City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] okay good evening we'll go ahead and get started here uh good evening members of the public thanks for attending this evening good evening mayor and good evening council members this is the mar or the May 6th uh 2024 uh regular city council meeting and I have some announcements to make and I've got a few here so just kind of bear with me a little bit um Bellingham city council meets all requirements of the state of Washington open public meetings act uh second is on May 20th 2024 the city council will hold a public hearing uh for a comprehensive plan Amendment and rezone to multi family Zone sub areas 8 9 and 13 in the Silver Beach neighborhood and consideration of revisions to the storm water regulations in BMC 16.80 pertaining to a new multif family development and Redevelopment of his existing multif Family Properties in the Silver Beach neighborhood next item on June 3rd 2024 the city council will hold two public hearings the first hearing will consider amendments to BMC uh 2037 330 increasing the allowed height for certain properties the second hearing will consider a development agreement between the city of Bellingham and a contract purchaser regarding proposed development of property generally located at the northwest corner of 11th Street and M Avenue commonly referred to as the pit fourth item fourth fourth and last item the Bellingham city council has been invited to participate in an in informational growth management coordination update this meeting is

the third in a quarterly series convened by the county executive to provide a forum for elected officials from the county and the cities to discuss and review issues associated with growth management planning in relation to the 2025 periodic up date to the comprehensive plan this special council meeting will be held in a hybrid format and is open to the public for more details including information on how to join online they're available on meetings.

cob.org roll call please Anna Stone here Holly Huffman here skip Williams here Lisa Anderson here Michael lillquist here jce cotton here Dan Hamill here all council members are present thank you okay our first item tonight is a presentation this is a 2024 uh State legislative session update and we are honored to have our state delegation here this evening thank you so much for coming we have uh state representatives Alex raml from the 40th District Joe Timmons from the 42nd legislative district Sharon schum from the 42nd Senator Sharon shim from the 42nd legislative district and uh I believe representative Lov is here as well uh and they'll summarize activity um uh from the from the last session and also and maybe with an eye towards the next session and I'm not quite sure what order folks are going to be speaking but but feel free the floor is yours is on okay morning Council mayor um thanks for the opportunity to join you today um representative lenov is on her way um and will be joining us in a moment um really appreciate the chance to come today and I I would just start off and say one of the things that we try to do um in these presentations is to Showcase um that this community has a whole team working together uh as a legislative delegation so I know you all know but just for um uh the TV uh TV audience uh who may may not be tracking it Bellingham is split approximately in half um between the 42nd District uh to the North and the 40th District to the South and so the

six legislators who represent this community um really do uh try our best to stay coordinated in terms of uh funding requests legislative priorities for the community um we sit down every couple of years and say um you know what are the Committees that everybody's going to be on so that we can divvy up the work because it's more than any one of us can do and legislating really as a team sport and so um if if nothing else uh comes out of this discussion just want to highlight for you all that we're all here working together um and there's really no wrong door so please um as you all or U members of the public in the audience um just know that reaching out to any one of us is uh as good as reaching out to all of us on the same team uh working for this community um so and feel free to just jump in here we have not coordinated uh a uh a strategy for how we want to talk about this but I think we each have a couple of things that we're interested to make sure we talk about and then um we're happy to sit here and answer questions for as long as you all um want to keep asking them um this year was the short session which means that um we were there for 60 days um and still tried to get as much done as possible one of the things I always try and highlight is that the majority of the bills that we pass in Olympia every year are bipartisan um you wouldn't know it from watching the news because the interesting stories are the ones where there's some contention but most of what we're

doing in the legislature is finding consensus um around positive things that everybody agrees or most people agree we should be doing uh to move this state forward um in the short session we amend the two-year budget we don't write a new one so there's um less work to be done there um but we're um also in particularly this last year in almost all of our budgets we were looking at cost overruns on things we thought cost something two years ago um and then came back and found out that um you know when the bids came in it was more expensive so we needed to work to um reprioritize some wine items in the budget that was true in both the capital budget and the transportation budget in particular this last year um so I guess I will I will just start off um talking about a couple of priorities we heard from local government leaders uh here in in wam County and I know uh Bellingham Works closely with uh wam County County and the Port of Bellingham to put together sort of a combined agenda one of the big items there uh that we took with us um this last session was amending the U rural sales tax um for economic development to be able to use that those revenues for Workforce housing Workforce housing is a huge challenge we all know that um and we're looking to find innovative solutions we were able to pass that legislation the first uh first uh run out the gate coordinated with uh sket County and with uh Republicans uh working uh in the 39th District uh for whom that was a priority as

well um so we anticipate that as soon as that goes into effect in June uh wam County will be able to start dedicating some of those um Economic Development dollars towards Workforce housing I don't know if you all want to jump in or you want me to just keep working go for um thank you rep raml it's true we do work pretty well as a team and I consider you all as part of our team as well and figuring out how to better protect and serve our community it takes all of us working together um some of the other things that we funded were more Behavioral Health dollars um a detox facility over at Lum Nation but also ensuring that we had enough funding for the 23-hour facility um that we'll be able to take folks that right now are getting sent to the ER or the jail where often that's not what's appropriate um we did some work on water adjudication um Bell the city of Bellingham has a sizable water right rep ens and I worked really hard on two bills to make sure that as we go forward I want to ensure that adjudication is as smooth as possible um I support adjudication I think it's the right thing it helps us clarify our water rights so we're not using too much of them um too much water we have enough we're able to figure out how to do it for salmon and then it unlocks in ative strategies like water Bank trading and um all sorts of conservation opportunities but that process of figuring out who has what water right and making sure that we have all our ducks in a row is scary and

complicated especially for smaller users so I'm open to hearing all the ideas that you have on how to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible one of the things that we heard was not having sufficient judicial resources so Joe had a bill to get another judge um at the court and I had a bill to ensure that we have judicial Commissioners as well um that were adding some additional resources at the court and I'm so glad repano is here because she also helped ensure that that those judicial Commissioners are well educated on water law and Indian law and all of these pieces that are going to be really important to making sure this goes as smooth as possible um some other pieces that we did um and that we've done in previous years um was um I I wanted to say like I was thinking about the Holly bike lanes and I just think they're great I rode them today so thank you all for that I know it's been controversial but I think that our community is going to see that's the right thing going forward and that also we have a program that we started up um it's still being implemented and making its way through but it's going to be incentives for electric bikes for individuals for regular folks and low income don't wait to get an electric bike is my message to the public there's not going to be a whole lot of the incentives if you're not qualifying as low income but what I think is really exciting is there's also $2 million set aside for an ebike lending library program so if you have um

like school districts could use it local governments could use it um senior centers could access it something that is either serving as a commute trip reduction for city employees um doing City businesses all of those pieces we're putting money aside and we want to see you experiment with it um I I think that's really exciting and there's cool ways that we can use electric bikes that we haven't even thought about yet um I will turn it over to my two colleagues to talk more about what we've been working on great thank you Senator schik uh council members great to be with you in Maryland as well thank you for the invitation to be here for the record Joe Timmons state representative from the 42nd legislative district uh this is I'm wrapping up my first term and so this was my first 60-day s session and sheesh let me tell you the difference between 105 and 60 days is real it uh was fast and furious this time around but uh I'm very very proud of the work that we able to accomplish uh one thing I wanted to touch on that reper Amo hit on is really the bipartisan nature of Olympia I think that uh if I have one message that I want to try to bring home to folks here in Bellingham aakam county is that Olympia is still a place where people work well together both in within our caucus as a party but also across the aisle we had uh 90 I'm sorry 80% of our bills out of the house were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support meaning 90 or more members voted for the bills in a in a chamber

