City Council - Committee Of The Whole

[Music] okay good afternoon Council good afternoon mayor and uh public um we are going to go ahead and do our uh committee the whole meeting this afternoon we have just a couple of items here today we just have the one uh committee along with executive session this afternoon so we're going to start with the the first item here today and that is a contract award for James Street watom Creek Bridge and meter Avenue wam Creek Bridge Project bid number 26b d223 the James Street wam Creek Bridge and meter Avenue wam Creek Bridge projects replace two existing Bridges across wam Creek both Bridges will will be replaced in a single contract the project also includes roadway improvements sidewalks and storm water systems to James Street and meter Avenue the city received five bid bids which were publicly opened on December 7th 2023 Strider Construction Company Incorporated was the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of $8 million uh 57,98811 cents including any applicable Washington state sales taxes or reuse taxes the engineers estimate was uh $1,926 868 the project is uh Grant funded and includes 1,200 apprenti ship hours Bridge replacement necess NE necessitates full roadway way closures however the contract requires at least one bridge to be opened to traffic during the 230 day working uh contract period and here to take us through is Eric Johnston Public Works director you Mr H Eric Johnston public works with us is Mr Mike Wilson the assistant director for

engineering and behind me we've got Natalie Monroe Eric smatters and Tim Holan who have all been working on this project for various degrees we're excited to see this one underway for a couple of reasons one of which uh not the least of which is the bridge need Bridges need to be replaced they are what we' classify as structurally deficient which means they're not going to fall down but they're not really intended to be carrying the heavy loads that we see with modern trucks uh so these two bridges are being replaced using a a grant from this from the from the state and feds covering nearly 100% of the construction costs uh so that's always nice to have somebody else's money to do this well it's our money it's tax money but it's not the city's money the the uh but this the complicated construction so these two bridges are critical Transportation corridors for pedestrians and bicyclist and and Vehicles not the least of which is the Bellingham School District who's sandwich in between the two of them uh so a large portion of the project is the communications Outreach to the businesses uh and particularly to the school district making sure that their operations are not uh disrupted beyond what is necessary also Co coordinated with emergency services that we're making sure that there's access for emergency services across those Provisions in the contract are are uh Provisions for apprenticeship hours I think there was what 1 12200 1,200 apprenti hours those hours were assigned by

the state of Washington so that falls outside of our normal process we are making Provisions to account for uh future fiber connections to come through these locations as appropriate uh there will not be installed at this time but allowing for that at some point in the future is these two locations are part of those locations where the city identified future needs to connect City's uh infrastructure to those utilities and Mr Mike Wilson can go through a little bit more details particularly about some of the things on the creek itself you mention I'm Mike Wilson uh city engineer assistant uh director of Public Works uh over engineering and uh just wanted to point out a couple things we've got uh these were in the packet there's four drawings here the bridges will be wider as we overcome the structural deficiencies and replace them the old ones will be torn out new ones will be uh put in uh two other components are we are enhancing watom Creek and the the stream there the bridges will be wider you can see that here the here here's the footprint of the existing Bridge uh the new bridge this is at James this will be wider so enhancements in the Stream flow will be taken care of there uh in addition in both locations we will be seeing um a sidewalk on the bridge and bike Lanes on on both Bridges so enhancements in the in the uh pedestrian and and bicycle modes of transportation at both locations and one thing to mention we talked about earlier today and Eric mentioned in terms of

working with the property owners the the Ford dealership and the school district uh the the the fish passage work will be happened in a window in the summertime and the the goal is to accomplish uh that work for both locations at the in that one window and to accomplish that we'll remove the James Street bridge and do the the work there and then we'll put a temporary bridge at that location to maintain access and then we'll move to meter take that bridge out do the the fish passage work there reconstruct meter get that all completed and then go back to James remove the temporary bridge and and build the bridge there so that's some of the coordination and the sequencing that's uh being talked about with those uh affected businesses in the school district so that's what we have if there's any questions happy to address them our recommendation is to approve to award the contract as outlined in the packet okay committee uh Council M Stone then lqu I just had a question you spoke briefly to um what's going to be required in that area with respect to the um it has temporary stream diversion fish exclusion right erosion control and um as and that temporary stream diversion seemed costly right I mean those are pretty big um pieces and I wasn't sure if those types of considerations are typically required right when bridges are going over water for us if that sort of standard procedure if this was above and beyond and whether or not those costs were included are covered under the grant

or if that was a separate expense for us uh I think you're probably looking at the bid proposal and some bid items in there and and and we're starting to put that in the packet that's we haven't typically done that and uh what we're trying to do with these is include the proposal from the contractor uh a caution however to not equate the cost of any particular line item to the actual cost of doing that work contractors bid the entirety of the project and they'll put the items cost of those items in varying degrees so just a caution it it's not one for one um diversions of those streams are typical and standard they are covered by the grants uh and the and the grant covers the entirety of the project not a particular individual line item uh what's not covered in the grant proposal are probably some work that's outside the footprint of the bridge so things that not tied to replace of the bridge there's about $300,000 in utilities and sidewalks outside of that that are not covered but all of the other expenses necessary to remove and replace those bridges would be covered by the Grant I don't and and Eric and and Mike can speak about the specifics of that but diversions or moving of the stream to allow for the for the work to be accomplished would be considered necessary for the construction and would be covered by the grant counc m l question this is a sort of project I love to see because a it's just better and new um B it's wider and so that allows for the transportation

