City Council - Committee Of The Whole

good afternoon uh we're back now for our community of the whole meeting this afternoon we've got several agenda items here before us uh eight of them actually and our first one uh up this afternoon is an update from the Port of Bellingham uh Mr uh Port director Rob fix is here and he'll provide us with an update on the waterfront projects and the Bellingham shipping terminal if you want to make sure that mic's on you're good to go I think I'm good to go okay thanks for having me today um I came to mostly talk about the Bellingham shipping terminal I'm going to do a a small introduction to the port for those that don't know who we are what we do uh we're governed by a three member commission Bobby Brisco Ken Bell Michael Shepard they serve three separate distinct districts we run Transportation terminals primarily uh the bla squalicom Harbor uh B Bellingham intern airport the shipping terminal which we're going to talk about today the cruise terminal and the uh train station in Fair Haven this about our size we're about 118 employees just to give you a scale of of how big we are and those employees are scattered across uh Blaine uh the airport our maintenance shop at the end of Cornwall and then our administration building on rotor here's our main shipping terminal uh it has got about 85,000 ft of warehouse space on it and about 40 acres of of upend for lay down and project space historically caros that went out of our terminal were logs uh pulp and aluminum ingots coming from

the intelco smelter you can see it obviously was a very busy terminal at one point in time 2001 GP shut down the last cargo was the pulp in the log so that quit quit being shipped out of our terminal and we entered a period where we had very very limited use of the terminal because the uh water depth was not there in order to do the dredging we had to come up with a cleanup plan for the waterway that ecology and the Army Corps of Engineers and various other stakeholders would agree to uh that took some time uh 2016 we did that first cleanup and that was the phase one of the watom waterway that got us to a navigational depth of about 35 ft for ships to come in they still had to stand off of the pier by about 10 or 15 ft depending on the tides uh because we didn't have that depth right adjacent to the pier 2017 after we did that initial phase one cleanup we started to have a little more activity at the terminal we started doing some logs you may have seen the rocks that go out down there we'll show some pictures of that later and the uh the activity started to gradually pick up then this year we did a a final dredge alongside the face of the pier there that got us to 35 ft at the face of the pier so hopefully ships won't have to to standoff as far along with that uh that second phase of dredging we've also uh are strengthening the pier the peer strength is uh deteriorated over the years and it needs to be rebuilt and so we're starting that project here in June it should be

completed by about next February it's about a 20 some million dollar project priorities for this year is that uh the project we talked about which is partially paid for with a $7 million Grant from the federal government uh we're going to secure some additional funding via some Bond issuance and then uh we're trying to get more grants for a rail connection uh one of the imped MS to growth at our terminal is the lack of rail a lot of Commodities we're going to talk about for the potential future uh will require a rail connection so there's a picture of the Rocks coming in these rocks are mined uh over in off Highway 20 and then they are brought down to the shipping terminal where they're staged and a couple times a year they get loaded up on a barge and taken down to the Columbia River where they rebuilding the Jetties down there they're currently working on the south Jetty uh and then they'll be going out for the North Jetty I believe next year so we expect this work to be multi-year this should be ongoing for quite some time really big rocks future caros so we have all kinds of potential for the future offshore wind is is often talked about uh roll on roll off sometimes known as roro a heavy lift bad cargo and Aggregates are are potential future cargos you can see some pictures of the row uh Vehicles here we believe we can do vehicles out of Bellingham but again it's going to require a train connection that the they like to move these out on train not on truck so as soon as

we can establish that rail connection some of these Commodities will open up for us baged cargo and aggregate are other potential activities that can be done in our shipping shipping terminal we have the potential to do um you can see the uh the conveyor belts moving the aggregate and you'll see the super bags being lifted by the crane there we've had uh customers calling us for both these activities and uh the they can probably happen without the train so whereas the railroad type vessels uh that would require train connection this type of cargo would not require a train just a overhead view of the shipping tunnel show you the scale of again again about 40 acres 85,000 Square ft of warehouse space and currently the Commodities going out of there are The Rock and we have one more uh shipload of uh recycling metal to to be to leave the potential again for the the terminal going forward is uh looking for federal grants uh to get the approximately about a $15 million rail connection and I just want to say the peak employment down there when I had the earlier picture up there with the congestion was about 40 long shoreman whereas we have about 18 full-time now and with that it'll open up to any questions uh CC list Rob thanks for the presentation um I curious about the rail connection um I believe Burlington Northern Santa Fe owns the track that runs through the Waterfront I assume they probably own the land underneath it as well um would if another spur was put in that goes to

the shipping terminal would the port own it and what are the legalities of hooking your track up to theirs how does that work yeah the port would own it uh the port would own the because we own the land under that that track uh there there would be an agreement with the railw to hook up to their their track uh that's been one of the stumbling blocks actually uh we can't just go in there and do anything because they have to agree that what we're doing works for them and the stumbling block is they want a mile long unit train to be able to go off of the mainline completely uh they don't want to break up trains on the mainline so they can't leave half it on the main line and have half on our track and that required a design that would accommodate a mile long train I think we finally have that we have an agreement with BNSF that the current design is acceptable to them and now we're just looking for the funding to get it done committee other questions council member Anderson so I I was also curious about the route line um since I'm assuming it's going to have to go across uh the city street in order to connect or is there still a Spur that actually would it come off of of um the current spur that goes adjacent to the port property yes I don't believe we'd be crossing any existing city streets um we would be potentially crossing a new street that would be in the log Pond area in the future depending on how that Industrial Area develops um but that obviously we design the roads for

that Crossing but the current design doesn't have it Crossing Laurel at all and it it comes off of after Cornwall so kind of between Cornwall and Laurel there that section of track is where it would be joined to the mainline okay I didn't know if the it would be going across any um streets where City traffic would frequent and if so is it going to be brought to the standard that it's going to be quiet zone for the railroad crossing any Crossings we do would would absolutely be quiet Zone compatible going forward but again I don't believe it would cross the spur we're talking about would not cross any existing streets so it wouldn't affect any traffic a little Quest actually thanks for mentioning quiet Zone because I'd like to thank the port for being a partner in that you've spent a lot of money on improving your Crossings we're spending money to improve ours um it's not easy no it's not and the railroads have to approve and do everything um you talked about the port and its transportation and shipping role but the port also as a as a special purpose government has a role in Economic Development generally speaking can you talk about and has the port Quantified your the the economic benefit or activities the port supports I'm thinking both the direct economic economic activity like what goes on at the airport what goes on the Barina and the indirect economic uh benefits to watom County can you talk about those how how do you talk about that internally every once in a while we

do a study uh we bring in an e an economist and they'll determine what those multipliers are to get that indirect number so obviously we can really easily quantify exactly how many long shoremen are working uh at the terminal it's a lot harder to quantify what the ramifications are for the rest of the community but the economists come in there har Hodes being one of them and they put these multipliers on there and say okay for every dollar you generate here here's how many dollars it generates in the rest of the community uh we haven't done that for the shipping terminal in quite some time and I think the last time we did it for the airport was about 2016 so one of the things we're going to do in 2025 in our budget is to budget for some dollars to do more economic studies to determine the exact impacts can you ballpark it based on previous studies in previous years what that looks like not the top of my head but some hundreds of millions the airport alone is 100 million questions council member Anderson and and thank you for doing this presentation um I'm a little bit curious as far as as Port property for some of the manufacturing warehouse I know we recently lost one of our employers um located down there and I'm wondering how how much port um facility being manufacturing warehouse is currently empty um and you have is there without necessarily naming a company if they're not signed on a dotted line but is there uh replacement clients coming in soon for some of those

vacated properties Yeah we actually have zero uh buildings available uh we are fully leased up in fact we've got a lot of requests that we can't meet right now so one of the things we're looking at is uh do we have property that we can build on and build a manufacturing type of facility we're pretty confident if we build it it'll be full um as far as uh potential customers to replace ones that we've recently lost we have a really good lead on one that I think will be almost a one forone replacement when it comes to jobs uh the economics might not be quite the same for the port uh but the jobs will be almost a on toone replacement I know you came here and you want to talk about the shipping terminal but i' like to talk about the the downtown portion of the Waterfront so the port owns still almost all of the land uh in the downtown portion um which we're looking for develop how does the port feel about the approved sub area plan and given the fact that the city and the county and everyone is going through a comp plan update cycle over the next two years does has the port given any thought to the current sub area plan are you fine with it as it is um or what I think I think it depends on the area you're talking about councilman um if you're talking about the where track site is currently where the condos are being built where we're planning for the board Mill hotel I think we're very satisfied with the zoning and the regulations in place for that uh as you move over the watom

Waterway to what we call the Marine trades area I think we're going to want to make some changes to the what's on file for that right now uh the original plan was to turn that into a marina uh when the port bought the property in 2005 that's really what was just chasing was chasing that ASB the areation stabil Iz ation Basin because they want to build a marina there uh the current Port Commission has a different design on that they want to keep that area more industrial and uh fill in half of it for Upland space for warehousing and Manufacturing and then use the other half for more industrial uh boat repair type facilities sorry I watch the port does a lot um so for example um again do we have the comp plan we're looking forward and recently it's either the port or the or both cooperatively did a study of the industrial lands in wam County I think it was just only heavy industrial lands and I talked with maybe you but certainly Ken Bell and certainly in the business and Commerce Committee meeting about doing a countywide assessment of light industrial lands as well um have you talked about that at all do you see the port as having a role in that again kind of comp plan land use planning uh discussion and I I would think of like heavy light and then Marine Industrial is kind of a a category That's Unique on its own so in terms of countywide and future planning on Industrial land what is what is the ports thinking on that right now what activities might you be willing to engage

in I think we need to be involved in that study and I think the stud's overdue I absolutely believe we need to inventory our lands what do we have left for heavy industrial what do we have for light and what's dedicated to Marine trades so the the port would love to be involved in that study so if we LED you'd follow sure I'll see what I can do thank you um this is a little bit of a environmental question or concern and I apologize that I did not have an opportunity to go back and find the exact um newspaper article on it but I remember reading where and if if this is a legal Quagmire feel free to say I will pass on that question because I don't expect you to share anything that might be more executive level but um we're court is currently located I believe I read that when they were doing their bottom floor basement parking that they had dug up and had gone into the liner that was part of the cap and then the soil was put on Port property without permission and I'm wondering one was there a compromise um environmentally to having done that digging work um and if so what is going to be the remediation or is the concrete now supplanting that and two the dirt that was piled up has that been removed and contained because it might be contaminated um a little concern about what might be leeching out sure so the dirt that was dug up was done so with e col's knowledge and blessing uh it was done according to the materials management plan that we have on file for managing these

things it was slightly contaminated it was stockpiled on property with the port's permission and harcour was allowed to stockpile that for two years that two years ended in October of 2022 so they're a little overdue on that uh we've put notice to uh hardcourt that they're in default on that license to use our property to store those materials uh We've also not notified ecology that the materials management plan has possibly been compromised and uh we're currently uh have a court date for this Friday with our court on that very subject thank you for that clarification other questions okay I'm going to pause the tennis match from the side of the Das from that side of the dis and interject here um with a question of public access and in the middle of that photo up there uh there's the ASB that you just referred to it's the um the Basin that's that is like a big a kind of rectangle and public has access to it via a trail um that begins yeah right over where your cursor is behind all American Marine and people can go all the way around um and then there's a gate or yeah there's a gate at the um the other end and so it's an incomplete route and so my I guess my question or two questions one is will that trail be uh part of the the future plans and if it is is it would it be possible perhaps to work with I don't know what jurisdiction if it's uh parks and W or if it's you all um when it comes to maybe getting that that part of SE Street open the connectivity um would be amazing to

