City Council - Committee Of The Whole

okay folks we're going to go ahead and get started here so um I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order this is uh an official meeting of the um Bellingham city council um and I just want to read this uh summary statement so juneth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States and is a city of Bellingham holiday as well as a state and federal holiday the city and the and community members will honor and celebrate juneth today with a a flag raising ceremony here at the Flag Plaza and without F further Ado I'm going to turn this over to Mayor Kim Lund thank you council president Hamill uh it is my honor to be here speaking to you today as the mayor of the city and it is my honor to be included um in this celebration I think it's very important that as a city we're taking time to pause our official business to do things like this we have a legacy as a community where we had very different ways um of not creating an inclusive community and taking pause and doing this kind of work is very important so without further Ado uh it's my pleasure to introduce Terren TJ Morris who will be our MC and Master of Ceremonies today TJ [Applause] go down Moses way down oh pharaoh to let my people go t pharoh to let my people go hello and welcome to is this our fourth time doing it our fourth time doing the flag raising we were the first city to do it before it even became like a legacy and so for right now we got a like full like quick

program for you and um I hope you enjoy so the first person you'll be hearing from will be a ancestors prayer when I was a little boy my late grandmother was born in Tyler Texas and I asked her I said what does that flag mean she said it means we're the new star and I said okay and I said why do we celebrate something that's so painful because she said we don't remember the past we'll repeat it in the present and we'll keep repeating it in the future and I said why do we honor our ancestors and she said because they they they gave up something which was their life so we can be free and so there's this old like prayer called the ancestors prayer and dbor will read it for you give dor hand okay so this is a short prayer and meditation for our ancestors when you were born the Earth became your body the stone became your bone the sea became your blood the sun became your eye the moon became your mind the wind became your breath when you passed to the other world your breath became the wind your mind became the moon your eye became the sun your blood became the sea your bone became the stone your body became the earth when we were born you did the same for us you called forth the Earth and rocks the sea arose and the sun descended the moon Shone down and the wind sang for those who come after we shall do as you did for us when we are gone we shall do as you did before ancestors we honor you now we have the proclamation in their own words by the Lance Jones hello everyone can you

hear me okay everywhere the first forced arrival of enslaved African people to the land later known as the United States of America took place in 169 this is in Jamestown Virginia for every 1,000 Africans kidnapped in the slave trade 640 survived the forced March from the African interior 570 survived to board the waiting ship and around 48 0 lived to see America on April 12th 1861 the American Civil War began its central conflict being whether or not slavery should be permitted to expand to the United States's western territories after two years of fighting President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st 1863 declaring that all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state within the rebellious states are and henceforth shall be free the order did not free every enslaved person the order actually specified places where it did not apply and the Confederacy fought against this Proclamation for another two years on June 19th 1865 one month after the conclusion of hostilities US Army troops landed in Galveston Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation there remained legally enslaved people in the States that never seceded for the union they did not realize their freedom until the 13th amendment was ratified on December 6th 1865 we'll never know for sure but recent estimates State around 6 million people lived and died in the American slave industry 4 million were ultimately declared free Frederick Douglas the activist

who he himself had been enslaved said Lincoln was slow even slothful in making this obvious move Frederick Douglas celebrated that quote the dictation of humanity and Justice have at least prevailed my name is Lance Edward Jones I'm a resident of Bellingham in wam County and I'm a descendant of enslaved people now we have a selection by Nia Gibson good morning everyone we try that again good morning everyone my name is Nia Gibson uh and a fun fact about me I am was born and raised in Chicago and gospel music himnos and spirituals were embedded in my upbringing so I'm glad that I get to share this song with you all uh if you all can clap along feel free to sing along I want you to be as much of a part of this experience as I am oh freedom oh Freedom oh Freedom over me and before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free oh oh Freedom oh Freedom oh Freedom over me and before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free no more weeping no more weeping no more weeping over me and before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord L and be free there be singing and there will be singing and there will be singing over me and before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home home to my Lord and be free oh Freedom oh oh Freedom oh Freedom over me and before I be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free now we have a reading um by Jason M well it's a poem and he's

feeling very vulnerable to read this by Jason mcel hello everyone can you hear me um so I am going to read a poem when TJ asked if I could do a reading at first I was thinking about reading what um I read last year juneth and it was for a poem by Audrey Lord but I was like you know what I've been in this community now for a couple years why not be vulnerable and share a poem that I have written so I just wrote a poem over the weekend and never done that um but I'm going to do it right here because that's what this community is all about is embracing each other our experiences um all of that good stuff so hopefully you like it if not it's all good I'm still going to read it so and it's juneth um so it's titled juneteth poem we're here in the heart of June's radiant glow where Freedom seeds were swn to grow juneth and queer Liberation meet and a dance of Courage Fierce and sweet the chains of history and its cruel hold the progress to embrace identities held bold we honor those who fight for our right to be without fear through long days cold nights even after losing someone dear June's jubilant emancipation invites to for queer Liberation here we are at this celebration one for every soul that darare to dream of a world where we all are seen in the struggle for equality there is unity and diversity juneth and quer Liberation unite in the fight for justice we shine bright let our voices raise high and be heard tonor those who'd reached the sky with their word juneth in queer

Liberation intertwined we are a tapestry of Freedom beautifully designed thank you black is beautiful black is kind black children grow up to be black men and women but being black sometimes is hard to do but it's not something that we chose but it's something that we grow into and so for right now we think about two years went past before the slaves in Texas knew they were free and when they got free they didn't know what to do 5 years they stay on the same Plantation where they were beaten where their ancestors were killed we think about our community and what happened on last what Wednesday little black boy was going home and was beaten because he was black again black is beautiful black is kind but sometimes being black is hard to do but I cherish my blackness so right now we want to give just a brief two minutes for the ancestry just a moment of silence so now I want y'all to like make some noise for the ancestry I want you to get loud and proud and say thank you y'all ready y'all ready I know y'all ready okay we're going to put a little soul in all of us today a little soul you ready Janice you have the flag ready so this is for the ancestry we G to get the flag right this time though I promise I promise so you ready for the ancestry let's go so um we're going to hang the flag and Skip is going to um when the flag is hung skip going to sing the black national anthem the Negro national anthem um so we want to face the flag if you know the song you can sing with him if

you don't uh it's okay too y'all ready so let's go e e what a wonderful event this is are we ready lift every voice and sing till Earth and Heaven ring ring with the [Music] harmonies of Liberty let our [Music] rejoicing rise high as the Ling Skies let it ReSound loud as the Roose L SE sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us sing a song full of the that the present has brought us facing the Rising Sun of our new day beun let us march on till Victory is [Music] one that concludes I want um y'all come back up here mayor um black folks uh one thing I can say about this community um I moved here almost 10 years ago and um like I I I've done Jun te since I came to America and uh the first time I came to this uh Community I was like I want to do a juneth and people say it's not going to work they too white and I said okay I don't care this my Heritage and it was a success and it went on and on and on and I didn't do it this year because like a lot of family stuff but next year is going to be good um but I want to thank um my community for standing by me but as I'm going to keep saying um being black is hard to to do and I want you to think like what do I do other than juneth to show that my my black community members feel heard supported and honored because it's great to do it for Black History Month it's great to do it for juneth but I always tell people look at your phone if you go on your phone it doesn't say diversity that mean you got work to do you look

at your last 10 calls if you look at it that everybody looks like you and agree with you that mean you ain't doing the work harsh truth so thank you s of bam thank you to my amazing brothers and sisters who always have my back when I calling yall on the last minute thank you know thank y'all for like showing up and showing out thank you Janice where's Janice for always just being in Janice uh thank you city of bhem I guess we got we got to go back to work now all right thank you all they get the pictures did you want to take pictures you want to take pictures yeah oh thank you thank you good J it's just yes yes yes exactly that's that's the great part are yall ready okay this is the official notice the city council meeting is adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon right okay [Music] n [Music] e e okay we'll go ahead and resume here the next committee uh for this afternoon as Community the whole we have a few items before us the first one is a presentation of community feedback on the draft Urban Forest plan the city of Bellingham is creating a strategic Urban Forest plan to help maintain a healthy and desirable Urban Forest through well-coordinated and consistent and sustained or sustainable long-term Urban Forest management the plan outlines a suite of actions to preserve and enhance the urban Forest to help achieve goals outlined in the climate action plan and the comprehensive plan the plan is based on the aspirational goal of achieving a 45% tree canopy coverage within the