plans that we have for not always building for cars but also building for people and then third the fact that these spans are significantly longer so they had there's inwater supports there's also supports currently that's in the flood zone my understanding these spans are like 84 ft and 79 ft they're actually now the buttresses are outside the flood zone so it's better for the creek to me that that hits on on three very important priorities and I would move approval approval of the award second motion's been made by council member list and seconded by council member Williams further discussion council member Anderson um since this is in my ward and I'm very familiar with this area I always think of the Silver Lining when we had the big flood that went through and did a lot of damage um I know these Bridges were on needing to be dealt with but as council member lilis commented a lot of these improvements are much needed um eventually I'm sure we'll be having further discussions on the failing gaban between those bridges and in other sections but this is a good start um like to get rid of those concrete walls and widen um the area and then putting in um more of a natural um I don't want to say barrier but features with the logs going in and uh it's a good start um so very happy and I also want to um say thank you for um increasingly I've noticed over the last year the apprenticeship hours are being put into part of the intro and then noting that uh fiber um will be able to be

installed or um later I appreciate those details so that I'm not always asking for that information so um I also uh very happy to see this come through so thank you committee further discussion seeing none all all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusal motion carries 70 we'll bring It Forward tonight next item thank you thanks presentation next item is renewal of emergency Operation Center or EOC lease agreement uh the city county and the port have partnered in a shared EOC facility for the past uh 10 years the original lease agreement contract 2013 063 provided for two additional 10year renewals this interlocal agreement confirms our commitment to another 10 years of uh sharing the facility and provides for an upgrade to the buildings generator here to take us through is fire chief Bill hwit good afternoon Council Bill hu the fire department and um yeah it hardly seems like 10 years ago that we moved into the uh facility out there on sound way but uh we did finish up the first 10year period of that uh potential 30-year lease with the port and just kind of remind the council that uh that agreement out there is kind of it's a three-way partnership with the Port of Bellingham the city of Bellingham and wam County where the port who owns the building basically gives us onethird off on the market rate rent and then wam County and Bellingham split the other 2/3 so um as we came to the end of that first 10-year period we sat down with um all the parties the

city Administration the County Administration and the port we all confirmed that we were um were enjoying the benefits of the partnership out there and uh confirmed that we would like to continue that lease process um with that the port did um a market adjustment so in in the original contract um uh the contract number that's listed in the agenda Bill there there's an inflator um every year for the lease amount um in addition to the normal inflator in the 10year reset we'll say um they did ask for a small uh additional bump in there in total this represents about a 5% bump from what we paid last year to what we're going to pay this year um so it was about a percent and a half over CPI basically um was the market adjustment and then it'll continue on for the next 10 years under the terms of the original contract as far as the inflator goes uh the other big thing we're doing this year uh or in this 10year period I should say is a upgrade of the emergency generator at the site the original one there at the site was actually um a retired uh generator from Public Works that um on a trailer that was used in its previous life to help uh pump lift stations when they needed it um it was well past its life when they gave it to us for the EOC and it's become uh pretty ancient at this point so um and again those costs are being split three ways between uh all three of the parties so in this agreement we're basically looking at um a $37,000 onetime payment for that gener our portion of

the generator upgrades and then um the annual lease moving forward we'll start with uh just under 85,000 a year and then we'll move up each year according to the original agreement okay thanks Chief comme move approval council member Huffman has moved approval of the second of the lease agreement and council member Williams has second of the motion any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carry 70 Bring It Forward tonight thank Youk you appreciate it next item is a approval of the December 4th uh 2023 City C or city council committee and regular meeting minutes move approval second you guys are good uh uh the motion's been made by council member Huffman and seconded by council member Williams any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signifi by saying I I opposed abstentions recusal motion carries bringing forward tonight uh old and new business council member Anderson thank you um I had asked council president um Hamill how he intended to work with the public comment period um are did he plan on adhering Strictly to the 30 minutes um are we having people sign up in advance and if we did the 30 minutes um do we reserve a certain amount for people to sign up on the spot when they arrive so um if some of you remember uh back in Co when we had sign up online um people at Wednesday morning it would be the same 10 people would get the 10 spots and so it wasn't very Equitable and so I just wanted to

um bring up the discussion um I think council member or council president Hamill thought that it would be good to discuss what people's expectations are um I'm not strictly in the mindset of adhering to the 30 minutes but um I do like predictability um on time um for the community for our staff for ourselves and so we've had some public comment that has gone on to for a couple hours when we've had a lot of people sign up or show up and and that's fine if that's what Council wants but I figured at the beginning of the year it might be good to have a discussion um what people's thoughts and expectations were for um the public comment period that is held at the end anybody have thoughts on that myquest a couple thoughts so last year when I was President um I felt that we needed to make room for um longer comments when we had a packed room I I saw no reason to cut that off and so my my concern really had to do with signing up I didn't want a system where as you say some people game the system rushed in grabbed all the spots it shouldn't be a game of who can sign up first so I'm really more concerned with being able to make sure that people have the opportunity to respond who may just show up that night or may just sign up ahead of time um that day if they didn't if they didn't know about it already I don't have an ideal solution but whatever we come up with I I think I want to make sure that we don't create a system where we have 10 favored slots and that becomes a lottery that

