City Council - Committee Of The Whole

okay we'll go back to uh committee work here and the next committee is committee of the whole and we are switching our order here um from the resolution 24186 to the finance update to go first and that's uh 24187 presentation provides a summary the city's financial position through May 2024 the May 2024 financial report is attached to the agenda item here in the packet and provides more detailed information related to this period this presentation and additional financial information is available on the city's website as the longest URL I've seen so I'm not I just look you can look it up it's pretty easy to find um and here to take us through is Andy asborn and our finance director thank you Andy ASB oron Finance director uh to get started I'd like to uh update all of you that we did start the state audit uh started on July 1st so it's a Financial Federal and accountability audit uh you may be contact by the state Auditors but uh you may not as well so they they may reach out to invite you to different meetings so just want to give you a heads up on that um we'll go ahead and get started this is through May um looks a lot similar to some of the slides you've seen in the past please ask any questions you might have along the way I'm happy to make it Interactive or address any of the questions um but we'll jump right into uh some of the data um so this is uh sales act sales tax activity so what we have with sales tax activity is we actually have the information all the way

through June so we've included June in this presentation so um as we've discussed in the past each of the points is the amount of Revenue that we received in that month but the activity is for two months behind uh the month so when we're looking at June that's actually for activity of April sales tax activity of April so what we see here is 2021 about million um going into 2022 we see that growth jumping up to 32.3 uh none of the lines are crossing in 2022 in 2023 we start to see some of the connection between the lines and some of the months and then also some months that were a little bit below uh the previous year in 2022 we've removed the outlier uh which is the big uh kind of mountain in the middle of the presentation uh is a $1.4 million uh do audit that was a one-time um audit that brought in some additional Revenue so we removed that outlier because it wasn't actually activity of of 23 uh moving into 24 gets a little more concerning as to what we're receiving in our sales tax information so in our sales tax revenue so when we're looking at this we see a lot more overlap in 23 so um we're not just seeing minimal growth we're seeing about uh about a half a percent of growth actually and so we're about halfway through the year but we're only at this point seeing about a half a percent of growth in sales tax so things have definitely really flattened out um and and so this is the most current information the June information is what we received uh at the end of June our

biggest contributors to sales tax uh we uh you've seen the slide before but we lump the uh five top uh contributors based on the nacs codes rounded to three digit so um our top items are motor vehicle parts uh construction building and then the middle one's kind of a miscellaneous retail uh food service and drinking places and then general merchandise as you see all of these are are relatively flat as well we're not seeing any one industry as as significant changes it's kind of across the board as to as to what we're seeing as kind of a flat uh outcome uh speaking of future activity a lot of what's generated here is related to construction activity as a big source of revenue for the city uh when we look at permit activity permit activity through May uh the permitting activity was actually up but the number of units and the and the dollar amount of construction was actually down by about 20 million it was about 60 million compared to 80 million previous year so that's what we really consider as Construction in the hopper that would be coming um in the next few months to the next year and that is actually following what we saw saw in um in the previous year of that construction activity um intoed the I'm sorry we saw a a continued reduction of that permit activity um to end 23 also Reit is um kind of can spur uh sales tax activity purchase of homes then you have purchase of furniture purchase of all the number of things that go into a new home Reit is down about 300,000 or

about 133% and that one actually ended 23 about 1.7 million down from 2022 so we're seeing the downward Trend in those uh home sales as well so kind of just sending the outlook on what we're seeing in the economy from a sales tax perspective and and some of the things that generate sales tax here locally uh lodging tax um this one if you look at 2021 is the red line um is that growth after covid 2022 you see it kind of jumps all around that as actually when the tourism promotional area came to be and I think there was confusion as to uh either the reporting or the collecting and so the March and April is probably or May and June is probably just a correction from March and April and kind of levels out if you see 23 at 22.4 million it's only an increase of about $100,000 and now 2024 is trending lower uh than 23 and 22 so we're not seeing a growth on the tourism side um at this point either through May hopefully through some of the other uh festivals and things that have come through town we this is again through June so it's only activity of April so we don't see the ski to Sea activity in May or even maybe the tuneup Festival that just that just happened so hopefully there's continued more growth in the tourism area and that that can uh turn around as you see our our largest uh months of collection excuse me are still yet to come but that kind of sets the table of what we're seeing in kind of those economic indicators finishing 23 going into 24 um not not much growth really

