City Council - Regular Meeting
City Council - Regular Meeting
Mon, October 6, 2025
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summary
Summary not yet available.
Agenda items (24)
Council Business
1Council BusinessPotential Litigation (Stamps, approx. 15 min.)
4Council BusinessOld/New Business
24681Council BusinessBudget Work Session
24682Council BusinessThe Bellingham Plan Overview
24683Council BusinessDiscussion and Approval of Proposed Legislative Lobbying Guide for City Council
24684Council BusinessContract Award for Post Point Resource Recovery Plant Emergency Generator Replacement Project EU188, Bid No. 12B-2025
24685Council BusinessAn Ordinance Creating a New Fund to Account for the Renovation of the Central Library Facility and Amending the 2025 Budget - Amendment No. 2
24690Council BusinessPresentation on Speed Limit Setting Policy
Procedural (3)
2ProceduralLanguage Access The Bellingham City Council provides Spanish interpretation at all regular evening meetings. Interpretation can be accessed by in-person attendees by utilizing the headsets located at the front of the room. Remote viewers can log on to cob.org/cczoom and click on the “Language” icon at the bottom of the screen to listen in Spanish.
3ProceduralUpcoming Public Hearings On October 20, 2025, the Bellingham City Council will hold two public hearings to take public comment on the following items: 1) Consideration of amendments to Bellingham Municipal Code Titles 20 and 21 for purposes of improving accessory dwelling unit (ADU) standards, permitting process, and consistency with state legislation. 2) The City of Bellingham’s 2026 Revenue Forecast, including the 2026 property tax levy Detailed information on each item will be available on meetings.cob.org five days before the hearings.
5ProceduralElectronically: o For a public hearing: https://cob.org/publichearing o For general public comment: E-mail all Council Members at ccmail@cob.org.
Adjournment
25AdjournmentTues. 12 p.m. – Repeat broadcast of Monday afternoon Committee meetings
26AdjournmentTues. 7 p.m. – Repeat broadcast of Monday night regular meeting
27AdjournmentWed. 8 a.m. – Repeat broadcast of Monday night regular meeting
28AdjournmentSat. 12 p.m. – Repeat broadcast of Monday afternoon Committee meetings
29AdjournmentSat. 7 p.m. – Repeat broadcast of Monday night regular meeting Online Streaming: The meetings are streamed live at https://cob.org/btv. Online viewers will see exactly what cable customers would see. Video: Video recordings of each meeting are available on the Internet at https://cob.org/meetings within five business days following each meeting.
Ordinance
24653OrdinanceAn Ordinance Imposing an Additional Sales and Use Tax of One-tenth of One Percent for Criminal Justice Purposes as Authorized in Section 201, Chapter 350, Laws of Washington 2025; Adding a New Chapter 4.79 to the Bellingham Municipal Code
24667OrdinanceAn Ordinance Authorizing the Relinquishment of a Surplus Utility Easement and
24672OrdinanceAn Ordinance Amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.05 to Adopt Uniform General Business License Requirements Mandated by the State of Washington
Public Hearing
24680Public HearingFirst Public Hearing on the 2026 Budget
Consent Calendar
24686Consent CalendarAmendment To Original Agreement for Inmate Housing : Amending Fees, Charges, and Services.
24687Consent CalendarDepartment of Ecology Grant Acceptance - Community Litter Cleanup Program
24688Consent CalendarAuthorization of Payroll Labor Cost Payments Dated September 1, 2025 to September 15, 2025
24689Consent CalendarAuthorization of A/P Transactions Issued September 19, 2025 through September 25, 2025
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Approve legislative lobbying guide for city council
aye 1
voice voteaye
Award contract to CDK Construction LLC for Post Point emergency generator replacement project
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Adopt ordinance creating new fund for central library renovation and amending 2025 budget (Amendment No. 2) - Agenda Bill 24685
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Approve consent calendar
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Amend ordinance imposing additional sales and use tax to add 'safe and stable community sales tax' language - Agenda Bill 24653
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Adopt ordinance imposing safe and stable community sales tax (additional 0.1% sales and use tax for criminal justice) - Agenda Bill 24653
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Adopt ordinance authorizing relinquishment of surplus utility easement and covenant within vacated Iowa Street - Agenda Bill 24667
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Adopt ordinance amending BMC Chapter 6.05 to adopt uniform general business license requirements - Agenda Bill 24672
aye 7
Dan Hammillaye
Hannah Stoneaye
Hollie Huthmanaye
Jace Cottonaye
Lisa Andersonaye
Michael Lilliquistaye
Skip Williamsaye
Verbatim transcript available
201 transcript segments indexed
[Music] All All right, welcome everybody. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Uh, this is the regular meeting of the Bellingham City Council's October 6, 2025. The Bellingham City Council meets all requirements of the state of Washington Open Meetings Act.
Before we begin, we acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional and unseated territory of the Lummy Nooks, Samish, and Simyamu people who have cared for and tended this land since time immemorial.
Truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. We begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth.
We pay respect to their elders past and present. Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today. And please join us in uncovering such truths at any and all public events.
The Bellingham City Council provides Spanish interpretation at all regular evening meetings. Interpretation can be accessed by in-person attendees by utilizing the headsets located at the front of the room.
Remote viewers can log on to cab.org/cczoom and click on the language icon at the bottom of the screen to listen in Spanish. And I'll go ahead and let our interpreter repeat that. Thank you. And then we have a couple announcements.
Uh on October 20th, 2025, the Bellingham City Council will hold two public hearings to take public comment on the following items. One, consideration of amendments to Bellingham Municipal Code Titles 20 and 21 for purposes of improving accessory dwelling unit standards: permitting process and consistency with state legislation.
and two, the city of Bellingham's 2026 revenue forecast, including the 2026 property tax levy. Detailed information on each item will be available on meetings.ccoub.org for 5 days before the hearings.
