City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] all right let's get this baller rolling January 8th meeting of the Bellingham city council this is the regular meeting and I've got a couple of announcements uh tonight um Bellingham city council meets all requirements of the state of Washington open meetings act and on January 29th uh 2024 the city council will hold a public hearing to consider minor text amendments to Bellingham Municipal Code titles 19 20 21 and 23 roll call please Hannah Stone here Holly Huffman here skip Williams here Lisa Anderson here Michael lillquist here jce cotton here Dan Hamill here all council members are present thank you we have a presentation this evening this is a swearing in ceremony uh for um folks that were elected for the executive position and the city council position I'm going to turn this over to uh judge Levan the mayor's office for um to to kind of get this thing moving forward thank you thank you and good evening to everyone here the first swearing in oath of office will be with Hannah Stone please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I Hannah Stone do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington of the state of Washington and that I will faithfully and impart partially and that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge perform

and discharge the duties of the office of the duties of the office of city of Bellingham Council Ward one city of Bellingham Council Ward one in and for the county of watcom in and for the county of watcom state of Washington state of Washington according to the law according to the law and to the best of my ability and to the best of of my ability congratulations it is with great pleasure and honor I introduce to all of you council member Hannah Stone I app if you please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I Lisa Anderson do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington of the state of Washington and that I will faithfully and impartially and I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge perform and discharge the duties of the office of the duties of the office of city of Bellingham Council Ward five city of Bellingham Council Ward five in and for the county of watcom in and for the county of Wacom state of Washington state of Washington according to law according to law and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability congratulations thank you and it is with great pleasure and honor I introduce to all of you council member Lisa [Applause] Anderson please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name I Jace

cotton do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington of the state of Washington and that I will faithfully and impartially that I will fa faithfully and impartially perform and discharge perform and discharge the duties of the office of the duties of the office office of city of Bellingham council at large city of Bellingham council at large in and for the county of watom in and for the county of wam state of Washington state of Washington according to law according to law and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability congratulations and it gives me great pleasure pleasure and honor to introduce to all of you council member Jace [Applause] cotton if you'll please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly SW swear or affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington of the state of Washington and that I will faithfully and impartially that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge perform and discharge the duties of the office of the duties of the office of city of Bellingham Council ward 3 city of Bellingham Council ward 3 in

and for the county of watcom in and for the county of wam state of Washington state of Washington according to law according to law and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability thank [Applause] you I introduced to all of you council member Dan Hamill president of Bellingham City [Applause] Council ra your and rep after me I state your name I Kimberly lond do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington of the state of Washington and that I will faithfully and impartially and that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge perform and discharge the duties of the office of the duties of the office of city of Bellingham mayor city of Bellingham mayor in and for the county of watcom in and for the county of watcom state of Washington state of Washington according to law according to law and to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability congratulations and it is with great pleasure and honor I introduce to all of you mayor Kim [Applause] Lund um I just want to take a moment to express my deep gratitude and start um start my term from a place of humility and gratitude um to especially I think starting with mayor Fleetwood who held this office before me and for all of the people that have come before me and held the office of the mayor I'm deeply grateful for your

contributions to this community I am so excited to get to work with this Council and for the service of the councils that have come before and and for anyone that's been involved in a campaign a campaign is a team sport and there are so many people along the way that played roles both big and small and I hope that you feel seen and acknowledged and appreciated and um I have the huskys on my mind today as a dog fan you can tell with the nod to purple and gold shoes but when Michael penx the huskys quarterback went before uh the highest committee he opened up his jacket and he had every team member embroidered on his jacket even the walk- on and that was an acknowledgement that it's a team effort and it is because of all of the contributions throughout this community that I'm here in this moment right now so my deepest gratitude and especially to my family I think families play a unique role in supporting a candidate along the way so son daughter husband who is here we started our relationship in the early 90s and having bonfires in the parking lot at Mount Baker and now we're here how did that happen I don't know but it's amazing so thank you to everyone and during the campaign process there was much conversation about what is our work as a community and there are so many things that are before us that are Urgent and important and I am eager to get to work alongside all of you in that work and as the executive I have in my purview that I need to provide the systems culture and