really flat um the federal funds rate's been stuck at 5 and a half% since August of 23 and I think that's kind of uh sticking some of that construction and some of those higher dollar um uh home sales and maybe your motor vehicles and and some of those other things that we normally see increasing our our uh sales tax amounts so that takes me into so this all this is actually through June we were able to get the June activity now I'll take a into May so this really the details of May are in the month of report this is a very high level um when we're putting in bar graphs and lumping 50 plus funds into uh one slide it's hard to glean too much information on any of these slides so I'll kind of walk through these fairly quickly um blue we use for Revenue uh yellow to Orange we've used for expenses to try to keep it uh consistent so that um it's clear uh when we're bringing these slides forward it's um it's something familiar so the gray bars are the budget the blue is the 2024 revenue and the black is the 2023 Revenue so we have seen slight growth um again this is actually through 42% of the year so Revenue doesn't come in consistently from month to month property tax comes in twice a year so this is with the collection of property tax the growth in sales tax is really more associated with that increase in the Greenways Levy um on the expense side um you see that we're at 141 million uh labor and salaries salaries and benefits definitely are one of our our top uh expenses for the

city as we employ a lot of um people to to do all the services and and great things for the city a lot of the questions I get are really around services and capital outlay and and there's a lot budgeted there and you see it goes a ways out and so we tried to answer that question in this presentation by getting into uh budget variances so on this slide it actually shows you um that there is 161 budgeted projects about $191 million is yet to be spent and so all of this is that remaining budget so some of these projects might have spent a little bit of dollars but all these identified top 15 projects amount to 61% of what's sitting there in capital outlay and services so um I've identified that there is 131 of the capital outlay line item and 60 million actually in the services so when we're looking at services and capital outlay it depends on what's being done if it's a if it's a resurfacing of a road it's more in Services if it's a replacement of a road it's in capital outlay so it depends on if we capitalize it or not but that represents $191 million that is still budgeted this year of significant projects but is yet to be completed and as you see in the in the previous or at this time frame there's a lot of uh Pro projects that have come forward that have been budgeted a couple bridges that were um fully funded with some federal dollars and also uh the rotor lift station and uh the Meridian project are some of the larger projects that have come [Applause] forward so special

Revenue funds these are these are funds that are restricted or committed for a specific purpose and so they're all the 100 level funds uh the shadow boxes in the back do I have a sir okay shadow box in the back um are the budget and then the uh darker columns are the actual so a lot of these uh columns are really representative of those capital projects that have yet to be started or or completed so a lot of capital projects in Street Fund in Reit in transportation and also in Parks which includes Park impact fees and Greenways um you'll see uh the environmental remediation fund is also uh excuse me has a significant amount projects with RG Haley and Cornwall that is our our for our there are some budgeted funds for the the start for that project a lot of these funds will still move over to the next be re-budget as we can get closer to the start of those projects 120 is the new Public Safety fund so this is uh the new Public Safety fund we did receive our initial sales tax of the public safety Fund in June and so that came in at about 266,000 and about 21,000 of that will be remitted over the county is our 75% towards the capital contribution for the uh upcoming Construction Enterprise funds these are business type activities so these are big ones are really the water fund the uh sewer fund and the stmw water fund also medic one as well is is fairly large so um this represents about 46 million in revenues and 40 million in expenses again a lot of the big construction projects