Roll call, please. >> Hannah Stone >> here. >> Dan Hamill >> here. >> Skip Williams >> here. >> Lisa Anderson >> here. >> Michael Luloquist >> here. >> Jace Cotton >> here. >> Ollie Huffman >> here. All council members are present.
>> All right. And then first up today, tonight we have a public hearing on the budget. This is the first of two public hearings uh the city council will hold prior to adoption of the 2026 budget. The 2026 bud proposed budget can be viewed at co.orgbudget.
And here to uh start things off for us is Forest Long Longman, our deputy city adi city administrator. >> Thank you. Uh yeah, give a brief presentation here uh to go over the budget. Um and then we can have the hearing.
Um so to council, a lot of this is what you already heard last week, but we want to share this with the public that might be watching. Um the 2026 proposed budget was built on three overarching principles that was to ensure financial s stability.
Uh over the last handful of years we've been spending down reserves uh in the hopes of uh economic uptick. Uh we don't have the ability to do that any longer and now we need to live within our means. Uh we need to focus the second is to focus on the work that only we can do.
So that's prioritizing and maintaining the services the city must provide or that only the city can provide and also the vital internal functions that support it. And finally, we'll leverage our dedicated resources.
That means use our non-general fund resources to continue the important work um those dedicated dollars fund. Some strategies we used was balancing new revenues with expense reductions. So we as today we'll be asking council to have third and final on a an additional sales tax that we'll talk about a little later.
On the other hand, we we did cut a several uh number of positions. Uh there are no programmatic expansions in this budget. We targeted staffing reductions to areas where we hoped to have minimal impact on public services to the that extent possible and look for ways to continue providing services with those alternative funding sources.
This isn't a new problem. Uh when we built the current year budget, the 2025 budget, we took a number of actions to delay uh the service level reductions that we're suggesting for the 2026 budget. So in 2025, we increased the sales tax tax allocation to the general fund to 68% coming from the street fund side.
And we temporarily diverted property taxes from our fully funded firefighter pension to the general fund to support increased public safety costs. We used interest from the city's cash pool and investments um for non-restricted funds and swept that into the general fund.
And we implemented mandatory review of all positions prior to recruitment and made freezes where possible. So going into 2026, continuing that work, uh we're recommending council adopt a new one uh one tenth of a percent sales tax for criminal justice.
Uh we're reducing over 40 positions and freezing additional. Uh we're evaluating we evaluated and reduced budgets across the general fund and we continue to evaluate positions prior to fill limit travel and other discretionary expenses.
More on that new sales tax. It will raise approximately 3.9 million in 2026. And despite uh lobbying by most of municipalities in Washington state, this was the only new revenue source that the state provided for cities um this time around.
It avoids much deeper cuts. So we estimate that if we do not uh implement this new sales tax, we may have to cut between 25 and 35 additional positions in the general fund. that will have to cross all departments in the general fund.
We don't believe we could take that out of any one department without obviously severely diminishing its ability to provide services. And even after this increase, just to give you a lay of the land of how other cities are using their sales tax, uh 72 jurisdictions in Washington will have higher tax rates than Bellingham.
Our new sales tax rate will look like this. This just gives you a graphical view of where the sales tax money goes. You can see the state gets 6.5%. Uh WTA gets a big chunk at point uh 610 of a percent.
The next green area all goes to the county for various purposes, some of which comes back to us. And then the yellow uh shades are the city's version with the bright yellow on the end there representing that new 110th to take our rate to 9.1%.
Despite uh cuts uh in the general fund, we will leverage those other resources I mentioned to continue investments in projects. We're continue investment in our water and wastewater systems. Uh we're excited to begin a giant environmental remediation project on the waterfront at the foot of Cornwall, which will um result in Salish Landing Park.
We have over $15 million in this budget for affordable housing, homelessness, and human services. And we'll be constructing a new and resilient dispatch center for our 911 staff. So overall, the general fund as proposed um has $128 million in revenues, $128 million in expense, and a net change of uh 31,000 more in expenditures than revenues, which is about as close to a balanced budget as we get.
Um overall the citywide budget will be $543 million including $155 million in capital budget. It is worth noting that that 31,000 we are in balance but part of that uh relies on a $ 1.5 million one-time revenue uh related to uh an inner fund payment and that means that this deficit on ongoing basis is $ 1.5 million.
So there still is work to do uh for a long-term balanced budget. Just what this work looked like as we sought out this balanced budget. This is uh a graph that shows revenues in the blue. The line is expenditures.
The dark blue is the past long as the yellow and this side is the present and future. The bars represent our reserves with the green being our emergency reserve and the hashed green, mint green, uh what those emergency reserves should be.
Now, this was our base budget before we started making adjustments and you can see in 2026 there was a large gap expenditures exceeding revenues. Um and as a result, our reserves depleted by the end of 2027.
After the changes, including the new sales tax and uh all those positions we reduced, we've created a balanced budget. So you can see here in 2026, a line for the revenues and expense are essentially touching.
Um and while there is a gap going forward, we give ourselves more time to make further adjustments as we go forward and arrest the fall of our reserves at least for the current year. Just to touch on the budget scheduled, we are in the midst of budget work sessions with council where we go through department by department and explain the budget changes and answer any questions council may have.
Today we have that on police and fire. Next Monday, it will be uh the legal department, human resources, finance, and the museum. This is our first of two public hearings on the budget. We'll have one more on November 3rd, as well as the revenue forecast on October 30th.
And we will aim to have the budget passed at the end of uh November and the beginning of December. That concludes the presentation. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, first, any clarifying questions from council?