start out at the um the new pier that will be opened up uh and then coming all the way down you know down to the Waterfront and perhaps Beyond at some point so what what do you know about those things so the uh currently the chain that crosses this and closing the trail uh is delineated in the DNR Department of Natural Resources property and we manage that under what's called a PMA a property management agreement for DNR and one of our uses is that we are not allowed is pedestrian access so that's why we have that chain across there so you can get out to the point of DNR land then you have to turn around and go back whether we can ever get that to be a full loop when we uh eventually uh develop this into the boat repair the the Marine repair facility I talked about we're going to breach this ASB out to the walk and Waterway and open it up right here so there won't be you will not be able to walk all the way across it okay is the DNA fence is that a relatively new development uh no that's been the case since uh oh 2008 or so when yeah okay when my wife and I go walking out there there's no um where you had your cursor up on the screen right there there's there's some infrastructure there for a gate but there's no actual physical gate there used to be a chain that just went across so it wasn't a gate it was just a chain but maybe someone took the chain down yeah when that happens so yeah okay thank you appreciate it further questions for director fix go ahead do you have one

more environmental question so with um ABC uh with the the loading of metal um we all understand that there was a gap between where the dock was and the ship and metal did fall between the two um and that could possibly be one of the reasons why copper zinc and Lead um through the water quality samplings may have been increased I'm wondering has there been an assessment or is there a plan to do an assessment of how much metal has fallen in that area and then providing cleanup I believe that there's dredging that might be happening in that area so is that going to be part of that process is pulling that out at the same time so we dredged in January and February we finished the drudging in February and they did find they were pulling up metal and the only source of that metal could have been ABC because we've never handled that type of cargo before um but we don't believe any fell in the water in this Last Ship loading and we were very we had people down there watching just for that we also required ABC to put more Skookum or heavyduty or uh infrastructure between the boat or the ship and the dock so if anything did fall it would fall through so I I believe The Last Ship they loaded out which is the only one since we dredged uh did not have any material fall into the Waterway and we'll do that same practice for The Last Ship as well okay we are just over time uh thank you for coming director fix have a good rest of your day thanks for having me okay our next item up this

afternoon is a request for Council to send a letter support for grant funding for Community Court uh Bellingham Municipal Court is seeking council's unanimous uh approval to seek grant funding from the administrative office of the Courts for our community Court being launched this fall the court is seeking funding for a halftime prosecutor fees for participants needing probation supervision team training and travel office supplies computer and Recovery supports and here to take us through is darling Peterson Court director um I brought Laticia Nunes with me she's our community Court coordinator and uh we're here if you have any questions for us I did send a draft letter to councilman Hamill and so we should have that one of the requirements is that we have the signature of each council member for that letter um and so we're here um we have asked we are asking in this grant it's a very short turnaround for a halftime prosecutor we confirm with prosecutor Anderson who confirmed with Mr Mariner um that that would be something that they think would be very helpful to be able to be a part of the court and the different supplies that we mentioned so if you have any questions for us we're happy to answer them members uh council member Anderson thank you um a couple of fundamental questions um first how much is the grant for um how long will it last and what is the cost of that part-time prosecutor because I'm assuming that if we do get the grant we go forward eventually the grant

runs away or is done then we're going to be as a budget filling that need which there is need so a little more financial information if you have it would be uh nice we do and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Leticia she is done the court um Court five courts in gadet county and they have been relying on this fund the These funds for years so I'll let her explain that more thank you darling so the total amount of this grant currently we have um just over $142,000 will be our ask um you indicated the funding for the um part-time prosecuting attorney um I've included just for safety purposes a 3% Cola increase which is usually what's common here in the coming years um so that total ask with salary and benefits um numbers coming from um Ryan Anderson is uh $77,500 um this funding is actually funding that they have um set apart for the theraputic courts so this they they they don't necessarily call it grant funding it's just funds that are readily available they do warn us that they can be if needed somewhere else they can take from that funding to um to direct it to a different type of spending but as far as um I've known we've had down in scet it was given they've had it now for about five years there questions or comments from the committee go C question I have a weird procedural question it's required that it be unanimous and does it matter that we're not actually don't have all seven members up here do we vote to we unanimously approve something how does that work

procedurally is is there motion to vote or we just all sign our name on our own behalf well I would do a motion to approve the letter and vote on that and then you would circulate the letter for everybody's signature so here's the odd thing are we compelling skip to sign if we vote to approve it unanimously he's not here to agree uh you you you probably are I don't anticipate that's going to be a problem okay it just seems weird to vote to compel his it's an unusual request that everybody has to sign it we should do I would move that the Bellingham city council unanimously approve and sign the attached letter second motion's been made by council member list and seconded by council member huthman further questions council member cotton so I have a question maybe to help me understand um how we should think about Community courts in the context of our broader goals um so my first question is what um what kind of data collection practices we anticipate in order to evaluate outcomes and um yeah in terms of you know equity and also just in terms of meeting our our our broader criminal legal system goals and then my second question and this has I think mostly to do with the halftime prosecutor position it's like should we think about this as um uh as like true diversion as kind of taking people who otherwise would be moving through the criminal legal system or is it a procedure that is getting at people who otherwise wouldn't be coming into contact with or wouldn't be moving

through a different process in the criminal legal system well currently in our therapeutic courts we have a mental health court and then we have a domestic violence Court they're pretty stick excuse me pretty strict qualifications for the mental health court you have to have a mental health diagnosis so we're finding these individuals that are falling through the cracks They Don't Really qualify for mental health court they're not involved in domestic violence but they have personal needs that are attributing to them being um theft uh issues downtown um me some mental health but not necessarily a diagnosis those kinds of things and so this court is hoping to catch those individuals and a lot of the issues that we're having downtown um with the Fentanyl and Other Drug treat being able to get people into treatment those kinds of things and so it's trying to catch those people Letisha I don't know if you want to add from your experience down south what you saw it's very much what what Darlene's indicating um we do indicate that it is a diversion Court it is a program that they do have an option it is not mandated that they sign into the program so um we always offer and state that there is another Direction instead of going down the normal criminal criminal law with fines and fees and um so we find that you know a lot of these individuals don't have that funding either way to fi pay those fines and fees so maybe we save the court also that headache I guess you could say and

provide them with services to relieve the city with with those individuals and possibly give them a better outcome than by not offering that type of programming um and on the piece about um like evaluating program efficacy as we move forward what opportunities do you see there and and what what might Council expect down the line so the AOC does require us to um take trainings they do provide trainings themselves best practices um obviously the um wam County probation department will also be a piece of the the program which obviously they have their um best practices and all their trainings involved um the AOC does require us to keep track of certain statistics um recidivism rates and whatnot so that will be something that we will um be keeping track for our court as well as for the mandates of the grant other questions from Committee i' just like to address uh council member Cotton's uh questions um just to provide a little bit of context this court um is something that I view as part of a suite of um programs and entities that the both the city and the county have embraced in terms of U moving towards diversion out of the criminal justice uh system um to uh for individuals that really don't need to be uh incarcerated for any length of time but would benefit from uh some assistance either from a a case manager or some guidance from uh an authority that's going to be helpful versus uh Inc carceral so I just wanted to give you that that context and you and I have talked about

that a little bit too further questions or um comments from committee okay motions have been made by council member Lilo Quist seconded by council member Huffman all those in favor signified by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 60 thank you thank coming okay our next item is an interlocal agreement with the wam County or with wam County sorry regarding the public health safety and Justice Facility financing and the use of sales tax revenues the attached proposed interlocal agreement governs the use of the additional 210 of 1% sales and Ed tax for Public Health safety and Justice authorized by voters in the no November 2023 general election as the interlocal agreement is proposed the cities will transfer 75% of tax proceeds to the county for the first 54 months of collection as a capital contribution to the new public health safety and Justice Facility funds not used to construct and finance the facility and at least 50% of the funds collected countywide at the completion of the city's Capital contribution will will be used in support of the Justice project implementation Plan and there's an attached version of the interlocal agreement including minor scriveners revisions from the version distributed to County uh pardon me city council members on April 23rd and here to take us through is Deputy Finance director Forest Longman thank you um yeah so I'm just going to kind of give the broad Strokes of the interlocal agreement and then happy to answer any

questions is related to that that new sales tax and will govern the funding of the new jail and behavioral health facility as well as funding for the Justice project implementation plan uh of note the structure of this agreement is is largely the same as was presented to council uh when by the by the county on March 25th so the facility itself will be financed through County issued bonds with an upfront Capital contribution from the cities as mentioned the first for the first 54 months the cities will contribute 75% and the county will contribute 100% of the sales tax revenues for that facility Capital cost of note when we initially started talking about this it was going to be 100% of the city uh dollars we going to go towards that we were able to negotiate that down to 75% so that we could have some funds for an immediate impact um for 2024 that means that we expect to have about $500,000 to go towards implementation plan projects and nearly a million dollar in 2025 the contribution can be impacted by eventual financing costs uh it's structured in such a way that if the annual Bond payment the county has is less than 6.3 million the county will refund the city's contribution by an equivalent amount and if the annual Bond payment is more than 6.6 the city's Capital contribution could be extended to bring the bond payment within the target amount but in no case will it exceed that 75% we're currently at that Target of 6.3 to 6.6 million was chosen to uh with our projections

ensure that 50% of the countywide sales tax revenue will be available for justice project implementation plan projects beginning in 2029 all funds not used for the capital financing collected by the city and the county must be used consistent with implementation plan uh the exception to that is the small cities are not held to that and they can use their funds in any uh legally permissable permissable way way a facilities and finance Advisory board or faab will provide oversight for facility planning operations and the use of funds it will be composed of up to 13 members including three from wam County the executive a County council member and the sheriff and three from the city of Bellingham the mayor city a city council member and the police chief um two of the positions will be jointly apped appointed by the County Council and the city council and the remainder will be um appointed by virtue of their positions and that's two elected officials from the federally recognized tribes one elected official from the small cities and one to two chairs of the incarceration prevention task force uh in addition to providing this oversight role of the facility that faab will be responsible for recommending updates to the Justice project implementation plan and Associated spending plans uh while considering the input from this County's incarceration prevention and reduction task force uh all such plans must be adopted by the city council and the County Council and then finally in

regards to access to the new jail the agreement provides that all parties will have access to the facility on an equal priority basis uh that any booking restrictions will be shared equally among all parties and that all parties will work collaboratively to seek Solutions uh and that the sheriff will consult with the faab and explain the rationale for restrictions if they occur uh we of course hope that we won't in that situation after we have a new Jail uh so that's the broad Strokes of the agreement the County Council will be considering this Ila at their meeting tomorrow and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have council member Huffman so that's great news that we'll be able to keep 25% uh of that revenue for the first couple years which was unexpected originally um do we have a plan as to how those funds will be allocated at this point I think we are just planning to consider this as part of our budget process going forward um we don't have any immediate we haven't designated any immediate expenditures for it um but we want to just bring this into our process as we go forward little then mayor so I'll get back to that that 25% approximate million dollars but I want to first I want to go to kind of how the money is being spent one of the things or one of the concerns months ago when the implementation plan was finished is is how do we know they're actually going to follow the implementation plan I said well it's going to be written into a legally binding contract