city uh in an acal uh fashion as a policy doc document the plan creates the a basis from which future regulations funding and programs can be based the draft plan is available for public review project consultant will present a summary of the community feedback obtained during the structured engagement period uh lasting from April 15th through May 15th of this year and here to take us through is Eric Johnston director of public works thank you Mr haml joining at the table here is Nicole Oliver and Blake lion from the planning and Parks departments uh today's presentation will be by Miss Amelia Nida I think I got that right this time uh and and our our goal is to go through the uh specific targeted engagement that the staff and the Consulting team went through where we sought out specific groups and uh of folks as well as to the members of the public we are still accepting public comment on the on the draft plan as it is but we wanted we committed when we presented this plan that we would come back to the council in uh in June with with a summary of our targeted engagement so that's our purpose today uh we certainly will accept more public combat as things go on uh we do expect to come back at a later point this summer or maybe earlier the fall with a next conversation about what next steps might look like but we're today's purpose is really to just do a summary of the public engagement and Amilia is going to go through that for us today good afternoon and thank you to Mayor

and Council and staff for having me uh back to present uh the outcomes from the public engagement process as Eric mentioned uh we we were last uh before you presenting the draft that was made available to the public um and the public had the opportunity to review and provide feedback on that draft uh in a structured format over over a month and as Eric mentioned we still receiving uh feedback so today I'm just going to provide a brief overview of the engagement that occurred and then uh the results uh the full detail of which is provided in your agenda package so this third phase of work involves drafting the urban Forest plan uh we provided that to the public because at this point in our process we're we're not so far along in the plan that we can't adjust courses we receive feedback so it's an excellent time for us to hear from people we'd also like to acknowledge um just how much we we value and appreciate the time that the public and the um that Council and that uh that the technical um advisers have have spent reviewing the plan and providing uh that thoughtful input so um the community was invited in general to uh review the plan uh online and there were several methods through which input could be received uh people were made aware of that engagement through a range of different promotional methods that had pretty broad reach so approximately 13,500 people were made aware through various channels that the engagement process was underway you heard from people primarily

through an online survey format so people were given the plan to review and then asked some targeted questions about that plan and they also had the opportunity to provide some open-ended uh answers as well in that survey there was also an online openhouse where people were able to ask questions and then there were three targeted technical workshops uh that included 41 participants in terms of of who we heard from the majority of the survey respondents were um people who lived in Bellingham uh many of whom resided in uh the more populous postal code but all codes were represented most of the people we heard from were homeowners and about 177% were renters and I should note as well this was a a voluntary self- selected survey so it's not a statistical sample of the community it's just people who were interested and self- selected to provide that input in terms of the online session uh people there identified from U as residents as as Park stewards uh Environmental Group members and students and then the technical Workshop attendees were were invited um but also came from a broad range of backgrounds uh many were from uh Tree Care and arboriculture Industry uh development related fields nonprofit sectors and some interested members of the general public as well in terms of what we heard I'll share primarily some of the survey results and then touch on some of the open-ended feedback as well so the first questions that were asked through the survey were more General asking

people about their um level of agreement with the broad direction of the plan and then the format of the plan itself so when asked about the vision goals and targets and the direction of the plan overall um we did have majority agreement in responses but we also had about 35% of people who had disagreement so certainly in terms of that direction that's something we want to dig into and understand through the comments and a couple of the um other answers I'll go through kind of touch on where some of that comes from as well but overall in terms of the plan itself um there was agreement uh that people earn new information data and metrics were clearly communicated and that content was understood so going back into that future Direction the vision statement was something we specifically asked for feedback on again we had majority agreement but we had about 177% of people who disagreed and a lot of the opening Ed comments that we received related to how people would like to see that improved so that's definitely an area where we'll take that information process it and think about how we could update that vision statement to hopefully increase that level of agreement canab be cover Target was another one of those future Direction pieces and again we had uh 73% of survey respondents uh who agreed with that and 21% who disagreed so again we had open-ended feedback on when people disagreed some some felt that that Target was too high some felt it was not high enough and then we also

had some feedback uh particularly from technical Workshop participants as well asking to have more context and Clarity around how the targets were developed what the implications of those targets were when it came to the goals we had pretty good and consistent agreement on those goals no specific goals stood out as as being sort of more favored than another U but again we did get some specific feedback that we can use to inform our updates moving forward uh but overall it seems like the goals um were fairly uh fairly uniformly supported we did also I have some potential quick start actions so some things that could be prioritized for implementation and we asked for people's level of agreement across those uh again there was relatively good support we can see and the in the last question there around codes and and ordinances that we had more uncertainty in the responses to that question so about 8% of people who were unsure again it's an area where you know we can look at the feedback to understand what what more information people would want to know to be more comfortable with those types of actions so in terms of the additional feedback uh We've summarized at a very high level uh the themes that that we heard from that but that's also provided in the appendix to the engagement summary uh in the in the RO form in which it was received uh so some general uh feedback included wanting to have more uh integration with other strategic plans and processes so that the plan itself

include more detail on its connection with the growth management act and higher level plans of the community um that the public process as it moves forward include open discussion and consultation before decision- making we heard quite a bit about balance and balancing priorities uh some people who wanted to see more of an Ecentric focus on the plan others who were concerned to see more of a discussion around the balance between uh canopy and achieving housing affordability as well we had quite a bit of feedback too on the canopy cover Target uh some folks would like to see uh some more detailed breakdowns so that Target broken down further into sub areas um more peer City comparisons to provide context around different land uses and and canopy cover related to that on the metrics wanting to see expanded land use categories and more detail on the assumptions that went into those projections and then around plan implementation as well quite a few comments about um seeing more detail on the actions on the cost estimates um and on the monitoring plan which is not yet filled out and then as well uh some comments around tree protection and wanting to see increased protection for mature trees and then we had a range of of various comments and suggestions and so at this point um we want to take all that feedback that's been received and spent some time uh understanding that and identifying ways we can uh update the plan uh to reflect that feedback for the community I'll also just

quickly note um that the summary and those appendices are available on the city's website at this URL as well thank you very much thank you any additional comments from staff Comm uh council member Anderson thank you um since this is for discussion and feedback um when you go through to take a look at the public comment and perhaps integrate some of the suggestions into revisions please pay very close attention to what was proposed by million trees and also resources there are two very valued Partners in our environmental area of the city um they have a lot of very well-versed individuals who have written um especially million trees the white paper there um I'll be paying particular attention to how much of that goes into revision and just ah heads up some of the content that I and I won't go through every single one right now but the ones that I find of high value um I'll be prepared to make motions for changes um on some of those um I think they did an excellent job on this um very happy they put the time and effort into it I've had various discussions with members and um I don't have very many suggestions beyond what they have already put forward so um great valued work and hopefully you'll also find it very valuable um and I'm sure if there's any questions some of their um uh directors would be happy to answer um that so anyway that would be my direction or request thank you coun mquest yeah kind of uh pivoting off of that I I too appreciated the million stream trees

Project's comment letter I'm not sure I agree with everything but a lot of it I did in particular I want to draw attention to the heat disparity map they had and the idea of heat risk uh in certain parts of our uh City and the suggestion that we prioritize uh canopy protection and enhancement in those areas did you have a chance to look at that IA or other members of the staff u i i I think that could be incorporated do you think it's already in there or do you think it's something we can call out Amilia can speak to herself I think we're still in the process of trying to incorporate and look at all of the comments that have come in so I I mean Council feedback on on on on your perspective is welcome as well but Amelia and analy can speak more specific about what they've looked at so far just add I guess that that yeah through the tree Equity process we did incorporate land surface temperature but I think we can look at it in different ways and there might be value in adding that another uh lens of vulnerability uh to to just to ensure that there's consistency uh across those so Emelia fresh my memory you you uh had that Equity uh measure as you say that that included some of these same heat risk factors was that did that result in sort of a prioritization though also I can't remember yes it's one of the it's one of the values so there's about five values in in the index for the tree Equity score and one is land surface temperature and then the others are demographic related

to trying to get out that piece of vulner vulnerability and heat and then it's paired with where there's a gap in tree canopy thank you council member Anderson thank you and and thank you council member um lqu for a very specific example which leads to mine um not only the Heat vulnerability for neighborhoods and our neighbors but also our streams and around the lake um because those areas with the climate change happening we have some Creek areas that don't have a lot of tree canopy and that puts it at risk um during the low flow of the water heating up and then Aquatic Life perishing because of it so I would like to see something kind of addressed for our stream areas where we can work on mitigation and additional trees and I don't recall that specifically being called out um so I would really like to see that address and I think Resources address that a little bit regarding um the taking at least having some guideline for increasing tree canopy around the lake but um the one thing missing is we have multiple streams in the community which should also be addressed in this committee further questions council member Stone um thank you thank you for the presentation I know that we're going to I mean be working on this more um I guess one of the questions is with respect to the engagement in that feedback process I know that and this may be a broader question than this particular plan but when we're talking about engagement right it looked like the direct Outreach was 13,500 or