are right here in the sewer fund with the uh Meridian Street and uh rotor uh lift station Improvement so uh and then I did mention I'm sorry I'm on the wrong page yeah so we'll keep on moving along internal service funds so we bring up internal service funds because it has such a significant impact to the other funds so revenue from internal service funds are collected from other funds internal service funds provide uh are like the internal businesses of the city so you see Fleet and Facilities uh Tech Telecom uh claims and LD employee benefits and the Public Works engineering and admin fund so uh the big shadow boxes are here are the uh second phase of the Pacific Street buildings um and with that I do have an update that we were able to um have the the bond sale uh we closed on June 12th uh for 24 million it was actually sold at a premium so we will have debt of 22, 580,000 and an interest rate of 3.9% so not too bad it has increased since our previous bond for the first phase of the of the pck building but um 3.9% is is not too bad in the in the current market and that I believe is um should it's actually underway already so we'll see those uh numbers continue to increase and so that takes us into the general fund so the general fund uh this is what we're seeing in the general fund it's at 47.4 million in Revenue the B tax sales tax utility tax property tax that makes up 80% of our revenues that come into the general fund uh as you see bno sales bno tax and sales tax is

even with last year or a little bit behind so it's um those are not good to see we always like to see growth in there um but that really represents the economic activity that we're seeing out um that we mentioned at the very start of the presentation uh utility tax and property tax those are less variable utility tax is primarily from our internal utilities but also um electric cable and gas um and some of the other utilities um and then property tax is um as expected again that comes in two chunks so when you see it's above budget that's just because budget represents 42% of the year and not how the actual Revenue comes in one good thing we're seeing this year that we uh were missing last year the GMT funds are starting to come back and so that has been coming on a regular basis through U monthly billions and that's 1.4 million increase from the previous year so that's great to see on the expense side you'll notice revenues were 47.4 and on the expense side we're at 40 or 50.4 so that's a $3 million um $3 million in expenses greater than revenues uh salaries and wages have increased uh 4.6 million and or about 15.5% so you see the majority of what's in the journ fund is really salaries and benefits and then the services and and the tools that are needed for the individuals within the within the general fund and there's been a a continued increase in in additions to um demand for services and there's been an elevated amount of of Labor uh included now we take you into the um

the Departments so this is departments highest to lowest and then if you're at the red bar you're right at 40 42% of budget for the year um again this is this I guess I haven't said that yet but this is the second year of the bium so at the first at the end of the first year of the bium what we do is um reduce the amount of expenses that were allocated in the two-year period and then everything else gets rolled over into that second year so if there was if any of these departments may have gone over in the first year they would have less budget in the second year and we didn't necessarily make those Corrections until we can see if how this pans out over the over the phases of the year because we're almost at 3/4 of the bium um and fire was about at 108 108% last year so they have a reduced amount of of budget associated with this year but we do see that um labor and uh labor within the fire department and also OT is about 80 80,000 higher and then on the police side uh home monitoring and also jail service Services have been continued to increase as long as as well as a little bit of OT and labor so um and increased Staffing within the police department some of these other ones and they're just smaller amounts again this is uh all expenses don't come out equally so a library purchases a lot of their supplies at the beginning of the year so it isn't necessarily a concern if they're over budget at the beginning of the year it depends on what line items you might be looking at

so that's purchase of books and digital um supplies and things of that nature so uh just something that we monitor and especially towards the end of the year uh we cannot have any of the apartments from a legal perspective go over this line so we will likely be bringing back some sort of um adjustments looking at fire and police depending on how the rest of the year um shakes out so where are we headed so we've talked about this a lot with the um treasury yield curve and the negative yield curve so um what we on the left is the yield curve so the interest rates are on the left and then the time frame is along the bottom from the one month to 3 month six month one year all the way out to 30y year and this is the duration of your investment um and we call it a negative year yield curve because the 2-year investment is at about 4.7% and the 10-year is at about 4.3 so the 2-year is higher than the 10e and it's it's um one of the identifiers that we look at if you look on the right you do see that in 2020 and 2021 we actually had positive yield curves when the interest rates were very low uh and then on June 27th 22 still had a positive y yield curve but then in August of um August of that year is where we started to see a negative yield curve and now we've been uh we saw interest rates jump from a quarter perc in March of 2022 up to 5.5% in August of 3 so just a significant crime climb that then completely inverted the yield curve um and with that we're still not sure the feds