well this is a legally binding contract we now have a legal means of requiring that the implementation plan does guide the spending except for the small cities um with regard to the monies that we will have available to direct as we wish will that spending also need to be um in alignment with the implementation plan does that constraint our uses yes absolutely we'll be governed by that implementation plan and any uh spending that we propose will need to be uh consistent with that plan thank you uh to council member Huffman's question I would say as we go through the budgeting process um areas to begin to consider would be those um uh uses that are consistent with the plan right now that are being supported by General funds where we have constraints and also um Investments that we've made through arpa dollars which will vanish at the end of this year so will would most likely be starting there any further questions I'll uh jump in real quick before I recognize coun mstone um so I was just at a lead uh site uh State site visit meeting so that's law enforcement assisted diversion so it's County city um state folks this is about a week and a half ago um we had discussed um the use of these funds in the out years um in the event that the doj the Department of Justice funds that currently supplement that um that program or that model uh when they are when they have operate would there be an option to to use these Public Safety dollars in say five seven years and just wanted to to

check in with the mayor and uh Mr Longman to see if that's a possibility yes absolutely um I mean that would be consistent with the implementation a plan as written and the implementation plan will also be updated uh every 5 years by that FB group to ensure that it's keeping Pace with the changing environment thank you m come s sorry no worries um so my question is not intended to be um I don't want to say alarming I just want to know so this is right as you're saying sort of signing the legal document that's going to lay out these parameters one of the things that stood out to me right is that we so this went before the voters it was passed those tax dollars then are going to be um collected by each entity so technically the cities receiving those tax dollars and then through this agreement we're agreeing to provide now it's 75% to the county right to support this so throughout the agreement it mentions that signatures required by June 1st right and there's reference that um if it wasn't signed right under such circumstances a non-participating city will not be granted access to use the Justice Facility and behavioral health treatment center on the same conditions granted to the parties of this agreement um and so I'm just curious right before signing on the line if we didn't sign what happens well I'd prefer not to imagine such a scenario um but we would certainly be in a bit of a conundrum with the county and our access to the Future jail facility and behavioral health

facility so um I think they would be within their rights to prevent us from using it uh based on the way that this agreement is structured um at least for misdemeanor misdemeanor cases it's my understanding but again hopefully we won't get to that and that Sol I mean that was my question is that we are um as we've spoken to the concern about right the jail restrictions that we're currently facing and not wanting to end up in that same predicament right in the future and identifying the fact that um although as a County facility right and providing services for the entire County that our Municipal Court then cases are dependent that's still sort of a discretionary matter matter because the county is only over the district and Superior Court is that uh yeah but by signing this agreement um that last piece that equal Priority Access um sort of guarantees us access and guarantees an equal share of access not a proportional share um but an equal share so again hopefully we'll never get to that point again where we're facing down um restrictions but if we do we believe we have stronger language now than we've ever had in the past regarding jail access thank you any further questions Council M Anderson no question um thank you for bringing this forward in um previous uh little mini work session going over things so I appreciate the time staff has um given us to get an understanding of this so with that I move to approve the interlocal agreement with wam County regarding the public

health safety and Justice Facility financing and the use of the sales tax revenues second motion's been made by council member Anderson second by council member Huffman Michael I'm sorry council member list um thank you um council president Hamill so I have another numbers question just to make sure I understand the table on page 188 um just looking at the column B and column c um so column A is uh City share going of the two10 sales tax F and then that's broken down into city tax revenues to jpip and then remaining Revenue whatever is not spent jpip says the implementation plan isn't that really the capital contribution it is yes that's an unfortunate um Remnant uh from a document that was prepared by an outside consultant okay because the the revenue remaining we just clarified that is also for the jpip correct okay so you really should divide that as capital contribution pursuing to the jpip and everything else pursuing to the jpip yes the the remaining cities Revenue would be the piece that would go towards the implementation plan perfect thank you very much further questions or discussion uh see none the motion's been made by council member Anderson seconded by council member huthman all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed extensions recusal motion carries um six 60 okay moving on one moment here this is going to be an ordinance that's attendant to the interlocal that was just voted upon let see if I have to read this whole thing here give me a moment yeah

yeah yeah I gotta thank you um okay so this this basically kind of goes over um the um the previous um motion that was just made and passed this is an ordinance creating a fund to account for the new 2/10 of 1% sales in use tax for public health safety and Justice um I'll go ahead and just read the summary statement November 2023 the general election qualified electors of wam County voted to authorize an additional 210 1% sales tax for public health safety and Justice the countywide 2/10 the cities receive uh 40% of revenues on a per capita basis this ordinance reveals a new fund to account for these new Reven Vues use of these funds will be governed by an interlocal agreement that was just passed here um in these Chambers between wam County and the cities as the interlocal agreement is proposed cities will transfer 75% of tax proceeds to the county for the first 50 54 months of collection as a capital contribution to the new public health safety and Justice Facility funds not used to construct and finance the facility and at least 50% of funds collected countywide at the completion of the city's capital contrib will be used in support of the Justice uh project impl implementation plan um here to take us through again is uh deputy director uh of Finance Forest Longman yeah not that much to add on this one really straightforward just creating the fund uh for to put those sales tax in and and pay things out of so okay committee approval second uh motion Been Me by council

member Huffman and second by council member Anderson any further discussion on this item seeing all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries UH 60 thank you that brings us to our next item and this is make sure it's still this is an ordinance amending the 2023 2024 B anual budget amendment number 13 this ordinance amends the 2023 2024 budget by adding revenues and expenses to account for the new public health safety um and Justice sales tax and adds two full-time equivalents and Associated expenses in the mayor's office uh full-time FTS the um the new sales tax will fund or will also be used to fund to account for the OPI settlement dollars the ordinance includes recognition of current year opiate revenues and transfers and previous years opiate revenues from the general fund and again uh Mr Longman thanks yeah uh so this budget ordinance is related to the creation of that fund and the Ila obviously um no the the big actions here is recognizing the revenues associated with the sales tax and also our opioid settlements that we've been receiving so this year we're anticipating 420 ,000 of revenue from those opio Ed settlements and so we're recognizing that Revenue into this new fund so we can keep track of that separate from the general fund uh and we know that a lot of these uses are going to overlap uh additionally there's a transfer of $217,000 from the general fund into this new fund to account for previous opioid settlement dollars

that we have received um in addition it budgets the uh the payment the 1.6 million payment to the county that we're anticipating based on those revenues that 75% that we're going to give to the county and then it adds two positions in the mayor's office uh an additional Deputy Administrator and a uh strategic initiatives manager uh of note the Strategic initiatives manager is intended to be paid for with those opioid dollars for at least the first two years uh that position will be uh sort of consolidating our Services programs and relationships with uh wam County on those items in the future we will likely use that fund one 120 to pay for that but that'll be budgeted down the line but that's our intent when the opioid funds uh can't cover the whole thing and then the Deputy Administrator uh is a second position to um one will be externally focused and one internally focused and I don't know if the mayor would like to say a few more words about either of those sure thank you thank you Forest um I think I've had the opportunity to speak with most of you about this but both of these are positions are identifying um where we have strategic capacity constraints right now as a city to move this critical work forward we all saw the presentation about the HUD Consolidated plan today so much critical important work in this community and right now a lot of the work about Health and Human Services also falls in that team and it constrains some of that work in the HUD plan that we saw

today um it also lives in other pockets in the city so we don't have a unified approach to doing this work and as this uh Public Safety tax begins to flow in and we identify the needs to direct our 25% towards Justice plan goals we need a dedicated resource to do that well and so that is the intention behind the first position and the second is the second Deputy model uh it has been a very long time since we've added capacity at that level in the city while I think everyone up on the dis today can acknowledge we have done a considerable amount of expansion in our focus and the work that we do and so the idea um is similar to what the county executive is seeking right now in the two Deputy model my vision for these positions is that these two deputies will work very closely together they'll have a flexible portfolio of work that they focus on but broadly one would be focused on a delivering on good government and this would increase our ability to do lobbying and Appropriations requests better it would be focused on government to government relationships it would be focusing on tribal leas on relationships and really thinking about how we're engaging with the community in terms of communication and our boards and commissions so all of that would be in the purview of one of our uh one of the deputies the other would have a more internal focus on looking about how do we grow to become a great City so this is somebody who has some of an urbanist Focus somebody who's prepared to

be thinking about how are we integrating our transportation plans with our climate goals and our housing plans and so really doing uh that work how are we making sure we're advancing economic development in this community creating a culture for a great place to work so broadly that's the distinction as the positions are envisioned right now and I'm happy to answer any questions CC M Stone then Anderson so I was make clear I just in listening to you talking the use of the term Deputy so and speaking to the public health um Justice and safety sales tax money just confirming that those aren't law enforcement deputies that we're speaking to right a deputy mayor so at an executive level more administrative I think that's clear I just wanted to make sure that yeah there wasn't any misunderstanding about what those positions would look like absolutely and just as um that is the work that Brian Hinrich did for many years here at the city and that Janice is doing in inter room capacity is the Deputy Mayor that is correct Anderson thank you um I do support this because we are becoming a bigger city and our staff uh support needs to grow in order to be able to really manage a lot of the um work and initiatives that are coming through so I think it's too much work for one person so kind of a divide and conquer my only question is looking at um the Health and Human Services um position the wage seems rather low um taking a look at the responsibility level and I'm just wondering if this is

kind of like an equivalent of um being more like a classified and when we looked at job description it fell under a particular uh job description as a manager versus something that might be more e team executive that there's some flexibility on salary um I'm just thinking it they they have a big plate and a lot of work and the level of pay um may not be comparable to the experience and education level we would want to to recruit so was there discussion there I mean I'm kind of wondering why that particular price point came in that way yeah I'll just uh start out by it's a partial year um first off because we have we expect it'll be several months a couple months from now before we can even uh hire either of these positions uh so with that one particularly that's not a job description or a classification that exists so we kind of say well it seems like it kind of Falls between here or here but at the end of the day HR will do its work to classify that position based on the job description that's created for it and it will end up what it ends up as so we don't have like what the the position level cost would be for next year yet because that's still be determining is that what I'm it's still somewhat under determination yes and it will be included in the budget for 2020 it will be above the 57,000 then okay thank you very much because I know some recent College grads who might be looking at that not to say anything wrong with college grads but I'd like some um field experience

coming in with this lest well first let me say uh mayor cim I appreciate your bringing forward the proposal for the uh second Deputy Administrator it seems very often we are in our own way because we're all so busy so I if if that's one of the key pitch points I'm glad we're addressing it um this is really a kind of a small little question we're mixing the opioid settlement money with the public public health and safety tax money they both have restrictions on them but they're not identical as as as the people who count the beans and track the dollars that's they're close enough or are we going to do a sub accounting underneath there there'll be one fund with accouny codes yeah we'll do a sub accounting beneath that we have to report out on those opioid dollars very specifically so we'll be tracking those as a separate bucket but we wanted to get them out of the general fund so they just didn't get lost up in that with that I would approve uh passage of the ordinance it's the budget amendment second a motion's been made by council member list and second by council member Anderson any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 60 okay thank you all right on to the next item we've got a work session regarding the draft Urban Forest plan the city of Bellingham is creating a strategic Urban Forest plan to help maintain healthy and desirable Urban Forest through well-coordinated consistent and sustainable