we have to then try to manage morone so with respect to public comment I guess one of the things I think about is when it happens in the meeting and I understand right I was sitting in your seat president Hamill at that time when the switch was made um for it to be moved to the end and now it's under right the zoom meeting in format and separate and not broadcast as part of our regular meeting but I recognize that um some community members have expressed frustration right if you're coming to a meeting you're wanting to speak to a particular item that's on the agenda that evening and then you're speaking after the council discussion and after a final vote it feels as though you're right your comments don't carry um as much weight or aren't heard in the same um in the same light so just something for consideration as we continue to to Grapple with how best to address public comment thank you council member any other further comments from the committee council member Anderson yeah um just to kind of tie um off of what council member Lilo Quist had commented I think there was one evening where we had 40 or 50 people sign up online and I think there was the um kind of the task of closing off the online sign up and that wasn't communicated and some people were upset about that but that was just to ensure that we weren't here Beyond three hours you know late late into the night and so whatever we come up with um again my goal is consistency and clear communication so that the public

understands that if we are let's say going to have 30 minutes or one hour or a limit on time for speaking that my wish would be that half that amount of time would be allocated to online sign up previous to the meeting but then there is a certain amount of time or slots that is reserved for you know when the doors open at 6:30 and people want to sign up because they're here and that way there's not the same 10 people or same 15 people um signing up every time and we're not hearing about the issues um and then yes I also agree with council member stone that sometimes um when people want to talk about something we're discussing that night they they talk to us after we've had a vote but the other side of that is there is email there's phone calls uh I've actually gotten rid of written letters um but we do when we're having a public hearing that information there's you know people have the opportunity to talk then so it might be a timing issue but um I still feel strongly that we need to have it at the end of the meeting and be on Zoom because some of the issues that we were add addressing have not changed um so those are still relevant to that decision and so it's the best we can come up with and it is a situation that the public will need to use some of the other resources to communicate their thoughts before um maybe something on our agenda that night C Williams and hutman um with the basic structure of our public uh comment session I don't have any any problems with it but if

we're going to suspend the rule for any given issue at at any given time I think that that needs to be very deliberate and not just seen as um that we're just kind of going with the flow that it's got to be something to we're going to suspend the rule because then that way that does doesn't um um it in my view it maintains the structure of the public comment but we're being very deliberate on issue X because of the number of people signing up or what what have you that we're going to extend it or something like that rather than it being just an open-ended piece that that really doesn't serve a lot of purposes and um so um if that happens I would be in favor of us being very deliberate about it rather than just wait waiting to see so hman thank you um during my time on Council we've structured public comment differently at least every year sometimes um changed uh within the the year even so there multiple ways to to do this and of course with every way that we structure it there are benefits and drawbacks and it's a give and take and a balance um uh I was just watching a Seattle City council meeting and they cut off their public comment uh signups two hours before the meeting um and they had their public comment at the beginning of their meeting but I think that with with whatever it is we decide I I'm fine with the structure as it is right now but whatever is we decide is just clearly communicated and consistent I think that that's where we run into the biggest problems is if

if it's not clearly communicated and people are upset that maybe they expected something a little different than uh the way it is than you council member any other F further comments go ahead council member Stone so it's actually just a question president um Hamill and I'm not sure maybe it's for um Jan Keller as director of communications but I wasn't certain whether engage Bellingham was still being used right for Council comment or for public comment that's submitted to council I know we received some email comments indicating that at the beginning of the year the formatting on that page looked different and it wasn't clear if that was going to be uploaded and continued to be used so I just want to highlight that um because that was an opportunity for members of the public to provide public comment in written form but also in a public format where other members of the community can see those comments and they could be shared beyond that portal as well right on social media or other places and there were ways to react you know to comments that were shared and so it's just a reminder as well if we're going to use that that format um to remind council members to um to review those comments because those are housed on the engage Bellingham website and so then as council members we have to go back and look look at those on our own time but um but yes so i' like to turn to um Janice ker to respond to that comment before I go to Michael list and then over to the City attorney go

ahead oh sorry council member l were you going to respond to that I I was I wanted to own a piece of of this so Janice go ahead Janice can respond to what we' done but that was part of the uh discussion that came forward to me last year as president and um it was almost not used and so there was a lot of of effort to maintain a venue or another a redundant mean of communication and so staff came forward with a recommendation which I accepted to discontinue that um hopefully I'm characterizing that correctly but um the staff feedback I had is it just wasn't being used and so it was a lot of effort and I think the other piece of it was that uh our understanding was that council members weren't finding it as useful as simply promoting the opportunity to telephone council members and email council members directly and so we were we were were trying to find ways that were accessible to the public and widely used and easily accessed by you all um and engage Bellingham didn't seem to be something that you were using City attorney Mariner I I just want to uh and I think uh council member lilus we talked about this while you were council president but in a city council meeting where you're taking final action uh you if you weren't uh in your agenda actively soliciting written comments in advance of the meeting your public comment would need to be at the beginning of the meeting the way we can have it at the end is because we also accept written comment in advance so I just think it's