of 98 members so that goes to show the way that I I think Republicans and Democrats really work well together down in Olympia which I think leads to better policy outcomes and serves our state as a whole uh a few things I wanted to touch on uh Senator schum thank you for mentioning uh the water rights adjudication issue and um the we had a bill that we passed House Bill 1992 to add a new a new judge to wakin County Superior Court this should help with the water rights adjudication help us process that but also help with alleviating the backlog that we have with our cases uh here locally as well um a bill that I was really glad to get across the Finish Line as well is House Bill 2020 which uh creates a new public infrastructure assistance program this is going to go a long way in our state uh and in our community here when we have natural disasters On The Rise Like flooding wildfires landslides if we don't qualify for FEMA assistance essentially uh local jurisdictions are on their own and now because of this bill we're going to have a new public infrastructure assistance program through the state's Emergency Management division um that's going to be set up that can can help local jurisdictions fund sidewalks fund um Library repairs fund these repairs that we know um really go a tangible way for the quality of life in local residents and I think that it's on us as a state to step up when local jurisdictions can't afford that so really proud of that work as well um you know

really I want to hear from you all and questions that you have and and ways that we can support you and Olympia uh both in terms of this session wrapup but also next year but I will mention one thing on top of my mind person Al and I know my colleagues share some of this concern is education and education funding uh I serve on the K12 education committee I think that our local uh school districts around the state um are going through a lot of challenges and and a lot of those are consistent around the state due to a lack uh decreasing an enrollment um uh also a go uh Esser funds from the federal government covid relief funds that are no longer there uh so every jurisdiction every District we have 295 school districts around the state that all have unique challenges but um I think we as a state I think we need to be relooking at how we fund uh education and it's something that I'm committed to this year we made progress around some of that we increased the cap for special education from 15% to 16% meaning the state will fund up to 16% for uh students that qualify for special education this is an increase from uh 13.5% last year so in this bium we've gone from 13 a half to 16% which is a big big bump for our local districts and hopefully will help them use local Levy funds for other purposes uh but it's something that I'm really committed to moving forward and then lastly I just want to touch on the housing issue that we talked about we also invested we made a historical

investment of $400 million in the housing trust fund last year in 2023 we added another 127 million to that this year in this banum so that's over $525 million for affordable housing that's going to lead to Great projects like we see here in Bellingham and elsewhere around the state so I'm really proud of the work that we've done this session and this banum but I know we have a lot more work to do good evening good to see you all apologies for my late arrival um it really is you know I'm coming into my potentially fourth term here and my classmates here it's been amazing quite the journey that we've been able to work with and do collaboratively um thank you Joel you're absolutely right bipartisanship in the Washington State Legislature whereas it has been an incredible opportunity to work on natural resources work on salmon work on infrastructure work on climate change address Public Safety and education you know we've seen um it's going to be a different ride here in the next year it's going to be challenging I think down in Washington state it's going to be interesting to try and find great P great by great bipartisanship but the foundation that the 42nd has set and the relationship that we've done in the 40th with Alex's leadership role as Whip and my long-term 20 years of relationship with tribal leaders Leaders with Republicans and local government I think really brings us to a level of lifting up and doing things together I say that because we have the biggest fight of

Our Lives ahead of us we've lost two generations to the fentanyl addiction and to the behavioral mental health crisis we're seeing our homeless Community being impacted we've seen our local government struggling boots on the ground finding funding addressing programs and collaborating working together you all have taken the covid model that was used to bring governing bodies together adapted it and been able to in include inclusively your relationships of tribes with the federal government and with the state legislature um as we gear up for the next session 2025 this is still going to be a big priority how do we fund and support local government what does loel local government want to see boots on the ground that the state legislature can do in prevention recovery and after care programs we need rather than the state legislature coming down from the top and saying what is it that needs to get done you actually have the opportunity to engage through your Association Washington counties and cities at a state local tribal Congressional invited task force that's going to create your 2025 legislative session 2026 legislative session priorities and topics but also what is it that we need to be doing collectively together for the next Governor whoever that may be in the administration coming and be prepared but it's but it has to come from local boots on the ground your Mac program has addressed laws and policies that help us move forward this year we're able to provide $80 million

into Capital facilities projects that improve recovery for all of our communities your brothers and sisters to the north and Lumi Nation will be receiving that funding they'll receive 12 million to be able to open up recovery for the entire Washington north of the end you have have sesh who we've all provided funding for to guich offering recovery and lifting up those services but we didn't stop there right the prevention role that we were able to do by having Joe sitting in education he was able to work with Senor cter who set and listened to high school children out of Lakewood that said Senator cter we need Naran kits in every high school because records and statistics shown I know I'm preaching to the choir here no pun intended because you're sitting above us but um you have high school kids coming to tell legislators that we don't have any Naran kits in the 295 schools the 18 charter schools and the nine tribal schools you get one dose do you all know what how many is in one dose two swabs it's taken up to four to six swabs to save a life now according to wasb the wonderful part that Joe brought in is he was able to work with SAR cter and say not only do we need one dose in every High School no we need it in every first first aid kit we need it in every basketball bag that's traveling with students every band kit we need Naran kits now in every one of our our Public School Systems our 18 charter school systems and our tribal school systems and the scariest part is it's

not just happening in middle school and high school it's happening in lower school right fourth grade now in school systems so we're doing better as I think as local government and our school districts understanding what we need I think it's going to be incredible for us to be able to expand on what we can do to remove barriers and provide funding streaming down from the federal government have a program set up here prevention also started where we provided funding to Governor en Le's office to coordinate with all the public safety officers because we know that of the nine drug task forces we don't have the collaboration in the state funding sir that's going to come down and be able to fund your drug task forces to get the high cartel drugs off the street so what does that look like and what does it come look like from your community not from the top down from the bottom up so there's a lot of work that we're going to be doing here in the next couple years in the fentanyl um crisis and as we invest in behavior and mental health the work that you're doing up here of investing in um REM modernizing your jail system is going to be phenomenal across this nation congratulations there's already work being told and talked about how we're going to create a jail system that's really going to heal deal our community members and have our community members who are incarcerated come into this community and be ready to lift ready to go to work we incorporated apprenticeship programs within

the jail systems more Behavior Health into the jail systems and we're going to modernize it and that's what that's what this County did it took its it took the initiative and you're the ones who are being talked about who are going to be the best I've got the same story happening down in scet of putting a wellness behavior health program in their systems you're leading the way so little bit of work what I did on saving lives I'd love to talk about salmon and climate change and my my friends know that's you know you get me talking on that and my voice gets a little higher um but we'll talk about it a little bit later when you want to share with it but as far as the good news of saving lives we can catch salmon increase our Workforce make sure that we take care of our children make sure that we're collaborating investing in behavioral mental health and having wam County lead the way um city of Bellingham thank you you guys are doing a great job and I appreciate you I couldn't have done it without you I'd like to jump in um it's hard following Deborah I would not recommend it um she's an incredible speaker um but I I did forget to mention one thing which is um I wanted to thank the mayor and I saw Nicole somewhere um thank you for you they asked us for money one of the things we heard from the opioid Summit was that young people need that third place to go to it's part of the prevention it's part of Youth access um if you talk to any mom of school aged children they're like oh

my God we need another Pool too so it kind of fits in those paces and so I was honored to be able to offer a budget request to do some planning for that and I want more budget requests from you all um if you see needs in our community that you don't have funding for or you see opportunities um please come ask us I was talking to community members about the bike master plan and they said there's some small pieces there that are a couple million here and there those would be a great thing to ask us for and you definitely want to be asking us for them in the odd years cuz that's when we do the big budget and we have a little bit more money um so think about what you're thinking about in December come talk to the six of us um and we'd love to hear your ideas I always used to think that my job as an elected official was to do cool stuff but it's really to empower other people to do cool stuff and so um come at us and let's do cool stuff together yes just jump in and touch on a couple of other things um one thing that we've uh talked about when uh been back uh recently is uh law enforcement and the challenges I know city of Bellingham has had challenges with hiring law enforcement and that's been the case um in a lot of parts of Washington state um last year we authorized um basic law enforcement um Academy trainings uh regionally and um good news bad news we have that authorized for Northwest Washington the initial plan did not work out to do it at skic Community College but it is