long-term Urban Forest management plan outlines the sweet of actions to uh 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 in an equitable fashion as a policy document the plan creates a basis from which future regulations funding and programs can be based Council consideration for approval of the key plan will be in early summer uh 20124 draft plan is available on the city website um cob.org uufm on April 25th 2024 staff presented key elements of the plan and Council requested additional time for questions and discussion of the draft plan which is the purpose of this work session today and here to take us is Eric Johnston director of Public Works good afternoon Council Eric Johnston with uh for this this item today with Nicole all over from Parks and Blake from the planning department as well so we're going to tag team on a couple of things here I just use this version here thanks to staff for putting this up for me today okay so a couple things that we'd like to do is we'd like to talk a little bit about timeline and uh where we're at with the process talk about the canopy cover targets uh couple public engagement Outreach that's ongoing and the for moving this this project forward so timeline first of all so the draft plan was issued in early early last month and we talked to the council last time we

had a lengthy presentation that want to come through some of the details this timeline we're trying to put some context to this has been worked on for a number of years uh we're also trying to put some context that that there's not a time frame when it has to be adopted by so we we rolled the draft plan out uh a couple of weeks ago with the intent that we want to Garner public feedback and one of the earliest things we heard back was there's not enough time we need to have that by somehow that there was a perception that was communicated that we had to have comments in by the staff by a very specific date in the month of May and that was going to be the end of the public process and that we want to recorrect that that time frame that's not the intent here the plan uh will be presented in its various forms and revised and adjusted and modified based on public feedback including the council feedback so what we're trying to show with here with this time frame is that uh we're in the process of gathering feedback from the from the community and from the council uh but we have a long time before it has to be approved if it's entirely driven by the council's agenda there's no there's no fixed time from as to when the plan needs to be approved so I we do have a survey you know a formal survey that was on the engag Bellingham site we have a number of public meetings that are ongoing the first one was held I think last two weeks ago week and a half ago I had some great Public public

participation in that meeting we've got another couple opportunities the next couple of weeks and we have a window for the survey the idea is that we would come back in the month of June with the to the council reporting back on that initial feedback we heard from those initial time periods the idea being that that we have a window as window we can report back on what we have heard so far but there's no closing on the window as to when public can comment on that plan so whether that's directly to the council or to staff we'll take that feedback at any point in time we are planning on coming back to the council and getting some more Direction and feedback and then preparing a final version of the plan in the summer of 2024 but final approval of that might occur uh of course at the council Direction and timing so these next couple of slides are talking about the specifics of of the targets that are in the plan and I need to uh want to a couple things that we want to talk about with these couple of the slides uh first of all there's a 35% canopy coverage Target that's I talked about or we had talked about that last fall and and the the count directions of the staff from the council was to come back and develop a plan based on 45% we wanted to come back and just kind of highlight out that we did talk about a 35 a 40 and a 45% and kind of revisit some of those differences between those three levels and a couple of things and we'll just very briefly go through these uh at the last

presentation in in April we had some cost that were in the plan I want to pull those numbers back a little bit so as we're working through the draft the numbers that we had previously provided to the council in April uh we have some more work to do on those numbers I just want to acknowledge that that we have additional work to do and so we go through these next three or four slides the cost will be listed as TBD because we have the need for more evaluation and Analysis as to the costs of what the impacts of these programs might conail what is clear is that if we go from a 35% to a 40 45% that it requires additional Staffing that assumes additional increases in service levels and of course results in higher cost going from one step to the to the next it's also important to note that uh we are currently on around 40% canopy coverage in the city of bellam which is pretty good good comparing to other places so here at 35% that's assuming that we would increase service levels particularly for Street trees that we would increase to four new FTE and that way the cost would be unknown I also want to point out that there's reference to a landmark tree protection and that's an ordinance that was direct is being developed by staff at Council direction that is independent from the urban Forest plan so that's listed in all three of those but that's an action that will be separate independent of of of the urban forestry or Urban Forest plan itself uh we're getting some early feedback

during the public engagement process that lotss of folks are really concerned or interested or positive or opposed to uh lots of public comment on the LC tree protection uh ordinance and that is separate from the policy document that is the urban Forest plan so that will go on a separate timeline and it's really not up for conversation dur in well of course talk about it but it's it's not part of the urban Forest plan specifically um it is referenced in the forest plan but it is a separate time frame here it will be listed in all three of these slides so at the 40% you see an increasing levels of Staff increasing levels of policy changes uh increased uh tree planting at various points and again the costs are still TBD at 40% same thing we're increasing the staff levels to a much higher degree more policy changes increasing number of trees to be planted and again cost to be uh to be determined in terms of where those trees would be planted and again I want to kind of move away from the specificity and some of those numbers they're underlined here uh calling attention to that but really when you want to move away from the specific of those numbers we've got some more work to do on that if you try to do the math here you can't get those numbers to add up to those numbers and so trying to make sure that there's Clarity and consistency in those numbers is important what we're trying to show here with is in order to achieve 45% canopy coverage there are significant trees to be

planted on both public and private property across all aspects of the city uh not just on one particular you land use or another that is really highlighted here in this slide as we talk about where the cost would be incurred and so as we talk about cost for increasing our canopy coverage increasing the health far of our Urban Forest increasing the accessibility to trees all the things would be identified in the urban Forest plan there are cost in real cost to the city and real cost to property owners and opportunity cost to both the city and the property owners as we start to reflect those costs and what is what was talked about last time those costs would be costs to the city but there are real an opportunity costs to private property owners as well including other public agencies meaning Western hospitals or the port or other other groups through throughout the community Blake will help me out with this slide a little bit because there's an impact right there's a there's a balancing there's trying to uh not put them at opposites with the other not trying to make them opposed to each other they're not mus exclusive but there's a connection that when we put more regulations in place has an effect to to housing in both in real and opportunity costs and we'll let Blake speak to the slide if I could thank you um when we talk about opportunity C cost it's really where I wanted to help uh expand the conversation there is we know that when we talk about individual properties we're

talking about competing interests and influences uh we have the need for additional housing that's reflected in some of the numbers that we see in the left of that slide where it talks about the 20 45 targets that's uh as of House Bill 1220 that was put out in uh the 2021 legislative session and we know that countywide uh that we're looking at that 34,000 uh unit number about half of that is what Bellingham is expected to to meet across the income levels and so when you think about 177,000 units over the next 20year planning phase that's where you start to get into the kind of the middle column there um when we look at the buildable lands report that was done from 2016 uh to 20121 we averaged about 644 units over that per year over that 5-year increment period to get to the Target numbers that we really need to be we need to be closer to that 825 number that you see represented up there um that does not take into consideration the various different income bands that are associated with House Bill 1220 so when we start to look at that about 63% of those numbers are in the capital A affordable 80% of Ami and Below we are averaging about 130 units in that range uh annually to get to those targets we need to be closer to 520 annually so that's a pretty big ask to get us into the housing market and to drive some of those things and so what we're starting to look at what we wanted to make sure isn't lost in the context of this discussion are those competing uh priorities and needs

you all have asked us to look at um parking minimums and potentially reducing those so we're certainly going to be coming back to you with that discussion we're looking at the different requirements that we have for storm water on properties for getting those additional units for um wanting to hit those targets for our tree canopy and so it's a matter of addressing and trying to balance out the range of different competing priorities that are in those and and obviously those come with real cost so we just wanted to acknowledge that it's not we're not trying to pit trees against housing it's about trying to find the balance and mesh those things together and really try to figure out what we can do in an appropriate and meaningful way so that we can allow for you know our community to to continue to grow to manage that growth in a responsible way so thank you Eric one another thing to mention on this is so the the numbers are numbers right and depending on what that you put in the nomer makes a big difference and so we wanted to point out that there that the uh analysis period that the r these numbers is based in 2016 to 2020 if you go back for a longer period of time back to early 2000s that Gap becomes larger larger and that 2016 to 2020 is is an important number because that was the analysis that was done on the buildable lands so as the as the plan talks about increasing the canopy coverage that assumes full buildout of the buildable lands and so there's factors built into

to allowing for additional development uh but there is certainly that was not based on this number which was larger than what was available when the buildable lands came out nor that do it make an assumption looking prior to uh 2016 time frame so it it misses both the dip in the housing slump in 2018 2008 but it also misses the peak that occurred prior to that period of time so going back to kind of the start of the conversation about where the uh where we're at the time frame we are currently in the community feedback process uh the April 15th May 15th was that structured feedback want to those very specific openhouse us going out to the public we're anticipating coming back in June reporting on that particular type of feedback but we're willing to accept public and we we will accept public comment at any Point even if it is after that May 15th time frame so if somebody feels like they need additional time please don't be feel hesit feel concerned that we're closing the door on on May 15th and you can get access to community feedback through the engage Bellingham site Google search to Bellingham UFM will'll take you right there and then schedule for next step so here today we're here to uh a couple of things and I think if there's two major takeaways that we'd like to communicate first of all is to separate the landmark tree or ordinance from the oran Forest plan I think that'd be one key thing to separate those two conversations that will the ordinance will come separately

the plan will continue on its on its pathway and then to acknowledge that we have some concerns from staff in terms of the development of the plan there's some things that we'd like to work on particularly some numbers the financial numbers and some technical analysis numbers that need additional work we want to acknowledge that there's some work to do that we have uh plans to address that we're coming back to council with that first presentation the summary in June anticipate Council discussion and direction in July time frame followed by more development of the plan and later fall if not winter of 24 and into 25 with that we're open to questions and feedback from Council any Council M list and then mayor uh where to begin so I have four substantive areas I want to talk about but let me just begin with with some general comments and go into the first one um I'm glad that you reiter this is a draft plan um open to influence from the public and hopefully influence from Council Members such as myself um I think this plan is ambitious and necessary but it's also not easy or simple and we have set ourselves a difficult task balancing all the needs at the same time um so I think we should take our time and in a certain sense be realistic in our expectations I also want to say that um I appreciate very much that in the plan it shows the expected loss from development it directly acknowledges one of the tensions in the plan that's a it's a a strong point frankly and I also want to

acknowledge the use of equity as a guiding principle we the way I've said it is I want every neighborhood to be a good neighborhood to live in and if everyone had equal access to Green Space equal access to all the things that we provide uh I think that would be good and so I I appreciate adding equity in as a principle um the first area I want to talk about has to do with concerns I've heard with regard to um how the how many new rules or regulations are going to affect developers and land owners and investors um as you indicated uh Eric the The Landmark tree ordinance is actually separate but there will be other ordinances or implementation rules that will come and I'm wondering if we could even talk about that at this point I think the way I tried to draw the distinction is we'll have Citywide targets but that isn't the same thing as Project Specific rules so let's you know let's say our Target is 45% Citywide or let's say or but but for your particular project or partial we're not going to say keep 45% of the trees right so I think I'm correct in making a big distinction between overall plans even by area or part of the city or by land use type and Project Specific but still there will be a point where regulations affect projects too can you talk about that Blake yes uh there's absolutely not an intent right now to look at each property on property by property basis and say 45% coverage of that particular property there is some opportunity within the plan especially as we