something right direct contacts and then when we see that feedback obviously people have to voluntarily opt in to go to the survey or to participate do we have any sense of targets because noting that it's not right a statistical um You Know sample but at the same time do we have any Targets are we satisfied or with that return or is there more that we you know need to do I'm just thinking about the disparity between right those contacts and then the actual response that and maybe no news is good news but right this is Anna Burns Public Works and to just speak uh to what you were saying they the phrase phase two had an engagement also and so one of the things we looked at was the demographics how um many geograph geographical areas were represented what kind of demographics um and so one of the things we can do is is and This is Our intention is make sure that we aren't missing a a major demographic whether it's Geographic or whether it's um a um age range or uh income level and in general the 470 so surveys that we received is considered fairly good response rate but um we can as part of this analysis be looking at are we missing a demographic um in phase one we had pretty broad um and generally uh acceptable in our view representation and I think phase three is still we need to look at that again uh I just want to say I appreciate council member Stone's thinking around this and it would be interesting to establish kind of a baseline for what we get for response I think what

is challenging is there's so much variability based on how the public perceives direct impacts on any given plan or engagement opportunity we can look at Holly Street Bike Lan you know you know we have had more than a thousand members of the community share feedback on that so far and some of our really significant you know planning documents have much lower engagement and so I think that's a bit of the challenge but I appreciate your your questioning and we'll spend more time as staff talking about that go follow briefly um and so thinking about that I guess obviously with the million trees project right resources others um weighing in um which I think right is good I mean we want want that information coming forward what I'm still focusing on right is that at this point this is an aspirational goal of achieving a 45% canopy and sometimes I'm thinking about that I always say it's sort of a privilege and a blessing to be in an advocacy group in the community where you have one particular area of interest and you can maybe put blinders on and say that this is what matter Ms most and sort of not say nothing else matters but like this is the focus and obviously we should be doing more and improving that and obviously sitting in these seats we have a lot to balance and I think as staff members as well a lot to balance when making those decisions and so um yeah I'm just internally trying to figure out how right how we utilize this information and then move forward to to finalizing

that plan and at what point we'll be coming back I expect to be discussing that aspirational 45% because what are those impacts with respect to housing and those Equity right and value pieces across the city just how we get there ivly I'd like to say yes you know support all of that we should be doing more but I don't know that that's um realistic when we're trying to move forward on multiple fronts in some pretty um yeah high stakes crisis areas so I don't know if that's a question it's more just is my internal process if I may just add a comment or two on that um it's also I think worth noting that when we have responses like wat camillian trees resources or biaw for example often times those organizations are representative of larger bodies of individuals that may feel that those organizations are speaking on their behalf so it may skew the numbers a little bit in that respect we also made a uh an effort to kind of separate the landmark tree ordinance conversation outside of this so that may have influenced a little bit of the feedback loop as well committee further questions see none anything else from staff on this one okay thank you for the presentation appreciate it okay we will move on to our next item this is an ordinance repealing or uh ordinance 2014- 06034 which established a by annual budget for the city of Bellingham uh there's an ordinance here in the packet that'll reveal that that ordinance and return the city to an annual budgeting process uh Finance staff

recommended this change to to produce a more responsive accurate and transparent uh budget after five Bal budget Cycles staff have found the efficiencies provided by budgeting every two years are outweighed by the challenges of forecasting revenues and expenses um so far into the future in addition the nature banial budgets um obus skates budget challenges and constraints reducing transparency City will continue to produce a 5year revenue and expense forecast and include fiveyear Capital plans in the annual budget to support long-term planning here to take us through is um Deputy Finance director Forest Longman yeah um not a whole lot to add on that we think this will make for a more transparent and more effective budget process process I will say we've you know we've vetted this throughout the organization talking to people involved with making budgets and uh near consensus that this would be a positive impact on the city's operations and also just point out that the financial policies that Council recently adopted did include uh the language for the annual budget and so we're just codifying that effectively happy to answer any questions Stone so I just wanted to confirm I presume it's the case since um legals looked over this and we're um and working with Finance but my understanding since this is an ordinance to repeal right that section there isn't another ordinance necessary to then formally move to annual it just defaults right it's just an automatic default it just

defaults to the annual yes if you don't have the ordinance in place to make it by annual at defaults to annual okay committee Council hman uh pretty validating to hear that staff uh is is uh approving of this change so I'll go ahead and move approval second motion's been made by council member Huffman seconded by council member Williams any further discussion on this item seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 70 okay well pretty fast way to change the way that we operate all right next item um more current here uh this is emergency repairs to Electric Avenue Bridge uh during a special inspection of the electric avenue bridge on June 3rd 2024 was discovered that multiple structural elements had substantially degraded resulting in a class classification to critical failure level this classification of these failures required immediate closure of the bridge the closure of the bridge uh to vehicle traffic is significant uh the impacts are significant to Transportation network with uh adverse effects to emergency service providers Bellingham School District uh WTA the wam transp uh Transportation Authority and the public in general staff immediately initiated procurement of materials equipment and contracts to respond to the emergent need to temporarily repair the bridge and restore basic functionality BMC 4.8.1 authorizes emergency contracts provides that city council um passed a resolution within 2 weeks after contracts

are awarded declaring that an emergency existed um the resolution here in the packet is um attached confirming the emergency actions of Staff here to take us through uh Public Works director Eric Johnston thank you Mr Hamill so this is a as mentioned in the summary agend summary statement this is a council resolution confirming the existence of the emergency which allows waiver of certain of the PCH purchasing and procurement requirements sometimes we call them the bidding rules uh and what that lets us do is that lets us quickly respond to these types of situations and as as one example of the things we've did uh so when the initial inspection was done that was done by a contract for the Consulting engineer and a special inspection firm uh that firm has worked with us on many projects related to our bridges and they are what we considered to be the experts when it comes to Bridges so when the when the load rating was going to be adversely affected by the the condition of that bridge we immediately started work with that same engineer to resolve and come up with a new loow raid loading for that bridge uh and have executed a contract amendment to allow for us to pay the engineer for that work other things that we need to do including the purchase of some materials and equipment to uh get the bridge to its current condition the temporary traffic control that the the signals that you see went through a process to secure those we are looking at Future other actions to take which

may involve a temporary repair to the bridge but we don't know what those are given the time associated with the public bidding process uh are are are the the the Declaration of this emergency allows us to move forward without having to go through the lengthy time frame for Normal public bidding processes to respond to the emergency so our recommendation is to approve the resolution we're happy to answer any questions you might have about current status of the bridge or efforts or things that we're doing to bring that bridge to where it needs to be uh C Stone then huthman um thank you very much so obviously the third whereas clause in the resolution right defines emergency and I don't think anyone would take issue with um finding that what transpired you know certainly being an emergency I guess my question I don't know if it's for staff or um for legal but if there's any confines regarding the scope of this emergency or time frame I understand that this would cover right past action that had to happen immediately but I understand that there are additional actions that need to be taken in the short we would say short term um but I expect that like reconstruction of the bridge that will go through a normal bidding process and that that's somewhere in the future so I'm just wondering if there are any guard rails on the scope of this emergency and how we're defining that that is a good question I'm I'm glad you mentioned that the the the inent is to eventually replace or

permanently repair that bridge and that process will go through the normal bidding process uh but to bring the bridge from its current status to something that's more durable what we don't know is if we're able to do that and preserve uh or enhance the load reading of that bridge but certainly that that definition of emergency would take us from where we are now to a more longer term durable but I don't have a definition of what that time would be and Allen might be able to speak more of the technical as to when the time for in emergency might exist I agree with what uh director Johnston says um would include some future actions to further stabilize the bridge it would not include a rebuilding a total rebuild of the bridge that would go through the normal bidding process follow up so just brief follow um so understand so stabilizing the bridge do we have any sense of what that means is that like back to I assume we wouldn't have two lanes of traffic but I'm just want I mean I don't know how we see when that emergency stops and when we start planning for something else and it's a difficult question for us to answer because we don't know what that solution might be so our our efforts the last week or two have been focused on getting it open to some level of traffic and the bridge is currently related I believe at 24 tons 24 tons which is not a lot of weight which means we can pass a WTA bus over there but not a WTA electric bus so it's a pretty pretty big restriction we we can

get a city fir Tru but we can't get the city ladder truck we can get a city fire truck but not a County District tender vehicle over that bridge so so getting the bridge to a point where you can have you know broader access to the to the bridge is going to take some more work what we don't know is what that if that if that work is worth the effort uh how long that would last what it's going to cost us to do that so we we are in the process of trying to assess that so I really it's hard to say when that emergency might go away um on other Bridges another bridge that was very similar to this the meter Bridge we were able to go under the bridge install some temporary cribbing with a temporary beam in that case we had access to the base Foundation that was above the water line in this case everything is below the water line so depending on how things go through uh do we find a way to crib up that bridge in the creek in the it's very we just don't have the answer to that today the emergency provisions of the resolution to allow for the waving of the bidy requirements allow us to very quickly go through lots of different options without having to decide on an option and then go through public beating process and all of the normal steps associated with procurement of public projects um that could be a week it could be a six months it could be next year some time uh the time frame to replace the bridge is probably two to three years uh and that would the and our intent is to apply