Okay, we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing. How many names do we have? >> All right, we had six individuals signed up tonight. >> Okay, and we will call three names at a time. If when your name is called, if you could please line up either here at the microphone uh on this floor or there's a microphone at the top of the stairs.
And again, this is just a comment regarding the budget. So go ahead. >> Great. First up, we had Adam Bellinger, Brian Armstrong, and Dave Chase. >> Good evening, council. Uh my name is Adam Bellinger, and I uh want to speak tonight in support of the sales tax increase for the criminal justice uh funding.
Uh, I've lived in Bellingham my entire life. I've never lived anywhere else. And in that time, I've seen the work of Bellingham Police Department hundreds, if not thousands of times. And the vast majority of those interactions has been with helping people.
Whether it's uh helping the little old lady that I saw last week whose car broken down in an intersection or narcanning somebody with an overdose. In February, I uh talked a man down off a freeway overpass from jumping.
And uh the uh first responder who showed up was first one BPD officer and then another. And I was really grateful to see them there in a timely manner because if that guy decided to get back up on the overpass to jump, I would have been on my own to stop him.
every moment counts when it comes to public safety and I really strongly support um the BPD and their efforts. Um I make this these statements as someone who's actually been on the other end of a gun uh by a BPD officer uh long time ago.
Um someday when you're older I'll tell you about it. Um, and we saw what it was like when the BBD was under uh resourced only a few years ago. And it's taken a while to rebuild, you know, and in those times I called I recall one instance where I called 911 three times for a guy cracking a bull whip threatening the neighborhood because there was nobody to send right away.
And I had to rescue a neighbor who uh felt trapped in their business because uh there was no one to send. There was drug use and a guy with a knife outside her door. And there was random assaults just last year um that seemed to occur.
A guy got punched in the head 11 times by a random asalent in the my business neighborhood. And then finally, I'd like to point out a couple things on the sales tax um side of things. It's uh considered to be a regressive tax, but I think it's important to note that uh groceries in the state of Washington are not uh eligible for sales tax.
So what that means is that people won't have to decide between paying for groceries and uh or paying their rent because of this tax. The burden is shared also by our visitors who come here and spend their money like the Canadians and and other visitors.
So, all these things factors considered, I uh I do support uh the sales tax increase in support of our budget. Thank you. >> Thank you, Adam. >> All right. And then after Brian, we have Lyall Sorenson, Anita, L, and Brian Gas.
>> All right. Good afternoon or good evening everybody. I'm also here to speak on positive note on the sales tax as well for all the reasons Adam mentioned talking about how many people out there though are willing to jump in and help out like Adam did help somebody from jumping.
I feel like that's something in Bellingham's nature. I think a lot of people in Bellingham are willing to go that take that extra step to help their neighbor whether that's pushing their car or talking them down from a suicide.
I think a lot of people within Bellingham just want to help. And as I always do, always advocating for the volunteer program, of course, because again, Bellingham wants to help. And when we look at the budget, when you're planning that, I believe on the 27th with the parks department, why don't you start asking, you know, like how can we spend this money more efficiently?
Like, I understand that we can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on big projects to do big things, but how many of those big projects could be handled by volunteers? And when we look at the cost of our budget, we look at the biggest cost.
And what is the biggest cost? It's staffing. Staffing and benefits. It's by far the biggest cost. So obviously, we can't replace city employees with volunteers because that just not going to happen. But at the same time, we can still get a lot of work done with the volunteers that we do have.
And by expanding the program, we can get a lot more work done. And I look at this weekend we're going to be out at city hall right behind here doing some work that we do every year to open up the season.
And that's also done by volunteers even when we're not there. So if we're able to increase that capacity and right now we don't have the capacity in the program. We're looking at the park steward program still suspended because of staff capacity.
And I understand that, you know, it costs money to get staffing and get those people bumped up, but at the same time, what is the cost benefit of that? We can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the big project, but if we spend a little bit on staffing and increase the capacity for the work that we're doing, how much more work can we get done for that money spent?
How much community involvement, which there will be, like Adam said, you know, people are willing to jump in and help. I can only imagine how many people we could get to come out and do that kind of important work if we had more capacity of the program.
Without that capacity, we're stuck with like 40 people. We do a great job with 40 people, but imagine if we could double that. And for a program that's been around for as long as the Greenways has, I feel like it should be expanding and not decreasing because right now we replaced what, three positions, I believe two or three with one.
And then we're I understand we're going to have new set of interns. So that's another set of people that we're going to have to train. That's another cost. So if we have those people that are actually there regularly expand the program, being able to expand capacity, that's money well spent instead of retraining new people every year.
We're going to have the WCC crew again rentals that they're going to have to re-up and retrain. And that's my time. >> Thank you, Brian. Good evening, council Lyall Sorenson. You know, I'm happy to see that you guys are paying attention to public safety and criminal justice because those are big issues in any community.
That's the foundation of civil society. It's really important. You know, part of what's going on our our police department does an amazing job. I think they could be staffed a little bit better so that they were able to do more community policing proactively.
I think that'd be great. But, you know, one of the things that's a big gap, there's 400 there's 4,267 reasons to vote for this tax tonight, and that's the active warrants in the Bellingham Municipal Court.
You know, I don't want to be doom and gloom tonight, but the the county jail that's going to be done in three or four years isn't going to help. It's sized way below the National Institute of Corrections recommendations for a community of our size.
You can do the math yourself. It's 3.1 beds per thousand of population that the jail serves comes out to like 893. So that being said, you're not going to get relief. What I would recommend though that would be helpful for the police department, it would be great for community safety and great for the community.
I've talked to you before about the high utilizer initiative that Ann Davis and the Seattle city prosecutor put into place where they identified the top hundred um criminal offenders and warrant holders and they concentrated on those hundred.