my understanding is it is going to open North snow homish County um sometime this fall so that means that new recruits uh for law enforcement in Bellingham will be able to drive to North sish County and still get home uh in time for bed and um it's much easier uh to do that than uh the current option in South King County um which really just means that somebody has to move to South King County for the for their whole training period um at the same time we've also um recognizing that need around the state increased the state's share of the contribution to training um previously it had been a 7525 split and uh at this point uh for at least this coming budget cycle and I I anticipate going forward um the state will be picking up the full tab for new uh recruitment so that's um for basic Law Enforcement Training uh for new recruits the other thing I just wanted to touch base on um you know I think the thing I've been talking to Bellingham city council about for the longest is climate change um I started my career as an intern for the city of Bellingham uh writing the first uh climate action plan uh back in two adopted back in 2007 um I I will say that I have never felt in my career more sense of hope and optimism about our ability to um shift to clean energy economy and turn the tide on climate change than I feel right now nationally um the inflation reduction act um and Leadership we're seeing the federal Administration is um creating a sea change um in terms of our ability to

get things done my whole career it's been uh things are you know those are good idea kid but it's too expensive um the barrier is no longer the cost oftentimes things like wind and solar are more cost effective than their fossil fuel counterparts um and we're seeing the E economics of it change and at the same time Washington state has put in place a lot of policies um and Central to those is the climate commitment act which has given us the ability to make sure that as that trans transition is happening and we've put a cap on climate emissions that we know is going to decline over time the revenue from that cap is able to be dedicated to making sure that that transition happens in a just and fair way that doesn't leave people behind um so just highlighting a couple of uh the things that uh you know we are able to dedicate that Revenue towards uh things like electrifying school buses uh so that kids are no longer breathing than diesel exhaust on their way to to and from school um our Ferry Fleet uh desperately needs uh new vessels and we're going to be making those uh hybrid electric most of the time they'll be running on batteries which means uh not only will we have new vessels that are um more reliable but also they're going to be quieter uh for the southern residence um and uh cleaner for air quality um we're putting uh together a heat pump program Department of Commerce is rolling out I believe $80 million in Grants for low and moderate income people to Electrify their

homes that's a huge priority that the city of Bellingham uh has identified and been working on for years um we're able to jump in and help out with that um there's many many more things on that list but the the last one I'll mention is um just exciting because city of Bellingham is really LED on this um council member list knows that we've been talking about District heating uh for bellingham's Waterfront for a dozen years or more um Bellingham took the um uh took the uh leadership position and uh invested in putting uh those pipes in the ground um the port worked with private developer at corx and we're going to be running some of those uh we will be running heating uh buildings down on the waterfront um using waste energy last year we passed legislation that says that all of our campuses um state-owned campuses universities Capital campus prison campuses um will be making uh conversions over the coming decades with that climate commitment act money in part um based on leadership here in Bellingham Western Washington University this year we passed more legislation uh to encourage uh Gas Utilities to be part of that and what's exciting to me about that is that there's an opportunity for uh gas companies and the workers there to be who have been part of the fossil fuel economy in the past to be part of the clean energy transition um there's um lots more stuff happening along those lines but um those are just a few of the highlights I wanted to to raise anything else or do did

you have now do I get to talk about salmon go a little bit just a little bit so just really excited to talk about the climate commitment act I have to tell you guys we um went from about 21% down to 11% and spending in natural resources right your community is in the pristine area where waters are still clean where we still have good habitat where we have good Forest management where your governing bodies are working together the climate commitment Act is so important to us in Washington state because we were able to spend over $338 million in natural resources ources right this is your habitat this is your salmon restoration without this initiative of the climate commitment act we wouldn't be able to do the sustainability that we're trying to do across all governing bodies to sustain salmon right this is your projects in the Nooksack this is your projects up and down and throughout this wira this is addressing and creating infrastructure that's needed that builds clean and cool water and returns habit up back for the salmon so for me really it was an intrical time to stop and pause right are we investing in Salmon adequately or are we dog chase and tail right do we have enough regulations put in place for cool and clean water for Habitat for good clean infrastructure that's going to be built and if we don't how do we better invest in local government tribal government state government to be able to build that infrastructure how do we put those regulations forward because if

we don't we're not going to be able to have enough funding to be able we're not going to be able to have enough funding to support the ongoing struction that we're going to see but you still live in a little piece of where the Creator calls heaven so I'm so excited to be able to say if there's an opportunity to talk about projects coming forward as S I love saying sender Sho make can I just say that so in sender Shoemake says hey we can do really great things where are your projects that you want to do and how do you do it collectively together the work that you guys are doing up here with Sam and with the Nook Nooksack and the lummy nation is really going to make a different and also with with your your Fisheries organizations so line up them projects let's use our natural resource money and save salmon up here so that's my little salmon pitch for the day here I just want to thank everyone that's up here the city was notified recently of a $1.7 million Grant award and that was funded through the climate commitment act it will be for home electrification here for low and moderate um residences and so we're just deeply grateful that is a significant grant that will make a real difference in our climate goals so thank you to all of you thanks mayor council questions comments council member Williams well everything sounded very good but there was one issue that we keep hearing about that didn't come to pass and um maybe you could give us a little perspective on the challenges

that you guys are seeing on that on the issue of rent stabilization and uh let us know some of the uh the challenges that you had getting the legislature to deal with that sure thanks uh thanks for that question um I think you you know this was a passion project project uh for me for the last couple of years and it is disappointing that we have not been able to get that done um the US Census Bureau does a u what they call the poll survey um and every couple of months they come out with new numbers and it's self-reported but we have an estimate of the number of people in Washington state who are getting uh rent increases in different brackets each year or um yeah over the last 12 months from one survey to the next um the bracket for greater than $500 a month increases in the most recent one uh survey that came out had more than a 100,000 people in Washington who experienced a rent increase greater than $500 a month I would lose my home I don't know about everybody else but um that the um the excessive rent increases um that we're observing have to be addressed and unfortunately we we have not yet built the consensus um around the idea of where to draw that line what's an excessive rent increase um how do we treat land owners uh landlords and tenants both fairly under landlord tenant law um it I will say that it was a short session and we got closer than we had gotten last year we we came back with more momentum um I think we had a better worked um proposal this time it passed

the house um it didn't get through the Ways and Means Committee in the Senate I'm hopeful that we will spend uh this interim period um figuring out the consensus point that we can circle around and come back to we need to build more housing in Washington there's um no question those these two ideas are not in competition in my mind we have to build more housing to bring down the cost of both ownership um and tency but that solution is going to take years to come to fruition and in the meantime we need to stabilize the market for tenants um because folks are losing their homes um some of them are moving out of our community and we're losing their talents um in their voices some of them are sleeping in their car the next night um hope we can get that done next year Council further questions council member list is it okay council member if I jump in on that too do you mind is that okay thank you so much I appreciate it councilman Williams thank you for the question because this is really uh an important issue I think in Olympia and statewide right now that we need to be looking at uh as as repere Amal said we did pass that bill out of the house I voted for that bill I didn't think it was perfect but I think we needed to keep it moving and have a conversation um we've invested in our state in ramping up the supply of housing I think we have a housing Supply crisis and uh a shortage crisis a shortage of Supply crisis I should say and that takes time and I think in the interim in

the meantime people are struggling uh myself my family we went through this nearly three years ago our rent right here in Bellingham went up 35% uh $600 a month when we had a one-year-old at the time it's very challenging for our family and when I talk with constituents unfortunately our experience wasn't that unique and because of that I I I hope that we'll bring back something around r stabilization next year I do think there are things that we can do to make the policy better but ultimately when I talked with the bill sponsor in the house she looked me in the eye and said you know Joe I just think this bill is needed for working people and I agree with her on that so I I hope it's something that we can keep moving forward may I coun thank you um you know you want to just learn a little bit of boots on the ground um in the house we were able to work really hard on getting bipartisanship this year whereas correct me if I'm wrong whip raml but in the years before if the Republican Party wasn't going to run it they'll drop 150 amendments on it and it becomes the number one bill of the entire session that became the challenge of boots on the ground that you may be aware of um my respected elected leaders here but the public may not be aware of how do you not move this bill when we know people are suffering every day the other part of it when we ran this year we were able to get to bipartisanship on a not quite perfect bill this year but we got it as far as we could in the house