important to know uh why we're doing why we can do it at the end if we didn't have that in our agenda every single agenda then really for ex taking final action the public comment needs to be in advance of actually taking the final action thank you thank you so just to respond to that and thank you for the followup um obviously wanting whatever we decide to be useful to members of the public we're trying to engage with council members as well as for council members to receive the information um and so obviously we're navigating what that right what that looks like and it's just reiterating what some other council members have said that whatever we decide it needs to be clear and it needs to be communicated to the public and so my concern is the default that and legal says it's sufficient but saying well it's included in our agenda packet and so we've sort of checked that box that's not satisfying to me and feeling like I don't know that members of the public are right looking to the cover page about ways to engage and so just making sure that as a Council right we're clear and what are those Avenues where we're going to be you know receiving public comment because one of my concerns when um live testimony right was suspended for a period of time during covid was the response from the community saying public comment has been suspended and we're not able to comment I was very quick to write the responses is that there are a number of ways to provide comment some have been

highlighted today whether that be email or phone calls or running into someone in town at you know the grocery store on the bus or wherever that might be um so public comment can be received in M of ways but wanting to be clear on you know what are the most effective channels for us as council members as well as for the public and we may or may not have that information now but I appreciate council member Anderson bringing the discussion forward any further comments um so I want to underscore one of the um things that Council M Stone just brought up this is the the decision of we this is not the decision of me as council president and I it's incumbent upon me to um to pursue the good of the order for the for the council and that's what I'm here to do that's why I always talk last I want to hear um from the voices of the council and we're in committee like we are right now it's committee members and want to make sure that you all get the opportunity to uh provide input or make a motion if you see fit to to do that and so I would entertain a motion or we can we can table this and we can tonight we can go um forward with just as we have uh at the last meetings and do the written uh sign up and then we can make a decision later or we can make a decision today so I'll entertain a motion if there is one C randerson just to further discussion so that um I think currently it lists in our packet that public comment will be 30 minutes and um again I I it's that consistency of what we

communicate and adhere to it so I'd like to make a motion that we extend that 30 minutes to 1 hour and that online we allow um up to 10 people to sign up in advance uh leaving an additional uh 10 minutes excuse me uh 10 spaces available for people to sign up in person and I believe um that also gives the Liberty should the council president decide to expand it because there's a um anticipation of a lot of public comment about a um burgeoning issue they would have that ability to be able to um make an announcement that public comment would be extended for a longer duration but I believe this would give the public kind of a clear indication um the length of public comment unless there is something um extenda okay a motion's been made by council member Anderson is there a second okay seeing none the motion is disposed of uh coun M look was in looking at this it says comment period 30 minutes it seems like what it actually means is up to 30 minutes and maybe that maybe that's a clarification we could add to it um we won't stay here to the end of the 30 minutes if everyone has spoken their piece I don't know if needs to be a motion on that but maybe clarification com up to 30 minutes do you want to put that into a motion um I would I would move that we clarify the public comment period uh as not being 30 minutes but be listed the agenda up to 30 minutes a second seing on the Motions disposed of con M Stone so one I had a question it's probably for it on the back end of the signups

online and I don't know if Jackie you may know from you know what we've done in preparation for public comment in the past is whether setting a limit on the number I me know currently there's a Time limitation right where sign up is halted at a certain time but I don't know right I mean without further discussion with it I don't know what the options are with respect to limitation but my understanding from other comments from Council Members was that the wording in the packet wasn't that it was up to 30 minutes but that we're routinely going Beyond 30 minutes and it's unclear to members of the public about how um I guess what the parameters are for comment whether it's with respect to the number of signups which I think you know former President List was of the mindset that okay we'll take whomever signed up in advance so if you signed up online in person in advance that's permissible and we're going to let you speak and whatever the time required is so we could articulate if that was the desire of council that you know sign up it has to be in advance then there's no limitation on the time or is the desire of council to limit the time to then say up to an hour or whatever that outward limit is and whomever can sign up but it's going to be cut off and so people may have signed up and might not get to speak and unfortunately that would need to be clearly communic at so I guess I'm at a loss for making a formal motion because I'm not clear on what the the will of the council

might be counc member Williams question I have is even though the time says 30 minutes we've had a um a practice of going beyond that um at least in the past year now as I look at the 30 minutes that at 3 minutes per is it three minutes or two three 3 minutes per person that is 10 [Music] people so um is there anything um in our rules that says on On Any Given night or let's say that would be 10 people and there's 30 people out there that want to say something that um the night of the meeting we could extend that we could but um the thing I wish to avoid is an automatic expectation that that's going to happen that's something I think the council or the um whoever the uh the decision maker is can and formally extend the meeting if if they wish but the standard rule is what it is 30 minutes 60 minutes and if it needs to be extended we could do that um the night of the meeting the last uh meeting we had about the um the resolution about the war over in the Middle East I mean we had 4 five people sign up and um obviously the meeting was extended until all all of them had their had their say but we did it that night as opposed to just an automatic it's open-ended and that's my only concern is that it not be just open-ended I'll recognize um Sam Huffman and then director ber came up n want to give him an opportunity go ahead though council member thank you um I think in general with with guidelines the simpler the better again just managing expectations um so that the public is

