City Council - Regular Meeting

[Music] welcome everyone I call to order the regular meeting of the Bellingham city council this July 1st 2024 I am council president protm Holly huthman sitting in for uh council president Hamill as he is out on an excused absence uh first up we have a couple uh announcements uh first we actually have a land acknowledgement statement we acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional and unseated territory of the lumy noac samish and seamu people who have cared for and tended this land since time immemorial truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of Heritage and difference We Begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth we pay respect to their Elders past and present please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence displacement migration and settlement that bring us together here today today and please please join us in uncovering such truths at any and all public events and then a couple announcements uh Billingham city council provides Spanish interpretation at all regular evening meetings interpretation can be accessed by inperson attendees by utilizing the headsets located at the front of the room remote viewers can log into to cob.org CZ as in CC as in city council zoom and click on the language icon at the bottom of the screen to listen listen in Spanish uh there is a public hearing regarding the landmark tree ordinance coming up on July 15 2024 the city

council will hold a public hearing to take public comment on ordinance 20245 d07 relating to the preservation of landmark trees declaring an emergency and establishing interim development regulations with respect to landmarked trees throughout the city this emergency ordinance was was passed on May 20th 2024 the council is holding a public hearing for this emergency ordinance on July 15th in accordance with RC w3670 a390 further information about the ordinance can be found at cob.org Services environment trees SL tree- protection you can also just go to c meetings.

c .org and find the agenda for this meeting and click on the link um roll call please can we pause to have our interpreter say the language access piece thank you now roll call please recording in progress all right Hannah Stone here skip Williams here Lisa Anderson here Michael liquis here jce cotton here Holly Huffman here all right six council members are here with council president Hamill excused thank you up first we have a public hearing this is a public hearing on the surplus of station 10 property the city has owned the house and real property at 858 East Smith Road that has been used as medic station 10 since uh 2002 in 2023 an additional medic unit was added to the system creating the need to move several units to new stations to adapt to new coverage areas after this adjustment station 10 became Surplus to the needs of the fire department per BMC 4.84 one0 b a real estate Review Committee was assembled to review the city's need for the property after completing the review the committee has recommended that the property be declared Surplus and placed on the real estate market for negotiated sale and here with more we have Chief uh Bill huitt all right thank you good evening Council Bill H with the fire department and don't have a whole lot to add I will um up on the screen there um the property we're talking about is located just west of the intersection of Hanigan Road and Smith Road it's uh a house uh essentially what was originally a house that we oversized the

garage on the house to be able to fit an ambulance inside of it um it served us since 2002 and uh but after the reshuffling of medic units when we added a unit it was no longer needed um was not geographically relevant to how we were deploying um as stated in the agenda Bill there uh we per The BMC we did convene a real estate Review Committee that committee included City or assistant City attorney Matt stamps myself our finance director Andy asbi Orson and then we also enlisted uh Matt goset who's the real property manager with public works department to provide us some assistance uh we went through and looked at it met all the requirements in The BMC um for that review We queried other City departments to see if there was any interest in the property um which there was none we actually took an additional step and reached out to fire district 21 which this property lies within the boundaries of fire district 21 reached out to them they had no particular interest in the property um and we also spoke with the Department of Natural Resources as they've been actually been storing a uh Wildland engine at this location for the last year while we've been sorting out what to do with it uh but again neither party had an interest in purchasing um the property is in the unincorporated area of wam County it is outside the urban growth area the zoning in the area is r5a under the wam county code um so the basically the property there can't be further subdivided or U creating any