the resources and tools to and we are amongst the very best places to live and we shouldn't and while we know what our work is it's also a focus for cities excellent cities focus on the fundamentals and the basics all of us want and deserve to have clean drinking water when we turn on the top that our toilets flesh and we can bike and walk and drive safely in our community and the very best cities at the same time and in parallel as a are elevating arts and culture and have a focus on so that is all the work that is before us and so and over four years uh you may or may not know I'm am an engineer so I will have a focus on results and accountability and transparency I deeply want our progress on these matters to be public and that we are telling the great stories about the work that is happening here at the city and also having courageous conversations when we're failing to make progress towards this work but more than that is is at the end of four years I want us to have redefined our relationship so that the community and the city feel part of a collective we and that we are all committed in the important work before us because the work before us is noble and it belongs to all of us bels so to that end I'm so inspired and ready to get to work towards that outcome and I'm deeply honored and humble to get to be your [Applause] [Music] mayor thank you mayor um next up we're just going to go through our um standard um uh meetings in the first um the first item is the mayor's

report mayor Kim do you have any items for us there's a few changes in the layout to the room for people that might be regulars at the meeting one is that I've invited Janice Keller uh to sit up at the mayor's table we're just trying to expand the presence of executive staff and reduce friction for her to be able to comment and provide input in the meetings so that's the intention behind that change and also I would I asked permission to give the mayor's report from the podium here because as someone who spent time in the audience I spent a lot of time looking at the back of the mayor's head during the mayor's report so I felt like it was important for me to be able to speak directly to the people that come to the meetings in addition to council so I am up here giving the report tonight and I just want to begin the mayor's report by saying that I would love to express my thanks to staff for a tremendous this first week and for your ability to be accessible and available and um I've been out I began I jumped right in at 12:01 on midnight with an overnight shift with some of bellingham's safety professionals and I'm going to continue that engagement throughout my term um it was an honor to get to spend time on New Year's Eve with some of our safety professionals um and seeing their um tremendous professionalism in action and I'd also like to note that tomorrow January 9th is um law enforcement appreciation day so I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for all of um

the great work that's happening within the Bellingham Police Department thank you Chief Mig I also want to share that I jumped in with um a free first Friday the museum has received a grant so every first Friday it is free I went to the museum twice um on Friday I was able to go into the Fig gallery and it was hopping with families and children I was able to see the Bellingham International exhibit which I cannot recommend enough and I went to a sound bath that was um standing room only in the old city hall building it was remarkable and so I encourage engagement the idea is that everyone belongs at the Museum and staff is is working hard so that everyone sees themselves in the museum and it's free and accessible so um and importantly I also wanted to share that I have winter weather on my mind we know that the forecast towards the end of this week is um it looks formidable and so towards that end we are preparing for out the city um based on the forecast tomorrow I'm going to be heading over to the public workspace to see the equipment that they use to keep our streets our sidewalks and other public areas safe um we are personally and carefully monitoring the conditions 247 we know the forecast is changing all the time we're staying on top of it and we're coordinating with both um state county the other small cities WTA and the public school district um all of our partners are in conversation right now and that we triage our snow removal based on those priorities for public

transportation for school bus routes and our main arterials and then additional clearing flows from there we're fully staffed with our drivers and other Crews our equipment is prepared um I asked if I get to drive a snowplow luckily for all of us the answer was no but I do get to do a ride along and um we're also importantly exploring the ways on which we are offering Aid to unsheltered members of our community right now during this predicted spell of severe weather and I met with City staff I requested a meeting first thing this morning and we've been in touch with our partners at the county and we have expressed the city's support for doing whatever we can to help them expand their severe weather capabilities and for more information you can visit Co B .org snow and for shelter availabilities and updates on the winter shelter and severe weather shelter you can go to the County's web page for updates on that that's the end of mayor's report thank you mayor okay now we will move through our uh committee meetings from this afternoon we had one committee and that was Committee of the whole we had two items before us the first was a contract award for uh James Street wam County bridge and meter Avenue W County Bridge Project bid number 26 B- 2023 it's a fairly lengthy summary statement so just bear with me here for a minute the James Street uh wam Creek Bridge and meter Avenue slwac Creek Bridge projects replace two existing Bridges across wam Creek both Bridges will be replaced