go into the implementation to look at how that is achieved areawide Citywide there may be certain areas you may recall in the last presentation we had different land use tables and um that called out so we certainly want to make sure and you touched on it a moment ago about the equity issues to make sure that that is addressed but it is not intended to be on a per parcel or per property basis where you're having those development R so I guess I'm trying to say is I mean at a certain point the rubber will hit the road and there will be requirements that might affect individual developments but I'm it'll be a complex and indirect relationship between these policy goals the positive incentives to reach that goal and some regulations to help achieve that goal and that's why in the in the discussions we've had previously we look at and Eric mentioned it earlier this afternoon City lands rights of Way private lands it's going to take all of us coming together and trying to address that in various different ways there is no one siiz fits-all in this we do have to think about how that is going to how everybody's going to step up to the table to try to achieve some of those aspirational goals but we also understand that we're relying on our private development Community to help us to do that in a way and we don't want to do it in a way that is um tying their hands and making it unattainable and unable to produce those new housing units that we need but we do need to kind of wrestle

with some of those details mayor then council member Anderson just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge something a key point that Eric director Johnson made and that is that the plan is draft and is draft like an all caps draft and there is a part of me that if I'm perfectly honest um I was both pushing for this plan to come out because with my citizen haton this is a document that I have been wanting to see move forward for a long time and at the same time uh our understanding of some of the assumptions and the numbers in this plan at this time are not great and so we have been involving these the slide deck in the last two meetings has changed because as we are spending time in the numbers we are challenging our own assumptions we are learning more and our learning is unfolding as we spend time so there's a part of me that was like well I wish we wouldn't have put this out right now because it feels so nent in our understanding but I do think that bringing this forward now is an opportunity for staff to really think about how we Implement um some of the actions that are in this plan how we feel like we are coming to a shared understanding between parks and planning and development about these numbers and that there's a lot of opportunity for feedback both from Council and the community right now to shape this very draft plan so I do think that there is value even though our slide deck is changing and our understanding the numbers is evolving it's an opportunity for

really for us to get our hands around this complex matter and how we are going to build the number of units that we need to build and also meet some of these goals and so um I just wanted to be really candid those are my thoughts about this right now so counc Anderson thank you um having to change the whole dynamic of my list of items that I wanted to go through so I I W really appreciate I don't need to make a motion that I was going to do today to extend the public comment period from the 15th of May to further um thanks for the clarification that it's the outgoing work Gathering but not necessarily that it ends the chapter of input because I've heard from several people concerned about they wanted to hear what we had to say and they're putting together comments and they didn't feel there'd be enough time so I appreciate I don't need to for one of the first times instead of doing it on the Fly I actually pre-wrote my motion um so save it for another day um I as as far as uh one of the big things that I really kind of poured through was the financial um information as far as cost because cost will be a barrier and some things made sense how they were you know between the 10 to 50,000 versus a million but some just didn't make any sense at all so when we're looking at like Financial or numbers are we examining say you know page 58 um don't expect everybody to go to it right now but um number 20 let's see notes notes notes [Music] um way too many notes uh number 26 where um

develop effective standards excuse me under 2.2 respon restore priority habitat um number 26 develop effective standards to mitigate damage from encroachment into city-owned forested areas and unauthorized Trails dumping and encampments it's listed to cost between 150,000 to 1 million and not knowing you know is that the staff to go do restoration when there's encroachment and the cost of litter cleanup or is it a matter of that we're developing standards and if we're developing standards I would like to know why that might cost set a huge amount of money because when we list all of these costs and we get into hundreds of millions um I want to be able to talk to the community and justify well yes number 26 means this and that's why it's going to cost this amount or because I've heard from a couple of people they feel that some of the costs are escalated and elevated which becomes a reason not to implement and so I want to be assured telling them this is what it this is what it entails and I know this is um not necessarily our implementation plan but a little more detail on numbers so I guess my question is are we going to get more detail on numbers like that to justify the cost is either going to be 50,000 and even if we couldn't do all of them anything above 150,000 to a million I'd like to have more detail why it's going to cost that much we very much agree colleagues here at the table Blake and Nicole and I uh we have a lot more work to do when it comes to the numbers I

would think it's the safe to say that that uh because we have some of the same questions right so so the the the intent of these types of documents is to give these ballpark highlevel numbers uh and what we don't want to do is put something out there that becomes a barrier not to do something we also don't want to have something that becomes so unattainable becomes only an aspirational and not actually achievable so the trying to find that balance point is important but more fundamentally when we put a number to the council I want to make sure that I can go through and line out where those numbers came from and I'm not to that point yet with the numbers that were released on our presentation on the four on 4:15 I speak for myself I say I but the three of us together we're we're all on that page together but when we do come back and we do put a number out there I want to be we want to be able to say this is where the N come from and this is how it's to be intended we also want to be clear that that there had a slide previously that there are costs both to the city and to private property owners writing a a code may not be very expensive to the city it may not be very expensive to actually write that code but they may have a very significant impact to a private property owner and and to achieve a standard that we were moving towards that 45% coverage uh that may have a very significant impact to private ownership given that the vast majority of the urban Forest is on private

properties so I also want to maybe walk back from the idea of the canopy coverage Target itself 45% may not be the Target that we want to shoot for we may want to shoot for a different Target that targets is that has a different approach to things may were done a generalized 45% which leads to a perception that we want 45% of each individual parcel to be covered with trees we may want to have a different approach that may B may be may be based one one of equity of comparison it may not have a canopy coverage and just say we want to focus on Street trees it may be more of a different type of metric that might come from a different source so we have some work to do and but particularly when it comes to numbers we want to be able to defend those numbers members if and when they are solid to defend them mayor has something to say as well on that I've got a a full cue I was going to recognize counc member Stone then um do you want to jump in and respond real quick just wanted to say part of the behind the scenes here within uh this team we'll also be understanding the distinction and all the actions in the plan right now so as we're going through in truth and cost we'll also be endeavoring to understand the distinction between some of the actions because some of those feel similar right now thanks mayor let's see the queue is council member Stone list Huffman and Anderson so just briefly to build on what council member Anderson brought up yeah I was going to address the the

numbers so um director Johnson beat you know be us to it with the presentation today so I appreciate that um and just as you move forward with those numbers I think you and Blake both already alluded to it but looking at the direct and indirect cost right when you're thinking about the direct cost cost to the city as far as implementation may go and to the private as you say Property Owners um but then also when we're balancing that with housing right and other priorities in our community what is that quote unquote cost with respect to development or units on the ground and how you quantify that is very right is challenging um so thank you for being willing to take all that on I mean I think it's really important work to be done also in advance of our you know um impending budget discussions as well um so I think it's it's um work well invested in but thank you for that thanks con Stone con little so I have three substantive areas I'd like to talk about I'll take the bigger one and I'll come back for the two mediums at another time uh in this meeting um I have been saying for many years that what I wanted to see is integration of land use planning with tree coverage and our our vegetation goals um this really goes back to 2010 when the Happy Valley adopted the green infrastructure plan and they came up with with targets for not for the Happy Valley neighborhood but for different land use areas within the Happy Valley neighborhood that's what made sense um I still think it

makes sense in the 2016 comp plan I wanted that exact language that we wanted to integrate our urban forestry plan with land use as part of the comp plan I didn't get that strong language but I still think it's what we need um urban forestry management should be clearly tied to land use planning which means we also need to look at goals methods and approaches that vary by zoning that vary by density that vary by allowed uses that's the level where it actually becomes meaningful and so what I really appreciated about the presentation or the plan is what's on uh the slide deck 23 24 and 25 that's in our packet where it's by land use type this makes a lot of sense I can imagine trying to develop goals and policies and programs and even regulations that achieve this I'd like to see this and only this because what I really don't want to see is this this is confusing we have to spend all our time explaining it and we shouldn't because this is where we've used arbitrary boundaries that lump together unequal proportions of different land use types these are neighborhood boundaries I've said over and over again reality on the ground is not divided by neighborhoods it's cute it's nice I have neighborhood block parties based on the Fair Haven Neighborhood boundaries but at the land use level decision we talking about tree canopy talking about Parks Equity when the parks Equity remember uh Nicole I said stop using neighborhoods that's not a useful level census tracks might be a useful

level in some cases we're talking say about when we look at at at um at housing we break it down by census track because we have the data by that right we could break it down by so many more meaningful categories where there's better data sets where it actually looks like reality on the ground and neighborhoods is not how it looks on the ground neighborhoods gets us this my request is is either delete all this from the plan or put it in appendix because it distracts confuses and it sets up these odd competitions that I've seen decades ago with regard to parks where one neighborhood says look we have fewer Parks than you do well yeah that's just because Cornwall Park is huge and it's in one neighborhood but it's a regional facility right so we got these artifacts created by boundaries can we please adopt a plan which does not require us to spend all our time explaining artifacts created by boundaries I really would go through with a pen and strike it or move it demote it get rid of it I think it was a sorry it's a very strong criticism but this is really important to me because I spend too much time explaining confusions I shouldn't have to whereas the land use based one I don't have to explain anything to anybody they get that right away so that would be that's my my most important thing and that would be a significant revision to the plan it would really be moving whole sections out and away and elevating the other part of the discussion which I do think is Illuminating and

useful and easy to develop programs based on it that is that's my biggest feedback um I don't know if the Administration has any response to that right now or not well my Dan I just I I we're wanting feedback and that's the type of Fe we may not have a response to the feedback but we want to hear from the council and the community ways we can make a plan better right and then we're we're not we're not trying to say that the plan that we put out a month ago to the mayor's point was the plan but it's an opportunity to have the community dialogue and the feedback and so I welcome that feedback but I don't have a specific response to that or other things today I'm G to move through the queue here so husman Anderson Stone and myself go ahead con hman thank you so I'm GNA go back to the cost subject and this question might be a little premature in light of the conversation that we've been having and the possibility of some other directions that we might go in here but um on the slide deck at at 3540 and 45 uh percent targets there there was the cost of additional Staffing to be considered um so and and pretty significant Staffing at the 45% level uh has there been conversation about the source of funds for um for financing um these these targets or goals or if we go in a different direction even but H still have bold goals uh how will this be financed that is a good question about that I think the funding sources are as varied as the city But Nicole's got a couple things to say and

then we'll well from a Parks perspective um some of the bigger numbers came from our Parks assessment based on um the the thing that's a little bit tough is the level of service that's going to be required we don't do so it's hard to quantify something that you don't do right now and figure out how much it's going to cost to do more of something that you're not doing right now so our staff has estimated that just to get at just to take care of what we need to be taking care of we need to double the arborist staff right now that's why 35% is for more people um we are already we're anticipating with the Greenways 5 Levy of funding and implementing some of the recommendations coming to the parks department specifically out of the Greenways Levy from the climate resiliency side of that fund um but the and so the level that it would take to take care of it's the street trees that have really put the numbers really high because you're looking at the cost per tree there's national standards for that and taking on all the street trees in the city under that higher canopy cover was what really escalated and um exponentially some of those costs we estimated so we're trying to dial that in a little bit um it's it's uh that but we were anticipating um you know we were building the plan around some basic concepts and I think the then we were anticipating at least parks and have been talking about it with the community that that was a that was one of the things that uh could be implemented