additional units there other than um it has a conditional use permit for us to be able to use the use it as a fire station when it ceases being a fire station the underlying zoning basically would it would revert back to being a single family residence um we had an appraisal done on the property in February of this year that appraisal came in around 710,000 um after review by the committee um and speaking with Matt who has kind of our um a better probably better picture than any of the other folks on the real estate committee about um the use and surplus of properties here in the city um we believe that the best course of action was to place the property on the real estate market for a negotiated sale so that's the that's how we landed there and then as per The BMC part of um part of this process does need to be a uh public hearing before we make any final decisions so here we are thank you Chief any clarifying questions from Council before we open the public hearing okay seeing none we will open the public hearing um and a reminder this is a public hearing just about this matter there will be public comment open public comment period later tonight uh do we have some folks signed up yeah we have two individuals signed up um first up is Todd Lusty and Carrie Burnside after that thank you my name is Todd lagy and I'm here as a private citizen I'm not representing any Union I might have affiliation with nor any government agency I might be associated with and I'm here to give

some perspective and hisory tonight about specifically this property and as it ties to the city of bellingham's finances you see this last weekend I attended a line of duty death funeral for Leslie Smith she was a firefighter a lieutenant at North wam fire and she died of liver cancer and her employer uh even though liver cancer is not a presumptive disease for firefighters her employer stepped up to the plate and covered her and respected her sacrifice and declared it a line of duty death whereas the city of Bellingham when faced with a very similar issue Neil carlberg a firefighter for over 33 years with the city he got esophageal cancer and instead of actually recognizing him and his disease and the science that shows that firefighters get esophageal cancer specifically much more than the general public and die from it at a 30 to a 100% increased mortality rate the city of Bellingham spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight him to take him and his soon Tobe Widow to court so that they could deny her his pension when he died the reason this is so tied to this property is that the history of this is in 2004 the city of Bellingham put on the ballot a funding mechanism for EMS and that was an EMS Levy and it failed but the firefighters Union of which Neil was a dues paying member a member in good standing and an active member of at the time and then until his retirement and then past his retirement the city of Bellingham benefited because the firefighters went out and

spent their Goodwill and their capital and their money and their good name to try to get funding for the city and when that failed then they went out and tried to get a sales tax and that provided funding to the Ms system that allowed it to go until 2016 when again the firefighters went out and used their good name their Capital they raised capital from the county citizens to pass an EMS Levy that supplanted the funding that the city of Bellingham and the wam County provided to the EMS system so the city of Bellingham took that money back into the general fund and spent it wherever they want part of that went to the money that fought Neil and people like that man sitting to your right mayor Lund are the people that advised the city to fight Neil and so I just want you to recognize that you didn't have to do that because there are employers out there like the city of Seattle that covered their three firefighters thank you T and Spokan Valley that covered their firefighter and you didn't have to do that d [Music] good evening my name is Carrie Burnside and good evening Council City staff Maryland I'm an organizer with the Bellingham Tenants Union and I am a former volunteer firefighter I was a lieutenant with watcom County District 8 and following that I feel obligated to just take a moment of silence in honor of all those who have given service to our city and county and risk their lives doing so and because I only have three minutes it was a brief moment I am a hoping that

this sale could be a potential sale that could go to kosan land trust and be uh an opportunity that can get new homeowners that uh could benefit from kosan Land Trust program or something similar and if that's not a possibility that profits from this sale can be utilized to go towards our ever growing housing crisis in any way possible so please consider that we are in a housing crisis in every decision that you make and look for those opportunities where we can chip away at that housing crisis and be creative in solving it because as you know our biggest deficit is in the housing for the 0 to 50% Ami and we're just not going to build that and so we have to really look at how are we going to meet that deficit and this could potentially be a small piece in that so I hope you consider it thank you for your time thank you Carrie and are there any oh go ahead Yoshi uh thank you members of audience staff members of the city council Madam mayor uh I'd like to remind us that um we cannot own this call it a piece of property uh but it is impossible to own it either publicly or privately we are stewards you're caretakers of a gift all of us are as a matter of fact what we're looking at here is a gift we are stewards of that gift we are caretakers of a gift it is impossible ble to own it either publicly or privately thank you Yoshi any go ahead Chris hi my name is Christopher Dam homeless I've got allergies really bad uh but um I I was um motivated to speak after hearing Carrie