are are discussing whether to there's a lot of discussion from economists as whether the funds will F cut the federal funds rate um over the next uh over the next few months of of 2024 there is um hope or expectation that it might reduce but it's it's still unknown at this time it's it's been kind of stuck at that 5.5 for quite a while and so the two 10 to two this is what I just mentioned when the 2year is a higher investment rate than the 10year has signified um a recession each one of these years every time it's dipped between below the line it's identified or it's led into a recessionary period so we've been below the line uh since July of of 22 so this started below the line July of 22 and we've been below that line for um I guess almost two years now so still unclear as to what the future holds but based on those initial slides we definitely see flattening to completely slowing growth and with inflation that means the spending dollar is actually uh of lower value as well so our our spending ability is not as high as it has been in the past even though we're collecting maybe the same amount of Revenue so where does that take us sorry you seen this slide before so the yellow line um to the left I guess if you look at the the line on 2024 everything to the left is actuals everything to the right is forecasted um we have the yellow line is the is the expenses and the Orange is in the forecasted expenses the Blue Block in the background is the revenue um everything to to the

left of the 2024 is actuals where we really want to be is back in 2029 where the Revenue was just slightly more than the expenses 201 2019 I'm sorry yes thank you U Back In 2019 and 2020 and then you've seen we've um kind of jumped all over the place after that we we uh tried to react to covid We then had the cares act we also had arpa funds and then a continued increase in um the request and the expectation for uh services so continued increase in in police and fire and planning and then that then leads to additional increase than on the Supportive Services in HR legal and finance and it um we started the 2024 year at about a $42 million Reserve balance uh and we're budgeted to the end of the year at about an18 A5 U million dollar Reserve balance so not all uh things come to fruition not everything that's budgeted is spent but that is where we're budgeted and that's where um we have projected to complete because that's the legal Authority provided to all the Departments uh that's a use of 202 22 million of reserves um in this in this one period so about 11 million of that is associated with the arpa funds that we were looking to spend down it needs to be uh contracted or spent by the end of 24 and so we're working to use those dollars but what's more concerning is the is the expense line above the revenue and the oute so we have an ongoing what we've talked about the ongoing uh deficit in operating of about four to three and a half million we're still zeroing in on the

dollar amounts a as we uh as we look forward and project into the future and we also continue to adjust Things based on each month of Revenue allocation of what we see coming through with sales tax or any other economic data that we can we can pull from um she wanted um so some of the next steps that we talked about Excuse me yes um on that important graph here is this general fund or is this Citywide this is general fund I'm sorry yes it's just general fund and general fund reserves thank you yes and then I didn't mention that it comes across a little each computer has a little different look so the uh light green is actually the missing emergency Reserve so this is set at that 18% and so this is 2025 has a little bit of the economic Reserve this is actually the missing part of the emergency reserve and you see that it continues to decline in the out years um so but that's one of the reasons that we wanted to go to an annual budget and be able to correct things more quickly uh react um more quickly to changing economies it's been um I feel like we can have better tools and Better Eyes On on each year so we can allocate resources properly but any add in Services would have be considered with a potential reduction somewhere else or um or an additional Revenue stream that that we continue to evaluate but at this point um is not necessarily available for the for the 25 period some of the next steps that we want to bring to council so um uh we want to bring the budget 101

presentation this is something that we actually provided to uh Jason and Hannah the other day and thought it' be useful to bring to the council to to and to the public for just a basic understanding of of the budget and what we're looking at and some of the constraints within the budget and what all the funds do so want to bring the budget presentation likely to the next uh council meeting uh Financial updates we're going to continue to update our financial information this is the May report I hope to have the June report out by the end of July and actually stay uh consistent with that moving through the rest of the year so that there's more timely information to council will'll Continue to update you on the sales tax information as we see what's going on on that side as well uh then it's just around the corner that the actual 2025 budget presentation is actually September 30th so everything's happening quite quickly there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes where all the Departments are meeting and And discussing with the mayor as we can put together the 2025 budget uh then we have the public hearings that are associated with the budget there's three of them uh the budget presentations on the 7th and November 4th and then the revenue forecast and property tax is on the 21st uh budget work sessions will take place in October and through November and then we'll look to pass the 2025 budget ordinance in December so I'll go ahead and pass it over to the mayor for some