for the federal money that's a money money monies that are available to replace these Bridges uh but it will take two or three years if that money becomes available for that bridge to be replaced we we would would like to find a way if we're able to to bring that bridge to more of a u more usable for all vehicles and that's what we'll use the emergency declaration to achieve but of course I can't put a time to that um anything add that the only thing I would add is that our consultant is working hard on coming up with a couple alternatives for us and they hope to have something in the next two weeks for us to evaluate to make a decision on how we move forward with the bridge council member Huffman Williams then Anderson Mr Johnson just answered both of the questions that I had okay council member Williams um it seems pretty straightforward so I would move approval second okay motion's been made by council member Williams and seconded by council member list council member Anderson um I just want to make sure I understood the amount of money and then a clarification it has an engineering cost estimated at 50,000 short-term emergency repairs are estimated at 100,000 so is the 50,000 included in that or is it 150,000 total 150 total plus or minus a fair amount okay so I just want to be very cautious about that because that those are very very round numbers that we guessed at last week it could be a lot more but part of our process will be to evaluate is it worth the time and

effort in dollars to go to that extent uh before we proceed to the next steps that kind of leads into my next question um or actually my only question because I obviously I'll support this because we need to get the work done but um it seems like this amount of money is kind of an unknown placeholder but if some of the possible solutions that are short term to get us through until we can do a fix it or a replacement let's say hypothetically we're going to need to spend 250,000 um is that going to come back to us or is that covered in this emergency that we're basically authorizing any shortterm expenditure in order to create that Band-Aid is covered here now and then we're not going to see that increase amount as far as as having approval how how will that work that's a good question so the resolution would would would wave the requirement for the staff to come back to council to award a bid and so normally in the normal bidding procedures we go out to bid we get a price we come back with the bidding process like we did this today on a couple of issues and Council considers contract Award of the bidge of the of the of the bid for the bridge um if if the dollar amount under the normal way of things proceeding exceeds what we have available to the staff the administration in the budget then then Council would need to be weigh into on the budget Authority that the staff has available to us and we don't know the answer to that question uh so so I I can't really say what that

amount would be or where would come back where it would come back to that will largely depend on the dollar amount that would cost us to do that so just to clarify if it goes above 150,000 you'll come back for authorization to spend more money I appreciate that no that's not the case if if the dollar amount required to fix the bridge that is needed to do it exceeds the exist exting authorized operating budget of the of the street fund then we would need to come back to council for that approval uh but it's not specific to this emergency it's not specific to this amount the the amounts that are listed in those where those Provisions are are placeholders but the Declaration of emergency is not related to the dollar amount the approved authorized 2023 2024 budget has dollars associated with that if our response to this situation requires us to exceed results in US exceeding that budget then we would need to come back to council for that on the other hand if the council would like a report back on what those dollars are we'd be happy to do that at your direction go ahead I personally would like to just an update whether it's through email or publicly um if it's going to exceed a certain amount of money because potentially it could and I understand you have money in the street fund but as budget Authority folks I'd like to kind of keep tabs how much the short-term repair costs are going to run us um because I know when the bidding process that'll come to us again but if somehow

this gets to be a runaway cost I would definitely like to share my thoughts on that so yeah I just want to say I'm hearing the inquiry from Council Members Stone and Anderson and we can come back with information as the engineers are evaluating Solutions we can come back with an informational presentation about the direction we're exploring in the short term and where we head longer term much appreciated thank you committee further questions motion on the table uh from council member Williams seconded by council member liist uh all those in favor signified by saying I I oppos extensions recusals motion carries 70 uh City attorney Mariner um this is a resolution when I bring this forward tonight there will not be a requirement for a second vote is that correct that's correct that's the first second third reading applies to ordinances only okay so what is the procedure for me to bring this forward I just I read the summary statement and then just say that it passed this afternoon and that's it you do you you you have to vote on it again this evening because the action actually occurs in the evening under uh a regular council meeting gotcha okay all right thank you okay well that takes us thank you for the presentation um that takes us to a briefing on promoting a healthy workplace for city employees preventing harassment and ensuring transparency city council has requested a briefing on safeguards uh the city of Bellingham has in place to create a healthy and safe workplace for

all city employees uh preventing harassment and ensuring transparent communication between branches of government and here to take us through is uh Sarah Chaplan and Elizabeth Mana hand got it good afternoon council members my name is Sarah Chaplan I'm an attorney in the city attorney's office and among my duties is advising the human resources department and Advising generally on Personnel matters and that is one reason why I am here with the Human Resources Director Elizabeth Monahan today to talk to you about um some a few different topics you will see the title of this presentation is pretty all encompassing and one reason for that is because um council members uh excuse me uh Hamill has requested a briefing from us on that deals with some C circumstances that have occurred over at wam County involving the County's response to allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace and so so we are going to be discussing those circumstances today not to point fingers not to Pat ourselves on the back um but rather to use it to take a hard look at ourselves to look at our systems to look at our practices and policies and deter what are and talk about what are we doing well what can we do better what systems do we have in place um to deal with with allegations of harassment or discrimination if they occur here um so we are going to be talking about those circumstances today and I also want to acknowledge that these are hard topics to talk about um but it's important to talk about

them and we don't often have the opportunity to do so here so thank you for requesting this presentation so with that I'm going to put on my attorney hat and I am going to provide some disclaimers and recommendations before we get into the meet of this presentation first of all um we have a duty to our employees to protect particularly Witnesses and complainants of harassment and discrimination we have a duty to protect their confidentiality so if you have any questions about particular employee scenarios specific investigations anything of that matter please um keep those in executive session or not an open session because we need to make sure we are doing our duty to protect confidentiality here when it comes to our employees and work Place investigations similarly um if you have questions about potential litigation any issues relating to that in order to abide by state ethics laws um I recommend that you keep those questions for executive session as well now I want to move on to a disclaimer that we're going to be talking about some news coverage of events that have happened over at wam County um all of the information that I'm going to be talking about about wam county is information that I have gotten from this news coverage I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any information other than that I got it from reading news articles and I imagine you council members any questions you may have received on these topics may have come from folks reading the news as well so

hopefully it'll be helpful to you for answering those questions okay so I just want to make sure we're all on the same page for the various topics we're going to be talking about today so I'm going to go through a very high level uh timeline of the media coverage of these matters so back in 2021 and 2022 we had multiple wam County employees that reported the then Public Works director um reported allegations of inappropriate conduct that could amount to sexual harassment in October 2022 the county investigated and the then Public Works director resigned before the investigation could be completed then November 2022 the county and the then Public Works director signed a separation agreement and one term in that separation agreement was that the Public Works director could characterize his departure as a resignation we're going to be talking about some of the other terms as well in this presentation in early 20123 uh the county executive signed a letter of introduction um discussing the then Public Works director's performance at the city and various other things then on October 24th 2023 an attorney for one of the employes that had reported allegations of sexual harassment sent a letter to wakam County accusing the county of violating federal and state discrimination laws and in that letter the attorney sought 400,000 in settlement money um on behalf of that employee November 2023 shortly thereafter wam County entered into a $225,000 settlement agreement with that employee

then that brings us to the recent events that on April 19th 2024 Cascade PBS broke a news story recounting the underlying Personnel matters and also the 220 $25,000 settlement to the employee and then a few days later some County council members reported that they had been unaware of the Personnel matters and the subsequent payout until that Cascade PBS story was published so here's what I imagine some of the questions you may have received been some questions you might be asking that we're going to be talking about today first question is how here at the city of Bellingham do we ensure that allegations of harassment are adequately investigated and that individuals at all levels of government are held are held accountable for their actions when appropriate and shortly Elizabeth's going to be talking about that piece you might be asking how do we ensure that when it's required or when it's appropriate that city of council is kept apprised of personnel matters and then finally how do we ensure here at the city that the city is not paying out settlements without Council approval when Council approval is required so that's what we're going to be talking about today and now I'm going to turn it over to Elizabeth Monahan to talk about the first question afternoon Council Elizabeth Monahan Director of Human Resources so I'll preface this with this is not an in-depth training on our sexual harassment policy it's really just an overview for you to kind of get an understanding of how