Interestingly, if we do some math um for about 2 million of your $4 million, you could provide 90day sentences for about 97 people. Now, if you took a look at the people who hold 50, 60, 40, whatever it is, and if you look at your warrant list, you'll find that there are people who hold large quantities of a warrants that we've let go unchecked.
If we were to deal with those in a concerted, focused way, it would cut down on our need with our police resources. It would cut down in the burden in the municipal court. And it would send a message in our community that crime is illegal and it's not okay.
We don't wink at that. We don't let just let you go. You know, it's not compassionate to allow people to acrue 30 or 40 unchecked misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors. That's not compassion. It's not compassion for our community members who aren't justice involved and it's not for the people who are.
So, I'd encourage you to please pass this tax and think very mindfully about how we invest in criminal justice. Thank you. >> Thank you, Lyall. >> Good evening. My name is Anita Amones and I represent some of my neighbors who had some questions and I got the short straw so they asked me to come down and ask them.
Uh, everybody wanted me to be sure to talk about how much we really appreciate our police force, our firefighters. Uh, the criminal justice system is vital, of course, to any safe society. But many people were concerned about cuts to the library system that we read about and some questions included the levy that we all just passed and not understanding how Bellingham libraries, if they are to receive any of those funds from the light come, they are not.
Okay, I got the answer to one of those questions. Second question was if you are going to cut days and staffing, have you done the research that Sunday, which seems to be the day when most people are available, not in work, students are out of school, is that really the lowest attended day?
Um, when you start looking at cutting hours, I'm a teacher over at Watcom Community College, so this stuff is super important to you. I'm a bit of a library nerd. Uh the third question we had which was we don't know if it was just media bait but when they talked about uh staff that's receiving over $200,000 a year and being asked not to receive a 3% raise.
A lot of people took issue to that. They were curious how people can have the choice in such a dire situation where those that are left without a job or position weren't said weren't given a choice. Those people are told you no longer have a position because we don't have the money for you.
So why is it that certain people who are paid very well still have the choice of receiving a 3% increase? So perhaps those are some issues that you might want to let people know more about. And that's it.
Thank you for your time. >> Thank you Neil. >> Hello everybody. This is Brian Gas. I'm Brian Gas. I'm in Bellingham. I want to talk about I got two things. I'll talk to my other three minutes when we come around for public speaking.
But um when you guys bring up the budget, there's I always bring out like what they don't say and it wouldn't be a politician or a place to raise money if you weren't holding up police and fire every time you want more money.
Well, some of the things that you don't that you're not doing, I'd like to have at some point the the budget uh director, I guess you call it, would address. Um there is kind of a weird shifting of money from the greenways to pay for your guys' parks employees.
And I'm wondering if that's just a way that it makes it look like the budget's a little smaller, but you're recouping that money by billing the greenways. Um, that's a bigger issue because I I want to get those to start paying property taxes for that property.
Um, second thing is the planning department. So my big push is I'm going to not accept anybody's excuse that somebody now isn't going to get anything close to what people got at this room 20 years ago.
That includes the planning. That includes all the bureaucracy that's killing our uh development. But one of the things I do want to bring up is the planning department does have over 100% more employees since the last time we did the urban growth thing in 2005.
And yet they're still issuing about the same number of permits every year. So permitting is about 60 70 80% higher than it used to be and you have essentially still getting two I think it's like 2600 2700 uh permits that get issued every year with with double the people.
I'm just trying to figure out what incentive can you do rather than you know either taxing more people or trying to threaten to fire police and and uh who who are probably overworked at this point. um when we're not getting more out of the people that aren't doing what they're supposed to do.
Like maybe we get them to start issuing some permits a little faster, get some economic activity going, you can look in the budget yourself. I think it's like 50 or 60 employees at the planning department and they're issuing the same number of permits every year at double the cost.
I think that should be unacceptable before you start raising taxes. also like to know I'd like to see a bigger address on the um increase of our government in general when you're talking about people asking for 3% fewer uh you know less uh raises.
We do have a government that's raising that's that's increasing over 7% I think per year our budget and our growth is less than two I'd say. So maybe we should start to look at pairing down some of the excesses that has built up in the good years instead of starting to ask more people who are already paying enough property taxes, enough taxes that could choke a horse u before you ask for another one.
I'm just saying may maybe you cut a little bit harder. You start looking at some of the departments that really aren't doing anything to help us economically. Thank you. >> Thank you, Brian. >> That concludes our signup.
Okay, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and uh anything from council. Council member Loquist, >> I just wonder um the last speaker talked about the number of um planning department employees.
Only I think under half the of the employees and planning department actually do permit reviews and um permit approvals. So I think it I just be interested in looking at the that building services division.
So, one thing is that many of the employees are working on long range plans like the comp plan. They don't do permit reviews, and I'd like to understand where the growth in the department has occurred over a 20-year period.
I certainly expect some of it. Um, and thank you for the comment on library hours. We'll we'll deal with the library budget, I think, in maybe two weeks and then we can bring that up then. Anything further?
>> Okay. And again, there will be another public hearing uh regarding the budget coming up. Uh do we have a date on that next public hearing? Yes, the next budget public hearing will be on November 3rd.
Um but there will be also a public hearing on the revenue forecast on October 20th. >> Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Up next, we have probably the mayor's report. Suspense. Suspense is killing you all, I'm sure.
Uh, mayor's report. Good evening, council. Good evening, members of the community and staff that are here tonight. Uh there are no appointments this evening, so I'll just get to it. Uh our city's comprehensive plan called the Bellingham Plan is now before city council for consideration.