if you're looking for a strategy sir I believe the strategy would be for every one of your city councils and your counties to draft a letter and get every Community member to make this a priority as best as you can to get a majority this means we need a million different emails coming in this means you coming down to testify this means your leadership making this a priority this means rural communities in Eastern Washington need to stand up and talk about about their differences this means tribes standing up together and partnering with you if we're going to move it past this year lift it up cities and counties take it make it your priority bring the builders with you bring the unions with you bring the tribes with you and make this one of the top five priorities this year which will make it very difficult for the ways and means in the Senate not to Kick the Can over to the Senate but we did it in the house right the Senate needs to stand up and be able to do that but they can't do it unless they hear from Community local control first except for Sharon sender shoemakers and send a love we're all in they're fantastic but we have some other other ones to deal with position another but we had a lot of work in another piece that we also did on housing that we forgot to mention was um there's some opportunities for some lwh hanging fruit at the local level on um repres uh council member Hamill and I were had a meeting uh last winter about it um where we can look at some policy

Innovations to potentially provide more of that supply and also provide a little bit more balance between landlords and tenants so there are opportunities of doing things like um a model lease I had one of this when I was as a graduate student in Davis California it was if you wanted to publish on the housing board you had to have this form of lease and it meant that you know maybe if you hadn't read the 60-page lease like maybe your buddy had read this and it was the same lease it had places to say your rent isn't going to raise more than x% per year so you had that discussion you had discussions about whether or not what were the rules what were the addendums ETC and it put people on a little bit more of an even footing um there's some other opportunities to hold hands of potential landlord I have a little spot that we could potentially build an Adu do I have time for that do I know how to be a landlord no I'm a little busy right now but if there were someone that could walk me through it and handhold me there might be opportunities to get regular folks to see themselves as small property developers which I think democratizes um what our cities look like when we have regular people being able to make these decisions as well um so kind of those opportunities we put them in as a budget request for an office of healthy housing so that the county could work with cities like Bellingham and some of the other small cities and see if we could figure out if we could get a watom

county model lease if we could get a program to create small landlords um and make it easier for them to figure out how to chop off a piece of their house and turn it into an Adu there were a couple of other policy ideas in that I don't know exactly what we're going to go with forward but you know government takes some time to figure out what's the infrastructure who's sitting at the table all of these pieces and hopefully that money will get some of this started so we can have these discussions and potentially create a little bit more opportunity for landlords and tenants and look for where those win-wins are thank you um got council member liist in the queue and then um council member Anderson thanks for coming here I'd love to talk about Workforce housing which you mentioned Alex but I'm going to shift topics um some of the problems we Face are just much bigger than the city and we need a Statewide approach that's one reason why I asked be appointed to an association of Washington City work group we're rewriting the charter for how that organization advocates for the city for legislature and I want the themes to be empowerment and partnership sometimes the ADC has been a little bit defensive I want to go to the idea of empowerment you may be aware that Department of Commerce just released a draft of the five-year homeless housing strategic plan and also an accompanying document on local guidance for counties strategic plans in there one of the things that was added under

um as a result of of public feedback and stakehold of feedback was greater support directly for Behavioral Health Workforce support that problem is way bigger than Bellingham and watom County I think we need a Statewide solution to support people and behavioral health careers and drug treatment careers I think we need active state level actions um so hopefully you're aware of that document and what can you tell me about the thinking in this last term and maybe in the next term on support Behavioral Health and treatment professionals the people who do the work for us thank you council member list I I you're you're totally right I mean we have Workforce CH uh Workforce shortage challenges all over the place and it's not just about building behavioral health clinics but it's about supporting not only workers now but the next generation of workers to go into these fields as well right um I think we have more work to do but I think in my first term here we have done some things um last year I had a bill 1823 that created a low in rate Student Loan program for Graduate Studies in high demand and shortage areas this includes behavioral health and mental health counselors to help have a lower uh you know we have great uh financial aid grants for undergraduate students but for graduate students there's a sticker shock and and this was helped to reduce barriers of folks that want to go into these fields and get a master's degree um to have a lower interest rate than the federal level

in order to go do that so that's one thing that legislature's done we also did a lot of work in the post-secondary education and Workforce that development committee uh the last two years around State interstate compacts to help reduce barriers of folks coming into Washington State and reduce some of that red tape so they can jump into our Workforce this is particularly useful for military families that are on the move a lot um and other folks frankly and so we've we've done that around social workers to help try to reduce some of that as well so if you have that um credential that cert certification in another state you can seamlessly come here and join our Workforce but I'm with you I think more Works to do I I welcome any ideas moveing mov forward because we got we got our work cut out for us on that I think also for thank you it's nice to see you um I think there was a few years ago Frank chop moved a bill for University of Washington that created that training program in reaction to the True Blood as we are getting ready for that settlement to invest in mental and behavior health out of the University of Washington which the interesting component of that was the cultural healing component of that that was needed also so whereas we're moving removing barriers to have Workforce come in we also need to be able to create the training systems to be able to train them and those complement one another so it's been a long-term investment you're absolutely right Anderson thank

you and thank you for coming today and I I think yes the choir I'm going to ask a question a little out of the box because we all well fentol definitely is an issue housing afford ability and uh tenant protections uh Workforce housing all of that environmental infrastructure we just need a lot more support but there's one area that um I'm concerned about as I get older and as family members get older and it's that baby boomer generation which is going to be surging um I'm wondering if there's any initiatives or work at the state level really identifying that caretaking um um whether it's nursing homes or assisted living facilities one um when people are on state assistance it doesn't pay enough um as someone whose mother-in-law was self uh paid for a nursing home for seven years it was about $90,000 a year which depleted everything we could sell off she didn't have to go into State assistance at that point but um one of our local nursing homes has moved to more respit care hospital stay because they get insurance from medical versus long-term care through the state so we're seeing facilities not adequately funded we're seeing some of them switch their service Mission which means there's going to be less beds for that long-term care um and as we talk about mental health definitely we need beds for that but I'm worried whether or not we're going to meet the capacity for our elderly um population who is going to need long-term care who can't afford 9 ,000 a year um so they're

not going to have the ability to shop around so I'm wondering if there's anyone specifically kind of looking at that um to address what's going to what our true need is going to be in 10 years if not now so we're going to have to tag team this a little bit because we all know pieces of this um you you've noticed some good environmental coverage um but it it is really important it is something that we hear from our constituents um in 2019 my first year in the legislature we passed the Long-Term Care Act and this was a result of lots of conversations about how long-term care insurance when you're 40 years old and don't smoke is relatively affordable and what people were seeing is that they as they approached the age of retirement it became more and more expensive to the point that people would drop their coverage because they couldn't afford it right as they started to need it as a result they did an uh uh the auditor did a study to try and figure out how much money would we need to put in to stabilize it to stabilize this Insurance product there was no amount of money that they said that we could stabilize it so we stated we created a state program that's the long-term care act it's been somewhat controversial and there's a repeal of well not exactly a repeal but making it optional which would effectively kill the program um it's a payroll tax that gives you a smaller benefit it's like $36,000 it's not a ton of money but that does help keep people out of their out of a

long-term care facility often it allows you to hire someone to help you out um with your groceries or your cleaning or put grab bars in the shower and we see that the impacts of being able to stay in your home longer that tends to be healthier and Better Living for most people so if we can keep your in your home that's often a win for you and it tends to save the state money as well um we have been increasing the caregiver rate um and this is part of our state budget is that this is something that's really expens I mean you just mentioned it's expensive to fund it's difficult to fund and hopefully everyone gets old um and so it's not it's an expense we don't necessarily want to avoid because we all want to get old and have that wonderful life um but it's something that we're all going to be facing at some point in our life and so it has been something that we've been discussing over and over again in the legislature the caregivers asked for a higher raise than we were able to provide and one of the reasons why as we saw with school funding we really want to make sure that when we're funding people in positions like that the funding is sustainable so a big bump in one particular year I don't know if we necessarily want to put that into hiring a bunch of pair Educators if we're going to have to pull those back the next year and traumatize everyone in that K through 12 situation so as we think about that the long-term care act really does provide provides a lot of cost savings