comments uh thank you Andy do you mind going back to the reserve projection slide and um I just want to put this in context about I know this is something we have all seen before and it's something at the department head team when we were doing our Retreats this spring and we adopted the goal of having a one- city approach to uh the budget this year it's because we have that mismatch in our services and our expenses in our general fund right now and we're going to have to bring that yellow line down and how we go about and approach that is one of the biggest areas behind the scene right now at the city and hopefully you feel prepared and have been brought into the conversations we will continue to work with you as we go through this process and this was reflected in executive sido's letter to County staff today about the pace at which they are going through their general fund reserves they're very much in a similar position and living in the same economic reality where we see that flattening of of our revenues coming in across the board and so we have a lot of work as a community at the county level and City level to try and adjust um our the expectations and the growing complexity and needs of our community with with the fiscal reality that we find ourselves in So yeah thank you any questions for Council that conclude the presentation yes that concludes the presentation thank you committee CC M hman thank you for the presentation um so as you stated our our uh City sales tax

is coming in lower than we expected it to be what is our situation similar to other cities in the state in the country or how do how do we compare with other cities I I believe we are similarly compared and we are a little bit insulated being at our location of where we are we've um we've come out a little better and some of the other downturns um being proximity to Vancouver BC and Seattle and kind of destination city uh but all the cities are feeling the impact on this uh economic I think it's the high interest rates and the inflation and and just trying to deal with the current economic um issues that are going on any further questions cons list yeah and I'm trying to understand this problem because I mean the economy is not that bad although it's not great um so why does this outlook look as bad as as I've seen during some genuine recessions is this can you say if this is a revenue problem an expenditure problem 5050 kind of on the largest scale can you describe what's going on well there's there I mean it's unusual times that we um are are living in coming out of covid and it it doesn't really follow any economic trends of what we see inflation was very high um increased costs are significant revenue is being outpaced by those increased costs so we're just not seeing the revenue being able keep Pace with that we saw growth in the past but now costs have really shot up over the last um several years are starting to flatten now but things have remained at kind of a high

level and now our spending dollars if you look at uh all the way at the beginning sorry if we have flat Revenue growth or no levenue growth um we're not keeping Pace with even a 3% CPI um 3% inflation our our property tax is only a 1% growth um year toe so um our Revenue growth really doesn't stay in the same trajectory or it's not able to outpace the the expense growth that we're seeing and the increased demand so coming out of Co there's been a kind of an an increased expectation for uh Services when it comes to fire when it comes police when it comes to it and it has a domino effect across the city because it isn't just in one area once once one area increases then it can increase the needs in HR and in legal and it all has a connected impact so um where we grow in one area we kind of continues to Bloon in in other areas as we as we try to evaluate how to how to control these expenses so we we're taking a whole city perspective a one city perspective on how we can um reduce costs but to provide the highest level service we can um and and it's going to be a challenge this year but um that's why we're having these conversations further questions seeing on I'll take a a quick uh go here um this this absolutely makes the case for working with our state delegation on trying to figure out some kind of Statewide uh solution to help contribute to uh Revenue uh for the 290 plus cities in state of Washington so right in your your last comment about 1% for property tax we are

constricted that doesn't provide us very much there's been conversations about increasing that to say 3% for cities or to allow cities to to vote um and for for voters to take part in that process as well um as it stands I'm trying to answer your question council member list to kind of um supplement what our finance instructor is saying we are constantly being outstripped outpaced we continue to grow it's about 1,600 people uh per year or maybe a little bit more and this also makes the case for infilling spreading out means we have to provide more services further further out that means more fire more police um um in Municipal infrastructure so it does make the case for uh Urban villages in Phil when we can within the within the city limits before we then go out and and try to look uh for annexation okay I'll stop opining there I know we've got some members from our our court system uh here and we have a I'll get us to our next item thank you um for your presentation I appreciate it thanks mayor okay we just give Mr ason a minute to gather yeah okay let's go ahead and move on to our our next item this is a resolution honoring Darlene Peterson uh marene Peterson has served as a court director for the city for Bellingham municipal court for over 10 years and is retiring this year after a 33y year career in the criminal justice system thank you for that very long career this resolution honors her dedicated service and many accomplishments during your time with Bellingham