we address this if you desire to have a real in-depth training session on sexual harassment in our policy we're more than happy to arrange that so just let me know so Personnel policy 11.2.1 providing equal opportunity this is our policy that covers all of our harassment um um issues so scope it covers all elected officials employees volunteers or others who perform work at the city so that includes people like contractors that are coming in and working with our employees we hold those folks the same standard they're not allowed to harass our employees right the policy defines harassment and retaliation it sets expectations of respecting individuals providing services to the public providing equal opportunity for employment and providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities policy requires that we train all of our employees and establishes a complaint process and it was most recently updated in 2017 So within the policy we Define harassment as the unwelcome Behavior or unwelcome conduct that is based on protected characteristics beliefs affiliations or activities becomes unlawful when enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment where the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment that's the legal standard severe or pervasive creating a hostile work environment and our policy does among all of the other categories of harassment specifically calls out sexual harassment as a violation of our

policy but in practice it's really great to work for an organization where we exceed the law we do that do different um mechanisms so while the policy is based on the legal def definition of harassment making sure that that doesn't occur in our workplace we have our Public Service competencies these were developed a number of years ago and they are reviewed with all brand new employees and it's a wonderful tool tool that we use to coach employees where performance needs to be addressed and we also hold each other accountable and so the train teamwork in cooperation Public Service competency I don't know if you can read that and a problem I'll read the top line for you uh the ability to work cooperatively within diverse teams work groups and across the organization to achieve group and organizational goals so we look at that and say we've got to be able to treat people with respect and be able to be doing that in a courteous fashion so using the public C Public Service competencies really does um emphasize the expectation that we provide a safe and healthy workplace for our employees in addition um making sure that leadership is setting the bar very high and I think this letter that mayor Kim Lund sent out um in response to this issue at watom County really sets the stage for setting a very high bar on what we expect of our employees we have no tolerance for harassment here at the city of Bellingham we provide a safe and respectful workplace we hold our leadership accountable

to make sure that happens really the leadership here is walking the talk and we do it every day and I think this is a great example of how we exceed that legal standard of harassment the policy also goes into detail about the prohibition of retaliation so it express expressly prohibits retaliation for filing a claim or providing a witness statement my personal opinion um if an is if a situation were to come to me where there was significant retaliation or even just minor retaliation that has to be dealt with swiftly and severely because it can have a chilling effect and it can cause people to be afraid to come forward and Report any other issues so retaliation has to be held to a zero tolerance level retaliation could be very simple and subtle it can be snubbing people it could be not forwarding the email that you were supposed to it could be really blatant but most of it's pretty subtle so we have to pay attention to that and make sure that our employees aren't being retaliated against then the policy talks about reporting expectations so first of all we have ask people where appropriate talk to the accused person now this we wouldn't ever suggest this if it was an agregas uh policy violation give you an example of something not so egregious hey darling how you doing today some people might not be offended some people might be offended if you're offended by that and somebody says that to you the first time you meet them or you're just having a casual conversation our policy

and our guidance is you know if it's appropriate you can say you know I really don't want to be called darling it seems demeaning to me so can you please refrain from doing that if the person has their listening ears on and does that case closed if they don't and they continue to use those kind of terms or they escalate it then our policy and our guidance is that that would be reported to a supervisor or a manager or department head alternatively um an employee a victim of harassment can report the alleged Behavior to the supervisor of the accused person um and all of our supervisors and managers have been trained to make sure that they then reach out to HR make sure that we're aware or an employee can come directly to HR and file a complaint um so all roads do at some point and in HR if the claim is not resolved on an informal basis conducting investigations the policy talks about conducting investigations and that we will investigate all complaints of violations of the policy we do have points and times when we will designate an external investigator so where the relationship or appearance requires the use of a non-employee so if it's a relatively high rank employee if perhaps there's a relationship between the employee and the HR maybe they used to be an HR employee and they've moved to another department might want to have somebody else come in and do that investigation or if the accused is a department head elected official or other high-ranking employee um other

circumstances as determined by the case team and I'll talk a little bit well case team what is that this is a little bit different from other organizations when we have a harassment complaint or discrimination complaint um we form a case team and that's the account manager or myself from HR uh it's typically Sarah from legal since she's our attorney and then it's the affected department head and those three parties get together and talk about the issue and how to address it and so if there's something that comes up that the case team decides maybe that's not something that the human resources department should investigate then that team would also decide to hire an ex external investigator the question about what would happen if the accused resigns prior to the completion of the investigation that's a really tricky question and one that we have dealt with and we are re-examining right now um we've had several situations where this has happened and it becomes really tricky because we want to issue a final report but without having the accused side of the story it would be very difficult to write a report without their perspective so we try very hard to complete the investigation but if someone resigns we can't really compel them to come in and talk to us we're working on trying to figure out some way to document formally what conclusions may have been except that they didn't have the full story make sense kind of a tricky one when someone leaves policy like I said the policy

requires training for all employees we have new employee orientation where we go in detail about sexual harassment and other illegal forms of harassment um all employees received training on the fall of 2023 it was called once and for all stopping sexual harassment at work and then supervisors manager and department heads were invited to in-person training it was harassment and discrimination prevention that also happened in the fall of 2023 and we are on a cycle of about 2 years where we send out the um online training to all employees and a cycle of about every 3 years where we bring somebody on site to talk to our supervisors managers and directors discipline and corrective action this depends on the severity of the behavior um and many of our employees are represented by labor unions so the discipline and corrective action may be spelled out in the collective bargaining agreement many of our employees are also covered under civil service and would have rights to appeal under either of those either their collective bargaining agreement or Civil Service discipline and corrective action could be as um as basic as additional training coaching could be a verbal or written warning could be a reassignment now note that we would not generally reassign at the victim it is the accused or the one that did the bad thing that gets reassigned not the victim a demotion a suspension or termination and allegations of retaliation may result in a separate investigation and the result in

additional or more severe discipline than the original offense and our investigation notice plainly states that all employees are retaliated or are prohibited from retaliation so we do have a thousand employees here employees do some funny things sometimes can't always control that so our systems that are in place are are there designed to prevent harassment and discrimination through training and education and providing a safe and respectful workplace we also have our systems in place on what we do once somebody does that awful thing that lands in your lap and you have to deal with it but to continue to prevent and support employees we continue to communicate a culture of zero tolerance we provide focused training on following an incident so where an incident has happened we will do some training for that work group we provide victim support so there's HR followup we have an employee assistance program and we provide manager support and we Foster an environment of inclusion by focusing on our ADI initiatives and ensuring a sense of belonging for all of our employees here now we'll turn it back over to Sarah okay so now I'm going to talk about one other facet of this news coverage and that is the fact that according to the coverage there were some County council members that reported that they were unaware of the $225,000 settlement agreement until they read about it in the newspaper um so I'm going to talk about what systems we have in place here at the city of Bellingham

for approval of settlements um for for the set particularly with claims against the city so now we're going to go back to basics going to talk about separation of powers which I know you all know a lot about already but we have our Council Powers which are established in the Bellingham chart article 3 and Council you are in charge of the city finances and properties we have our mayor Powers which are established in article 4 the mayor is the chief executive and administrative officer of the city the mayor is has the power to hire and to fire the mayor is the big boss of all the staff and that's all really neat and tidy we have our little boxes and everybody has their own stuff but in reality I think things are not as neat and tidy as they may appear these roles can overlap there can be some mixing in between the roles and not knowing who's in charge of what so we have our mayor who is in charge of day-to-day administration of the staff all these things are in the mayor's baileywick but we also have Council that creates City departments that sets salaries and in a lot of cases approves mayoral appointees and those touch on a lot of personnel sort of functions so these things are not always 100% clear and we have our million-dollar question here who would approve a settlement agreement or in particular a separation agreement in a person matter which involves the mayor's function of hiring and firing but in some cases may or may not have some sort of money attached to it so

going to be talking a little bit about that we have more definitions we have a settlement agreement I know Council these come before you regularly for you to approve a settlement agreement is a legal tool used to settle claims and lawsuits against the city guard against litigation um when appropriate compens sent a claimant for harm caused and a tool to manage risk some typical terms of a settlement agreement are payment of a lump sum to the plaintiff um in exchange for a waiver of all potential claims typically no admission of liability um an example of this a common example let's say somebody files a claim against the city because a City truck backed into their private vehicle and we might pay for the if they could prove that it was indeed our City truck that caused a bunch of damage we may pay some money to compensate that individual in exchange for a settlement agreement um so now I'm going to move on to employee separation agreement an employee separation agreement is just a type of settlement agreement used in the employment context um it sets contractual terms between an employer and a separating employee um and often times it operates to protect the employer from a employees that for whatever reason are grieved in their separation so again some typical terms in a separation agreement can involve a severance payment can involve the payment of money could involve in some cases a non-disparagement terms ongoing health benefits you know things to get this employee on to