aware of what to expect um and even in terms of limiting the time of of public comment I think we haven't adhered to the 30 minutes we've Let It Go longer I think if somebody's coming to speak you know we have our regulars that come to speak at public comment but we also have people who probably put a lot of preparation into their 3 minutes and practice and are nervous and um you know it's a it's a pretty big deal for them um and I think I think those those days when we have really long public comment periods it's full of a lot of people that have have put a lot of work into preparing their comments and so giving them the time to speak I think is really important so I would be in favor of removing an expectation of time limit um overall all for that that section of our meetings but um I do appreciate a requirement of signing up ahead of time um I think one thing in particular that I wonder about and maybe somebody on staff can speak to this is the potential for um people particularly online who who show up and are have have uh um have been saying hate speech or or things like that in some other sessions I know that that happened at County Council I think that that's happened in some of the smaller cities in wam County um and so I'm curious if signing up ahead of time is one way to potentially prevent some of those situations um and uh and is is there a staff member that can speak to protections against those unwanted kind of uh trolls that might come online uh during public

comment Don berdick IT director um just going to address a couple things first first thing um we have a lot of Technology we have a lot of creative people as well we don't necessarily have are not necessarily utilizing all of our technology and abilities to their greatest level so I would encourage the council to set the requirements of their public meeting the way they wish to have it be and we as it will work with the mayor's office and the city clerk to make sure that that is fulfilled um to council helpman to address your question we broadcast public comment through Zoom only because of the limitations particularly in terms of YouTube's interpretation of public speech and our way around that so that is our way for having it available and having it broadcast and having it recorded um but we don't necessarily filter we don't edit so public comment is left the way public comment is so that we can fulfill that um requirement C little yeah so um I interpreted the the 30 minutes Loosely and I I'll tell you why 30 minutes is a nice round number it's a half hour um there's nothing in the universe that says that 30 is the right number it was picked because on a average night that's about how much comment we get um and so and I felt it was important to be flexible I understand that predictability is nice but which do we value more predictability in our evenings and how the meeting goes or the openness to public comment and the way I applied the rules is that we had in a sense made

a promise that if you follow the procedures and you s up ahead of time and you got a confirmation that you signed up ahead of time you fully expect to be able to deliver your public comments and so when we had a lot of people sign up ahead of time I felt we had already promised them a chance to speak even if I knew it was going to go over 30 minutes um and so what I so it's sort of a value judgment do we value openness public input more or predictability and I always made the decision to allow more public comment and therefore Flex on the predictability um you need a little bit of both but I'm just trying to tell you why I was striking the balances I was striking and the one time where um I uh approved the cutting off of the sign up is because we already had three hours worth of people sign up online and in a certain sense at that point we were making a false promise and now no longer was like you sign up and you will get to speak we were now appearing to promise them an opportunity which I didn't know we could fulfill and so my reason for limiting the amount of signups um really had to do with keeping that to be a valid and reliable way the public knows that they've secured a spot um I believe the sign up now goes up right up to the moment of the the council meeting at 7:00 that's also an arbitrary deadline it may be better and more predictable if we set that say at 5:00 end of working day but that we have a different cuto off 7 o'clock if you come to the meeting you sign up

again if you come to the meeting you've shown up at a public advertised meeting the Bellingham city council you signed up when you came in we have in a sense set up a procedure and made you a promise that you're going to get a chance to speak your peace when the time comes and so I always was kind of making sure that I uh honored um sort of that implicit promise we'd given them so if we do change the rules that's fine I just want to make sure that we honor whatever kind of promise we give them if that promise is given by sign up let's let's set the rules there and keep those promises and if the promise is given in person when you sign your name uh on a piece of paper just let's honor those promises too and if we do those honor those promises my guess is we can't always strictly adhere to a 30 minute or any any another limit so I like the 30 minute but I view that as a lesser guideline and a goal and a uh setting a reasonable expectation but that's not what I would use to ultimately govern how much public comment we accept uh Council M Stone okay so I have a motion um so my motion would be to remove the time specification that's currently listed which oh it's at the end of the agenda public comment 30 minutes so I would remove the time limitation to just have public comment listed but to have online and inperson signups be treated the same where it opens at 6:30 right in person sign up okay and then closes at 7 when we start um to have the imperson and online sign up be the

same that's run from 6:30 to 7: in advance of the meeting um because I believe so that's the motion second motion's been made by council member Stone and seconded by council member uh list any further discussion I guess the further discussion was this that the time restriction to me is completely arbitrary and if we're looking at the purpose of holding public comment it's for members of the public to be able to provide comment um and so if on a particular night there are more people wanting to speak as an elected official I believe it's our job to accommodate that and to you know to be here until the last person speaks which we've done in the past and I know that you know on some night that can be long and on sometimes it's less but um if the sign up period is clear and that's what's published um I would feel comfortable in that limitation any comments from the mayor's office if I may make a suggestion and this comes from my planning time at the Planning Commission the one other variable that I haven't heard discussed yet is the length of the comment period and we had changed our business rules so if there was more than I can't remember what the number was if it was more than 40 some then we shifted and it was communicated in advanced it wasn't a thre minute but it was 120 seconds so it was a TW minute so that's another lever that you have to um depending on the number of people that are signed up to to find that balance between um adequate and robust public comment and