It will guide how our city grows over the next 20 years and how we plan intentionally for more housing, jobs, and services. This afternoon during the committee of the whole, the Bellingham plan team provided an overview of the whole plan in preparation for upcoming work sessions.
I want to take a moment to thank this team as well as staff throughout the city who have contributed to the significant and forward-looking effort. The council will work through the draft plan chapter by chapter in work sessions scheduled this fall to adopt it by the end of this year.
Community members can learn more and share feedback at our engage Bellingham site located at engagebellingham.org and offer testimony at a hearing scheduled for November 3rd. Many city staff and elected officials, including myself, are presenting or participating in housing week activity next week.
Housing week 2025 features a series of events that build awareness and support for innovative housing solutions, offering opportunities to learn, engage, discuss, and feel empowered to advocate for affordable, livable neighborhoods.
Sessions this year include a chance to learn about the changing state legislative landscape, to discover what it takes to help people age in place, explore a new home sharing option that's here in Bellingham, and to find out about a new co-housing community along with much more.
Housing Week is organized by the Watcom Housing Alliance, a broad alliance of organizations, including the city, united to build an affordable, healthy, equitable, thriving, and inclusive community. See wacomhousingalliance.org for housing week session details.
Also coming up next Monday is Indigenous People's Day, also identified as Co Salish Day in Bellingham. A time when we acknowledge the contributions of the first caretakers of this land and honor their histories, cultures, contributions, and resilience.
Please join us in celebrating Indigenous People's Day on Monday, October 13th, 6 to 8:00 p.m. at the Lemmy Nation School. We will enjoy a community dinner, a keynote address by Washington State poet laurate Reena Priest, speakers from the Lummy Nation School along with singing, drumming, dancing, and more.
All are welcome to join in this family-friendly intergenerational event sponsored by the community consortium for cultural recognition which is supported by the city and many other partner organizations.
And you can find out more information at ww.edu/indigenous people's day. And last but not least, a city co-hosted walking tour next week will showcase Sunset Alley, Bellingham's newest downtown public art destination where murals, light installations, and sculptural works transform a once hidden passage into an open air gallery.
Sensa Alley runs between Magnolia and Holly streets, between commercial and Bay, showcasing over a dozen local and national artists, each transforming the alley's walls into portals of color and story.
This unique alley transformation received significant city support as part of our downtown forward activation efforts and is drawing positive attention. Anchoring the alley is the children of the setting son's co- Salish living mural outside of their new downtown location.
This Holly Street corner of the alley is supported by the largest award of the city's grant funding enabling co-ish artists Free Borsy, Raven Borsy, and Roy Nickel to put their stamp and add their soul to our downtown.
Join the October 15th walking tour to learn more and you can find details at paperwhale.com. And that's the end of Mayor's report tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor. And up next, we have our committee report outs.
Uh this morning we started with committee of the whole. We had three uh items for committee of the whole. First was in the morning. It was a budget work session. Uh the budget work sessions are an opportunity for city council to learn more about more details about specific department budgets.
In this sess session, staff presented the proposed budgets of the police department and the fire department. The 2026 proposed budget can be viewed at co.orgbudget. And uh just a couple of highlights um for the fire department.
Um, it's notable there will be no recruit academy in 2026, which will allow for a reduction of four firefighter positions through attrition. Um there will be a reduction in the office of emergency management by uh 0.4 FTE uh as well as reduction in administrative staffing one office assistant eliminated and one assistant fire chief position frozen.
in the police department. It's notable that um proposed elimination of one FTE records manage management position and three uh FTEES frozen as well. Uh three police officer positions and one public information officer position.
Um, some other interesting points that were brought up that there uh the police department received uh 7,000 is that correct or was it 70,000? 7,000 that 7,000 sounded low. 70,000 over 70,600 calls for service which was a 760 uh call increase over last year.
and the um alternative response team team um which is a newer program unarmed uh non-uniformed response uh received 2,129 calls and that was an increase of 160 calls this year and of course as our population increases those call numbers will only increase as well.
Um, so that was for information only. Of course, you can view that uh at meetings.cub.org once that video is available. And that was the first of many department specific uh sessions on the budget. Up next, we had agenda bill 24682.
That was the Bellingham plan overview. Bellingham plan. The city's comprehensive plan for growth will come before the city council for adoption in the coming months. At the next several city council meetings, staff will introduce the content of the plan for council discussion.
In anticipation of these discussions, an overview of the plan itself, the process to develop to develop it and the associated documents were provided at today's meeting. Um the Bellingham plan has been in process for many years with quite a bit of input from the public.
Uh there's quite a bit of content to review if you are interested. It is the overall big planning document for the city and everything that we do influencing all of the other plans um that are more specific.
If you uh are interested in learning more, you can go to engagebellingham.org. We will also have more detail on the Bellingham plan uh in the specific subject areas on October 13th and October 20th as well.
That was for information and discussion. No action was taken. Next up, we had agenda bill 24683. It was a discussion and approval of proposed legislative lobbying guide for city council during the July 21st, 2025 committee of the whole meeting.
Council requested an update to clarify roles and provide additional guidance for city lobbying efforts. In anticip anticipation of the 2026 legislative session, the legislative lobbying guide for council defines roles and expectations for lobbying activities, outlines a selection process for council members to serve on a working group, and clarifies what actions council members can take to contribute to lobbying efforts even if they are not currently serving on the working group.
staff recommended that council vote to approve the lobbying guidance document and consider council membership for the 2026 legislative session working group. And so last year was the first year that this the uh city had our own lobbying team um after many years of being part of a lobbying team shared by the port, the county, and the city.
Uh and so last year was a bit of a learning experience, but it was great. Uh very successful. Um and this was just solidifying council's role in that that process. Um putting it down on paper and sending some guidelines and understanding.