burnight with uh provide the suggestion of using it for housing you know the property and of course I mean that just I've been so upset this week you know the past few days that I couldn't help but talk about it to try and talk about um how important that would be or how you know anything you know just to try to um address the issue and the the the uh the other part is I thought was it um not only that but if it could be used for in specific because of the racial crimes that have happened this past two weeks the racial attacks if it can have something in correlation with that of um uh something in in line of that I I don't know I wanted to uh elaborate on this but the Supreme Court decision to allow the uh criminalizing sleeping in public it ties right in with this and the homeless people with nowhere to sleep would not be criminalized and as a supreme court does not see this as a violation of the eth I'll go into this during the public comment but what car burd side said is it is pertinent to this and um anything we can do um I'd be encouraged by because I'm like super super depressed by what's going on thank you anybody else wish to speak on the public hearing okay I will go ahead and close the public hearing Council council member Stone um thank you so that was something that I noted in the memo so my understanding is that the city purchased the property right using Medic One funds and the understanding is that if this property was put up for sale that those funds from the

sale would then be deposited back into the medic One Fund um I believe that's a requirement that those funds then stay or return to The Medic One Fund and so I was curious if um anyone can specify what those Medic One funds can be used for if that if that is true if it needs to stay in the fund yeah that you are correct the property was purchased with Medic One funding and the uh sale of the property uh proceeds from it would return to The Medic One Fund Medic One Fund is what we use to fund our ALS program um and um so that's essentially what the money would be returning back to is is back into the ALS program um more than likely it would basically be used to buy down the loan that we took out from the general fund um last year year before um that we've been paying back um because that fund was um the fund was upside down there for the first uh cycle of the EMS Levy so follow so for members of the public that might not know the ALS uh yeah Advanced life support are are paramedic countywide paramedic system member Anderson I do have a couple of questions and thank you for that lead in because that was one of the questions I had um so understanding that because Medic One funds were used to purchase the property it makes sense that all or part of the proceeds go back in um are we legally obligated that the difference between the purchase price and what would be profited based on the escalation of value of the property that has to go into Medic One Fund to too or can part of

that not go to it just Alan Mariner City attorney we we would have to research that because certainly um the funds were used and could have been used in other places uh um and we our office would have to research as whether any of the increase in value is something that they would could have realized in another way and should go back to the fund is this still on uh Andy askon Finance director so the medican fund owns the asset so they would be the beneficiary of the sale of the actual asset so it wouldn't be the difference of the purchase price or depreciated value it would be the full amount of the asset that would go back to the uh Medic One Fund that's a legal obligation it's the One Fund operates just like the water fund the sewer fund so any of those funds that sell an asset those revenues go to that fund so yeah that's just the standard in the accounting World it owns all those assets so stays within the fund this might be for the planning director um if available to answer um so the property is listed based on um the zoning to be um a single residence on almost an acre I'm wondering with the state legislation that has changed with the ability to put more housing units on if that is possible with this property um the my line of questioning is um targeted towards the potential value of this property if we were to somehow be able to assist the financing of it to something like culion Land Trust if it was worth 700,000 for one house that's probably not our best invest ment

but if we could put or someone could put you know three additional housing units on that property whether they're adus or small smaller units um that changes the overall value of the land for someone to be able to partner to provide more affordable housing thank you for the question uh Blake Lon director for planning and Community Development um the subject property is located in unincorporated watom County and so given that it's not located within the city of Bellingham it does not qualify as a tier one jurisdiction so the house bill or the house bill 1110 which allows for four to six units per property would not be applicable to this area it doesn't apply to the county um so in that regards it is just the single family zoning and to the extent that the county would allow for adus or something along those lines that certainly is a possibility um I did a quick look at the property and it is encumbered by some Wetlands uh so the kind of northern half of the site uh would make it difficult uh to expand or develop further uh in that portion of the property yeah and I spoke with the wam County planning and development services about that when we were doing the research here as part of the committee and it was not eligible for an Adu thank you council member a little quick just on this last bit uh it seems to me that if the medic one does fund does own this even if we wanted to use it for housing we'd have to come up with the money to basically make the fund whole so it wouldn't