with a single contract the project also includes roadway improvements sidewalks and storm system or storm water systems to James Street and to meter Avenue the City received five bids which were publicly open on December 7th 2023 Strider construction company was the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of 8 milon uh $517,000 517 9966 including any applicable Washington state sales or use tax the engine Engineers estimate was uh 10,926 1868 the project is Grant funded and includes 1,200 apprenti ship hours Bridge replacement Necessities uh or necessitates rather full roadway closures however the contract requires at least one of those bridges to be open to traffic during the 230 working day contract period this afternoon the committee recommended approval and I saw move second motion's been made by the chair and seconded by council member liist any further discussion go ahead council member according this motion thought I'd let people know why this is a good project I think of four reasons um one reason is the bridge is old and needs replacing both Bridges so that's One Good Reason another good reason is most of this funding is actually from the federal government just a couple hundred thousand for kind of other projects around in the area that the city will cover uh the third reason is the bridge will be wider which means it's not only good for cars it's good for people who walk and bicyclist now there's actually a wide shoulder across that bridge uh the

fourth reason is it's longer has a longer span what that means instead of supports going into the creek and into the flood zone they're out of the creek entirely freeing up the entire free flowing stream better for Habitat better for Heavy Rain events so it's a great project all around thank you council member um any other further discussion um I'll chime in briefly um these Bridges were built in 1936 and then they were repaired in I think 1962 and so the the life the existing life of these Bridges needs to be they need to be updated basically just for safety and also for salmon habitat as well uh further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed uh abstentions recusal motion carry 70 um the next item was a renewal of Emergency Operations Center or EOC lease agreement the city the county and the port have partnered in a shared EOC facility for the last 10 years the original lease agreement contract 201306 03 provided for two additional 10-year renewals this interlocal agreement confirms our commitment to another 10 years of sharing the facility and provides an upgrade to the building's generator this afternoon the committee voted approval and I so move second Mo motion has been made by uh the council chair and second I'll go go ahead and give it to U Mr Mr Williams uh any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I opposed exensions recusals motion carries 70 um next is the approval of the um 12 the December 4th uh city

council committee and regular meeting minutes move approval second motion's been made by Council M Williams second by council member Huffman any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions motion carries 70 uh old and new go ahead um under old and new I would like to bring up a a discussion of our the city's legislative priorities with regard to the state legislature the session just started uh I bring this up for a couple of reasons I think we need to talk about how the city will be tracking key legislation might be interested in and I want to talk to the administration about that but I also want to bring attention to two bills that we having hearings this Thursday um my guess is that our our lobbyists will already be signing on the city will already be supporting them but I'd like that presence to be a little greater I'm I'm asking for your permission to when I sign in in support of the bills indicate that I have the support of the council those two bills that are having hearing the first one has to do with a bill to clarify the use of the county EDI funds there's a debate about whether or not those EDI funds can be used to support affordable housing talk to some people they say yes of course talk to others say no I'm not so sure this bill would clarify that so that the county which is sitting on millions of dollars of money good money they spend well could also use it for affordable housing um the second deal has to do with

rent stabilization to prevent large rent increases basically not much above the rate of inflation you could still increase rents but this would limit them rent stabilization been something the city council supported in the past this is not rent control um but it is something which uh prevents excessive uh and abusive and Troublesome increases in this environment um it did not make it out of the last session it's one of the priorities of the Speaker of the House Dan Olympia and I think I'd like us to sign in support of those so my request to the council is first of all um would it be okay if I dropped your names when I sign and support these bills and then can we hear from the administration because they talked about forming uh a team with the administration maybe one or two members of the council kind of keep track of the legislative bills this session so those are my two requests of the council Council any objection see none mayor Janice Keller Deputy Administrator what uh what council member lest and I spoke about in December and what I recommend to you council member hamell is that we form an informal workg group to talk through how we do this work together and um it would be helpful if either off to the side or here tonight you identify two of you to work together with the administration to work through what council council member Lilo Quist is requesting there another uh council member that wants to volunteer for this role council member liist council member s Okay so