Um so uh the the committee voted to unanimously to approve the uh legislative lobbying guide for city council. And I so move >> second. >> Motion by the chair and a second by council member Williams. Any further discussion?
Seeing none, all in favor say I. I >> any opposed or abstensions? Passes 70. Uh and at this time, we're going to wait on appointing council members to that lobbying group. We can account appoint three members of council to that group.
Um we're going to wait and see how things shake out after election season. Um okay. And uh after that, old and new. Anything old and new tonight? Okay. Council member Stone, >> I will have one thing. Um, so from the Lake Watcom Policy Group meeting, the last meeting we had on October 1st, I just wanted to give a very brief update because during the joint councils and commissioners meeting um the last one we had, there was some discussion um just about the one of the objectives within the management plan.
So under the climate section regarding some of you may recall to conduct a comprehensive Lake Watcom climate vulnerability assessment um and this is to assess the impacts of climate change on Lake Watcom there the Lake Watcom wershed um and the Lake Walcom management program and going further to create educational materials based off of the results of the climate vulnerability assessment.
And so at the last meeting, we just received an update from Morgan Ruff, who's in the public works department, um, natural resources special projects manager, but Morgan was sharing that that RFP was put out.
And this week, actually, we're taking on interviewing the top um top three respondents and hoping to have a contract in place by the end of the year. So, just wanted to make sure that the full council knew that that work was going to be moving forward since that came up at the last joint councils and commissioners meeting.
So that's all council member Stone. Anything further for new? Okay, moving on. This afternoon we had an executive session. We had just one item. It was a potential litigation with stamps. Staff provided information on a potential litigation matter for information and discussion.
No action was taken. And then next up this afternoon, we had public works and natural resources. And that was chaired by council member Stone. Thank you very much. So this afternoon I was joined by council members Anderson and Cotton.
We had two items before us. The first was agenda bill 24684. This is a contract award for postpoint resource recovery plant emergency generator replacement project EU188. This is bid number 12B-2025. So, the emergency generator replacement project will replace the backup power generators and associated electrical switch gear that's currently serving the Post Point Resource Recovery Plant.
The city publicly opened eight bids on September 17th, 2025, and CDK Construction LLC was the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of 5,323,49460. This is including any applicable sales or use tax.
The engineer's estimate for the project was $5,182,950. This project due to the size and scale um is subject to the apprenticeship program requirements under BMC 4.94. Um, I wanted to make note that for this project, the um, the funding for this project comes through the sewer fund, obviously to support the work at at Post Point.
And this being a very large project, there's significant lead time just required for um, the equipment to actually be ordered, manufactured, and then tested prior to installation. And so that lead time right now is estimated to be 10 to 14 months.
Um, so we would expect that lead time to carry us into October or December of next year, 2026 and looking at the actual installation taking place again the end of 2026 or in that first quarter of 2027.
Um, so this afternoon there was a unanimous recommendation from the committee to move to award the contract to CDK Construction LLC and I so move. >> Second motion by the chair and a second by council member Anderson.
Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed or abstensions? That passes 70. >> Thank you very much. The next item before the committee was agenda bill 24690. This is a presentation on the speed limit setting policy.
So, recent research and national guidance on speed limit setting methodologies has dramatically changed the way engineers consider speed limits. The city is overhauling its traditional approach to speed limits by adopting a new methodology that is consistent with national requirements as well as implements programmatic actions identified in the 2024 pedestrian and bicycle master plans.
This afternoon we were joined by John Pascal that's the managing principal at the transpo comp transpo group that's the city's project consultant. Um and John provided a presentation on the citywide speed limit setting policy.
The final speed limit changes and recommendations from this policy will be presented to council for approval um next year early in 2026. Um so this afternoon it was just for information and discussion only but wanting to note that um so John Pascal spoke to the research that they done to identify which methodology to to rely on in moving forward with the policy setting and they ended up using the n it's called nacto um it's the national association of city transportation officials and within that methodology there's some information within the the packet it and members of the public who want more information could certainly watch that presentation.
Um, but the city's basically looking at reducing in some to some degree the um the range of speeds that are utilized here within the city limits. So, ranging from 20 and then capping out at 45 miles per hour.
Um, and there's a a rubric to the methodology just looking at the safety index. So um in different roadways you know how many vehicles are there as well as the um frequency of use by pedestrians as well as bicycles and other modes of transportation and looking at the number of you know crashes or collisions or problems that have happened in different areas to determine the um the safety index or the potential risk in those different areas.
And then also considering the roadway context. So whether it's, you know, a highly um highly dense maybe residential or um business location depending on the terrain of the roads again, how urban or or rural that setting may be within the city limits.
Um and so another piece of that work going forward will be some policy considerations by the council regarding consideration of reduction to 20 miles per hour for all residential streets within the city of Bellingham.
And the other is for consideration of a shared streets model that would reduce speeds to 10 miles per hour in certain parts of the city where really um transportation by foot or bicycle would be the priority um in that area and really vehicles would but just be crossing through you know as needed but again at very very slow speeds.
Um so again this work is going to be coming forward um with respect to next steps. We'll be coming back to the council later um expected in early 2026 to consider the um the recommendations from again the the contract that the city has um and staff input as well.
So look forward to additional information coming forward um next early next year. But in the interim, this was just for information and discussion only. So there was no action taken. And with that, that was end of committee.
And I'll send it back to you. >> Thank you, Council Member Stone. And then up next, we had budget and finance that was chaired by Council Member Anderson. >> Thank you. Um, we had one item in front of us today, and I was joined by Council Member Hamill and Council Member Lilloquist.
Um, Eric Johnson, our budget and treasurer manager, um, presented bill number 24685, an ordinance creating a new fund to account for the renovation of the central library facility and amending the 2025 budget, which would be our amendment number two.