to the state which means that we can fund more caregivers in other areas once we start to see these Savings kick in um but it also does provide some of that savings for people to have a higher quality of life in their home and I'm sure my colleagues have things to add thanks yeah uh councilman randerson thanks it's great question I really am concerned about um the affordability of folks living on fixed incomes right and uh a couple things in in addition to what Senator schumake said about the long-term care act um I believe and I'll get back to you on this part of our Interstate um compacts that we passed was one around Caregivers for seniors I'll Circle back with you on that and if not I'll talk with colleagues about bringing that up next year to help reduce barriers for folks in that Workforce um a couple bills that I sponsored the last two years and want to thank my colleagues for their support on one this year uh House Bill 1985 had a 3% um cost of living increase for retirees on our pers one and tur one system these are uh retired public servants and public and and Educators um pers two and pers three pension plans have automatic cost of living adjustments pers one don't and so this will uh provide a 3% increase for folks up to $110 a month that's going to have a tangible impact on folks lives um another bill I passed related to these communities uh 1431 I think it was last year was a long time ago but uh it it reduced uh it got rid of a sales tax on prepared meals of

residents in assisted living facilities what we found is that um in these communities in the assistant living facilities you have folks that are receiving Medical Care and their meals were not taxed um but you have folks eating the same meals in the same cafeterias who aren't necessarily receiving that care that medical care but are living in that community so we unanimously passed a bill to get rid of that tax so we are looking at Ways to Think creatively to try to make the cost of living in these tough times uh uh more affordable for seniors it's something I really share your concern on and looking forward to working on Council further questions Council M Stone thank you so much for making the trip and um coming to see us here in Bellingham um and thank you for your work over the yeah the last session I just want to express appreciation and sort of highlighting the The Hope and inspiration that I right hear from you what you're sharing today on a couple of levels one is right we oftentimes are hearing from community members right similar to you hearing from constituents about the struggles right and those problems and people feeling sort of lost about what are the next steps or where do we go and that oh well there's either this at the local level or the state level or the federal level and so then it feels like this pass right pass the bucket like well we can't do anything here and so you need to talk to the next person and so really seeing that instead of an or like a

sorry no or a but or an or it really is an and right it's about those Partnerships and feeling like um when there are struggles here wanting to see as well additional requests knowing they won't all be able to be funded or brought to fruition but additional requests that are being brought forward to you as our colleagues you know down in Olympia um on behalf of you know people here in Bellingham and watcom County and also hoping that members of the public who are watching and listening this presentation understand the role that they play also right rather than feeling sort of um helpless in your current circumstances noting that right testimony and personal stories and those signatures and that additional support plays a critical role in the job that you're able to do down in Olympia and so I just want to express appreciation for articulating that so clearly um tonight because I think that's important not only for community members to hear but for us to hear as well because when we're sitting here here thinking like oh yeah disappointment that you know represent raml and you know the bill for rent stabilization didn't go forward but then thinking about well what did we do locally to help support and push that you know forward and across the line um and so really it's just an appreciation there and and I guess the one question coming out of that might be so recently I had an opportunity um working with the the library right now right the library seeking congressionally

directed spending request um and and obviously that's from the the federal government and so talking to right our Senators and representatives at that level but trying to figure out what are those ways best right to stay in communication and so um represent RL I think you were saying you know if you our delegation's tight and we're all you know fairly aligned and so if you speak to one of us it's good as speaking to all of us and so whether right if there's any system that you would prefer or how to approach that and that is there an opportunity for quarterly you know meetings or it's a you know one-on-one Outreach or what's the best way right when those ideas and things are coming forward um those opportunities for communication and collaboration with you all if there's a preference do you mean opportunities for funding well whether because sometimes the question is right you needed um a funding source and it's like well we don't really know exactly where that would plug in and so my thought is to defer to The Experts and hoping you bring forward an idea and then hopefully you're working with um Representatives down in Olympia to figure out where to plug that right where to plug that in and so one is how does the communication come to us about when there are opportunities that present themselves when you're talking about the um it had to do with ebikes and right it's like when things like that come up and there's an opportunity for us to say okay we want to be supportive of

that or take advantage of that or you know apply or whatever that might look like um how does that communication come to us or where should we be looking to stay apprised of opportunities like that and then on the reverse if we have requests or ideas right how best is that communicated to you so your um department heads are pretty good at getting grants and programs and we always appreciate that those are competitive Grant processes and then we have little pots of money that for things that don't fit like I heard from Nicole that we do a great job um funding outdoor recreation but we don't have pots for indoor and I was like well gosh that seems kind of dumb maybe we should fix that who could oh wait that's us um and so we have little pots of money we call the Community projects there's more in odd years than there are in even years and that the point of that is that there's things that other state legislators aren't necessarily seen in their communities there's things that don't fit the small cities have been asking us for more of this than Bellingham has Bellingham has not been asking us for capital budget dollars through these little programs um we also have if there's a program like the office of healthy housing and you're like I don't know where the operating dollars for this are what can I do um come talk to us if it's in the 40th District they'll be like talk to Alex and Deb if it's in the 42nd they'll be like talk to Sharon and Joe um and so we'll help you figure

those pieces out um I'll be honest I'm not always aware of every single Grant your department your staff is probably way better at it than what I know I just know ebikes because I love it um but um otherwise like please come talk to us about those grants and then the transportation projects those can come to us directly too but you also want to work through the Cog with that the Cog does a good job of working together and prioritizing and unless there's some reason why I think I should override the Cog generally I try and stick with what the Cog has suggested and that's the Council of governments yes know it might be really incredibly different and outside of the box because I'm always that person right it'd be interesting mayor lond if Now's the Time for you to identify your projects and your priorities and your agency and your departments are creating that bring us into those work sessions now Now's the Time to let us know what do you need in Social Services what do you need in housing what do you need infrastructure Transportation recovery you know etc etc what is it you're looking for now prioritize it bring us in now and then we can just talk in process and following My friend Sharon here you identify them we bring the staff up we bring the people up we understand what you all are looking for in projects whether it's Capital facilities whether it's Transportation project so you want to do an inventory of how much renewable energy it's going to take to transfer over to

all of the renewable energy Alex is going to make you need the project we're going to be the pilot we're going to run the project we're going to draft it we're going to run it out there and we'll find the funding for it that gives us six months of leeway time to work with Vice chairs and chairs of committies Vice share of transportation to be able to move those projects now we're don't tell the rest of the Cities this but we'll be ahead of it if we could get wam County and you can get the city of Bellingham you can have lumination you can have noack Nation saying these are our 10 top priorities in every different service in here capital budget projects here's a Lobby here's a go it's cooked and we can come down and we can't guarantee but we can certainly lift it following the leadership of what Sharon's saying but get prepared and do pre-planning we'll be 10 steps ahead and if if I could just jump in on a couple more things because I agree with all this and uh council member Stone thanks it's a great question right of like you know we allocate these M these funds to pots and how do we get the pots done local jurisdictions you know I try to share information of Grant programs when they come out but um I'm not aware as Senator schum said of everything out there right I don't it's it's there's a lot of different buckets of funds if you have a project or a program you want to fund please reach out anytime and I'm happy to connect with Commerce or the other state agencies to see