we've got we've got two now okay thank you thank you um any other items for new pursuant to Let's uh kind of stand what council member liquis is talking about anything with that I've got one piece I want to make sure that the the community understands that um this Council and the Wacom County Council and our local state representatives are working diligently to address the fentol crisis that um many of you probably read about I think today or yesterday in the in the in the papers um we've had a a significant amount of Overdose deaths uh this last year um that outpaced the um the prior year which I Pac the prior year and it's just going up and so I just want to um to acknowledge that we have a lot of policy work that we need to be doing and we have some um some things that we're doing in terms of treatment that we're trying to partner up with and uh without going into too much detail because we're still kind of working out our our um agreements that we are definitely on top of things I I serve as the behavioral health chair for um wakin County's incarceration prevention and reduction task force and I have for some time now and I we take these things very seriously we we are losing people and in the the crisis of homelessness and drug addiction while not completely linked together there is some overlap there and um this last year there was an opiate Summit um at Bellingham High School that was put on um by a by a response division uh group of folks from the county and then Lumi

Nation also had a opiate Summit as well uh as well as till AIP and so we're seeing this we we hear the issues and we're working diligently on on on them with um all levels of government so I just want to to ackn acknowledge that piece um I wanted to also invite um Chief merzig up under old and new here she's got a chief has a couple of things to say I think yeah thank you for the Rebecca Mig chief of police thank you for the second opportunity uh about regarding the HUD detective position that uh we spoke about this afternoon I did some research over the dinner break so I feel like I gave you a very surface answer initially and so I'd like to kind of provide a little bit more context uh the HUD detective position ensures a reliable and consistent resource who is dedicated to Residents and staff of the Housing Authority thus providing that higher level of service it's kind of like uh the difference between calling 911 and getting whoever shows up versus knowing the officer that's responsible for your area and being able to know them personally um which is a huge Advantage uh detective Al Wright is currently assigned to this position he's been a police officer since 1994 his assignment is not in uniform and he practices is great community policing principles uh by mediating tenant issues and keeping incidents out of the Criminal Justice System whenever he can uh he provides that single point of contact on his established relationship with staff and residents which makes him

much more effective his primary goal is to keep everyone safe I did a quick uh search this evening and found that in two years he issued one criminal citation uh and he's taken over 183 reports so those are calls for service that um are diverted away from Patrol which is always a good thing um detective rights position is not tied to General 911 calls for service so he has the freedom and resources to investigate incidences thoroughly and provide the non- enforcement engagement to the community who serves so we always talk about that 5050 split of being able to do enforcement but also be able to engage with the community which builds trust and that's what we want so that's kind of a little bit more um thorough explanation of detective rights position thank you Chief any questions for the chief go council member so this uh this position is paid for by the Bellingham wam Housing Authority correct 95% of it is so that leadership at Bellingham wcom housing authority and the board of Bellingham wcom Housing Authority supports it do we know what process they use to um guide how that officer is used and we know what what sort of Outreach they do to the people that are in their housing uh only Within the scope of work that's that's in the contract itself um but I can I can certainly get those answers for you thank you any other questions for the chief seeing none so we don't want mind the signs here in Chambers but just so they don't block other people's view that's that's all yeah