allowing numbers to speak without three our public comment windows so just a suggestion for consideration council member Anderson thank you um because of consistency and being someone who spoke a lot at public comment from my neighborhood I would practice to get as much content as I could and time that three minutes and carve off and if I showed up and found out it would be 2 minutes I probably would just like start crying because there's no way I could shave more off um and we don't necessarily allow people to tag team um to finish other people's comments um so I mean if we want to go two minutes great but I think it needs to be advertised and consistent so people can write up what they want to say and um and be prepared for it and I appreciate the change change cuz the 30 minutes was for me not long enough for a lot of the nights but I just don't like advertising something and we don't adhere to it um because I think that gives an expectation to some people I heard from some community members that they knew a lot of people would show up and because it was listed as 30 minutes they didn't want to waste their time to show up to speak um so they would send something in writing and I encouraged them to show up anyway because we never adhere to it and then the question was always well why do you guys list it so I really wanted that changed or to be adhered to consistently um and I do like the idea of the sign up period so that we don't end up having um that Wednesday morning

Rodeo that somebody takes all the spots or signs up but my question to it um before we vote if we have sign up go from 6:30 to 7 so that it's the same as in person if you had a flood of people um is that going to be an issue where people I keep thinking of buying a concert ticket and you call back and call back and call back um or you're online and you end up in that cycle of death is there going to be any technology issue if you had 40 people going on for that 30 minutes and trying to sign up for a spot I don't know the answer to that question um from our experience in the past and Deputy clerk gets might have a better perspective on this but from our experience in the past we have not had any technology limitations on signups okay cotton the portion of the motion I support the most is um you know allowing full public comment um the piece I have some maybe some concerns about is the limiting the signups I just think about busy people and when they know a meeting's coming up that they'll want to speak to that right then they can sign up and and um hopefully be able to attend um so I just have concerns about that that second piece um I I would support limiting comments to to two minutes and then maybe if we have a light uh sign up uh day that we could extend that to three um at the time but I think a lot of folks hear 3 minutes and so they decide to fill three minutes and um it I I think encouraging brevity would probably be helpful to both members of the public who would like

to you know um make comment and and have you know maybe other things to do in a night and don't want to sit here um for as long as it's our job too so um those are just a couple pieces um marstone so I would um move for an amendment to include as well a change to two minutes per comment um and the reason for that is because during the town halls that we held at that time comment was limited to two minutes and I did feel as though times when I've been called to speak before um the legislature in Olympian it was like 60 seconds that just felt like entirely too short to have anything said but at three minutes sometimes it does feel long um and um and maybe not as you know substantive as when you're saying you know speaking to the brevity and that to minutes felt like really concrete period of time so we could try it but um so that would be a proposed amendment is for two minutes can you clarify that that um Amendment please to so the amendment to the motion would be to include a change to the um the comment time allotted for each speaker to be set at two minutes two versus three correct okay is there a second for the motion second uh MO the amendment has been made by uh council member Stone second by council member Williams um comment I'll recognize Anderson and then Huffman can I just make a a point of clarification I assume but it wasn't motioned that this would start for a next council meeting and not start for tonight because it hasn't been noticed so does that have to be

indicated in this Motion in order to be like make sure it applies at our last meeting or legally do we have to specify I think it would be good to specify just for public The public's benefit um whether it takes effect immediately or at the next council meeting counc hman and then list thank you um uh council member Stone could you please clarify the part of your motion um concerning the the uh signups so the sign up period itself what I was looking for was consistency because the in-person sign up has been it opens at 6:30 when the doors open and closes at 7 when the meeting starts and so then setting the online sign up to be the same consistent where it opens at 6:30 and it closes at 7: so it's sort of treated as part of the meeting and that if you're going to sign up I appreciate what council member cotton you know highlighted is that it's easy right in some ways to to sign up well in advance um and so maybe we should allow for that to continue I guess previously the concern was that if we're limiting the time that we're going to provide allow for public comment then it provides an unfair advantage to those who with technology and everything else to be able to sign up online versus those signing up in person I guess if we're removing the time restriction then maybe that Equity piece isn't as important it was just for consistency because at this point um what is the current system right now for sign up does anyone know when that opens and when it closes could um it opens

okay we have a couple of things going on here we have an amendment we have a a main motion customer request go ahead I'm speaking of the amendment of reducing it from 3 minutes to 2 minutes I disagree with that you can say a lot in two minutes you can say a lot in one minute um but from my personal experience I can express an opinion in less than a minute but I can't explain or persuade as easily in one minute to tell you why I have an opinion and what I've considered and some facts that you may want to know that I've put in my decision so I'm looking for a higher quality of input and if I have a string of people who tell me I'm in favor I'm against I'm in favor I'm against that's nowhere near as useful as some longer comment that say I'm against it and here's why or I like this idea and here's some of the things that I thought about so I agree it would goes on longer but I want to hear the reasons and the ideas and the stories rather than just kind of the essence of the input member Anderson I for various reasons um don't support the twom minute and partially that's for Equity we have people who English is not their first language so it takes longer to process uh translate in their head what they're going to say in English we have people who with speech impediments it takes longer for them to get their thoughts out we also have people who are neurod Divergent and it takes longer for them to be able to speak and process so even though you know for one aspect is the ability to