if we have buckets of money that you could apply for in a competitive Grant Pro uh program for that you know uh Senator schumake and I were just in North County meeting with constituents up there and there was a local Transit issue and we reached out to uh you WTA about it and then watch do to see if there's funding at the state level to help WTA at the local level fund this program that they can no longer fund and it sounds like there might be an opportunity for that so that's an opportunity where we can connect the dots and help bring some of the state funding back to our community and if you're not hearing from uh state agencies about your application please let us know sometimes a friendly nudge from legislators can help break through that and then lastly I'll just say you know Co was awful for everybody and I don't mean to rehash that but one of the one of the benefits of it that came out of it I'd say is the use of technology in in terms of virtual testimony we weren't able to testify remotely before covid in legislature and now we are and what that means if a bill comes up we have community members and council members and everyone can testify right here in Bellingham instead of traveling two and a half hours to Olympia you know for an for a minute and a half a testimony so please you utilize that as well now that we have that tool in our toolbox Council further questions I'll uh I'll take a a turn here um so we um we wam County and Bellingham are facing some issues

with competency restoration for folks that are uh languishing in our jail system and I was just looking at an email from the public defender um a average impatient restoration for Washington State Hospital uh about 320 days and so that means people they sit in the jail they're not getting any better these are folks that have a mental health illness they're um they're um public defender or the the judge said look you you are unable to assist in your own defense and you don't understand your charges those are the two criteria uh so we need to make sure that your competency is restored um so they in theory then go to Washington State uh Western sead Hospital Yakama has a residential treatment facility um there's another one called Maple Lane we have some some resources that are online but this these uh this data is from uh February 10th of this of this year so it's fairly new data um I I guess my question is um are there any plans to try to come up with something to I don't know allow for local jurisdictions to do perhaps outpatient and assist in that uh capacity or uh plans to add capacity at the the the RTF the residential treatment facilities I just mentioned thank you I I actually just came from Aberdine uh where was I yesterday thank you for that question sender Wellman sender Wilson uh and uh chair Goodman are all talking about this critical issue of mental and Behavioral Health and incarcerated and how do we provide better assistance better support better funding to local

pilot projects where this could be one of the tools where you would be able to fit in what you all are building up here and that service would be delivered through the state into local government to address that shortfall um the bill is being talked about the steps are being talked about the funding to local government are being talked about it's not an answer that it can have today but thank you for saying that and talking about it today because I just find it very interesting that I had that Round Table discussion yesterday uh down in abine talking about that same crisis I think the New York Times had an article on that um this morning as well um so if I'm following your question I guess I'd like to follow up with you council member Hamill and better understand sort of your suggested solution um I what you're referring to is um what we we're talking about earlier the True Blood case um which Washington State's been under court order to try to fix that problem for going on a decade now um it's it's convoluted and complicated and if if you've got a piece of the solution that we should be thinking about I'm I'm all ears um but I I I'm not sure if what you're suggesting is allowable under that court order but happy to go and uh dig in and better understand understand yeah happy to follow up offline I I serve on a commy restoration work group along with judges and County prosecutor public defenders and others that we're trying to figure this out uh it's just uh people are are

languishing in in the jail these are these are prec conviction if they're if they are convicted so these are folks that Drew charges they're they're innocent until proven guilty and they're but they're sitting there so uh yes I think that maybe um that work group and you and I can maybe put put our heads together maybe all four of you be happy to do that so one other one other thing I'll just mention that's um related but um an important part of how we can reduce incarceration reduce recidivism in in wam County coming out of wam County's Justice plan uh that that was published last year one of the line items in there uh one of the bullet points was uh to follow California's example on the Medicaid waiver so that we can get um Medicaid coverage for folks who are in county jail for the last 90 days or so that they're there so that as they transition out of jail um pre-release they're able to get medical services including prescriptions and um substance abuse uh treatment prescriptions uh Behavioral Health uh prescriptions Etc as well as um ongoing care um you know folks who can meet with them both in jail and then after release out of jail um there's going to be a pilot program that we authorized in this budget we're um authorized under the federal government uh for that waiver we have to fund it and we have to figure out the details of implementing it which are always harder than you would think uh but I'm hopeful that wam County can be an early adopter of that program I think

it will both save our community a lot of money um but also be a big factor in reducing recidivism thank you representative any further questions okay we'll get you home by bedtime it looks like so um I just want to say that um I see a lot of alignment between um the work that we all do I I don't think I was I was taking notes though most of the time here and I can't think of a single thing that I disagreed with um we are speaking the same language when it comes to um Equity inclusion um um making sure that our our public is safe uh so I want to continue that those discussions and I think at some point soon this body will be um putting together working with the the mayor's office a legislative agenda to to speak to what was brought up tonight in terms of um you know coming forward with proposals and ideas so we can kind of get those worked out so I wanted to uh thank you on behalf of the uh Bellingham city council um and the administration if I'm okay to do that um to for coming out tonight and sharing uh and thank you so much for the work that you do we really appreciate you thank you thanks again for the opportunity thank you okay um our next item is the mayor's report thank you Jackie good evening Council good evening members of the community uh mayor's report tonight I have a few appointments the first is to the mayor's neighborhood advisory committee this is for information only and that is that I will be reappointing Brio hair as the lettered streets neighborhood

representative for her final term the second is for your approval and those are the appointments for the Wacom racial Equity commission and I am very pleased to present the joint appointments for the Slate of the inaugural members of the Wacom racial Equity commission the members presented have been vetted and recommended to me and County Executives s do by the rec appointment committee who who the committee members volunteered considerable time and thoughtfulness to guide us to this point these inaugural members represent broadly diverse communities across watcom County with consideration to geography income age race ethnicity and areas of expertise and they all hold a demonstrated commission a commitment to advance the work of the commission the Wacom County Council confirmed the Slate on members on April 9th of this year and today I'm seeking the council's conf confirmation words are escaping me of the Full Slate of members as recommended by the appointment committee so I am pleased to read the Slate of appointees to you today and that is RA Vader Eric mcf Frasier Gabriela mono J Manuel Raa Kush BR Terren TJ Morris Rachel Rosalinda Rodriguez Brent muskovich Eric Scott Frank Lee Jason McGill Lance Edward Jones Zenia junier uh yazil dipe Castro Julietta Garcia sarez Scott Rickman Chia Ying Wu ltia Zamora and Martha Lopez approval sorry second well I guess I don't need to do that uh motion been made by council member Stone and seconded by council member liquis is there any

discussion on this go ahead Michael no discussion just I really appreciate uh passing this Milestone and all the people who've helped to get us here I look forward to a fully empowered uh spal Equity commission um because I think there's some unmet needs and some un unfinished discussions cmer hman thank you I uh also wanted to thank the appointment Committee in this stage uh it's been a long journey um to get to this point but but uh these these folks put in a lot of work to sift through 40 some folks and and Whittle it down to 19 so Dr dman Johnson uh Dr Francisco Rios Elana steel Elana steel Dr Pamela wheeler guava Jordan uh and Lee langon who um are all you so many have been a part of this process before um and so uh thanks to their work I also wanted to thank our former council member Christina Michelle Martins who was a part of this process um from those first meetings um before she I think considered being on Council even so um I wish she could be an honorary eighth vote uh tonight but um shout out to Christina as well um yeah okay I'm going to take a turn I also want to thank a very special member of the audience uh this evening who's put in a tremendous amount of time on uh on the racial Equity commission and the development thereof um council member Huffman and I and counc member former council member Martins uh were a part of that process but it was um I was um not surprised by the the level of leadership but impressed by it uh suing XO is an amazing member of our

community and I wanted to just call you out and thank you for all the work that you put into it and I will be voting in support of this this evening any further discussion uh seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed abstentions recusals motion carries 70 thank you Council the newly seated commission will have its first meeting this week and we are actively recruiting for an executive director to lead this commission and Advance its important Mission the vision for the commission is that all Races in wakam County live Thrive and belong for who they are as they are without fear every day and I indeed have Equity belonging and safety on our mind as I think about some several high-profile concerns that are being brought to light in our community I mentioned the other week in an email to all staff about how we are working to create a safe and respectful workplace and that as Leaders we must acknowledge our power and I'm grateful for the city leaders and indeed the members of council who share in this commitment we must use our positions to continue the shift forward so that everyone feels saf feels respected feels valued and receives the services to which they are entitled and to that end I wanted to share with Council that I will be traveling with Chief hwit and our County Partners out to Lumi Nation later this week to address some of the concerns that chairman hair has recently raised on another note I wanted to say that on Wednesday May 8th at 5:30 I will