municipal court and I believe to take us through judge Lev was going to May perhaps read the resolution and we can get you a copy of that real quick too if you if you need that perfect I have brought mine too and any further comments you would like to add and darling we're gonna put you on the spot here in a minut to okay be with I'll try not to choke up this is an extraordinary person though resolution number 2024 for dash something a resolution honoring Darlene Peterson for her service to the city of Bellingham whereas Darlene Peterson has served in various capacities in the criminal justice system for the past 33 years and whereas Darlene has most recently served the city of Bellingham with distinction and dedication since April 2014 as Court director for the Bellingham Municipal Court and whereas Darlene has shown her spirit of innovation through implementation of many improvements to the court and whereas Darlene's diligence and efficiency have been integral to the Court's daily operations and whereas Darlene's work was essential in launching several important Court programs including a mental health court establishment of an electronic monitoring system and creation of a criminal justice group with City and County St stakeholders and whereas Darlene was responsible for many modernization projects within the court such as replacement of the Court's audiovisual recordings with a gold standard system launching the court into a paperless system after she acquired a grant

for the project and establishment of long range video hearings with other fac facilities and whereas Darlene oversaw the court through extremely difficult and tumultuous years of the covid pandemic tackling numerous unprecedented issues and working tirelessly to keep the court running and whereas Darlene recently worked to establish a new therapeutic Court manager position which will enable the launch of a new community court and whereas Darlene was responsible for sec uring a responsible trustworthy and competent security team protecting all who work at and enter the Bellingham municipal court and whereas Darlene has carefully recruited the current most dedicated trustworthy and capable Bellingham Municipal Court team and whereas those who have worked with Darlene Express feeling pride in her accomplishments and privilege to have worked alongside her and whereas Council wishes Darlene the very best in her well-deserved retirement and whereas council is hopeful that Darlene will continue to be active in community issues and is certain that the city of Bellingham will be better for it now therefore be it resolved by the city council of the city of Bellingham the city council hereby expresses its appreciation and honors darling Peterson for her leadership public service and dedication to the people of the city of Bellingham and to our wider Community president I was going to say we normally don't allow clapping in the in Chambers but for Darlene will'll make the exception

darene did you want to say anything I'm I'm going to go around up here too but did you want to say anything president Hamill and council members I would just like to say that it has been my honor and my privilege to serve with Bellingham Municipal Court our mission is to provide every individual with access to justice but I believe our court under the leadership of the first elected woman judge and longest serving woman judge does that with heart and compassion and is been my honor to be a part of this and I will always consider this a part of myself so thank you so very much thanks darling committee members council member list so darling I want to thank you for your many many years of service and and I want to point out to something which has made me personally very grateful and that is that we are halfway through a transition in how we treat criminal justice I think it's an enormous Improvement it's understanding better ways to create community Comm safety better ways to uh deal with people who have offended who have gotten in trouble ways that are car and compassion and lead to better outcomes for everyone and so I've been able to point to the mental health court and I can now point to the Community Court that gives that puts me in such a better position I'm able to tell the community that I serve that we're doing the right thing on criminal justice in our humble little municipal court and it's through efforts of you and the rest of the people you work with that's enabled