with with Greenways but there's a lot of things that have to be implemented with Greenways and and some of the costs that are coming out of some of those actions when you really start to dial down into them are are much higher than we we even anticipated Anderson thank you I do have a couple of things but next um on my list of priority um is and this might be part of what comes forward regarding the uh tree cutting um or or the the ordinance that's going to be coming forward to us in a little bit but one of the things that I've talked with a couple of Staff about is my desire that we have a professional tree cutter registration or licensing through the city one of my concerns is if we are going to protect our heritage trees we need to have a mechanism to make sure um that they don't get cut down and everybody's heard this example because it basically happened could see the the location for my front porch is that we had a resident who was told not to cut down a tree it was part of the city right away it was a what I would call a Heritage tree for the city and they hired a tree cutting company to come and cut it anyway now that tree cutting company they didn't have the owner didn't have a permit to cut it down because they couldn't get a permit it wasn't their tree um but the company that cut it down said it wasn't their responsibility because the owner didn't have a um well the owner should have gotten the permit so I would like to see not only in the plan coming forward to us

but also listed under here um under some of the um strategies for um preservation and I'm sorry I lost my page number it would have fit under but I would like to see uh whether it's exploring requiring or investigating whatever action word you want to use to bring It Forward hopefully in the very short term the um looking at a a licensing for for tree cutting uh providers because if we have something like that and the same because we've lost a lot of trees in our rideway um we have a neighborhood person in Sea home who's been tracking it if we have something in place and then somebody comes and cuts it and they can't do business in Bellingham for a period of time as part of a fine structure I would feel pretty sure that they're going to make sure there's a permit in place and make sure that that protected tree is not being cut down unless it's been proven that it needs to be for whatever health reasons but if we don't have something codified in here to look towards in order to implement it on a more of a policy process it the chance of it happening or remaining long term would be slight so if staff could look at the next revision coming back including something along those lines I'd appreciate it um otherwise the next time it comes back you can expect a written Motion in advance where I make the motion to include it I'm not prepared to do a motion now because I don't think we're at that point of revision um but I think we really need to have that in place and your comments

are are somewhat um in line with some of what we heard at the first uh listening session we had last month um with our technical groups that included um some of our development Community arborus tree service companies Advocates protecting that um and some of the feedback we heard was along those same lines where there was concerns about U maybe a a more um a tree company that is concerned about people coming in the volume of calls are getting saying hey can I can I clear my property uh I want to do so in advance of the city make any rules and regulations and so trying to make sure that while they didn't have any particular interest in doing so because it was a perfectly healthy tree that those calls and the volume of those calls has been seen an uptick and that there's concern that if they don't take that work somebody else uh May and so to your point you know licensing permitting enforcement are all part of the things that we're trying to evaluate and the ordinances come forward and also to build on that is that this planet of itself does not codify any action of the city what it does create is a policy base from which future actions could be taken which might create reg regulations in the future but the planet in of itself does not create regulations that's another thing that we heard at the initial uh conversation was that by adopting the plan that would stop I think the phrase that was cutting it8 inch tree in the city and that's the plan does not say that that would

require future actions but to miss Anderson's point if you if if if an action was identified as a policy goal in the plan that creates the basis from which ordinances could be drafted follow up um so the section that I just put my finger on was in um the plan page 58 under um goal strategy number two protect and ReStore Habitat priority habitat um then it has protect and expand priority habitat movement corridors and Forest so if there's not a better section for protecting even though it's not a forest if there could be a line item in there um specifying one of the goals is licensure a registration of tree cutting companies um you might be able to find a better place to Nest it but when I looked through everything not finding it um I thought it fit very well under protect merstone thank you um since you're collecting feedback I just wanted to push back a little bit against um council member List's impassioned um speech and hopefully it's an and but I appreciate and support you know the idea of focusing on land use and and Zoning that would be applied right Citywide and looking at specific uses that that makes sense um but I like this this chart and I think there's extreme value um when looking at the neighborhoods and when we're talking about in one Breath Right saying that we want equity and to have livable desirable neighborhoods throughout our city where there's not right great discrepancy between neighborhoods um you know to compare Fair Haven which was brought up to

neighborhoods of my ward you know Birchwood that has lots of multiple you know multif family housing extreme density as well as Cordata yes there going to be certain zoning areas where we're going to need to look um at what's you know practical and when you're thinking about having the right tree in the right location and where we can actually you know provide that info but at the same time you know not losing sight of narrowing down to the neighborhood view as well and insurance that we are carrying that Equity thread you know through to the ground where those trees are planted so thank you staff want to respond just taking taking the feedback okay I'll go next and then C member Lil Quist and we're sort of getting at time here I this is probably going to be an ongoing discussion this is not the end of um the conversation um my question has has to do with um I was just looking at the city IQ here on my phone and I was thinking about the um ugas that we have especially in in the north end of town and the potential annexation on in Alderwood that might be quite a waste on the road um I guess my my question is how does it work when we think about bringing in ugas into the city as relates to this this plan um just how does that work that's my question let me uh not sure I understand the entire 100% of the question so I'm going to start and if you if you need to course correct me then please feel free to to do that so um when we talk about annexation certainly one of the things

that we have to do is look at those Urban level of services and in context to the urban forestry plan part of that is going to come into looking at what the existing tree inventory is and those locations and how that might Impact Staffing levels and those other uh desires and needs to get them to whether we use the neighborhood or the land use types and trying to look at where where they currently are and where they need to be so that goes through the environmental and the fiscal analysis that is part of the consideration when we can when we evaluate that annexation process we haven't done that yet so I can't speak to you know the specifics of what that would look like uh for Alderwood in particular but that is absolutely something that we would need to do as part of that ongoing process yeah I think you mostly got there I guess I was thinking of Dewey Valley we brought that in a while ago and the um one that's under consideration for um over by the by Britain and just like those chunks and as we get like contiguous pieces that move forward and then the I think it's the three igas on top of on the Northern end of of Bellingham I mean do we see those as challenges do we see them as opportunities uh for this plan I I see them as opport ities for housing but I don't want the to your point Mr Lions is in terms of line sorry um in in terms of um the the tension between developing the the needed number of of homes for for people that are going to be living here over the next you

know 25 years or more um I want to make sure that we don't that tension is is pulled apart and that we're able to meet the the aspirational uh need by 2050 of the 45% but we're also able to construct enough housing for for our our folks and I think when we look at those different and part of that ug discussion is what those what different forms of housing there are in those particular areas we need to look at uh what level of service we have from a utility perspective and those various different components and one of the opportunities that exists when you talk about those ugas is do we set minimum densities do we set a range of housing requirements so there's I don't want to say it's entirely a blank canvas because there's many of those areas that you're referring to have some level of development infrastructure in those types of pieces so there are various components that we need to evaluate kind of where our current Baseline is but we do have those considerations that we do that we need to take into in additional thinking about in terms of where we want to be from our housing levels and stuff so that's absolutely part of the the conversation thank you I lost my queue um council member and Anderson then little theist okay I have three things but I'm going to combine two because I don't necessarily think I'm going to get an answer so it's just things to look at and bring back so um good plan as a start but there's a couple of things that I feel are just really missing and

that is um basically how we Implement things and how we monitor it so if you look at page 54 under strategies for the future it lists two strategies to achieve and monitor performance adapt strategies and goals 6.1 monitor performance on plan implementation 6.2 Monitor and research change in the urban Forest how are we doing that how are we monitoring it what is our metrics to look at to make sure that what we're doing is um not only achievable but being achieved so there's like a huge section I feel missing from that that I would like to see and that would be how are we doing our monitoring and how are we evaluating the success and then if you look at um page 62 similar thought process here but also a question under um page 62 6.2 monitoring plan in red it says performance indicators still in development and it has some performance indicators there um so is that in development going to be further refined and brought back to us as a more exhaustive list than what is listed here um because there's just a small handful there and again kind of like what we talked about earlier um you know maybe we need another column there under you know measurement frequency method and related goal but also like how are we like the target like if we're saying that you know in single family neighborhoods we want to see you know preservation like how are we mon you know we're using lar but um with some of the goals that we have again I think the um what I'm struggling with is within the

implementation plan how are we doing that so again it's like we have a framework but we don't necessarily have the meat on the bones and I'd like to know a little bit more detail about um how we are monitoring those goals what kind of Matrix we're using for doing that and then I'll have one more after that I think uh the one comment I'll add in response to that is um I appreciate where you're coming from I think it's more of a sequencing thing we want to make sure that we're getting the goals and strategies right as you heard today there's work to be done to develop all of those implementation and the monitoring stuff those need to be very specific to those actionable items and so I think we we will get there um but we're we want to make sure we get the the first part right so that we're not creating those um inappropriately so and my concern is some of them are they're long range and some of them are more shortterm one to five years so those that are one to five years just kind of a quick followup I would like to see that broken down a little bit more um like maybe even bold highlighted you know if it's bold or underline or a certain color it's one to two years that we're going to be able to implement this because when you have one to five and you have this huge list there are you know I used to watch Council years years ago and Michael list always used this the low hanging fruit and I used to drive me nuts but it's perfect for this right now is there are some things that I

think are quickly achievable but we're not delineating between that I don't know if this is going to be something that we can do in one year or is it five years so breaking that out a little bit more and of those that are one to five years understanding how are we measuring that is more timely even if we don't get to the long ones at least the short ones it would be nice to have something um I'll get to my point but first briefly with regard to the the equity analysis this this really is important it's shown by neighborhood um I think we can actually have a better and more accurate map all the data sets that go into that don't use neighborhood boundary low-income household locations historically disadvantaged uh population location uh where people are families are who on free and reduced school lunches that's down to almost a household level below the census tract I think percentage of multif family housing we have that way way below the neighborhood level canopy coverage we have that resolve down to within the parcel every single data set has a higher degree of resolution there's no reason why we should lose that I think we can create the same Equity map um on a more rational basis my criticism of the plan is that sometimes I think the goal language is just too soft if I go to um goal one um protect the urban Forest uh I guess it's called policy 1.1 and then on that sub goals or whatever the words are consider adding policies to the comprehensive plan consider adding canopy

coverage goals evaluate codes that might be necessary evaluate codes that might enhance Urban Forest protection I think at this point in the process we should have already considered and evaluated at this point in the process we should be giving a green light we should actually try to develop some code that does this we should actually create a program that does this so it's odd to see this level of language this far along in the process so I think if we're going to put it in the the plan unless it's something really like we're not even sure if it's going to fly and we're still in the evaluation phase some of these things I think should go beyond evaluate or consider they should be yeah let's actually try to develop it let's see if we can figure out what those rules would look like let's even figure out what a program would be in its costs we should be I think we should be on evaluating considering that that we should have evaluated considered to get to this point so I think a number of these um policies need to be looked at and and the language a little bit more clear are we in the thinking about phase or are we in the let's try to get it done phase director Johnston thank you appreciate my colleagues helping me out on many things but uh as we're kind of wrapping up uh time frame um want to express appreciation and thanks for the feedback both positive and critical I think that's healthy to the conversation and and just acknowledgement and eain mayor Lun statements that