be speaking at the downtown neighborhood association meeting at Boundary Bay Brewings outdoor space downtown is everyone's neighborhood so I invite all community members who are interested in attending and learning more about what's happening downtown to attend that meeting and lastly I am happy to announce that we are now accepting online applications for the 2024 round of small and simple grants and online applications is a big move forward so we're excited about the development the program is funded by the mayor's office to advance neighborhood Le projects that make positive neighborhood improvements and encourage Community engagement and this year grants of up to $5,000 are available to each neighborhood to focus work on three categories including Communications and connections so this could be for facility rentals food at meetings uh Communications to all members of a neighborhood the neighborhood sign program which has proven tremendously popular we s um requests to continue and advance that work and topical to today's conversation about the urban forestry plan grants are available for neighborhood tree planting projects so there are more details for interested neighborhood associations to apply on the city's website and that concludes mayor's report tonight thank you mayor I'm going to go to committee reports and the first one was 10 o'clock this morning um Public Works natural resources and that is chaired by council member Hannah Stone thank you president Hamill so

this morning during the public works and natural resources committee I'm joined by council members Anderson and Lila Quist um this morning we had two items before us the first was agenda Bill 2499 so this is a contract award for wour Street site maintenance and operation facilities improvements project this is e f171 the W Street site maintenance and operation facilities Improvement project will construct a shared operations facility for the parks and Public Works departments the shared site will host two new Secure Storage facilities a shared bulk material storage area winter brine Center and a larger more functional area for the parks Nursery program the construction includes enhanced pedestrian Crossings a raised crosswalk on Old wurn Street an enhanced flashing crosswalk on wurn street and Ada sidewalk ramp improvements along wurn Street and Old wurn Street the city publicly opened five bids on April 10th 20124 Faber construction is the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of 6,876 22875 including applicable sales tax the engineer estimate for this Construction contract is 5,328 71569 despite the low bid being higher than the engineers's estimate staff recommends Award of the contract also noting that the project includes a 15% um apprenticeship requirement um so that's always good news um this morning we heard from Public Works director Eric Johnston as well as Mike Olinger the um assistant director for operations just wanted to also note that we

were joined by Carol rothar the Public Works superintendent of facilities as well as Chris JX who's the facility's project manager um and just wanted to note in this project there was that um large difference or at least a significant difference between the engineers estimate and the bids that came in um and just noting that after the engineers estimate that there um was noted that the ADA requirements um for this project had not been included so that was included before the bids were accepted um from um responders but therefore the the cost difference so that's not going to be a separate change order um that will be a part of the initial bid um accepted and so there was a unanimous recommendation um from the committee that this morning to award the contract to favor construction and I so move second motion's been made by the chair and seconded by council member Anderson any further discussion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusal motion carries 7-0 thank you the next item before us this morning was agenda Bill 2410 this was regarding The Pedestrian master plan and the bicycle master plan updates so the Bellingham pedestrian master plan was adopted by City Council back in August of 2012 and the bicycle master plan was adopted in October of 2014 the city is now updating both of these plans to ensure ongoing implementation in order to make the city's multimodal Transportation Network more safe Equitable and connected which will

encourage more people to walk bike and roll for their daily Transportation needs the plans each include information about policy recommendations facility design and maintenance Network recommendations programmatic actions and implementation so the Transportation Commission endorsed the plans at their April 9th 20124 meeting the plans are available on the city website at cob.org Pro PBM P2022 staff presented a brief summary of the community engagement process that informed the plans as well as key plan elements um and it was brought forward um this morning for information and discussion only um at the meeting we heard from Public Works director Eric Johnston um as well as Tim Wilder who's the vice chair for the Transportation Commission was able to join us um in addition to presentation from Joel fun who's the assistant Public Works director for transportation here at the city of Bellingham um and just also wanted to note that um Natalie Monroe was with us um who's with Public Works communication and Outreach um as well as Dylan Casper who is new to public works um just starting with the city but as Transportation planner um so just wanting to highlight all of the work that's been going into the um work and development of these plan updates there had been significant um turnover within the public works department as well as with the um Consultants who'd been helping with the development of these um plans and the and the updates proposed and so there was a recommendation from

um from the Transportation Commission just wanting to highlight um that the Transportation Commission was also requesting that City staff add um review of additional measurements and targets related to both The Pedestrian master plan and bicycle master plan goals um to the 2025 commission work plan and so there was substantial discussion today just wanting to let members of the public know you could go back and watch that meeting which is recorded in um in its entirety um and so this was for information and discussion only but we will be seeing this item again at our next meeting which will be on May 20th um for further discussion and consideration um but for today it was just for information so with that we adjourned and I'll turn it back to you president Hamill thank you council member Stone the next uh committee meeting was community and economic development that was chaired by council member jce cotton thank you council president uh we had one agenda Bill item before us today that was um bill number 24101 um and uh I was joined by council members Huffman and stone um although due to uh council member Stone serving on the board of the opportunity Council uh there was a recusal and Council me member lilis was generous enough to substitute and our one item before us was the 2024 HUD uh consolidated action plan also known as the action plan uh which is required by the federal um Department of Housing and Urban Development um and it identifies the activities to be funded uh by

the federal Community Development block grants the home investment partnership program um uh during the July to June program year and these activities um have to be consistent with the five-year Consolidated plan um that outlines Community needs and priorities the city uses the action plan to budget for its local housing Levy affordable housing sales tax and related general fund expenditures uh we received a um edifying presentation from um Samu yutz U from the planning and Community Development Department and uh there was a unanimous uh recommendation uh to uh pass the resolution adopting the action plan um and I so move second motion's been made by the chair uh and seconded by council member Huffman any further discussion don't see any so I'll call the question um all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 60 end of committee report thank you all right we'll go to the next committee and that's Committee of the whole I share that one and we had a number of items this afternoon um first was an update from the Port of Bellingham we had um executive director Rob fcks from the port providing an update on the waterfront projects and the Bellingham shipping terminal it was largely um surrounding the shipping terminal and what the future um impacts will be in in good and challenging uh economic impacts uh as as well uh it looks like um they're wanting to they're spending about 20 plus million dollars on dredging uh the other side of the

shipping facility the the side of it that's right um off the the pier and in order to bring in bigger ships and there was some discussion about um rolling on rolling off um products like tractors and electric cars and things like that in order to do that effectively there would need to be a mile long spur um from uh Burlington Northern to connect with the port uh property they don't want to just load them on of trucks and ship them off that way so they need the the train um the railroad tracks to do that there was more there was more discussion about um the other part of the Waterfront that the members of the of the public can go to and people have gone down and probably been on um um why am I blanking Laurel and um what is the other three Greenery um and then your know track site is down there there's some uh Mill works is being built which is an affordable housing um structure uh so we talked about that as well there's some questions that came up but I would would encourage you if you're interested in what's going on at the port to to take a look at the video that video um if you go back tomorrow and look at it it was the one that started at 1:00 this afternoon the next was a request for the next item was a request for Council to send a letter of support for grant funding for Community Court I'll just read the brief summary statement here the munity court Municipal Court was seeking a council's unanimous approval to seek uh grant funding from the administrative office of

the Courts for the community Court that's being launched this Fall Court seeking funding for a halftime prosecutor fees for participants needing sup um probation supervision team training and travel office supplies computer and Recovery supports um this afternoon the the count or the committee recommended approval and I so move second motion's been made by the chair and seconded by council member Huffman and now that we we did not have a full compliment of council we had um skip was excused this afternoon but now now we are here and it does require every signature or a signature from every council member um I'll go and call the question all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carries 7-0 okay okay um the next was an interlocal agreement with wam County regarding the public health safety and Justice Facility financing and use of sales tax revenue so this is an interlocal agreement um between the city and the county so it's in the packet it's also will be on or is online and this is uh this governs the use of the additional 2/10 of 1% sales tax sales and use tax for public health safety Justice is authorized by voters in November 2023 general election um as this inter locals um proposed the cities will transfer 75% of tax proceeds to the county for the first 54 months of collection as a Le or as a capital contribution to the new public health safety and Justice Facility funds are not used to construct and finance the facility or pardon me