me to deliver that message to the public so I'm very grateful that that's a good story I can tell so thank you Darlene CC Williams thank you president Hamill the last two and a half years I've spent a lot of time in the Municipal Court not for the reasons you think but um I've been able to observe the way that you have done your work work with um a bazillion middle school kids going into that court system and watching how things operate it didn't take me very long to realize um how you and the staff that you work with are very forward thinking people and that um um bring bringing in um looking ahead at what is needed and making sure that the court reflects that um you can't walk in that building and not feel it and see it and I'm very sorry that you're retiring but I know you're not going away and uh you will uh perhaps after a while be uh um now on that side of the table helping us implement the future and I really appreciate that so thank you for everything that you've done council member hman so here it it mentions that you have a spirit of innovation and um I think something that keeps coming up is how grateful we are that you are a part of um of influencing our our city and creating Alternatives like the mental health court and electronic home monitoring and the therapeutic Court um that Spirit of innovation um making Bellingham a little bit different than than other cities and I hope that the Legacy that you leave behind is that we don't stop doing that um and that we

look to you and the things that that you've done and uh the progress that we've made in in that area um and continue that but also uh congratulations on your retirement it's well deserved thank you thank you committee further C Stone thank you president H um yeah big thank you just noting that from the time when I was first appointed to the council um and then was serving on the Justice committee and as the chair you know had an opportunity to work more closely with you at that time and just recognizing how personally you know you are invested and really committed you know to this work and what everyone else was speaking to about making sure that we're continually improving and sort of you know um yeah pushing those metrics and just your investment in the you know data as well all the decisions and things that you have you know supported or brought forward have been well documented and um just compiling that information to show not only you know the benefits um to individuals who are coming through our system but also looking at the bigger picture and you know cost and you know just sort of what all the moving pieces are that are needed for us as a city to be successful um so really indebted to you know that commitment that you've made and carried forward and as other council members have said just that Forward Thinking um you know sometimes when you're in the you know trenches I want to say in that in that work you know it can be very um just daunting and thinking about all

that we're trying to accomplish but being able to stay positive and and forward thinking about how we can continue to to improve um and just that commitment to also just the respect and commitment to you know Justice for everyone who's coming through our our court system is something that I really admire so thank you Darlene and best wishes in your retirement thank you for the comments okay oh I definitely have to take a turn here um so April you um darling you started April 2014 I started in December of 20 uh 14 and I was completely new to government I had no idea what I was doing and you were one of my first teachers you taught me a lot about um how things should be done and you T taught me about leadership and uh and we worked on some projects together one of the first ones we did was the electronic home monitoring you got to understand the context here so in 2015 there was a jail me measure that failed in 2017 one that failed as well we had to figure stuff out we were backed into a corner trying to figure out what do we how do we administer Justice how do we make sure that people are held accountable how do we do it fairly and that program um was launched right in there and um that and it was all about building on that program and so we I had the confidence because of your help with that and your leadership on that to go and and start to create these other programs like Grace program and the lead program and the alternate response program and all of those things were were

based on a level of success and if we wouldn't have had that I don't know if we would have those programs um so thank you for what you have done I I when I when the judge told me that you were retiring I thought ah no but you deserve it I mean you you've worked in the system for a long time you've helped a lot of people um not just in the courts but uh people like me to be better leaders so thank you darling okay fur the comments Mr cotton I'll just say briefly reading this resolution I was just um in awe of your work and accomplishments and um I won't go on long um because I just recently got the pleasure of meeting you but it's very clear that your impact and your legacy will continue to be felt for a long time and thank you for your your leadership in our community okay anything else pursue to this agenda item okay thanks Darlene yeah thanks for coming and do we need a motion to pass the resolution oh I guess we need a motion to pass the resolution sorry I got a little emotional there so I'd move that we pass the resolution honoring Darlene Peterson for her service to the city of Bellingham motion's been made by council member ston and and second by council member Williams any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose exensions motion carries 60 unanimous thank you and dar I believe we're going to get you a copy of that mayor's going to sign it I'll I'll sign it to you we'll um just give folks a minute to clear out here all right okay

let's continue on next item is old and new business anything for old and new and there'll be another opportunity tonight okay seeing none um that takes us to Executive session um that that session has two items the first is potential property acquisition with stamps approximately 5 minutes uh second item is Labor Relations discussing a collective bargaining strategy with Monahan approximately 15 minutes and looks like we have like a do we have to can we go straight into exec or do we need to wait okay all right and so that's 20 minutes I'll be back at about 3:20 to to join us until this evening thank you