whatever their next gig is going to be after this current job but I want to remind you all that a key difference here from the public between the private sector and the public sector is that in the private sector there may be a a separation agreement where confidential ity is one of the terms um that doesn't exist here in public employment we have specific laws there's a specific case under the public records act that makes it clear that settlement agreements including employee separation Agreements are subject to public disclosure under the public records act so there aren't there's no such thing as a secret employee separation agreement okay so now that we have all that out of the way we're on the same page who has authority to to approve these sorts of things well Council you spoke on this back in 1996 under Bellingham municiple code 4.16.18 to sit the City risk manager who is Mike good um and or the mayor has authority to settle those sorts of claims um so those would not need to go before Council if they are under $115,000 one reason for that is say there's you know a claim against the city for $100 because somebody drove into a pothole and there was a little bit of damage you know the idea is that all these sorts of claims that we regularly get might be too cumbersome Council if we had to go to council and get you to sign on the dotted line for each one of things it would be too time consuming so back in 1996 you said $115,000 this is our cut off so that is all to say

any claims $115,000 or greater any settlements excuse me of $115,000 or greater must be approved by city council before being paid out and payments for all claims regardless of the amount whether it's $1 or $1 million are included in a quarterly report which is provided to all all council members um so any claim that we pay out you're going to see so you may be asking well how does the city of Bellingham then differ from what happened at wam County how could it be that a claim could be for a settlement could be paid out for $225,000 without the legislative body knowing about it and this is that what I think of when I think of a risk pool um but the key difference here is uh that the county unlike the city is part of what's called a risk pool which is essentially a bunch of counties getting together to purchase to jointly purchase insurance and one part of this scheme of jointly purchasing insurance is they also pull their risk and hire a team to provide risk management and claims management for the county and I believe the county is one of 24 members of the Washington County's risk pool so this is a very common way of of managing risk for municipalities um and the county um in exchange for a contracted Grant of settlement authority to the risk pool for claims or for certain claims not all claims um they receive up to $20 million in liability coverage for those claims but by contrast so what happen happened over at the County uh and I'm not an an expert in insurance or how the

risk pool system works but my understanding of the reason why at the county um this didn't go the $225,000 did not go before council is because this was a type of claim that was to be that was tendered to the risk pool and by reason of this contract this delegated settlement authority to the risk pool was actually the risk pool that approved the settlement of that claim here at the city of Bellingham we are self-insured we are not a member of a risk pool and the city has not granted settlement authority to any other entity so other than that under $155,000 delegation to the mayor and to the risk manager anything over $115,000 you're at Council and under our code you're going to know about it if it's $155,000 or more so just to recap we just talked about this um that Cascadia daily news headline about count County council members being blindsided um according to the news reporting that claim was tendered to the risk pool which authorized payment of the claim um and I talked with our city risk manager Mike good about well what would happen here at the city if say we didn't receive a formal claim on our claims paperwork against the city but we just received a letter from an attorney uh threatening litigation and asking for a certain amount what would you do with that um and according to Mike good um he said well if we were received such a letter we would instruct the individual to formally file a claim against the city and I've asked might good to attend in case there are any

more questions about our claims process as well so settlement agreements bottom line Personnel issues any separation agreement with a city employee or former city employee that includes a severance payment of $155,000 or more needs to be approved by Council you're in charge of the money claims of litigation same thing any settlement $155,000 or greater must be approved by Council and there and even if not required the city attorney's office often recommends Council notification in many scenarios you know if it's kind of in that iffy Zone we'll we'll recommend it even if not technically required so now I'm going to touch on letters of introduction this was one other piece of the news reporting about the county um so there was a separation agreement with the County's former uh Public Works director um and there was a a term in that separation AG agreement that stated that in the event of a reference request the County agrees that its representative will respond providing only the dates worked titles hourly rate of pay pay and if requested a copy of the job description and despite the above that provision um the county provided what I would characterize as a as a positive letter of introduction for Mr Hutchings so this has sparked a lot of questions about City's practices involving letters of reference letters of recommendation things like that um the city does not currently have a policy in place regarding letters of Rec recommendation that I'm aware of or policy about

providing references and working on a formal policy this has sparked a lot of great conversations in that area but regardless um if consulted the city attorney's office does not recommend providing any letter of recommendation or any reference that does not align with the terms of a separation agreement so this is the last slide and so given all of this what are our takeaways what are our lessons learned um Elizabeth touched on this piece but the first takeaway is for me is consistency is key we can have the best policies the best written policies vetted by national experts on harassment but if we are not applying these policies consistently consistently across the board then these policies are not worth the paper they are printed on so there has to be consistency in the enforcement of these policies and there has to be there has to be meaningful and proportionate responses when it is found that somebody has uh engaged in inappropriate or harassing behavior and in that same vein there has to be real buyin from leadership which Elizabeth talked about that I was just reading um a summary from the equal employment opportunity commission about preventing harassment in the workplace and one of the biggest recommendations that came out of the expert agency was that it starts at the top and the that the Cornerstone of successful harassment prevention is consistent and demonstrated commitment of senior leaders to create and maintain a culture where harassment is not tolerated and

what can we do to create that culture you know other than what Elizabeth has mentioned and mayor luns um setting that example that tone you know things like resources making sure there's time for training making sure that training is Meaningful making sure that training is given at all levels at the of the organization making sure folks know how to report harassment all these different elements to ensure accountability and to demonstrate leadership and finally settlements the big takeaway is here at the city if a settlement involves money Council you're going to be oh $155,000 or more Council under our code you will be notified that's all we have and I'm sure there will be questions thanks for the presentation um before I recognize uh committee members just want to rec uh remind folks that we've got about a half an hour here before we go into executive session we have about 35 minutes of executive session items so I just want to just be aware of our time council member Huffman then lqu thank you thank you for the presentation uh thank you council member Hamill for asking for this presentation um thank you to the mayor for the letter that you wrote and sent to staff regarding workplace harassment um I'm so happy to know that we operate in an organization that takes uh workplace harassment so seriously that uh we have a strong stance against workplace harassment and that we go above and beyond the requirements and the best practices uh it really does it is up to leadership to

um demonstrate a culture of intolerance for workplace harassment and I think that we see that here at the city of Bellingham not to say that there isn't room for improvement there always is there's always learning there's always uh a new scenario that comes up that we wouldn't have thought of before so um you know we've demonstrated here I think that that we are open to continuing to learn in this area it's really important to me um I think that uh you know as an employer myself uh making sure that it's well known that harassment is not tolerated is how we attract and retain the best employees um if nothing else so uh so thank you to to all the senior leadership here at the city of Bellingham I did have one question that popped up during the presentation um you talked a little bit about the reporting structure if there is a a complaint or an accusation uh is there a resource that somebody could go to if they weren't even com comfortable going to HR maybe something was particularly sensitive that even HR wouldn't be somewhere that they would turn to for resources do we have any Avenues to direct somebody in that case that's a very good question um and really hard to answer because somehow it's got to end up back here at the city for us to do something about it so somebody's got to know and the the responsibility to perform the investigation resid Human Resources but like I said we could um hire an external investigator I'm not sure how someone could report you're thinking like

outside the organization report it to someone else and if they but if they if if somebody had something that was really sensitive and they didn't feel like they could come to Human Resources if there's other supervisors managers or directors or department heads that they could talk to they could certain certainly report it there and then that should end up back with my team so that we could determine how to appropriately conduct an investigation does that make sense yeah and I was thinking you know we have the safe spaces program that's offered to the general public to um go to if you know maybe that would be a resource for employees as a first step if they didn't know where to turn or didn't feel comfortable using the the usual channels a little question then well first I want to um Echo council member hosman uh comments about the Gratitude at at both the mayor action and this briefing and president Hamill at asking for this briefing um and to remind each of us that that we help set that culture and so it's on us as well I had a a small question as you say settlement agreements come to us if there over $155,000 but a separation agreement wouldn't a non-monetary separation agreement do we have separation agreements commonly at this city people come and go and the city employment all the time do we have separation agreements very often no we that don't involve money well I think we don't have a lot that involve money and I can't think of an agreement that we would have that

doesn't involve money maybe I'm looking at some other people here James is shaking his head too no okay I can't think think of why we would actually enter into some kind of agreement that didn't involve money okay that's helpful yeah okay council members uh Anderson Stone then Williams thank you um thank you for the presentation and seeing the comparison and contrast um as someone who's worked 40 years with the public either through the federal government or state government um I have seen a lot of situations and and one thing that I've always wondered about the city um a lot of uh harassment is really dep or knowledge that it's happening is really dependent on someone coming forward and Reporting it and that doesn't always happen I've seen divisions where people time after time just exited they quit on the spot and they left and that the institution wasn't really aware that there was an issue until they started investigating why people were leaving a particular department or division because it seemed like there was high turnover and then they found out that there was some um supervisory um harassment happening so I'm wondering at the city do we contact individuals who quit without notice to find out why did they quit so that we're not necessarily waiting until the fifth or sixth person over a 2-year spance just quits and then we say maybe we have an issue I mean I know we do or I assume we do exit interviews when people give notice but do we ever follow up with individuals