expand upon the thoughts for some of our community members it's just to get their initial thoughts out they need more time and they shouldn't have to declare that they have a disability and they need more time and accommodation for that so I think 3 minutes is sufficient uh or is much more mindful that not all community members can speak in Rapid Fire they do need that additional time um Council clerk um can you just restate the amendment please I have that's a motion to amend um the language to include a change in the time allotment to 2 minutes from three minutes thank you appreciate it okay um I'm going to move us forward here we've got plenty of um other items to to go through including getting to the main motion here this afternoon so all those in favor of the amendment signify by saying I opposed no no can you get um can I do a roll call please just roll call on on the I'm sorry okay sorry Hannah Stone Holly Huffman no skip Williams no Lisa Anderson no Michael lillquist nope Jason cotton Dan haml uh no so motion uh fails uh 6 61 okay let's go back to the main motion can you restate the the main motion please go ahead motion to remove the 30 minutes time listed in the packet and synchronize the inperson and online signups to be open from 6:30 to 7: okay all those and the motion was made by council member Stone second by council member Alquist is that correct okay all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose extensions recusal oh okay motion carries six uh one with one

against hman against all right other items under old and new C mstone um so just as a followup to that item and coun and comments shared by council member Anderson I guess I would um for future discussion is about how we would handle interpretation so if somebody right they would request in advance for interpretation to be provided so if someone does not speak English um or needs an ASL interpreter whatever the circumstances may be what those accommodations look like like so that work clear as well as um stay within whatever legal parameters exist um so just a note on that um I had contacted president Hamill with a request to possibly pull um the first three consent agenda items which the first was agenda B 23977 watcom interlocal agreement contract number c238 42 and agenda bill 23978 which is an interlocal agreement with watcom County for interactions with Grace an agenda B 23979 this is an interlocal agreement between Bellingham housing authority and the Bellingham Police Department for a drug and crime prevention officer um my request to have those items pulled out of the consent agenda um wasn't for any concern specifically related to any of those items but just feeling like they touched on a couple things one is the role that interlocal agreements play within our work as a city um I understand why they were placed in the consent agenda because maybe they're seen as you know s sort of routine course of business for the city and just a renewal um but I feel like they

touch on areas of interest for us as a council as well as members of the community um and so having an opportunity to highlight what those inter local agreement speak to um I think could be um a benefit for all of us so that was my request to president H yeah I want to honor that request and um just reached out and want to make sure that um staff is adequately prepared to present today in whatever capacity council member Stone wants to um hear those items great so point of order go ahead I this the consent agenda I think I was disposed of in the evening and so it shouldn't the polling of the discussion occur tonight staff's here today I'd rather I I don't see um any reason to not move forward with it today they're prepared to discuss and I guess point of clarification then for for the City attorney is that if these items come forward now outside of consent agenda we can vote on them now or do they stay in consent agenda for this evening you'd need to vote on them this evening and take action on them you could I I would summarize that you're pulling them from the consent agenda and then individually vote on them this evening evening okay so the first agenda item is agenda bill 23977 um again this is Wat inter local agreement contract number c23 842 um indicates that the watcom 911 interlocal agreement expired December 31st 2023 and a successor Ila was drafted to incorporate three amendments previous previously approved by the watcom board city and county councils with an

effective term of January 1st 2024 to December 31st 2027 the successor I La was approved by the watcom administrative board in June of 2023 and by our own City Council in July of 2023 however in September of 2023 the County Council reviewed the successor Ila and voted not to approve it but to submit proposed changes to the makeup of the administrative board the administrative board received the proposed changes and responded with a letter urging the County Council to approve the successor contract as written before the Ila expired at the end of 2023 and the County Council voted to accept the successor Ila with a modified term and has returned it to the city council with an expiration date of December 31st 2024 to approve um and so this item was initially um with the deputy director Allison everbeck um which is the deputy director for watcom um but we have both of our Chiefs with us here this afternoon good afternoon Rebecca Mig chief of place I also have Allison here in the audience to answer questions if we need them um this was previously voted and approved by all of you um not too long ago the County Council wanted to change the date from 5 years to one year in order to entertain those discussions about board makeup um and so this is just coming back the exact same as you saw before only with a different date a question um so do you have any insight or Alison with respect to the questions regarding board makeup or what was being proposed um there was discussion of reducing

the board um currently I am a voting member uh Chief huitt is not our mayor is a voting a voting member and there was discussion about making non- electives not voting members um essentially there's no reason why I would vote against my boss it was kind of the the summar of the of the argument um uh however my our opposition my opposition to that was um I'm in charge of the whole operation both both the liability the operations the functioning um and so to not have a voice at the table also didn't seem right to me as well so I think these are going to be ongoing discussions we'll have throughout the year before um there's an agreement on what the board's going to be made up of good so would those discussions would that come back to our Council or is that a discussion that only happens at the the county I imagine it would start with the board itself um and then there's representation in the county on that board as well as as well as our city council so I think it would the discussions would likely start there I'm not sure how that aligns with how the county would have their discussions or when that would come up for them to be honest um additionally just with respect to the watcom itself and that um just how that work is carried out I know that the immigration Advisory board has raised some questions about um that entity and just our role right where the Bellingham Police Department is Staffing watcom and that dispatch um but then we're handing off to other entities in the