The proposed budget amendment creates a new fund to account for renovations of the central library facility and provide design funding for that project. Uh we have a project coming up for renovation of our library um downtown and it's going to be about 8.5 million.
It's going to be a combination of private donations through the library gift fund, reap funds and also um a mix of state grants. So it just makes um sense to create a new fund where all of this money will come in and cohabitate while uh the plans are being uh drafted and eventually uh upgrades are being done to the library.
So, um, the committee voted to support this ordinance and I so move. >> Second >> motion by the chair, second by council member Hamill. Any further discussion? >> Seeing none, all in favor say I. >> I.
>> Any opposed or abstensions? That passes 70. >> And that was end of end of committee. >> Thank you, Council Member Anderson. And with that, uh, consent agenda. Move approve. Second >> motion by council member Williams, second by council member Lilloquist.
Further discussion. >> Council member Hamill. >> Yeah, I just wanted to point out that um earlier today during the bud budget discussion, we did talk about the first item in the consent agenda which is amendment to the original agreement for inmate housing amending fees, charges, and services.
This is with the South Correctional Entity in De Moine, which is commonly referred to as the SCORE facility. They have a 5% uh increase for bed days uh and booking and um there's a hourly rate that was increased for transport and hospital security.
Um so we as asked the question I think this is very derain to the the conversation that's happening with the u the justice project um um conversation that's happening in our community that we do use this facility but it's fairly minimal.
It's a couple hundred times uh I think thus far this year and we're already in October. Um and it's uh it takes um two uniforms off the off the street here to uh to transport a person down to to this facility.
So Oh, I'm sorry. It was I'm sorry. It was 12 people. Yes. Sorry about that. My My bad. Um anyway, I just want to point out that we do we we have made this investment um with this partner agency, I guess is how I would regard them.
Um however, we are we're angling towards um trying to figure out how we can can really um make sure that behavioral service behavioral health services are robust and steady. um coming up with a new facility and that we're able to um to keep people here in our own community.
So, I just wanted to put that out there and I do support the the passage of the consent agenda. >> Anything further? Seeing none, all in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed or abstensions? Passes 70.
Final consideration of ordinances. Agenda Bill 24653, an ordinance of the city of Bellingham, Washington, imposing an additional sales and use tax of onetenth of 1% for criminal justice purposes as authorized in section 20150 laws of Washington 2025 adding a new chapter 4.79 to the Bellingham Municipal Code.
>> Mr. File second >> motion by council member Hamill, second by council member Anderson. Any further discussion? Council member Loquist. >> Yeah, I I'm going to move to amend. The the amendment is already in the packet.
Uh it has to do with a better description to the uses and purposes of the tax. This stems from a conversation uh I had with the mayor and with an example of King County. Um it just simply uh says that this is a a safe and stable community sales tax and it do we need we don't need to read this in the record cuz it's published but it just substitutes that name or clarifies that name in four different locations uh in the ordinance.
So that's a motion to amend. >> Second motion by council member Liquist to amend. Second by council member Williams. Further discussion seeing none. Oh, council member Hamilton. Can you can you reread that amendment?
>> Yeah, if you if you look um at the ordinance, uh it now says uh to instead of just saying impose a tax, it now says to impose a safe and stable communities sales tax. It basically labels it in the same way that King County has labeled it uh to I think better describe the the way that it's uh we're intending to use it.
And then I'll have some more comments on on that if we approve this amendment. Any further discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Extensions. That passes 70.
>> Council member Lquest. >> So, we've received a fair amount of of feedback on this. Some people were concerned about what the money would be used for. I think we've done a good job of clarifying that the purpose is not to add, but the purpose is to prevent more serious cuts.
One of the things that the community was interested in and the council asked for and the administration's provided is a list of things that would be eligible to be covered by this. We have a list of approximately $3 million worth of things that are eligible to be funded by that in addition to all policing would also be eligible.
And the purpose is not to say that the money will go directly to these, but rather is to say that with this funding, we don't have to look for any cuts in any of these areas. And for that matter, you don't have to look for cuts in other parts of the city.
The truth is, if we didn't pass this tax, we would lose anywhere from 25 to 35 new positions depending on which department and where you cut them. And those cuts would occur across the board uh in all departments, more or less, as we we're already seeing.
So, um I I the idea of creating both safety and stability in our in our um in our funding and our sustainable funding, I think is really closer to the purpose behind the tax fund, which is why I I'd like us to uh that we've done.
We're kind of following the King County model because that's how they're using it as well. >> Council member Hamilton. >> Yeah. I just wanted to point out some of the other um items that were brought up today um earlier today.
We've been at this for almost 12 hours now. um intervention, uh public defense, which we're mandated now to um provide in a in a way that we've not been um mandated before. Um diversion and re-entry in addition to um um other public safety measures.
I just want to point out that those those programs are things that we have heard back from largely from the community that that's those are community values that we want to see that and I want to make sure that we have um that we are well funded to or funded I guess maybe not well funded is probably the right way to say that but um but we are we're funded to to continue those programs and um and new items are not coming online.
This is not to start new new things. So, I just want to be abundantly clear that I support those um diversion re-entry the great we talked about the gra the grace program uh today and we're making investments with the alternate response team and slightly different fund um and then also the lead program and so these are all things that have been worked on for quite some time and uh they're very su successful programs and I want to see the continuation of those programs further.
>> I see that list. Council member Eliquist. Um, yeah, thanks for uh for us for putting this list together for us. This is the the list of programs that would would be eligible to receive funding uh with these tax dollars that we currently pay for out of the general fund.
Um, just read a couple of them. public defense, DVSASS support, the grace program at $400,000 a year, community court, lady place mental health program, home monitor uh home monitoring diversion services at a million dollars a year, um Northwest youth services ground floor day center.