and we can see we can see them thank you appreciate it okay any other items for old and new okay seeing none I'm going to go go ahead and report on on our executive session we had four items this afternoon um thank you Chief appreciate it um the first one was litigation Benson versus city of Bellingham um at all that was uh performed by attorney good staff provided recommend or pardon me information on a litigation matter um I will now entertain a motion to authoriz the mayor to enter into a settlement agreement with the following terms dismissal of the lawsuit and resolution of all claims related there to for payment to the plaintiff of $40,000 approval second motion been made by council member Huffman and second by council member Williams are there any other discussion pieces with us council member list public this was an auto accident and we're paying for the damage we did okay any other comments questions seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 second one was uh Labor Relations this was discussing collective bargaining strategy with Monahan uh director Monahan staff provided information on a labor relations matter this was for information and discussion no action was taken the third item was labor relations with Teamsters Local 231 also with Manan staff provided information on the proposed 2024 through 2026 collective bargaining agreement between the city and Teamsters Local 231 I will now entertain a motion to

ratify the agreement reached with the following general terms duration January 20 or January uh 1st 2024 through December 31st 2026 wages and compensation effective January 1st 2024 4% uh cost of living increase with an additional 4% Market adjustment for a wage total wage increase of 7% effective January 1st 2024 uh incre I think we need director Manan to clarify here apparently it sounds like you're reading from something rather old no so the the major terms of that agreement for teamsters 231 is 2024 4% Cola 2025 3% Cola 26 3% Cola an additional half% in Deferred Comp and increasing the employer premiums to healthcare the employer cost of premiums to 6% instead of 5% okay I've got some of that information here but not all of it this is an incomplete record ation I need a yeah City attorney Mariner how do you want to proceed here um he said this is my understanding can I just read it out okay uh duration January 1st 2024 through December 31st 2026 wages and compensation effective January 1st 2024 of 4% Cola with an additional should it be 3% I thought there was an additional Market adjustment but effective January 1st 2024 increase City's deferred compensation match by one half of percent for a total of 3% effective January 1st 2025 3% Cola effective January 1st 2026 3% Cola medical insurance for each year increase the city's contribution to Medical Health Care by to 6% from 5% okay Council understand okay any questions go ahead Michael I just want to clarify this is the

the terms that we discussed this afternoon correct thank you okay um so I'll entertain a motion to for passage on this so moved second um motion has been made by council member Williams seconded by council member Huffman any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 7 Zer okay thank you for that clarification uh the fourth and final item this afternoon for executive session was Labor Relations uh discussion of Labor Relations strategies also with director Manan um staff provided information on a labor relations matter this was for information discussion no action was taken consent General move approval second uh motion's been made by council member Williams second by council member huthman any further um discussion on this we did have um counc M Stone you want to maybe just discuss the the items that you wanted that you had pulled out and then reintroduced certainly um so this afternoon or prior to the meeting I had made a request to president Hamill to pull the first three items um first being agenda bill 23977 which is the watcom interlocal agreement contract number c23 0842 and agenda bill 23978 which is interlocal agreement with watcom County for interactions with Grace and agenda bill 23979 which is interlocal agreement between the Bellingham housing authority and Bellingham Police Department for a drug and crime prevention officer so these are items um that are sort of part of the routine course

of of business and these interlocal Agreements are key to um just to the work of the city and they're put in consent agenda sometimes because they're renewed agreements or they don't meet certain thresholds that require that they be addressed during our regular meeting um but I had requested those be pulled and they were pulled this afternoon for additional discussion during Committee of well during old and new business um just wanting to highlight the work um that falls under each of those interlocal agreements because they touch on areas that have been great interest to the council as well as to the community um and to have just additional context for those interlocal agreements and the ways in which um they really highlight sort of the the Partnerships that the city relies on um here in the community to achieve the goals that that we set out um so those were pulled for further discussion which took place this afternoon um and they're currently part of the consent agenda conone is your your intention to pass the the consent agenda with these items included would you support that yes okay all right great so a motion's been made by council member Williams and seconded by council member William to pass the consent agenda any further discussion seeing n all those in favor signified by saying I opposed extensions recusal one exstension one exstension so motion carries um is it 601 is that the correct okay okay there are no final cons consideration of ordinances therefore

therefore we will uh commence with a public uh comment period and it's going to take us a a few minutes we have to switch over to a to a zoom format so it does take us you know like four or five minutes so people want to get up and stretch but but come back you know if you want to if you sign up for public comment thank you n