wouldn't come as free housing we'd have to find funding money for that my question more has to do with EMS Service uh I guess I'm surprised that it wouldn't be a good location to Stage EMS Services um for Emergency Medical Services in that entire sector of the county where are the vehicles dispatched from and ought there not to be someplace out there towards the East County or North County it's not it's not that far outside of City Limits but still in that direction yeah so when the the medic unit was located here that medic unit primarily served North up to Lyon and East out to Mount Baker um but was also a also served as a backup um into the city that's why it was located somewhat adjacent to the city although just outside as well as at the intersection of a major north south roadway and an East West roadway when we reconfigured when it was placed here that was when we went from a three medic system to a four medic unit system now we've gone to the five medic unit system when we did that it basically the unit from here moved out to Lyon so it had better access to the north and to the uh cities of Lyon Sumas Everson noac um and then we added a unit here in the city out of station 4 which now is the primary for not just the eastern half of Bellingham but then also headed out east uh Mount Baker Highway into the remind me which one is four is that a demer road uh that that's uh UST Street Road I mean UST sorry UST Street in Alabama um so so in that configuration yeah the and

even as we look towards what maybe a a sixth unit in the you know in the long-term planning um basically the areas that we're you areas that we've looked at and talked about are a unit farther east like nen's corner where there's an existing fire station and then also units farther up towards the Northwest as the Blaine and Birch Bay build out um whether or not we need to move one a little farther Northwest and and the existing one that's at Grand View and I5 needs to come a little bit South so so we've in all of the different planning processes that we've gone through we've looked at different variations and again we don't see um we don't see where where anywhere in the foreseeable future that this is going to be a relevant part of that okay thanks for fing me in council member Anderson thank you um this is kind of a question I'm not sure if you could answer um hopefully it's not a crystal ball situation but it's the potential for unintended consequences of a windfall so if we were to sell this and actually walk away with you know three force of a million that goes back into the um Medic One funding which hopefully as you stated will help write the balance of having to use General funds last year so we're kind of upside down what is the potential risk because we get funding from the EM at the the levy and from the county so if we get nearly a million dollars of funding going into that fund has there been a conversation with those who allocate the funding that they're not

going going to give us less money because we've received money from the sale of this property CU I'm thinking of the timing because if we haven't gotten assurances that it won't affect their funding towards us I would almost like to negotiate that before we sell the property no we we um negotiated a six-year contract with the county for ALS services that started at the beginning of this year um so the and that rate was based on um looking you looking at actual costs from the last six years and projecting that out so so we're we're locked in with a contract for the county for the life of this EMS Levy and and again I the or in this case too I don't I think the county understands that in the first contract things did not work out as anticipated and and I I don't see them creating an issue over us get you know garnering the funds off of property that we have a right to sell so so there's no clause in there that it could be renegotiated due to unforeseen circumstances I mean do they have an out that we need to pay attention to um I got to go back they may have something about unforeseen circumstances but I don't I don't anticipate this being an issue with them council member Stone um so I'd move to authorize the surplus of station 10 property and place the property on the real estate market for a negotiated sale second we have a motion by council member son and a second by council member Williams any further discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I I any opposed