where we're at with the document right so we we have work to do we welcome that feedback we want to receive that feedback uh I I want to acknowledge that there's been a lot of really good work done so far on the plan right so we have collected an amount of data to the point of some very very you know very small areas and there's a lot of information gathered from this that we have learned from We're developing a lot of information internally to the city about how we address trees and the impact of those trees both real and indirect and I just want to acknowledge both things that we're working on a good plan the public process is working it is not pleasant or fun but it does work and it will it will result in a positive outcome at the end point and I I do want to acknowledge the work that the staff has put into this over the last several years uh this is this is a new thing for the city this is not one individual to Hol these Miss Huffman's Point there's not one individual fund that pays for these types of activities it's a broad brush approach and that creates challenges and opportunities but I just want to acknowledge the work that the staff has put in both at the technical level at the Outreach level at the various departments staff in all three of departments four departments even the legal department has been involved the mayor's office has been involved uh planning Community Development Parks public work staff are working to produce a product that we can PR as a

community so I appreciate the feedback and we'll be back with more information later point in time so thank you thanks director CER Stone did you want to follow up um just briefly I was just going to um add to what council member Anderson and council member lilus were you know speaking to the goals similar to other conversations that we've had right I think it's um wise to to outline sort of where we're at in that process even though we might not be as far along as right everybody's hoped we all want to be moving faster and doing more and that's just the the bar that our community continues to set um but looking at those smart goals and then you know at this um for this plan as well and hoping that as we look at you know more concrete numbers and cost whether that be direct indirect right what are the costs of these goals and targets that we're setting being able to differentiate between what's aspirational which we still keep on the table as sort of you know where we're hoping to to go but then really digging down into what's achievable tied to those targets and recognizing that they might not right align directly with our wish list but that we're going to do our best and um just want to Echo the appreciation to staff I understand that it's draft in all caps um and that there's a lot more work to be done but I know it's a heavy lift so and multiple you know departments collaborating on this so just thank you for that support any further comments okay council member Anderson

I'll make it quick well I think I always do but I probably don't um when I was looking at the multiple values of where we're going to have gain and where we're going to have loss there's two that just really kind of struck out and I don't expect parks to answer this but i' I'd appreciate a future conversation on it but community and neighborhood parks is a net change of zero and then row is also a net change of zero and I think if we're going to be meeting our targets we have to look at every possible opportunity and I think of the new property we've purchased out on Baker viiew Road there's a lot of field there and I think well we might be able to plant some trees um and then I kind of drove around to some of our other parks and I thought you know it'd be really nice if we put some trees in this section between property lines in order to create some more trees a buffer that type of thing and so I'm just eventually I would kind of like to know a little more why Parks thought they could Net Zero as we purchase land and there might be opportunity to it's all about for both of those for ride away at parks it's about what you're going to gain and what you're going to have to lose because we're we have to also build uh new amenities and we have to have open space for people to play especially as we urbanize in rideways the differen is between the roads we're going to build in those undeveloped rideways and the trees that we need to take care of and plant in the ones that won't be

developed so they're takeaways back and forth but there's certainly we have Master plans that have um don't forget though every time Parks buys a piece of property you always want to see if there we can fit any housing in there also so some of the Baker view site is going to be housing I'm wearing off on her we're working together this a nice shade trees next to those housing thank you okay uh this one went over a little bit but we actually are ahead of schedule uh shockingly I'm sure you do do you want to save it until next time yes okay great thank you all right our next item is a review of Lake Waka management uh thank you and thank you for the team effort uh department heads uh next item is review of Lake Waka management uh program draft um this is the 5-year work plan so every five years the lake Waka Management program produces a work plan for the following five years that brings together the planned efforts of the city of Bellingham wam County and the lake watom water and sub District the 2025 to 2029 document will outline the uh the efforts that these local entities will Implement over the next 5 years to further the goals of the lake Wacom Management program the lake Wacom policy group is seeking input from city council for the plan before uh it's drafted final plan will be ready for Council review later in 2024 council member Hannah Stone will also update the Council on the most recent Lake walkom policy group meeting and CC M go ahead and take it away thank you

very much president Hamill um so council member Williams and I both serve on the lake Wacom policy group as representatives from this count Council um and so we meet periodically throughout um throughout the year right now it's about quarterly but there was a special meeting called which was our last meeting in April um specifically with respect to the five-year work plan it was a fairly robust um meeting and through that process it was highlighted that you know there will be a presentation in June with a draft for the five-year work plan um regarding Lake watcom management and at that time you know the council can view it but there's been push back from the policy group just to want to have additional opportunities right if we're talking about policy level work and discussions for that input in advance of finalizing those drafts so that hopefully some of that feedback can be incorporated into the drafts um and that we're not making maybe as as big changes later um so what's included here is um is a one pager that was um put together by staff and just highlighting that the key in our packet obviously it's black and white so a little um not as easy to look at but the key um signifies that items that are not in bold listed under each um each area are items for the current from the current work plan that will be carried over or continued um into the next work plan as proposed and then what's in bold are new items to be added to the next work plan um as currently proposed and so

just wanting to provide this information to the council in advance if there was any feedback um in any of these areas so there are several um key areas of work with some additional areas to be added as well going forward one of which is going to be climate um to have a specific area dedicated to climate as well um but otherwise we're looking at land preservation right storm water land use monitoring and data hazardous materials Recreation aquatic invasive species utilities and transportation education and engagement and then Administration um to oversee those that that work um within the lake and so as you may already know the policy group um is um is staffed or attended by members from different jurisdictions so from the city as well as the county and the lake Wacom Water and Sewer District um commission and then usually there are members of the community that attend as well to provide you know public comment or feedback so really at this point it's just an open um offer request from you if there's any feedback at this time committing custom question I think I know most of my acronyms but PE boom pob boom enhanced maintenance plan PE boom standard operating procedures under storm water yes um and now I'm going to we have um and it was made Al member Stone could you turn on your microphone thank you my apology yes um yeah the comment was made that the city had better acronyms than than the county and to make sure that I get that right I know I'm gonna I know I know I was

going to say I can probably find it on um Google it I know on the internet more quickly should know but it was such a catchy acronym that now it's um ther storm water yeah and we have no I will Google it while you no we'll find out other questions randerson thank you I I tried to quit Google there and it didn't come up um thank you uh council member Stone I um couple of questions regarding when you're sitting down with the committee regarding policy um and I apologize that I don't have the Pol the current plan up I thought I had it up on my computer and I don't want to take the time to try to find it specifically by page but um I kind of noticed between this and uh the previous plan that there may not be necessarily specifics and it's um I'm wondering how much time uh or is there a focus from the committee to look back at previous plan and um some items to be implemented and whether or not it was done is Staff providing you a list of these were some of our goals and objectives specifically and these are what was accomplished and these were not because I haven't seen that document if it exists I would love to get a copy but an example is under the Hazardous Materials um the fourth bullet point down in our packet it says update low P material list I believe the previous plan had specifically um stated that um they would hold a collection event for hazardous material in um you know that that area of the The Watershed and I was I kind of Googled and looked and I wasn't able to

find historically that that event happened so it may have it may not have but just kind of cruising through the plan I start wondering was this accomplished was it not and I wasn't kind of seeing an updated or addendum of that four-year plan what was achieved and if that hasn't been presented specifically is that something that you within the committee could request for staff to work on it would be really nice and then also I sometimes feel like you know looking at this list it's it's not as specific as we're going to hold a hazardous material collection event as one of our goals so it now just says we're going to update a list well what happens then with that list I talked with staff previously after the lake Waka meeting about um I know that the state got rid of PE I past oh my good goodness my brain um got rid of phosphorus in lawn fertilizer but you can still buy bags for your garden and so if you are fertilizing your plants in the Watershed and talking with individuals they're not familiar that they shouldn't and they're able to buy it and it used to be there was tags at Lowe's about the Watershed they're not there staff said they would kind of look at it um but I kind of feel if it's not structured specifically that is a measurable action item it may never happen so as you go forward my one request is really look for the specifics of implementation by example to make sure that it's measurable did it happen agreed thank you that and that discussion's happened by the

policy group as well for that feedback council member list so this is a thorny topic it has to do qu invasive species it's the one thing that frightens me right if it gets out of control we're doomed uh someon quatic invas species can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to try to manage and they never go away that's we're trying to avoid uh right now we do peak season Lakeside inspection which means that most of the year which is low use is still high risk um is is there I think there ought to be some talk about what we can do about monitoring boating during off peak season most of the boat users are part of the inspection program most of the boat users have an inspection sticker most of the boat users know the drill um but is there a way we can uh monitor or control access in the offseason so for example if you are an inspected boat owner you might have an access card with your code on it and then you can open a gate and you can put your boat in under the authority of that card we know who opened it up you're you're someone who's had your boat inspected has there been talk about the off peak ways of monitoring boats yes I see that director Johnson has come down so I'll turn to him as I don't want to steal your thunder missone but so I want to clarify one thing that the city does monitor the bo access points that we have access to year round the difference is that in the summer Peak summer period April to October time frame we have monitoring that is there seven days a week

from early in the morning till late in the evening but we do have inspection programs that are active year round including some monitoring of the boat ramps but the the historical practice in terms of the risk assessment the city has made is that the risk of that level of of Potential from an offseason Boer uh is relatively low and that the mitigation for that risk is appropriate to the investment the city's been making to address that potential risk council could change that risk formulation and take different actions to to reduce or increase the mitigations or accept a lower level of risk for the particular actions that's that's been out there but I want to be clear that we we we do also we Monitor and are have active inspection programs in the offseason well as during the season the difference is that we don't have monitors 24 seven days a week at the blow Donovan boat Ranch for example I just think risk is a funny thing we spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year making sure our buildings are earthquake proof my own personal condominium is way more expensively built because it's earthquake proof and we haven't had a major earthquake for years so it's difficult when you're dealing with high consequence but low frequency events and the higher the consequence the lower the frequency the harder it is to justify expenses and that's the situation we're in these are lowf frequency but high risk occurrences there there also you need to measure the mitigation measures the

cost of those and if one mitigation measure is equal to the other in terms of mitigating that risk then the cost should be applied into that as well so it's it's not only the risk is a factor of probability and likely likelihood of occurrence and consequence of that occurrence mitigation measures can reduce one or the other or offset those but not all mitigation measures are the same and some M mitigation meths come at a much higher cost others at a lower cost so any one individual mitigation measure to to to offset the risk uh are not all equal so all things need to be factored into that the difference for the council is what risk are you willing to accept and what me mitigation measures are you willing to put in place to offset the risk that you're willing to accept and and one of the mitigating measures for the lake in terms of equatic invasive species is the intake itself right and how do you how do you if the effect of an in invasive species is to adversely effect like has been seen in the Great Lakes area the actual intake pipe itself is what is a mitigation measure for the intake pipe right there are other things to do to mitigate risk besides uh increasing the level of effort at Staffing level for the AIS inspection program I'm not saying one or the other I'm just acknowledging that we do have an active inspection program that inspection program does operate year round we have full-time staff that are actively engaged with Boat Owners ba boat maintenance companies