who just quit on the spot and walk out to find out perhaps if there was something that triggered that another really good question thank you um again that's a tricky one because if they just leave and they're not our employee they don't have to answer and I have our questions um we did kind of Drift Away from exit interviews for a period of time particularly during Co and we are back into doing exit interviews when possible but it's not always possible because people don't necessarily always want to share so that's why um training and the emphasis on the prohibition of retaliation has to be so important in part of our culture so that people aren't afraid to come forward so you know we can't do anything until we know about it so we try as best as we can to get the data so that we can take action but if someone is unwilling to tell us we're kind of stuck um even though I'm not the manager um I highly recommend if there's even if you make that call and they don't want to tell you about it then that ends it but sometimes people are willing to talk and to have an employer call and say we understand that you resigned your position is there anything you would like to share that we would have a better understanding if there was an issue some people will be willing to talk maybe or maybe not but it's worth that call um before we end up so far down the line that we lose really good people and again I've seen this professionally and it took a while before a lot of us started saying we

really have an issue and it needs to be investigated and working in an area that you think you have a pretty safe climate training the whole pathway very much mirrored um not everyone feels comfortable going forward that way but people were willing to talk to their ex colleagues what was going on um they may have been willing have somebody had made a call um I think for the city it's it's worth it's worth a call if we were able to implement that to assume people aren't willing um I'd like to see the data that 10 people who quit on the job weren't willing to speak um I imagine even if three or four were willing to say why they walked out that information would be really valuable for um preventing that in the future cons Stone then Williams yeah I have two questions so I'll ask one and then ask to go back in the queue um the first is I guess a request to get a copy I know that this presentation wasn't included in our packet so if that can just be shared after this meeting I think the references would be helpful and as a part of that I don't know if you're able to go back or if you know the answer I didn't have it written specifically but the definition I think it was at the state level of harassment or where that definition was coming from and I believe it referenced protected I don't think it was protected grounds or protected classes but there was something protected about that and so I was thinking about the um example um Elizabeth that you provided about you know a

co-worker or colleague right using the term darling or if something happens that right might not rise the level of sexual harassment um as maybe would fall under that definition but we're saying that we're sort of raising the bar higher and hoping that people are in a working environment that's comfortable and supportive for them I'm just wondering if that definition then might lead some hesitancy for people reporting or following up on something that might seem you know more nuanced or maybe not as severe so the definition that you're referring to is the um unwelcome conduct that's based on protected characteristics so protected characteristics beliefs affiliations or activities and so that that pretty much encompasses all of our protected categories that are either at a federal or state level right so yes the the comment that I the description I used is hey darling referring to someone in a really diminutive kind of tone or language might not rise to that level um but certainly those kinds of that terminology can be labeled as or viewed as sexual harassment when it becomes pervasive so the one time that's why we recommend people can you have a conversation with the individual see if it was just an oversight or if they didn't understand how their words affected you if it continues then it need should be escalated you want to follow up I have a different question it's a separate question I'm GNA go to Williams and then back to you well I well I really don't have a lot of uh

questions but I have seen separation agreements that didn't have money involved but they had references they were addressing things like references and all of that but um I'm just happy and that we have such an aggressive policy and that after a certain level the buck stops up here I am I am happy to see that we have that on in our operational uh um system and that hopefully situation like what's happened over on the other side of the street is not going to happen here and oh yes I was going to ask for your outline too but I assume we're all going to get a copy just to add to Elizabeth's answer to your question council member Stone um about our the way our policy might differ from federal or state discrimination law um is what Elizabeth was saying about about uh talking to the person in the Darlin example you know one key element of uh sexual harassment under the law is that it has to be clear that the conduct was unwelcome um so we you know the talking to the person we do encourage if it's something you know like the Darlin maybe that might be an area where somebody would should clearly communicate under the law that is not welcome although that's not the term that we typically use your comment is unwelcome you know might be some other way of communicating it um but you this is a really tricky piece when you as the lawyer I'm looking at the law but then HR HR is also is an expert on our policies and how our policies go beyond what the law says so I'm often under the law

there's kind of the severe sexual harassment and excuse me for using these uh you know crude examples but you think of the quintessential example of somebody slapping someone's bottom in the workplace that is one incident that is sufficiently severe to constitute sexual harassment but these other things might be it's all context is key um I like I think of them when I think about the legal definition of a lot of the times it's building blocks so we're thinking about you know maybe the first darling was a building lock block but you're not quite there yet but once you've communicated don't do this and they're still building that Tower I might get to the point where okay you're at that legal sexual harassment uh stage but under our policy we're we're going to stop before that Tower is super high we we don't want it to get to that that legal uh definition a lot of the time to recognize uh council member Anderson and then council member Cott and then get get back to use that all right cstone okay go ahead mine's really quick and it's more um just a matter of clarification some people will know that I work currently for a state organization or state Institute my comment earlier about the pervasiveness of people leaving a job was my time under a federal agency not my current employer I just didn't want the public misunderstanding and thinking that I was talking about a very wonderful F Community organiz or institution in our community they have not been an issue it was my previous

employer in the federal government that I was referring to thank you Council mayor cotton um can I request maybe that um when that work proceeds around a policy around letters of introduction or recommendation that Council receive an update I don't know if it necessarily needs to be an agenda item I would just be interested in in how that work moves forward thank you for the presentation today SM Stone so I guess as a followup to um the last comment's response so at some level then does this rise to a criminal legal level where there would be sort of outside investigation it would be out it would extend beyond the scope of our sort of internal operations I mean if that was could also be deemed an assault or something at that point right I mean if there's physical interaction to me then maybe there's another level and I think about do things need to rise to that legal standard and then what is just right building a culture of respect and professionalism that hopefully has right that lower standard so I think maybe it's a separate conversation but about what happens or are there triggers when right there's outside um it basically is handed off to another agency or or entity for investigation right good question that's not a scenario I have encountered during my tenure here but James or anybody else let me know if you have any uh feedback but we do not neither human resour human resources does not have the authority to investigate anything in the criminal realm um so if I

imagine if there ever were a workplace investigation that we were completing that had a criminal implication um that would be in the purview of of law enforcement um there are also I would add rights that employees have called gity rights that that and there's a case called I think gity versus United States or the other way around um that talk about employees when there's a potential criminal prosecution being able to retain their Fifth Amendment rights as part of a work Place investigation and it essentially protects the employee from any responses that they are compelled to provide as part of a workplace investigation that might involve criminal uh have criminal conduct um if they're compelled to participate in that investigation whatever those responses are could not be used in a subsequent criminal prosecution so there's there's a lot of complicating factors there too when we're investigating something that's both could be potentially a violation of our policy of civil law but then also potentially criminal law as well as a followup on that um do our internal policies this is only then with respect to conduct between employees or does it extend to the conduct of employees when out in the public so when I think of like public works right staff members or BPD right being out in the public and you're engaging with the public and if there were concerns or accusations of about right how someone was treated or whether there was sexual harassment or or does that is that

completely separate from sort of is this only with within between employees no it's not only within and in between employees like you're describing so our anti-harassment policy really um protects our employees because it's saying anyone that you come in contact with during the course of your employment we want to protect you from that harassment and discrimination so if it's a vendor that's coming in and working with our employees or it's a contractor that we've hired um and they are engaging in harassing or discriminatory activities and behavior and that gets reported to us we would do an investigation and then likely have that contractor remove that individual or at least get them to another place or do something in their work so we would have to coordinate with that contractor now if it's a member of the public that maybe we don't know who that is so we can't TR track down and do any kind of Investigation but we would be able to um support our employees on um either providing them any kind of support through our EAP if they were having problems if they were really um having some emotional issues having to deal with it we would be able to support them and then hopefully be able to put in some measures where either they could we could give them equip them with words to say or things to do how to get themselves out of a situation if they were ever to be in that kind of situation again is that what you were kind of looking at so just for clarification I guess in so part of it

is protecting our employees um but then also I think about that standard of contact conduct and professionalism where I think there's a really in my own personal opinion a very high standard for public officials and people representing the city right as an employee representing the city so even out outside City Hall and maybe but within the scope of your employment when you interact with the public if you're falling short of what our expectations are so somebody files a complaint against our employees who might be that vendor that customer that public member we would need to do an investigation and I think I think you know a lot of the you know maybe while we're why we're struggling with this question is a lot of it might depend on where's this person on duty were they were they off duty were they acting in their official capacity were they not um but certainly I think if somebody engages in some so form of harassment of a member of a public of of a member of the public um you know when they're when they're on duty when that's probably that's going to be a violation of our policies as well um just because we don't tolerate harassment you know within the workplace or our employees harassing individuals that are members of the public um and the reason why you know off duty that that's a bigger conversation but you know that's something we would look at as well and as Elizabeth mentioned definitely investigate if appropriate and council member Stone I can give you an example and