exensions that passes 60 with one excused thank you thank you Chief and next we have mayor's report good evening members of council members of the community and city employees that are here this evening uh there's a lot happening at the city right now last week SE or last meeting them was kind of some of the good news but it felt like a night to talk about some bigger things happening right now and one of those things is some of our police Communications we have received some critical feedback about the city's Communications in response to emerging Public Safety incidents and I wanted to let the council and the community know that we are addressing these concerns while a particular incident brought these concerns to the Forefront over the last week we have been in ongoing conversations about our systems and the need for continued Improvement Council has supported and invested in increased Communications in recent years including a new civilian police public information officer position overall as a result of your investment in our additional resources city-wide communication efforts have been more strategic better quality and more frequent however we have more work to do and I'm committed to prioritizing improvements in our Communications Citywide striving to improve our timeliness accuracy and our engagement strategies and I want to express my appreciation to the police department for their willingness to do better to take accountability for recent events and their

commitment to follow my clear direction to improve Communications and expand our communication channels overall I also want to spend a moment tonight to talk about the Grant's Pass decision the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion last week and Grants Pass V Johnson the court overruled an earlier decision that the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in which the Court held that Municipal ordinances that prohibited camping on public property were valid the Supreme Court ruled r that the eth amendment does not prohibit local jurisdictions from enforcing ordinances that promote public health safety and Welfare and the city will continue to balance the needs of people who are unsheltered in along with our community's right to safely use our public spaces the Supreme Court's decision does not change our approach to enforcing local laws or balancing care and concern for those who are experiencing homelessness the reality is that in Bellingham like so many other communities on the west coast we need more Housing Solutions the kinds of programs and Partnerships that prevent homelessness a balanced approach to this complex issue means focusing our resources as a city on making significant investments in safe stable affordable housing projects just like the one that the city announced last week which will create more than 120 units of permanent affordable housing and 100 spaces for much needed child care as mayor I intend to keep the city working closely with our public and

nonprofit Partners to provide much needed services to individuals in our community who are exp experiencing homelessness the Grants Pass ruling provides more flexibility and local control for cities to make decisions while bar balancing care and concern for unhoused individuals we continue to support people um the work of supporting people who are experiencing homelessness is work that we all own and we will continue to address us together I wanted to remind everyone that the 4th of July is just around the corner and fireworks are illegal in Bellingham please be kind to your neighbors your neighbors pets City wildlife and our environment and stay on the correct side of city code if you enjoy fireworks we encourage you to attend a public display rather than shooting off your own because fireworks are prohibited in Bellingham even if they were legally acquired elsewhere consider attending the 4th of July spectacular planned this year at zuanich Point Park and hosted by the Port of Bellingham the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and other partners and for more information about the city's firework ban which has been in place for more than a decade now you can go to the city's website and lastly after uh right on the heels of Independence Day happenings is the Bellingham pride festival and the city is a key sponsor of the pride events planned in our community on the 6th and 7th including the Annual Pride Parade through the streets of downtown Bellingham which will begin

look for me many members of our Council and other city employees in the parade and that's the end of mayor's report tonight thank you thank you mayor and up next we have committee reports this afternoon our first committee was community and economic development and that was chaired by council member cotton thank you President protim we had uh one agenda item uh before us today that's bill number 24171 and I'm joined on that committee uh by council members Huffman and stone uh so the subject was the consideration of the lodging tax advisory committee's downtown activation Grant recommendations and a request for proposals was issued in May soliciting projects to activate and beautify downtown as part of ongoing revitalization efforts projects are being funded using the general fund um at the amount of1 ,000 and lodging tax revenue at 250,000 the lodging tax advisory committee has approved the mayor's recommendations for the use of the lodging tax fund and Council uh this um afternoon um uh unanimously uh voted to approve the lodging tax advisory committee recommendations and Isa move second a motion by council member cotton a second by council member Stone any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I all opposed extensions uh one excuse 601 excused end of committee report thank you council member cotton and then uh up next we had Committee of the whole that was shared by myself there were two items uh first is an interlocal agreement to be part of the watom County