county so whether that being the county or some of the small cities and that there may be policy differences between the city and those other entities in the county and how that um yeah how that's reconciled and um when there are differences in policy um so certainly the the work of that board's been been of interest and I think maybe if they're um now if it have it having it being staffed by dpd is just an um I don't know if there are other um other Frameworks used in right other jurisdictions or if sometimes that's an independent um entity the 911 dispatch obviously we've made a lot of changes where now I believe everyone in the county is under watcom versus in the past some of the small cities right reached out to border patrol or had other um entities helping with that with that dispatch but um yeah additionally um the boorder of Patrol has their own Dispatch Center as well and so uh like for example if if they receive you know a cow in the roadway call they're going to send that to wcom so there's going to be some kind of communication between centers to kind of figure out who does what work Alison I don't know if you had anything to to add and since you're here I don't know the only addition is that the County Council raised an interest in adding a community health or social work um Behavioral Health representative to our board makeup and making that position potentially a non- voting member as well the other non voting member well currently voting member they were

hoping to change to a non-voting position was the representative from the fire chiefs thank you go ahead if there's nothing any questions from Council or anything further discussion committee seea go ahead okay then that item will be brought back this evening under consent agenda for um a vote the next agenda item was agenda bill um 23978 this is interlocal agreement with watcom County for interactions with Grace so the city and the county partnered together to provide Community par um paramedicine and Behavioral Health Services in the community and this agreement helps to facilitate the sharing of vehicles and office spaces between City and County employees in facil ating this work um and for this item I was going to turn to Chief hwit yeah thank you and um the the agreement itself the interlocal that's in there is pretty um innocuous I think is probably the term I'll use uh it is a mutual hold harmless agreement um and but it came to light and I I think it's great actually to be talking about this in session today just um to give everyone an update it came to light because uh recently our community Paramedic program has relocated to a facility out on Division Street where the alternative response team and the grace program is all housed out of um as well as the County's Behavioral Health deputy and so we've moved to um the county renovated a space out there on Division Street that allowed for all of these different programs to cohabitate in one office space to kind of

facilitate Communications and ongoing operations back and forth um the hold harmless agreement is simply just identifying um when our employees are housed in a County facility or if County employees are housed in a city facility that each agency basically assumes their own liability so if one of our employees trips in the county facility that we're going to cover our employee or if one of their employees um routinely we have Grace employees that will drive uh fire department vehicle um as they're out doing the work with our community paramedics if one of them gets in a crash and it's their fault then we get into um actually I'm not going to get into the specifics of who who who but basically it's it's an agreement that allows us to to do those inter agency things and and be able to identify when we need two liability issues down the road so the agreement itself is just to help facilitate that joint use of facilities joint use of vehicles um but the reason it's coming forward is we did have a change here recently where we are moving to collocate all of those resources together in one spot and I think that's the the highlight of this contract is that continued growth and uh facil fa itation of the coordination of those groups any questions ory no um thank you very much and I know that you know within the community the work that the city engages in with respect to Grace and a lot of other programs a lot of that happens um just as a matter of course and doesn't often get get

highlighted so any opportunity to highlight you know where those Partnerships exist and where that works continuing is um is appreciated so thank you very much Chief hwit um the final item was a agenda bill 23979 which is an interlocal agreement between the Bellingham housing authority and the Bellingham Police Department for a drug and crime prevention officer and so the Bellingham Police Department will provide a 0.95 FTE drug and crime prevention officer who will work directly with the Bellingham Housing Authority staff and the residents living in all Bellingham Housing Authority owned Andor managed complexes um and for this item we also have um Chief mik yes so this is an agreement we've had with the house Authority for uh several years at least 20 that we know of um and it's essentially uh if you can imagine a school resource officer for for the Housing Authority basically they're there to answer calls for service but also just be a resource um to those areas thank you very much um and so again this is an item where you shared that this has been in place for you know maybe 20 plus years um but may not be something that we're all aware of and I know that through the work um housing interests as well with the Housing Authority um as well as increased interest in you know Public Safety within the community just being able to highlight that work that's happening in those Partnerships um is appreciated so thank you for taking the time and again those items will come back

during consent agenda thank you bringing those forward committee further questions pursuant to to these items that were brought forward okay seeing none further items under old and new business okay seeing none uh we have an executive session um we have four items here we have litigation Benson versus city of Bellingham um and others that's with good for approximately 5 minutes Labor Relations uh discussion of collective bargaining strategy with Monahan uh for about for five minutes Labor Relations review contract proposal for teamsters with Monahan for five minutes and Labor Relations uh discuss Labor Relations strategies with Monahan for 30 minutes so that's 45 minutes I'll be back in here um at about 3:00 to to adjourn thank you