Um we we also have the alternative response team which is actually funded by justice uh project tax money. But that's another example of the programs that we're we're currently paying for that are currently in our budget uh that are I think critical to making sure that that we continue to reduce the need for um first responders for for some people in our community.
So, particularly the Grace program has been incredibly successful at reducing um reducing visits to the emergency room. Um our lead program in the community has been incredibly successful at reducing uh jail stays as well as emergency room uh visits.
And so these are programs that we're funding that that reduce the need for um first responders. And so I think that those are are really important investments. wouldn't want to see those cuts. Often you see in a budget um with an organization that the newest programs are the first to be cut in hard times.
Um and I think it's critical that these programs not only remain but are u progressively more and more wellunded um in the years where we do have um a little bit better economic situation. So, you know, I think with this with this tax, we can ensure that that programs like this don't get cut or receive reduced funding.
Um and you know as as we saw you know this not only are we not increasing um any programs or or uh staffing in our uh police and fire but we are eliminating or freezing positions in in those departments at this point.
Um, without this tax, we would see, as was stated, 25 to 35 additional cuts in staffing throughout the city. Um, that would be tough. That would that would be a real obvious reduction in services in in our city.
So, um, I will be voting in support of this as well. Anything further? >> Yeah, I just want uh Oh, sorry, >> Council Member Williams. And I'm not sure of the number. So I'm going to call on Chief Merds to maybe highlight something.
Um, you would mention that we are one of very few departments in the state that actually qualify for this. >> Uh, Rebecca Mercer, chief of police. Yes, sir. We are one of 10 cities and then King County is in making it 11 total agencies throughout the state.
Mhm. So, what that says to me is programmatically we are doing what we say that we're trying to do, which is provide the support services and the alternative services to help people turn their lives around.
And that's what this sales tax is helping us continue. And I think you've heard it from um Council Member Liiloquist, Council Member Huffman, Council Member Hamill. Um if we didn't have this, we would have to provide a lot more programmatic cuts throughout the city, including the police department and all these alternative service fundings.
And to me that is extremely important to maintain. So I'm going to be voting in in favor of this and uh onward and upward. Any other comments before we vote? Council member Stone. >> So I guess Chief Mix in there.
I know that this um vote we were wanting to make sure to lay the vote and confirm that we were completely in compliance with um the requirements for the the sales tax, but also you know potential grant funding tied to this um this initiative as well.
And so I don't know if you're able to just speak briefly to to the you know um to the steps that have been taken by the department and sort of where we're at currently with respect to training. >> Yeah, I think the hard work of meeting the requirements been done.
So now it's just a matter of putting together a good proposal, a grant proposal uh next year. So I think that's that's definitely our intention. Um I think it speaks to the legislature set a very high bar for the all criminal justice agencies and we already met that bar which is very encouraging.
I'm sorry exceeding the bar. So we recently uh had 33% of our staff complete that CIT training. Uh and they just finished on Friday. I think the requirement was 25, right? 25%. That's correct. Okay. Anything further vote?
All right. Roll call, please. >> Before I do roll call, I'm just going to read the new title and uh so we have it for the record. It's an ordinance of the city of Bellingham, Washington, imposing the safe and stable community sales tax and additional sales and use tax of onetenth of 1% for criminal justice purposes as authorized in section 2013, Laws of Washington 2025, adding a new chapter 4.79 to the Bellingham Municipal Code.
Okay, first up, Hannah Stone. >> Hi, >> Dan Hamill. Hi >> Skip Williams. >> Hi >> Lisa Anderson. >> Hi >> Michael Lilloquist. >> Hi >> Jay Scott Cotton. >> Hi >> Ali Huffman. >> Hi. >> Motion passes 70.
>> Next up we have agenda bill 24667 an ordinance of the city of Bellingham Washington authorizing the relinquishment of a surplus utility easement and a covenant within vacated Iowa Street. First, second, third, second, and final.
>> What? >> Third, fourth, and final. >> She's new. Give her a break. >> Uh, second, I guess. >> Motion by council member Anderson, second by council member. >> You usually beat me and I'm always second.
>> I don't think he second. >> Further discussion, >> but we'll count it that way. >> Okay. Roll call, please. >> Anna Stone. >> Hi. >> Dan Hamill. Hi, >> Skip Williams. >> I >> Lisa Anderson. >> Hi, >> Michael Lilloquis.
>> Jace Cotton. >> Hi, >> Holly Huffman. >> Hi. >> Motion carries 70. >> And last but not least, we have agenda bill 24672, an ordinance of the city of Bellingham, Washington, amending Bellingham Municipal Code Chapter 6.05 to adopt uniform general business license requirements mandated by the state of Washington.
Your >> third second. Motion by council member Hamill. Second by council member Anderson. >> Any further discussion? Roll call, please. >> Hannah Stone, >> I. >> Dan Hamill. >> Hi. >> Skip Williams. >> Hi.
>> Lisa Anderson. >> Hi. >> Michael Loquiz. >> Hi. >> Chase Cotton. >> Hi. >> Holly Huffman. >> Hi. >> Motion passes 70. >> It's been a long day. I think we're kind of forgetting how all this works at this point.
Okay. With that, that is the end of our regular meeting. We will now move to the public comment session. If you are watching live online or on BTV, the broadcast will now end. However, you can continue watching via Zoom at co.org/cczoom org/cczoom or listen via telephone by dialing and entering meeting ID 896-9812044 and password 9.
Again, that's co.org/cczoom or dial 253-2158782 and enter meeting ID 896-9801-2044 and password 9 to continue to watch or listen live. If you are watching a recorded version of this meeting, you can view public comment videos at cub.orgcc comment.