doing inspections monitoring what's happening at the lake uh they are full-time onsite April through October we could do more but that would be increasing and changing the risk model that has currently been adopted and increasing the funding level and there may be other mitigation measures that could achieve the same result I'm sorry just to respond to um Council list about that area of Interest that's been a Hot Topic at with the policy group members as well um and I think of the policy group also as a unique opportunity when we have the multiple jurisdictions all in one room so sometimes we're talking about issues that overlap right obviously blell Donovan Falls within our um you know direct perview here at the city um but concerned about other entry points around the the lake which are not under our perview but then you have other right um representatives from those other jurisdictions present to hopefully take that back right to their bodies as well to try and move um you know policies forward so it's helpful feedback thank you the response I just want to come back to what PE boom stands for po boom phosphorus and bacteria optimized operations and maintenance P [Music] Boom Anderson thank you um council member has brought up a topic that I wasn't going to bring up yet because I know that the inspections are opening soon or now and then um the full time will go away in October so I kind of figured there'd be some time to further discuss with individuals some thoughts but

um I've I've talked with staff about this and I've talked with a couple other counselors and community members about a gate at blell Donovan and I know part of the push back on that is that there's other areas of entry and people would go there and I always think you don't eat an apple unless you take the first bite so you know it may not be all access but um right now my understanding is that individuals uh get inspected they get a permit they're cleared they're you know they're the players that know what to do um there are individuals who may not say in November go get an inspection and they just kind of go out onto the lake I I do know someone inspected after the fact it was found that they they had an invasive species with theirs and so it's kind of like you know trying to the hor is already out of the Corral how many got dropped into the water at that time um we do know that we have some invasive species in the lake already but there are worse ones that are migrating West so I think we do need to have a serious conversation about um do we now that we have two full-time people who can do inspections they could do it by appointment um technology-wise we know that we could use a key card pass um we have a video monitored so if I have clearance and I have a key card pass to open up the gate but I give my pass to somebody else that could be that could be daylighted to the city because of the video you have that ability to check it I'm not ready right now to make a motion to

request staff to do a cost analysis um and an implementation analysis of it but I'd rather um have uh further conversations with a couple individuals to see about the feasibility and then after that depending on um the development of those conversations um I very well may be looking towards the end of the summer making such a motion making that request um I'm not so uh willing to think that the risk isn't there in the big picture um the risk is there we know it's there um we're not probably going to be able to keep Boats off the lake but if we can Implement a plan that is effective and uh not going to it's going to cost us less than fixing an issue like uh Zebra muscles clogging our intake and having to send D divers down or replacing pipe work whatever that analysis would show should we end up getting a CLA um I don't want our community 10 15 years from now looking back saying you knew that there's potential issue and he didn't do anything and now it's going to cost us more money and the health of our lake is more at risk for it so um just sending a signal that um this for me this conversation's not over and it is something hopefully we can collaborativ approach but if not then I will be willing to legislatively approach comments okay seeing none we'll move to the next item next item is old and new but before we do that I a question for uh Alan Mariner our City attorney um council member Williams was able to join us and we had an agenda bill 24103 which is a letter of

support uh for grant funding for the community court and now we have a full Council here I'm just wondering could we make a motion to vote on that again you would also do that this evening so assuming that council member Williams will be here that will take care of take care of it tonight okay all right fair enough okay items for old and new uh council member list yeah this has to do with um um Mr Lions if coming forward uh this has to do with an item the city council uh requested several years ago it had to do with looking at regulations to address male theft in U multif family dwellings um all new buildings are required to have stfe and secure mailboxes but if you're in an older residential rental property there's no requirement you don't own the property you can't put in your own locking mailboxes so there was a request to kind of basically bring all those old buildings up to code that was the request several years ago Mr lion we were talking with you about that um I was put off last year with the idea that it could be rolled into the rental inspection and safety program even though it's not a life safety issue uh there was still some talk there I wrote you email and you did respond respond to me on that I'm just wondering if you could maybe give a briefer version to the rest of the council I still think it's on our to-do list and I'd like to get to it one day yes thank you um and I have taken the uh information that was previously uh submitted to our department um by one

of the citizens that was indicating where they thought it might be most appropriate went through it had the opportunity to evaluate that detail um go back through look at our existing codes and ordinances and I have ADD draft version that's going through internal departmental review right now uh and then ultimately we'll go to the mayor and to the City attorney for consideration and bringing it forward so we have a draft a working draft uh currently in it State and and can move it forward forthcoming it's really good news I guess one reason I also bring it up is that was brought forward and many of the council members who were here weren't even part of that Council I'm hoping and assuming the majority of this Council also sees the importance of protecting citizens from male theft but since that was voted by a different Council it kind of needs to be Revisited at some point yeah and the current thought process is certainly to uh build it into the rental registration safety inspection program because the primary goal of providing that safety is one of identity theft and just trying to minimize that potential while it isn't a life safety issue with respect to some of the other items on that list because we have a touch point of going out to those uh places of residence and we're talking about it as a rental unit as you alluded to earlier when you own the property you have the ability to do so of your own choosing when you don't uh so the rental registration process seemed to

make sense and that's why we're pursuing it in that manner M Anderson I just wanted to comment to that I'm glad it's going to be coming forward sooner than later because the situation that was a catalyst for that happened in my yard um the residents of the samish way mobile home uh trailer park uh somebody had stolen all of their mail or a lot of it and then threw it out in my yard and so there were bills there were um credit card statements credit card applications Lord knows what didn't end up in my yard um but the Community member you know we talked about it it was uh taken to council member Lilo Quist to bring forward but the thought that some of our community members who could least afford to not pay a bill because what it happens to their credit um statement can be huge and so um we've been waiting three years so I I do hope we see that come back soon um it's it's important to a lot of people when I got the when I got the um updated email request I again drafted it uh within the I think a week or so of receiving that and so like I said we're doing the internal vetting and then we'll and then we'll bring it forward to you and I appreciate that I know you have um not even a small plate but a big platter full of stuff so thank you for parceling that out and getting it Forward I I know we make a lot of requests of you but um this will make a big difference for people most vulnerable other items for old and new go ahead customer yeah just briefly wanted to speak so as the

library leis on for the council um have been um had the privilege to work with the board they're seeking right now congressionally directed spending requests that's been submitted um to help support the library Renovations so looking at phase two with the library um and so just wanting to let the council know that it wasn't on behalf of the council as a whole but as an individual council member um having provided a letter of support to Senator Murray senator kwell and representative Larson um just in support of that request so thanks thank you council member um I've got at least one item one I wanted to thank Chief Mig for allowing me permitting me to go on a ride along uh with officer Parker he's the one of the downtown police officers and um always good to connect with our First Responders um and had just a really really um good um experience we stopped in at the downtown Public Safety Office which is a new um entity at the direction of uh mayor lond and that was staffed with Community uh paramedics we were able to have discussions with things that they're seeing out uh on the streets um so I just wanted to thank the chief for for allowing that to happen and would love to have a a ride along with the uh Bellingham fire department sometime soon yes I'm looking at you Chief you um but like I said it's really important to connect with uh the folks that are doing the work um out there in the community I did mention the um the the law enforcement assisted diversion uh big site

visit with prosecutor's office Sheriff's Department Bellingham py um and others many others um I mentioned that because um that is a prevention program and it came up today to we're talking about uh Community courts and this kind of The Suite of things that we're doing out there uh to try to advance diversion uh from incar incarceration in into you know Human Services essentially and services that are um that will benefit the um mostly mostly people who have low incomes um many people who are homeless um and the the thing that we keep running up against is lack of uh affordable housing it it's at the Crux of every discussion that we that we um um have when it comes to how do how do we get people stable if they don't have a place to go and so I wanted to just bring up a couple of um good news pieces um instead of being gloom and doom one is that it looks like the lighthouse Mission the new uh improved building um is getting close to completion probably in the fall of this year so we'll have added service capacity for shelter not that's not housing it's different uh one of the other items two two other items one is that the city purchased a parking lot um on the north side of town to put in the new tiny home Villages or to to bring the ones that we currently have so they have a place to go um and then the third item is uh the was station will likely open this fall um which will provide uh respit Serv services for people um who are exiting who are discharged from the hospital so

they have a place to go who would otherwise be released to the streets and they can have um qualified care through Unity care uh for you know several days maybe up to a week or maybe two uh and the other half of that building will provide basic services like laundry and food and and things like that through the opportunity Council so things are coming online in the fall and then we'll have announcement later on on um hopefully this month or maybe into June about some additional treatment services that will be available um also around the same time time frame so um any other items for old and new okay oh go ahead counil marstone so just one other thing I don't this is the one place I was thinking to to mention it during old and new but I know that consistently now there's been language access provided during the evening meetings right with the Spanish interpretation um I'm grateful for for that move by the the city to provide that service I'm just not sure how that's being publicized if at all and if there's a way to you know make sure that the community knows that that's an option I was um wondering to present to you um president Hamill whether during announcements and upcoming meetings since that happens at the beginning of the meeting if sort of in course with you know Bellingham city council meets all requirements of the state of Washington open meetings act if there could be a standing just notice that via Zoom um you could access the meeting in in Spanish um that was

just one thought and then also looking to the administration or I to look at is there a way to capture currently we have interpretation for the evening session but that doesn't appear to be captured and then available outside of the regular meeting like through our meeting's web page where we have recordings even if it was audio I just feel like if we're making that Financial investment and then also um yeah an investment to the community to be providing that it'd be great if we could um sort of Leverage that that resource so not looking for any answers or direct feedback now just wanted to um put that out there we can definitely look into that thank you for raising it I'll I'll work with the administration to to make sure that that happens um there is a um there is a a a sentence here it's in bold on the front page of your uh packet it says the city May provide accommodation for individuals with disabilities who participate that that could be expanded to you know for language um needs um and so we could put it there as well but I think that we should probably think about um being more outward and public facing other than just what's in the packet so I agree and I'll work on that with the administration we also have coming in the in the next few months some policy um recommendations to council about language access in general so I think we can make some quick um additions to what we have now and then have a more robust conversation in the future okay oh it is okay is that the

so the front page of the county I of the council packet several paragraphs down language access and it lists the zoom location so that part's advertised for at least the evening meeting right customer assum you're asking for more of a legacy or ad yeah I just think and I don't want to stereotype but right members of the community that we're trying to reach out to and make sure that they know that it's available in Spanish right you're depending on people to find this information online through our meetings page and to open the packet and to see that in English on the front page so I just think of verbal cue during our announcements that becomes a matter of course that's usually how word is spread through the community right it's just word of mouth and hearing that repeated each time hopefully um that information would spread PL well taken okay other for old new okay seeing n I'll go ahead pardon me I'll go ahead and um into the executive session um items we have six uh this afternoon I think there were a couple that were added so have uh first one is potential property acquisition with Mariner approximately 5 minutes second is potential property acquisition also with Mariner for five minutes third one is litigation I think it's low versus uh Northwest Youth Services in the city Bellingham that's with herb approximately 10 minutes fourth one is Labor Relations discuss collective bargaining strategy with Monahan approximately uh 10 minutes uh fifth one is potential property

acquisition with stamps approximately 5 minutes this is a new one and six and final one is potential property acquisition with cram approximately 10 minutes uh that was also added the final one is potential litigation I'm I'm sorry potential litigation with uh with cram correct sorry my bad um it it's 3:20 this is 45 minutes approximately of content so I'll be back at uh 406 and so we are in recess now [Music]