funds not used for uh construction and financing the facility and at at least 50% of funds collected countywide at the completion of the city's Capital contribution will be used in support of the Justice project implementation plan and this afternoon the council or the committee rather voted to approve and ISO move second motions been made by The Chair seconded by council member Anderson any further discussion on this one go ahead council member list uh there's rather complicated table which actually has some labels aren't quite right in here but what it does is it summarizes the hundreds of million millions of dollars that this uh countywide leevy will be gathering over the next few decades and the thing I want to point out and the thing that was sometimes uh lost in the debate is most of the money is not going to build the jail and people wondered whether or not that was actually going to be the case whether or not the rest of the implementation plan that talks about re-entry support and prevention of crimes uh and support for people with mental illnesses or drug addictions that get them involved in crime but if we treat those underlying problems and restore the people to functional uh status crimes won't happen most of the money by a little small fraction goes towards those other aspects of the mation plan and the question is is it really going to work out that way this is a legally binding document this is a contract enforcable which says this is how the money will be

spent the implementation plan and the funding scheme that was outlined before this document puts it down in a different document that makes it the actual plan that has to be followed that is until the implementation CH is revised and by the way you will see that happen publicly there is a financial oversight board which will monitor this and make sure the money is being spent according to implementation plan so if you're one of the people who didn't like the idea of spending all this money in jail please realize many of us were also fighting for the other aspects to prevent crime to address root causes to make the community safer by not treating it as a criminal Problem by treating it as a problem in many other ways further discussion motions on the table um all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carry 70 next item is a related it's an ordinance creating a fund to account for the new 2/10 of 1% sales and use tax for public health safety and Justice um in November 2023 general election qualif electors of wam County voted to authorize an additional 2/10 of 1% sales and use tax for public health safety and Justice um of the count countywide 210 the cities receive 40% of the revenues on a per capita basis this ordinance creates a new fund to account for these new revenues and this afternoon the um the committee voted to to pass this ordinance and ISO move second second motions been made by the chair Council or second my council member hman any

further discussion on this one okay I don't see any um all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions recusals motion carry 70 just give me a minute here 197 okay apologize for the delay on that one the next item was an ordinance amending the 2023 2024 by annual budget this was amendment number 13 this ordinance amends the 2023 2024 budget by adding revenues and expense to account for the new public health safety and Justice uh sales tax and adds uh 2.0 um FTS or full-time equivalents and Associated expenses in the mayor's office the new sales tax fund will also be used to account for opiate settlement dollars the ordinance includes recognition of current year opiate revenues and transfers in previous years's opiate revenues from the general fund and this afternoon motion P motion carried 60 and I I so move Z that was close Ty goes to the runner in baseball um so council member Williams uh we give him the second any further discussion all right seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed extensions motion carries 70 okay the next one was uh a lengthy discussion um people in the Das like to talk about trees this was the urban forestry and canvi plan um it's been getting a lot of tension in just well for a while now um the city of Bellingham is creating a strategic Urban Forest plan to help maintain a healthy and desirable Urban Forest through well-coordinated consistent and sustainable long-term Urban Forest management the plan outl outlines a

series of actions to preserve and enhance the urban Forest to help achieve goals outlined in the climate action plan and the comprehensive plan plan is uh based on the aspirational goal of achieving a 45% tree canopy coverage within the city in an equal 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 plan will be in early summer 2024 it's coming right up the draft plan is available on the city website at cob.org UFM on April 15 2024 staff presented key elements of the plan and Council requested additional time for questions and discussion of the draft plan which was the purpose of the the work session this afternoon there was a far- ranging discussion with there was a really great presentation encourage folks to go back and look at the video but also good uh discussion from I think pretty much everyone who's who sits up here and had opinion on um how to do this um fairly and equitably um we don't want the a tension we don't want tension between housing affordable housing Housing Development and an urban the 45% so we want to figure out a way to to find a good balance on that and we're all committed we being the council and the staff um are committed to to doing that so I would recommend if folks are interested in that item to go back and look at that one and that one it went for an hour and 20 minutes somehow we still mean we managed to be ahead of

schedule which I'm I don't know how that happened but um but anyway it's it's it was very good discussion and I would encourage folks to to check that out the last item was a review of Lake Wacom Management program uh the draft for the five-year work plan and that was presented by council member Hannah Stone um 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 watom County and the Lake watom Water and Sewer District the 2025 20129 document will outline the efforts that these local entities will Implement over the next 5 years to further uh the goals of Lake Wacom Management program Lake Wacom policy group is seeking input from the city for the plan for the before that plan that is being uh drafted final plan will be ready for Council review later this year and like I said council member Stone uh walked us through we talked about land preservation items under these the following topics land preservation storm water land use monitoring data um hazardous materials um um uh aquatic invasive species and um utilities and transportation there's a lot going on this is the drinking water supply for well over 100,000 people um in this County including the city of Bellingham and I wanted to thank council member Stone I'll recognize you just a sec um for bringing this forward this is very important work this policy group uh meets on a regular basis and really tries to um

do the best they can for our uh drinking water Supply cons arm Stone yeah I just wanted to briefly highlight there were a couple of acronyms in the support materials that were not defined and so one was just HIP number of community members are probably already familiar with the hip program but in case you're not that's the homeowner incentive program um that the city operates and then PE boom is the phosphorus and bacteria optimized operations and maintenance um and then in addition low PE materials just highlighting low phosphorus so mostly related to landscaping and things of that sort but identifying what materials are safest to be used there in the Watershed um so since those weren't spelled out in the support document um that was in the packet I just want to make sure that those acronyms were noted back to you thank you Council M Stone okay any old or new business for this evening okay I don't see any um that'll take us to Executive session so we had six items this afternoon for executive session I'll just read the report real quick here the first item was potential property acquisition with um Alan Mariner staff provided information on a potential property acquisition um this was for information discussion no action was taken second was also a potential property acquisition also with Alan Mariner staff provided information on a potential property acquisition this was also for information and discussion and no action was taken third item was um litigation Loi versus

Northwest Youth Services and city of Bellingham this is with Attorney James herb staff provided information on a litigation matter this was for information discussion no action was taken fourth item was Labor Relations uh this was discussion or discuss collective bargaining strategy this is with Elizabeth uh Monahan uh staff provided information on a labor relations matter and this is for information discussion no action was taken fifth item was potential property acquisition this is with at stamps uh staff provided information on a potential Lake Wacom Watershed property acquisition totaling uh 6 Acres with one potential development unit so I will now entertain a motion to authorize the mayor to close the real estate transaction described in the city's executed purchase and and sale agreement with the property owner Ellie Anderson with a purchase price of $25,000 and with closing to occur on or around May 17th 2024 move approval second motion's been made by council member Anderson and second by council member Huffman any further discussion on this okay seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose extensions recusals motion carries final item was potential litigation this was with Amy cram uh staff provided information on a potential litigation matter and this was for information and discussion no action was taken consent agenda approval second um motion's been made by council member lillquist and seconded by council member Huffman any further discussion

seeing none all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed exensions recusals motion carries 70 final consideration of ordinances agenda B 24089 an ordinance amending the 2023 2024 byal budget amendment number 12 third and final second uh third and final give to council member Anderson second uh council member Huffman uh roll call please Hannah Stone hi hly Huffman hi Skip Williams hi Lisa Anderson hi Michael liquis hi Jace cotton hi Dan Hamill hi motion carries 70 okay that will take us to our public comment period and this is going to take us just a couple of minutes to convert to the technology that we need to use for this and while that's um being done I'm going to ask our staff to put up the public comment rules and I will go through those with everyone here in Chambers for