisition that was with cram staff provided information on a potential property acquisition for information and discussion no action was taken the third was potential litigation also with crem staff provided information on a potential litigation matter and I will now entertain a motion to authorize the legal department to enter into a consent decree with acology regarding the RG Haley site moved second uh motion's been made by council member lillquist and I'll give the second to uh council member Anderson any further discussion on that one okay
seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries uh 70 uh the fourth item was Labor Relations and this was a discussion of collective bargaining this was with Monahan staff provided information on a labor relations matter this was for information and discussion no action was taken and the final item was also a labor relations uh matter uh this was review a contract for proposal for the Bellingham Police Guild also with Monahan uh staff provided information on the proposed 2023 2024 collective bargaining agreement between the city and the Bellingham Police Guild and um I will entertain a motion but I want to read through what the content of that motion will be so uh the duration is uh January 1st 2023 through December 31st 2024 wages and compensation effective January 1 2023 a 7% cost of living adjustment effective January 1st 2024 a 4% uh cost of living adjustment effective January 1st 2024 1 half uh percent increase to educational incentive uh effective upon R ratification 1% increase to several existing premiums and the addition of a new premium effective upon ratification increase deferred compensation match up to 7% and restructure the conversion uh to longevity the medical insurance there were no changes to medical coverage and then there was finally there was an increase uh for the vision coverage from $10 per member per month to $186 per member per month and I will now entertain a motion to ratify the agreement move
approval second motion's been made by council member Anderson and second by council member hman go ahead Michael just a comment for the public um he if you paid attention he just mentioned a 7% cost living increase these are retroactive and so you remember the huge spike in inflation up to 8% uh and so for that one year 20 23 our bargaining units they all went up a rather large step and and they're back down so that Spike actually is a retroactive for that high inflation year okay any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying I I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 uh consent agenda of approval second motion's been made by council member Huffman and seconded by council member Williams any further discussion on that one seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 we're going to move to public comment here in just a moment and I think it's going to take us a couple of minutes right to to kind of get set up for that um so I have a a script to read uh for this so again we have the live simultaneous Spanish Spanish language both in person and on Zoom for public comment if you're giving comment in Spanish You're comments will be interpreted consecutively into English by our person interpreter during English comments The Interpreter will be interpreting for the Spanish speakers meaning you'll likely be able to hear them speaking into the transmitter when your name is called for public comment
inperson commenters will speak into the podium mic and on and our Zoom participants will be promoted to a panelist and will be able to speak in either case those commenting in Spanish will need to pause every sentence or two in order for The Interpreter to repeat their comments into English to the council and the audience those giving comment in Spanish will be allotted more time in order to accommodate for interpretation the agreed upon time was five minutes the normal times three the The inperson Interpreter will interpret for both zoom and in-person commenters due to a technical error on our end some people may have tried to sign up in advance and receive a confirmation however their information was not input uh or sent to us we will go through the names we did receive and then ask for any additional folks to raise their hands either on Zoom or in person if they signed up and did not hear their name called and that was what U miss last was asking about at the onset of the meeting so um we'll just take a couple minutes we got to switch over to a different platform so just bear with us thank you