I will use council member Anderson's disclaimer my example does not related to the city of Bellingham it is a former employer an employee in a truck that's clearly marked with the organization's name speeds by somebody and flips them the bird out the window said member of public takes a picture of their driver's their license plate and and sends it to said organization and says this is what your employee just did and I was highly offended and that is not the conduct we expect out of a person from that organization we investigate we discipline because that is not what we want employees to do so that was a different organization long time ago but maybe that gets to your concern a little bit it a follow so this last question is just very concrete so when you talk about that threshold of $115,000 is that an individual settlement or is that in the aggregate so I'm just thinking about if there's an individual employee and maybe there's right some agreement I don't know if there are other types of agreements other than that wouldn't result in separation but where maybe there's right $5,000 and $5,000 but not just wondering right if there's a recurring pattern and some sort of action taken um would that be I'm going to see if Mike good has anything to say about that good afternoon my good uh City legal yes so would be each individual instance yes committee further questions okay anything else from staff on this one okay thank you for the presentation um I brought this forward because

I wanted to um I thought it was fairly timely given uh what's happening across the street um and I wanted to make sure that Council and the public and our employees know that we have a strong culture and a commitment to uh fairness and a healthy uh workplace 25 slides um of that content came before us here today and I'm sure that there's more to it um but I wanted to uh thank um our our staff for bringing this being very thoughtful about this and bringing this forward I think it's very important that we that we communicate that we have a a safe and healthy workpl here at the city of Bellingham thank you okay we have old old and new business and we have 10 minutes here and I've got two substs and invit items so uh any anyone else for old and new tonight okay um all right so i' at the request of legal I'd like to um bring forward uh and revisit um the my my proposal or my motion to take a look at the um the atlarge position revising it from a two-year term to a four-year term upon um advice from our legal department staff um senior staff um I I'm just I'm reconsidering this i' I'd like to withdraw that motion if possible I'm not quite sure proed procedurally how to go about that but um based on the the advice of our legal department uh I don't think it's um there are there are legal questions that are not resolved in in my thinking and so I think it's better to uh withdraw that motion uh mrb do you want to speak to that yeah thank you um so James from the city attorney's office

so our office was asked to look into this proposed Charter Amendment after Council moved back in January to give us that direction um and we did research the issue and there are a few reasons uh why we were not going to recommend um passing a resolution to put this before the voters uh and and I'll talk about those briefly so the first is that there's a an RCW a state law uh that describes um first class cities and sets out like the power and authority of first class cities including mayor council um cities with seven council members like the city of Bellingham uh that law plainly states that the term of the council member to be elected at large shall be 2 years uh which tracks with our current um City Charter provision um which also says that that term shall be for two years uh we as you know we cannot adopt laws or Charter Provisions that are inconsistent or conflict with state law because of the preemption issue um and this does appear to plainly contradict state law so for that fundamental reason we would not have recommended moving ahead with this ordinance uh interestingly it appears that a couple of other cities in the state have made this change um and and that has not to my knowledge created a a legal challenge um but it doesn't change the fact that there would be a clear conflict with state law uh and so we would not recommend that which should not surprise you the city attorney's office is not recommending that we we voluntarily conflict with state law uh second

the city council previously proposed a charter amendment that would do this exact thing would increase the term for the atlarge council member from 2 years to four years uh it was placed on the ballot back in 2008 and it failed uh I believe it was 5248 at that point um it was a very contested Charter Amendment at that time even amongst uh sitting city council members uh there was a lot of debate about whether or not that was a good idea interestingly the um incumbent at large council member in 2008 volunteered to serve on the con committee and wrote the statement uh opposing uh the ballot measure and it did fail during that November election and third and finally uh having a shorter elected term for the out llarge council member uh may actually make the position more attractive to potential candidates who might be new to elected politics or who may simply not be interested in serving an entire four-year term it serves as kind of like a springboard and maybe a longer term in the last 10 years uh we've had uh two council members serve in the at large position who went on to run for full four-year terms in other wards that they are sitting with you this afternoon uh we've had another uh resign during a 2-year term to pursue other career opportunities and another uh at large council member uh uh choose to run for a different office after the end of that two-year term so I mean it does provide that opportunity as like a springboard as I said uh for um interested parties to to run

for the position kind of get their feet wet learn how to do the job and if that's something that they want to pursue longer term or whether in an atlarge position or in a different position um so for those reasons our office was not recommending it now procedurally uh we do have the motion uh you know that Council pass in January giving us direction to bring it back which we can still do we have time to do so if Council wants us to do that if you would like to uh move to reconsider that direction um get a second and vote uh I think that would be the appropriate course uh to not move forward otherwise I think we would be obligated to bring forward a resolution for Council to vote on okay cqu on hman so procedurally you're saying the way to handle this is a motion to reconsider by any member who voted for the original motion then we revote that motion and we can vote it down and therefore that would end it is that correct I would move to reconsider the vote which asked the administration to prepare a charter amendment to change the term for the at llarge office second motion's been made by council member list and second by council member um Williams he was the LST U because he sits next to me so um further discussion on this one your hearing ad counc member um hman you got a your hand up okay um any further discussion council member cotton yeah I'll Just sh I abstained from the original motion and I'll abstain from this one too fa enough okay uh all those in favor signify by

saying I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries six UH 60 61 no six with one exstension so point of order we've now motion to reconsider it we still have to vote it on the main motion or what okay okay council member hman do you want to comment yeah so as is disappointing as one of the um two other council members that have served in the outlar position um and now we have three sitting up here that get that experience it's uh it it takes two years to learn this job and so you know if within your first year of doing the job you have to think about if you want to keep doing it it's uh it it's tough um it it means that you're you know you're every two years you're you're running in a campaign although it's only supposed to last six months a campaign really lasts a year so it's one year of work and one year of campaigning um and so it's I think that's I would I would definitely support changing it to two years if we could but um this state is prohibiting us from doing that is this something that we that could be changed at a state level um has anybody attempted to change it at a state level or has has is it should we try if we're interested uh sure I I have no knowledge that anyone has attempted to make a change at the state level if uh you want to do that I recommend working with the state or the city's lobbyists uh to try to find a favorable legislator to bring a bill to to make that change at the state level if I can just follow up with counc huthman so the um the city

will be uh will have a a small delegation of uh council members and um people from the mayor the mayor and her office to discuss priorities for our legislative delegation in Olympia I think that could that's a a fair item to discuss so um we can we can discuss that in that in that setting anything further uh to that agenda item we're almost out of time I've got one more um for old and new and what I'd like to do is um um I'm we're having issues with um compliance with a single use plastic uh ordinance um you could go we could go on a field trip right now and go to restaurants and you could you could get a a plastic straw um in your drink or a plastic fork if you were to um purchase a tog go item and um we have many wonderful restaurants that are complying and many complied well be before the the ban if you'll if um Council will recall uh we provided a 14-month runway for that uh after the passage of that ordinance to when we started to um to when it became law basically and um and yet still we have um people who are companies that are not obeying that law and I find that completely frustrating to get an email from a constituent saying I thought that this you know that this was the the law of Bellingham uh and it is um and so I I'm working on bringing something forward in terms of what enforcement could look like uh for people that are not not complying perhaps um LED uh with the educational campaign um uh sustainable connections is doing for the month of July they're doing a

um educational educational campaign for our restaurants but I think the time for education is well passed at this point we have provided years now of of con of context for um for restaurants and other uh vendors that are currently supplying these um products that don't go away we talk we talk up here about pasts and I think that um the Plastics are maybe they're not equal but they're um they are destructive and and they go into our into our water or drinking water they go into the Sailor sea um so I would like to look at revising what enforcement looks like including increasing the fines to something that's um Beyond a cost of doing business right now the the fines are fairly low they're with they're hundreds of dollars and in the low hundreds they should be in my opinion thousands of dollars and I don't I'm sorry that that had to be the has to be the case in my thinking but I'm also um I I just I think the um the lack of compliance is to me it's kind of like a a person who doesn't pay a traffic ticket where they call that person a scoff law it's it's the same kind of thing and um and I and I totally understand and realize that from an enforcement U capacity side of things that's super challenging to do that like how how would we do that but I think that we need to come up with a way to to um get that figured out it's it's this has been a um an important cause to the community and I I feel that we owe our community members um the the responsibility of doing the right thing in

this case so I'll be coming forward at some point I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on this any further questions U regarding that item okay well we're a little over time but we're we're pretty close we have um several items for executive session um just give me a moment here to read these for you there's four items we had one added um the first two are potential uh property acquisition both with stamps and the third one is potential litigation with crem and the fourth one is Labor Relations uh discussion of collective bargaining strategy with Monahan uh 35 minutes total so I'll be back in here um say 350 I guess uh 355 to be safe okay thank you we are adjourned to Executive session