drug task force Bellingham Police Department has a long history his of participation in the watcom County drug task force due to critical Staffing deficiencies the police department withdrew from the task force in 2020 and assisted only as a supporting agency without providing Personnel uh this item proposes entering an interlocal agreement to resume Bellingham police's direct participation in the wam County drug task force this afternoon the committee voted unanimously to recommend approval and ISO move second second by myself and or motion by myself second by council member Williams any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I any opposed abstentions that passes 601 excused next we have a consideration of a letter in support of wam County exploring yearround shelter options during the wam County council meeting on June 4th 2024 County council members panan Galloway and scanland introduced a draft resolution requesting the county executive prepare a proposal for the expansion of yearr round shelter capacity and establish a homelessness shelter subcommittee of the watom County Housing advisory committee council member lillquist has drafted a letter in support of these efforts and requests a council discussion and possible vote on sending the letter to the County Council and county executive and we did have that discussion and vote um uh there were two amendments um one added a line that council member list added to the to the record a line to the to the uh letter

and um there was an amendment to add myself as the signer as proem um and otherwise the committee recommended approval and ISO move second second by council member Lil Quist any further discussion see none all in favor say I hi we oppose exensions that passes 601 excused uh old and new nothing all right it's moving right along we did have a very long executive session up next this afternoon I have five items four of them uh have action uh first in the matter of determination of rights to use of ground and surface Waters of w i A1 my contacts are a little foggy uh Wacom County case number 24-28 -37 this was uh presented by crem staff provided information on the status of the nsac adjudication I will now entertain a motion to authorize the mayor to retain K andl gates to assist with litigation concerning the Nooksack adjudication so moved second a motion by council member Williams second by council member list any further discussion seeing none all in favor say I I any post extensions that passes 601 next up uh potential litigation presented by chaplain staff provided information on a potential litigation matter I will now entertain a motion to authorize the mayor to enter into a separation agreement with firefighter Daisy Brennan with the following key terms uh lump sum payment of $1,349 equal to 2 months based salary uh payment of vacation compensatory time and sick leave cash outs under collective bargaining agreement amounting to 15,622 and a comprehensive release and

waiver of all claims against the city looking for a motion after that long move approval second motion by council member Williams second by council member cotton any further discussion all in favor say I I any opposed that passes five one and one excused next up we have potential litigation with chaplain staff provided information on a potential litigation matter I will now entertain a motion it's the long way again uh entertain a motion to authorize the the mayor to enter into a separation agreement with fire captain Mark Brennan with the following key terms payment of vacation compensatory time and sick leave cash outs under Collective bar bargaining agreement amounting to$ 42,6 201620 and comprehensive release and waiver of all claims against the city move approval second motion by council member Willen second by council member l reest any further discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed extensions Abed that passes four two absten two extensions and one excused okay next up we have litigation Brock at Al versus city of Bellingham or G versus city of Bellingham Frank versus city of Bellingham scanland and Weiss versus city of Bellingham and Wilson versus city of Bellingham this was presented by chaplain staff provided information on a litigation manner I will now entertain a motion to authorize the mayor to retain Summit Law Group to assist with litigation concerning the city's covid-19 vaccine vaccine mandate move approval second motion by council member Anderson

second by council member Stone any further discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed abstentions passes 601 excused and finally we had a labor relations matter with Monahan staff provided information on a labor relations matter for in information and discussion no action taken uh consent agenda move approval second motion by council member list second by council member Williams any further discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed extensions that passes 601 excused and final consideration of ordinances agenda Bill 24161 an ordinance repealing ordinance 2014- 06- 034 which established a banal budget for the city of Bellingham move third and final second motion by uh council member Stone second by council member Williams roll call please Hannah Stone hi skip Williams hi Lisa Anderson hi Michael lillquist hi jce cotton hi Holly hman hi all right motion carries 6 Z with council president Hamil excused thank you so much and with that uh it's the end of our regular meeting we will move to the public comment period but we will pause for a bit to trans uh transfer to a different format [Music]